Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
SANORA
One thing about me—I had too many questions and zero impulse control.
But I didn’t have guts. Not in the traditional sense, anyway.
I didn’t do brave things because I was fearless.
I did them because my brain was too busy calculating the what ifs to care about the what could happens.
I didn’t have courage. What I had was a chronic inability to recognise danger.
It started when I was nine.
There was a cave system at the edge of my hometown, black as sin and always wet like the stone walls cried.
People said it was where the dead went to weep.
They said if you went too deep, you’d hear the sound of grief.
Not ghosts—grief. Thick, human sorrow, echoing off stone like someone was breaking apart from the inside.
Some idiot said the crying only started after midnight and that the walls bled blood if you brought anything made of silver.
So naturally, I brought a silver bracelet and a flashlight.
I was nine and couldn’t spell common sense. I snuck out, barefoot and shaking, and wandered past the thorn bushes and over the creek to get there. The cave was colder than I thought.
I didn’t hear crying. But I felt something
I stayed there for twenty-three minutes. Not because I found it fascinating—I’d lost my torch and couldn’t find the exit.
Did I learn anything? No. But I went back two more times that summer because I wanted to see a wall bleed.
Another time, there was a crooked house at the end of the street with so many vines wrapped around it you’d think it was being strangled by the earth itself. Nobody went near it. They said the woman who lived there had died twice.
Kids dared each other to go near it. I didn’t wait for a dare. I was fifteen and bored. Also, I’d just read an article about post-death consciousness and thought maybe she was a case study. I’d do anything for my curiosity.
I brought a notebook and a boiled egg for protection, climbed the fence, and knocked on her door as if I was selling sweets. When the door opened on its own, I said thank you and walked in.
It was the smell that got me. Like chemical and burning teeth.
She was there. Or something was. Sitting in the chair by the fire that hadn’t burned in decades. I asked her two questions before the walls creaked and the mirror shattered without being touched. I didn’t run. I bowed and walked out the same way I came in, shaking—of course.
No guts. Just vibes. My hand smelled like blood for three days and I had nightmares for weeks.
Taking in a deep breath, I stepped out of the house in layered sweaters, the sleeves already dusted with lint.
My backpack was stuffed to the seams: three torchlights—because I didn’t trust batteries—a notebook fat with sticky notes, my camera, bottle of water, a half-charged drone I’d named Orville, extra memory cards, energy bars, two pocket knives—one for cutting things, the other for pretending I knew how to wield—and a small jar of salt, because you never knew what kind of lore you’d piss off in places like The Crater.
Yeah. I was going to The Crater.
The place books, historians, and even Weeny Man had warned me off.
Sucking it up, I mumbled a few positive quotes then dialled the driver who’d brought me to the house on the day I arrived. He’d said I could hit him up anytime I needed a lift, and well, I needed one at the moment.
A few minutes later, his car rumbled up the road, the broomstick perpetually hanging from his mouth like some old man’s cigarette. He saluted with two fingers. “Aye. Where to?”
Smiling, I bit back the truth, knowing fully well he’d drive off the second he heard my location. “My granny’s.”
He raised a brow, eyes drifting to the overstuffed backpack slung behind me. “Hop in.”
We drove for a while, then a little longer, then far too long.
Instead of handing him the map in my hand, I fed him directions in pieces—right here, left there, no, not that turn, the next one.
I kept my eyes fixed on the road and never once glanced at him, especially not when the car left the main path and started winding through narrow lanes pressed tight with bush.
At one point, the music playing through his phone crackled, and he paused it. “You sure your granny lives out here?” he asked, his tone suspicious.
I didn’t answer. Just pointed straight ahead.
The trees pressed in tighter. The road narrowed until it barely qualified as one, overrun with roots and time. Eventually, we reached a crude sign nailed into a wooden post that read in bold red paint: DO NOT CROSS THIS LINE.
The car jerked to a stop. He stared at the sign, then at me. “I’m sorry, but I can’t cross this line. You’re sure your granny lives here?”
Unbuckling my seatbelt, I smiled. “Thank you. I’ll go from here.”
He caught my wrist, his brows furrowed. “Don’t go any further. I’m sorry to tell you, but your granny might be dead.”
