The monsters climbed the cliffside paralleling the road, scaling upward, gaining altitude. One landed atop a jagged rock. Another perched like gravity was optional. Two more crawled forward until all four stared down at the approaching car. The cliff shuddered. Rock dust spilt. Something deeper in the mountain began to move. Something huge.
Current scene:
he forest had gone quiet in a way that didn't feel natural—a silence thick as deep water, pressing against the ears until every breath sounded too loud.Cold slid over Jack's skin, carrying the damp sting of wet moss and rotting leaves. Moonlight dripped through the branches in thin, brittle strands, delicate as spun glass.
Steve's voice cracked, small and raw."How do you know they're not here for us right now?"
Elisa opened her mouth. No sound came.
The mountain answered instead.
A catastrophic CRRRUNCH ripped the night apart.A slab of cliff—broad as a house—tore free in a flash of impossible stillness, then dropped like the fist of something ancient. Asphalt burst open. Dust and pine needles blasted into the shattered windows, gritty on Jack's tongue, burning his throat with stone and sap.
Jack jerked the wheel. Tires screamed. The boulder missed by inches and thundered down the mountainside, smashing trees like brittle reeds.
Before the dust could settle, a hunter dropped from the cliff.
It landed in a crouch that fractured the road. Limbs folded at unnatural angles, spine curved like a sculpted blade. Then it launched—straight for Elisa.
Jack yanked the wheel.
Impact.
The car lifted—weightless, unreal—then rolled. Metal shrieked. Glass burst like frozen glitter. The world flipped end over end until everything slammed sideways and went still.
Silence returned. Heavy. Expectant.
Three sets of footsteps pounded past the wreck without slowing, vanishing toward the mountain's heart.
Jack coughed through dust. "Why didn't they finish us?"
Elisa's voice barely carried."Because we're only in the way."
The mountain groaned—deep, ancient, shifting. Frost crawled across the broken windows like veins of living ice.
Then something leaned in.
Slowly.
Oil-black fingers curled over the crushed frame, joints bending backward. A smooth, featureless oval where a face should be—yet Jack felt it watching. The temperature dropped so fast their breath turned to smoke.
Steve couldn't move.
The creature tilted its head, listening to the mountain's deepening rumble as though sharing its heartbeat.
Elisa slammed both palms against the warped roof.Green light surged beneath her skin. Blood streamed from her nose, hissing where it touched the cold metal.
"Protect."
The earth obeyed.
A sound like continents tearing apart rolled through the wreck.The ground erupted—dirt, fractured stone, molten heat exploding upward. The air snapped from freezing to scorching, thick with the scent of scorched granite and burning metal.
A golem rose.
Fifteen feet of living mountain, veins of molten amber pulsing beneath armor-like stone. Heat shimmered around it. Sparks dripped from its fists like molten rain.
Its burning gaze swept the wreck… and locked on Jack.
For one impossible heartbeat, the magma veins dimmed—almost reverent.
Then the titan knelt, bowing like a mountain recognizing a king.
The faceless hunter lunged for Steve.
The golem soared upright in a single motion and intercepted.A granite fist collided with the creature mid-air, driving it into the earth hard enough to steam the ground. Dark ichor sizzled where it seeped into glowing cracks.
The golem planted itself in front of the wreck, arms wide, magma veins blazing white-hot as embers drifted like red snow.
Elisa sagged, blood beading on her lips, voice cracked with pride and fear."That's… my golem. I made it."
Steve let out a strangled half-laugh."Perfect. A walking volcano with anger issues."
An ember kissed his cheek. He slapped it away."Next time, try a flashlight. Maybe a therapy dog?"
The golem lowered its burning gaze to him.Steve squeaked. "H-hi. Huge fan. Please don't crush me."
Then the forest answered.
Howls rang from every direction—hundreds of them—metal scraping, hunger breathing, the woods alive with movement.
The golem opened its jagged maw and roared, a sound that split the night like breaking continents.
And the mountain answered.
Lower.Older.Vast.
The earth buckled. Trees bowed. Even the golem staggered half a step, embers freezing in mid-air as if time itself recoiled.
The darkness between the trunks thickened…then parted.
A figure stepped into the dying ember-light.
Taller than the golem.Older than the stone beneath their feet.A being of living shadow stretched thin over ancient bone, edges flickering with cold starlight.
It moved forward—one deliberate step, then another—each footfall cracking the ground like the first fractures of a glacier.
The golem roared again and swung a fist the size of a boulder.
The newcomer caught it in one open palm.
Stone shattered.Molten amber spilled across the earth in glowing streams.
Elisa screamed and collapsed to her knees, vision blurring red as if something inside her recoiled.
The newcomer released the ruined arm and turned its star-cracked face toward the wreck.
Toward Jack.
Its voice wasn't sound.It was pressure behind the eyes—inside the bones—ancient, reverent, inevitable.
"Father."
Jack's heart forgot how to beat.
Steve's half-formed joke died on his tongue.
Above them, the mountain groaned one last time—low and shuddering—as though the world itself recognized its true master.
And the night,after everything they had endured,finally chose its side.