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There it is towering above us.

The thing from the field steps through the broken wall.

And for the first time, I see all of it.

I wish I didn’t.

It has no single shape.

Its body rises from a twisting mass of roots and blackened corn stalks, impossibly tall, pieces of bone jutting through them like the remains of everyone the Earth has ever swallowed. Branches spread from where its head should be, scraping across the rafters as it forces itself farther inside.

Then something moves along its torso.

A hand.

Human.

It pushes through the tangled roots, fingers stretching desperately toward me before the vines tighten and drag it back inside.

Another appears near its shoulder.

Then another.

Dozens of them.

Some claw.

Some reach.

Some simply hang there, twitching.

My breath catches when one of the roots across its chest splits open.

Teeth gleam inside.

Not one mouth.

Hundreds.

They emerge everywhere as the thing unfolds, opening between stalks, splitting through bark, stretching across scraps of flesh that should not fucking be there. Human teeth. Broken teeth. Tiny teeth. Entire jaws buried sideways in its body.

Every person this place has consumed.

Every sacrifice.

Every piece the Harvest refused to let go.

The mouths open together.

And inhale.

The sound that comes out isn’t a roar.

It’s two hundred and thirty-five years of screaming dragged backward through a single breath.

KEEPER.

“No.” I claw at the floor but it drags me backward.