No one knew where Anna had gone after the Coralstone orphanage was closed.
The files vanished.
The social workers either transferred out of province or died suddenly in strange accidents.
Only one person remembered her clearly.
Nurse Tam, the woman who had given Anna her last bath, swore that something crawled from the girl's belly button during the rinse.
Not blood.
Not an umbilical cord.
But a tiny sprout made of hair, rising gently above the water—and turning to look at her.
The following month, deep in the forbidden western forest near Ngoc Trach, the ground collapsed into a cavern wide as a well.
White smoke leaked from the rocky crevice, heavy with the stench of amniotic blood and scorched placenta.
A hunter descended.
He never returned.
Those who went down after him found only fingernail scratches on stone, and a message carved into the cave wall—scratched by human nails:
"This is a mouth.
Not a way out."
In the months that followed, the people of Muong Lung began to report shared dreams.
Some dreamed their bellies swelled overnight, heavy with something ancient.
Some dreamed of children crawling into their mouths, wriggling down their throats and into their stomachs.
All who dreamed showed symptoms:
Blood-red eyes
Tongues with root-like veins
And at night… their bellies trembled, ever so slightly.
Amid the spreading fear, there were sightings of Anna.
Still nine years old.
Still wearing a white dress that touched her ankles.
Still holding a doll made of ash and hair.
She was seen standing motionless for hours, her eyes deep black voids.
Anyone who got too close said the air around her grew freezing cold, and their heartbeats slowed, as if being pulled into a rhythm that wasn't human.
An old vegetable seller claimed:
"She stood there a long time…
Then she looked at me and whispered:
'The Earth's mouth will open.
Mother is ready to birth the swarm.'"
Meanwhile, near the landslide site, farmers uncovered something buried:
A massive earthen lump, rising like the swollen belly of a pregnant woman.
When they dug, they unearthed a monstrous fetus, nearly four meters long, wrapped in a placental sack made of hair, and its face… its face was a fusion of every villager who had ever died in Ngoc Trach.
Government archaeologists brought equipment to extract it.
But as they prepared, laughter erupted from beneath the soil—childlike and hollow.
All machines failed.
The team retreated.
Only one man returned.
He was found chewing mud, tearing open his own abdomen while muttering:
"It's not a cave… it's a womb.
Not stone… it's teeth.
They're growing by root, not blood—just memory."
Around Ngoc Trach, the mountain slopes began to shed layers.
Beneath the surface, networks of tunnels appeared—like veins or umbilical cords, branching deeper.
Inside, those who dared to listen heard breathing.
Slow.
Heavy.
Like a mother humming in the dark.
A group of northern shamans came to perform a sealing ritual.
On the first night, one vanished.
Only a silk robe soaked in milk and ash was found clinging to the ceiling.
By the second night, the rest fled.
They left behind a scroll inked in red, which read:
"Not demon.
Not human.
She is the mother of all who bore.
And the final child has returned to her womb."
Elsewhere—beneath the earth, far from the public eye—Anna was being contained.
Deep underground, in a private facility run by a group calling themselves the Traditional Hematic Institute, Anna sat completely still.
She didn't eat.
She didn't sleep.
She didn't blink.
The researchers ran tests—EKG, EEG, full blood work.
Everything read as "normal."
Until one young doctor grew curious and placed his hand gently on Anna's abdomen.
The moment he touched her:
His eyes rolled white.
Blood dripped from his ears.
And he began speaking in a child's voice—one that was not his own.
"I've gathered twelve wombs.
I only need one more.
Thirteen is the Hive.
Thirteen will birth the species.
Thirteen is the Earth's Mouth."
Anna opened her eyes.
Within them was no iris.
Just a spiraling vortex—
not a pupil, but a bottomless navel.
Then her belly shuddered, as if hundreds of tiny fists were beating from within.
The room began to breathe—the air thickening like amniotic fluid.
From her throat came a lullaby:
"One womb, two blood,
Three veins, four root,
Five seeds, six grief,
Seven births, eight wait…
Thirteen knocks, the Earth unlocks…"
As the lab was sealed and the incident buried, the soil beneath Ngoc Trach began to swell.
Like a belly.
A vast, ancient belly.
And then—it burst.
Not with lava.
Not with water.
But with hundreds of thousands of earthen fetuses, crawling up from the ground.
Each with:
Eyes black as tunnels
Teeth shaped from human ribs
Hands that branched like bamboo roots
They did not cry.
They did not speak.
They crawled.
Searching for wombs.
That night, everyone who had ever dreamed of Anna…
Slit open their own bellies.