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before
finally coming to rest on Nova’s face.
    Nova’s skin prickled under the gaze. She’d
been swept up in the story and despite her circumstances was eager
to hear how it ended.
    Sora stomped her foot and resumed her
tale.
    “The people approached the fallen rock and
even dared to touch its sacred surface. The younger children knew
better. They watched it with awe and reverence, the way a piece of
the great Rock should be observed.
    “But the great Rock hadn’t meant to just
crumble the Taivean’s buildings. He had much bigger plans. After
twenty-five years, something changed. The elders continued living
while the children sporadically vanished from their beds, never to
be seen again.
    “The great Rock told the children that the
older people got, the more foolish they became. The Rock had
decided that he only wanted Taive to be populated by children who
wouldn’t go against his will. The great Rock told them that from
now on, each person would live only for their allotted life-span.
When that was over, at thirteen years of age, they would be taken
from Taive and returned to the great Rock.
    “In order to please the great Rock the
children lit a fire and threw the adults onto it. They burned
alive, screaming in agony.
    “The children never regained the elders’
magic but that was a good thing because of the evil such magic can
bring. From then, the people of Taive lived only as children and
the great Rock was pleased.
    “But there was a warning. If the children
tried to live longer than they deserved, then they would all be
killed and the Taiveans would die out. The Rock demanded that they
make sacrifices to him or risk facing his wrath again. He warned
that the elder kind might appear again and if they did, they would
try to corrupt the children and must be destroyed.”
     
    ***
     
    Sora fell silent.
    Nova’s heart pounded so hard, she could hear
it thudding. She shook her head to get rid of the tendrils of story
that clouded her mind. She could clearly picture the events of the
tale taking place and feared she was about to meet the same fate as
the elders.
    Her mouth felt like sandpaper as she
swallowed the lump in her throat. The story sounded like legend but
the conviction in the girl’s voice and the ferocity of the children
left no doubt in Nova’s mind that they believed it to be true.
    Despite spending her childhood on the
drug-riddled streets, Nova was certain that she’d never met a more
savage and blood-thirsty group of children. Their eyes glowed with
a madness that made Nova’s chest go cold and she wanted nothing
more than to get as far away from them as she could.
    Sora opened her mouth to reveal pointed
teeth.
    “Oh no you don’t!” Nova said. She wormed
against the ropes, bent her arms at unnatural angles and pulled
with all of her strength. Her bonds remained and Sora smiled at her
with the glowing torch in hand.
    Sora stepped forward and opened her mouth.
Her bottom jaw disconnected from the top and her mouth widened. Her
now gaping maw was so wide that Nova’s whole arm could have fit
inside with room to spare. Sora’s eyes rolled upward so that just
the whites were visible.
    Nova’s heart raced into overdrive.
    Sora approached. Her sharp teeth glinted
like razors as she shuffled blindly towards Nova’s pyre. The
torch’s flames licked at the wood and gathered together as if
preparing to leap to the ready kindling piled beneath.
    Nova’s eyes widened. Her arms strained
against the ropes. She kicked her legs and bucked her body. Her
mouth was dry; it was like she had licked a pile of dirt. The blood
pumped through her ears and her headache was forgotten. The rope
held firm but the log she was tied to bounced. It was only a
little, but if she could make it bounce higher, it might just come
free.
    There was no time to waste. The girl with
her unnatural snake-like mouth was only a metre away from Nova’s
face. It looked as if she intended to swallow Nova’s head whole
while the