His voice was dead serious, the concern shining in his gaze. I gave a small laugh, preparing to lie again. “Yes. My granny is dead. I’m here to see her grave.”
He blinked. “Why...why would someone be buried in such an awful place?”
Gently peeling his hand off mine, I stepped out of the car and opened the backseat door for my bag. “Thanks for the ride.”
As I walked away, he leaned halfway out the window, shouting after me. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
I nodded. “This isn’t my first time.”
He scoffed. “Yeah. That’s why you carry a map.”
Biting my lip, I tossed him a parting glance, then turned away. The sound of his car reversing and disappearing down the path behind me was the first moment I could actually breathe.
I walked.
And walked.
The narrow lane curved and stretched and seemed to bend beneath my feet, flanked by thick brush and jagged outcrops.
Then, finally, I saw the sign. Just like in the old photo scanned in one of the books I studied. The sign was real. Faded. Tilted. Splintered at the edges. But real.
Welcome To The Crater: The Scar Of The Moon.
I swung my backpack down, unzipped it, and took out my camera. Click. Click.
Lowering the camera, I muttered to myself, “Don’t be scared, Sanora,” then looked up.
And up.
Up. Up. Up.
I was standing at the base of the eastern side of The Crater, a broad, flat staircase made of uneven stone leading up and into the rock.
The entire place was bigger than I’d imagined.
The kind of big that made my chest tighten and my legs feel stupid for trying to climb it.
The Crater was not just surrounded by a rock formation like I’d thought; it was a kingdom of stone, a monument built by something that could only be cruel, vengeful.
And the worst part? There was barely any earth. Just rocks. More rocks than ground. Jagged ones. Smooth ones. Flat ones that would wobble under my steps, and the only path was a strip of stones stacked just enough to form a trail.
I grabbed my bag and started the climb, boots thudding against stone. My breath came quicker with each step, not just from the effort but from the cold biting through my sweaters.
The air here was sharp and mean, freezing me as if it hated me. My teeth were already chattering, and I hadn’t even made it halfway—rather, quaterway. Or even quarter of the quarterway.
More rocks crowded the trail, some jutting out like hunched backs, others flat as graves.
I found a spot to pause and yanked out my water bottle with stiff fingers.
My gloves did little to stop the creeping numbness as I took a sip, then snapped a few more photos, hands trembling against the camera body. I could barely hold it steady.
And still, I climbed.
The silence was absolute, save for the crunch of my boots on rock and the slow rasp of my breath. All around me, stone. Over me, fogs covered the grey skies and hills that swallowed the horizon. I was small and insignificant here.
And the cold only worsened.
My joints stiffened. The sleeves of my sweaters might as well have been netting. I flexed my fingers, shook my arms, and forced myself to keep going.
I wasn’t even sure I was climbing anymore. The incline was there, yes, but the terrain was so strange and so vast, it felt like walking through a dead god’s rib cage.
But I kept walking.
Because even though I had no balls, I had biting questions.
And no one ever warned a fool like me properly what it’d cost to answer them.
“I’ll take it that you can’t read, because the sign clearly states not to trespass.”
“Holy fucking shit!”
I jolted, instinctively stepping back, my foot slipping on the uneven rock. The weight of my backpack yanked me down with a vengeance, and I crashed onto the jagged stone behind me, smacking my head and elbow in one brutal blow.
Pain flared. I let out a rough, guttural “Fuck,” as my eyes slammed shut and my teeth clenched hard enough to cramp my jaw.
God. Fucking. Damnit.
I stayed there a moment, letting the sting burn through so I could be done with it faster. But then I remembered why I’d just eaten shit in the first place.
The voice.
It hadn’t been in my head. It’d echoed off the rocks around me, and it was disturbingly real. My eyes flew open. I sat up too fast, ignoring the twinge in my arm and the dull throb in the back of my skull. A shiver clawed its way down my spine, this time not from the cold.
I whipped my head left, then right, scanning the endless sea of stone.
Empty. Only rocks. The same cursed terrain stretching around me in every direction, grey and ancient.
There was no mention in the books of some ghost haunting or protecting The Crater.
There was no tale about a spirit lingering here.
But then again, no one warned me the cold in Nimorran could burrow into your marrow and kill you either.