Chapter 8 – The Vault in the Mountain
The forest grew thick with old stone and silence.
Thomas paused beside a moss-covered boulder, his breath catching in the cool mountain air. Naomi crouched a few steps ahead, scanning the trail for signs of the glyph Ezra had described.
“This was the old route,” she said, brushing leaves away to reveal a rusted piece of rail embedded in the earth. “He said to follow the broken line until the tunnel.”
They had been walking for two days, climbing through switchbacks and ravines, guided by hand-drawn maps and Ezra’s fading memory of the place. The forest here seemed older than the war. Older than the cities. Older than the Beast.
Thomas adjusted his pack and caught up to her. “You think it still works?”
Naomi shrugged. “If it was built right, it won’t need to.”
They reached the tunnel by midmorning.
It wasn’t much to look at—just a jagged opening in the rock, half-hidden by fallen branches and an old sign that had long since rusted over. But carved into the stone just above the entrance was a symbol Thomas hadn’t seen in years.
A circle, split in four, with a seed in the center.
“The old seal,” he said, reaching out to touch it. “Watchtower glyph for remembrance.”
Inside, the tunnel was dry and sloped gently downward. They lit their lanterns and stepped carefully over old ties and loose gravel. After fifty paces, the walls widened, revealing a doorway made of layered steel and reclaimed barnwood.
Naomi stopped.
“There,” she whispered.
A hand-crank hung beside the door. Thomas turned it slowly, and the lock disengaged with a groan.
The vault opened.
Inside was silence.
Not the silence of emptiness—but the silence of careful keeping. Shelves lined the walls, stacked with canisters, books, and devices wrapped in cloth. Maps were pinned under glass. A projector rested on a table. Everything was analog, labeled in tidy block print: Seed Types, Radio Frequencies, Founding Journals, Trade Ledgers.
Naomi stepped forward and unrolled one of the maps. Dozens of nodes were marked—most dark, some pulsing faintly in red pencil.
She traced her finger along a route leading toward Charlottesville. “Leah found one. See?”
Thomas nodded, his chest tightening.
“And here,” Naomi said, pointing north, “Roanoke Star.”
He sat slowly on the bench near the back wall and stared at a mural etched in charcoal: a series of faces, ordinary people, drawn in great detail. None were labeled, but all bore the same expression—clear-eyed. Watchful.
“These were the builders,” Thomas said. “Not soldiers. Not leaders. Just rememberers.”
Naomi took a small recorder from her bag—the kind they’d used in classrooms before everything fell apart—and pressed record.
“We found a vault,” she said softly into the mic. “A true one. And we’re not alone.”
She looked at Thomas. “Are you ready to meet them?”
He smiled faintly. “I’ve been walking my whole life to find someone who remembers.”
Far above, as dusk settled over the peaks, the wind shifted.
And in a silent node deep in the Roanoke Valley, a signal began to rise—clear, slow, and rhythmic.
Two paths were converging.
One from the mountains.
One from the south.
American Prophet 