Page 308
Then the Harvest goes silent.
Too silent.
Malakai stiffens.
Every trace of warmth disappears from his face.
“What?”
He looks down.
The soil beneath our feet has stopped moving.
Completely.
“Kai?”
His face drains.
“Get off the altar.”
My stomach drops.
“What?”
His head snaps up.
“NOW.”
Rhett grabs me.
Ezra moves.
Too late.
The three seedlings beside the altar explode upward.
Corn stalks rocket from the earth, twisting around one another as they climb.
Ten feet.
Twenty.
Thirty.
The ground splits beneath them.
The Witnesses scream.
And the Harvest collapses inward.
Not dying.
Compressing.
Its enormous body caves into itself as roots rip free and disappear into the widening crack. Bones rain onto the soil. Human hands tumble from its torso, fingers still twitching when they hit the ground. One by one, the mouths buried throughout its body slam shut.
Everything that made up the creature begins pouring into the Earth beneath the altar.
