The village was located in a very remote area and resources were extremely scarce, not much would grow in the dry soil and the land was mostly barren of wildlife so the community relied heavily on donations from the mountain gods. It was forbidden for any human to venture into their domain, if anyone did stumble into their home it was said that their gifts would cease forever.

Although the villagers did not have access to food resources they did have access to precious metals and gems, which could be found scattered around the base of the mountain in shallow caves and by sifting through sand in the streams or mining them in constructed tunnels. Each month the villagers would place all the metals and gems they had found into a large stone bowl on the very boundary of the Gods ruines. The next day they would return and the bowl would now be filled with meat, vegetables and wine. It seemed like a fair trade off as they didn’t have much use for the metals and gems and in comparison the food was more valuable to them.

Elliot was breathless climbing the steep rocky walls of the valley, he could feel a slight breeze but not yet strong enough to fly his kite. “Just a little further”, he thought knowing that he would be able to reach a point where his kite would fly fairly soon. He felt the wind pick up, blowing through his hair and ruffling his jacket. Perfect he thought, he knew he was just on the border of the gods home but he also thought he was definitely safe enough to fly his kite here providing he did not go any further up the mountain.

He unravelled the slender but strong line, holding his kite in one hand and the wooden spool in the other he began to run. He could feel the wind picking up below the kite tugging it away from his hand. He released his grip on the kite, it soared high above him against the vibrant blue sky. He carried out complicated manoeuvres manipulating the string to make the kite fly in spirals and loop the loops.

All of a sudden the wind picked up! It tugged viciously at the wooden spool in his hand. Again another huge updraft hit the kite, yanking it from his fingers, the kite flew higher and higher disappearing through the clouds surrounding the summit of the mountain. He panicked, he knew he could not go after his kite, but, what if the Gods find it? He thought. They will know I’ve been up here. And mother, she is going to ground me for a century if she finds out!

He knew he shouldn’t venture up the mountain, but he had to. He figured it most likely hadn’t reached anywhere near the top and was hopefully snagged on a rock just above the cloud line which he felt that he could reach within an hour of hiking the steep incline. He walked, and walked, watching the village below him grow ever smaller fading into the distance. He finally arrived at the layer of clouds, it was thick and cold as the moisture condensed on his jacket and face. He could barely see his hand in front of his eyes. Using his fingers and clumsy feet to feel his way he pressed on, the terrain was getting more difficult the higher he climbed.

After a short time the density of the clouds began to lift and he could see a little further with each minute that passed. All of a sudden the wind picked up again and a huge gust swept the clouds away from around him, he clung to the rock with all his strength and closed his eyes hoping he would be able to keep tight to the side of the mountain until the wind eased up. It subsided after a few seconds which to him during this perilous moment felt like an eternity.

He opened his eyes, a sky bluer than anything he had ever seen before stretched out high above him. He reached, pulling himself to the top of the rock he had been holding onto. He climbed to his feet to get a good look at the environment around him. He had reached a plato covered in thick, dense, long green grass as far as he could see, sprinkled with wild flowers of all colours. He had never seen so much greenery in his life.

Over in the distance he could see some stone ruins, plants had grown, weaving themselves all over its surface. On one of the pillars holding up the crumbling structure he could see his kite snagged within the tangled vines surrounding it. He had not seen a building like this before or as old, he was terrified that he had stumbled across a temple belonging to the ancient gods. For a moment he stood, staring, looking for any kind of movement expecting an angry god to step out into the open and spot his intrusion.

He waited, he couldn’t see anything. He walked closer, the grass so high it brushed against his shoulders. He at least took comfort in the fact that he could duck down at a moment’s notice to conceal himself. With each step his heart beat got faster and faster. He was now only 10 or so feet away from the stone steps of the ruins. He took one last pause to listen and inspect the site before him to make sure for certain he was alone. Nothing, only the sound of the wind filtering through the grass and howling high above through the stone pillars now towering before him.

He slowly approached the large weather worn steps, he heaved himself up the first one, then the second and again the final third step. He approached the pillar that had captured his kite, it was too high for him to reach but the thick vines growing up looked more than strong enough to support his weight. He began to climb the dry ropey like vines, they felt rough to touch and made his hands feel sore almost immediately, but it wasn’t too far for him to climb, maybe 6 or 7 feet out of his reech from the ground, so he decided it was worth the short uncomfortable climb. Finally, it was right in front of him. I just need to grab my kite and get out of here as fast as possible, he thought. Holding tightly onto a vine with one hand he grabbed his kite with the other, he pulled at it but it was firmly stuck in place, he gave it another tug, this time with more effort, finally, it had been released from this prison of plants and stone. He briefly looked up from his kite to where it had been sitting to see a hole between vines his kite had made. What he saw sent such a fright through him that his grip instantly released, sending him plummeting down towards the hard stone ground.

