“A place the ancients built to hide from the very thing they worshipped.”
The Sanctuary is not what Anna expects. Not a safe haven. Not a refuge from the infected.
But a remnant.
A memory carved in stone.
A place older than Helvetia, older than the settlers, older even than the parasite’s first outbreak.
It waits for them like a long?buried breath beneath the snow.
The Approach
After crossing the ice bridge, the mountain path rises sharply into a jagged throat of rock. Pines cling to the cliffside like desperate fingers. The air grows colder—quietly, unnaturally, as though the mountain itself is holding back its breath.
Then the forest parts.
Revealing a plateau of bare stone.
Flat. Circular. Swept clean by the storm as if the wind refused to touch it.
At the far end, carved into the mountain face, is the entrance:
A monolithic archway of stone, ten feet high, half-collapsed but still unmistakable. Symbols cover its frame—faded spirals, branching lines, shapes that mimic the tendrils of the parasite but with a ritualistic symmetry.
Between the carvings, crude figures kneel with arms outstretched.
And above them all, a larger spiral.
The Mark of the Ancients.
Lena stops in her tracks, breath catching.
“Mama,” she whispers, “this place remembers me.”
The Gate
The archway hides a set of stone doors—long cracked, slightly ajar. Frost rims the edges like veins of ice in marble.
No hinges. No handles. Only weight and age holding them in place.
Anna pushes on the stone. It moves.
Dust falls like ash.
The doors open into darkness lit only by the faint glow of snowlight filtering behind them.
Inside, the air feels different.
Cold—but not hostile. Still—but not dead.
Like a cathedral long abandoned yet still sacred in its silence.
The First Chamber
The Sanctuary opens into a vast hall carved directly from the mountain’s heart.
The ceiling arches high above like the inside of a ribcage. Pillars rise from the stone floor, each etched with scenes of the ancient civilization:
- Families gathered around bonfires
- Elders marking spirals on their faces
- Dancers moving in ritual circles
- And, gradually…
- Those same people stiffening
- Twisting
- Collapsing
- Then rising again under the parasite’s influence
Lena shivers. “They came here when they knew they were changing.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Anna runs her fingers over the carvings. Her fingertips tingle.
Lukas swallows hard. “Mama… this place isn’t a sanctuary. It’s a warning.”
He’s right.
But deeper in the hall, past the pillars, lies another chamber—
and that’s where the Sanctuary becomes something more.
The Inner Sanctuary
A stone altar sits at the chamber’s center—a massive circular table carved from the mountain itself. Channels spiral outward from it, scrawled with symbols that glow faintly in the dim light.
Not magic. Phosphorescent minerals. The ancients used what the mountain gave them.
Surrounding the altar are stone benches. Fur-lined in places where ancient hides still cling to the surface. A place for gathering. For ritual. For prayers—or confessions.
Above the altar hangs a carving of enormous scale:
A figure towering over all others, its limbs long and branching, its head split into spirals.
Not a deity.
A parasite.
Rendered as god.
Anna inhales sharply. “They worshipped it.”
Lena steps forward, voice trembling. “They came here to speak to it.”
“Why?” Lukas asks.
“To beg,” Lena whispers, “for mercy.”
The Remains
At the chamber’s edges lie remnants:
- Stone bowls filled with fossilized ash
- Runes carved in frantic strokes
- Scratches on the floor where bodies dragged themselves closer
- Shards of pottery
- Fragments of old bones too brittle to identify
And one terrible thing:
Footprints. Human. Small. Frozen in ancient dust.
They lead from the doorway to the altar. Then stop.
Anna understands immediately.
“This is where the last of them came,” she murmurs. “Where they pleaded… and died.”
Lena grips her hand. “Mama… I feel them.”
Anna kneels in front of her. “Feel what, sweetheart?”
“Their fear,” Lena whispers. “And the thing they couldn’t stop.”
She looks toward the darkest corner of the room.
Where a faint draft whispers through a crack in the stone.
Lena’s eyes widen.
“It’s still alive down there.”
The Deeper Entrance
Behind the altar, a narrow passage slopes downward into colder, blacker dark.
A breath of icy wind leaks from it—not wind exactly, but the exhale of a place deeper than air should travel.
The parasite’s cradle. Its birthplace. Where it grew. Where it waits.
Anna grips the axe tighter.
“We don’t go down there,” she whispers.
But the mountain disagrees.
The stone beneath their feet vibrates—softly, like a distant heartbeat.
Lena gasps, clutching her temples. “Mama—it's calling.”
“Lena!”
Anna pulls her close.
“Mama,” Lena whispers, eyes watering with fear, “the sanctuary isn’t safe.”
“What is it then?” Lukas asks.
Lena looks toward the altar.
Toward the carvings. Toward the dark passage. Toward the mountain that holds centuries of death.
“It’s a memory,” she whispers. “A warning.” “And a trap.”
Anna swallows hard.
Then the wind dies.
The silence deepens.
And from the dark below—
something shifts.
Not footsteps. Not breathing.
Something older.
Something listening.
Anna pulls the twins behind her.
“We’re leaving,” she says firmly. “Now.”
But the Sanctuary has waited centuries.
And it’s not ready to let them go.