Mara couldn't move.
The cavern stretched before her like the inside of some enormous living organism. Pale strands hung from the ceiling in thick curtains, each one supporting a human form suspended in midair. Some bodies hung limp and motionless.
Others twitched.
Their eyes were open.
And every single one of them was looking at her.
The flashlight trembled in Mara's grip as she raised the beam higher.
Faces stared back from the cocoon-like webs.
Men.
Women.
A few she recognized from town.
The old mechanic who used to run the garage near Main Street.
The elderly woman who had lived three houses down from the Kessler property when Mara was a child.
Their eyes followed the movement of the light.
Their mouths moved.
But the voices that spoke did not belong to them alone.
"Welcome back, Mara Kessler."
The words echoed through the cavern in layered tones. A hundred voices speaking in perfect harmony.
Mara's chest tightened.
"Your father came here too."
A ripple passed through the hanging bodies.
The pale vines that held them pulsed faintly, as if reacting to the sound.
"He listened," the voices continued.
"He asked questions."
Mara forced herself to breathe.
"What are you?" she said.
Her voice sounded small inside the enormous cavern.
The bodies shifted again.
"We are what remains."
The ground beneath her boots vibrated softly.
"We are the memory beneath the mountain."
Mara swallowed hard.
Her mind raced through everything she had seen since returning to Blackbridge.
The clocks.
The symbols.
The Hollowed man in the woods.
"Are you the Hollowed?" she asked.
The bodies twitched.
Their heads tilted at the same angle.
"No."
The single word echoed like a distant bell.
"They are only vessels."
A low sound moved through the cavern.
Something shifting in the darkness beyond the hanging figures.
Mara's flashlight beam drifted toward the far side of the chamber.
The light barely reached the edge of the space.
But something enormous moved there.
Slow.
Heavy.
The whisper inside her thoughts returned.
You were always meant to return.
Her pulse pounded.
"I don't belong here," she said.
The bodies began to sway gently.
Their movements were synchronized, like branches shifting in the same wind.
"Your father disagreed."
The words struck her like a blow.
"He asked for your life."
Memories flickered through Mara's mind.
The hospital room.
Her father's-tired face leaning over the bed.
The moment she had nearly died.
"You're lying," she said.
But even as the words left her mouth, doubt crept in.
The voices responded calmly.
"He came to us."
The cavern walls seemed to breathe.
"He begged for you to return."
A new vibration passed through the ground.
Stronger now.
Closer.
"He offered everything."
Mara took a step backward.
"What did he do?"
The suspended bodies leaned slightly toward her.
"He opened the way."
A low rumble rolled through the cavern.
Dust drifted from the ceiling above.
"Through grief."
"Through love."
"Through desperation."
The voices blended into a single tone.
"He gave you back to the world."
The whisper returned inside Mara's mind.
But you were never meant to stay.
Her vision blurred.
For a moment the cavern flickered.
Images flooded her thoughts.
A hospital bed.
Her father kneeling in darkness.
A voice answering him from deep beneath the earth.
Her breath caught.
"No," she whispered.
The bodies twitched violently.
"Yes."
The word vibrated through the cavern.
"You were the first."
The pale vines along the walls began to glow faintly.
"The first reborn."
Mara felt something shift inside her chest.
A pressure building beneath her ribs.
"What does that mean?" she demanded.
The cavern trembled again.
The enormous shape in the darkness moved closer.
"You are ours."
The whisper in her mind grew louder.
"You were always ours."
The ground pulsed beneath her feet.
The suspended bodies turned their heads toward the darkness behind them.
Something stepped forward.
A tall figure emerged from the shadows.
For a moment Mara thought it was another Hollowed person.
But this one moved differently.
Gracefully.
Deliberately.
Its eyes glowed faintly.
And its voice sounded almost human.
"Hello, Mara."
The figure smiled gently.
"My name is Evelyn."
Behind her, the cavern shifted.
The Hive was waking.
And Mara had finally reached its heart.