THUD! his back struck the solid stone floor of the temple. Pain shot through his body. He was winded and hurting all over, his eyes clenched tight as he tried not to scream out at the feeling of anger and agony he was currently going through. If he wasn’t trespassing on sacred ground he felt that he could have shouted loud enough for people in the next village to hear him. His eyes opened, there it was again! Two huge yellow eyes staring at him with piercing black narrow pupils! All sorts of horrors began to race through his mind, visions of being eaten alive by a demon, a vicious creature or even worse a mountain god! His eyes began to refocus after the shock of falling as his senses heightened due to the now massive levels of adrenaline coursing through his veins on meeting this unknown creature eye to eye. He looked, there was no demon, creature or god. To his surprise a small round face stared back at him, the face of a cat. A cat! He thought to his surprise, how is this possible, nobody can enter the sacred lands of the Gods that doesn’t belong to their world. And if they did, like he had, they definitely didn’t have the luxury of lazily sleeping in vines, nothing can survive up here for long without being caught. The cat climbed off his chest where it had been standing, staring at him and walked towards the centre of the ruins where a patch of sunlight beamed down through the broken roof. As soon as it reached the orange glow of the sun it flopped down on its side and began grooming itself.

Elliot climbed up to his feet, the pain was still present but somewhat lessened by the curiosity of this cat wandering around a temple of the gods without a care in the world. He walked over, as he got closer he could hear a purring noise emanating from the furry creature that had only moments ago frightened the life out of him. He noticed something odd, this purr sounded mechanical, industrial, the closer he got the more he could hear it. Wait! He realised, this isn’t coming from the cat, it is purring but this noise, the mechanical noise, although quiet was not coming from the cat, it sounded distant. Elliot felt a huge sense of confusion, how could this noise be this high up the mountain. It could not be heard from the village so it definitely wasn’t coming from below, this noise was coming from the mountain itself. He walked a little further past the sunbathing feline in search of the source of this distant sound.

He came to a stone platform, just on the other side of the temple, at this point there was almost no temple left standing, it looked like a stone island surrounded by a grass ocean with a few pillars, wonkily stood around it. He stood, peering out into the distant fog, he could hear something but it was just too thick to make out anything other than the shape of the mountain before him. He could see a huge dark silhouette but no identifiable features on its landscape. He was absolutely not going to investigate this anomaly any further but felt compelled to wait a little longer for the fog to clear. He waited, all it would take was another of those perilous gusts of wind that he hated, but now wanted so much to whip across the mountain.

Finally, his wish came true, a huge wind blew through the template and out towards the hiding structure behind the fog, as it passed it created a deep whirring sound as it blew through the stones around him. The fog began to shift, very slowly but consistently, moving like a gigantic creature crawling away after being woken from a long deep sleep. There was no mountain now in front of him, in fact no natural structure at all. Wood, steel and mechanical structures. Tall stone chimneys billowing out dense white smoke creating a haze across the landscape which is what he now realised was causing what he thought was fog and clouds. A colossal factory, or what he presumed was a factory had been hiding up here all this time. Huge turbines turned mounted to towers, conveyor belts transporting materials from one building to another and mechanical machinery that he could not identify chugging away. This was all very strange but the most peculiar part of it was not the factory, it was the fact he could see hundreds of people working away, doing various tasks operating a variety of equipment. People, up here on territory belonging to the gods. High in the sky he saw kite planes circling the circumference of the structure, presumidly working as spotters looking for intruders such as himself.

He noticed the materials being moved around looked colourful, shiny, they glimmered as the sunlight caught their many edges. Gems! These are our gems! He knew them straight away. His whole concept of the mountain gods came crashing down all at once, there are no mountain gods here! He said to himself in shock. People, just people! At this moment he knew what had been happening. They had been taking the villagers’ precious materials, which they worked so hard to mine and trading them for nothing more than vegetables and meat. They were tricked into thinking there was no food, no way to farm in this region, but up here, the land was fertile and certainly more than capable of sustaining a food source for everyone. He felt deep anger knowing that he and his fellow villagers had struggled and worked so hard to please these false gods, and all for just enough food to survive, whilst up here, these people, not gods! Had all the food they needed and a thriving industry built on the suffering of Elliot and his people. He felt like this would change everything, for him at least, but what he hoped for was that his friends, family and neighbours could also face the illusional terrors of the mountain and believe his story to come and see for themselves. Initially he was optimistic, but began to realise that he would most likely not be able to change anything, his village had become accustomed to their hard way of life. They lived in fear of the gods, if anything he worried that he would be punished in some way for angering these none existent gods.

He sat long into the early evening staring up at the factory, wondering what he should do, keep this secret and continue the hard lie, or try to open the eyes of those around him and risk punishment by his own people.

Ask yourself, if you were in Elliot’s situation, what would you do? Sometimes making a difference for the better seems hard, a bigger task than you could ever handle alone and even scary. All it takes is someone with a small idea or discovery like Elliots to make huge changes. Sometimes, those with power know this and fear losing their control leading to them spreading messages of doom in the hopes of stopping that seed of an idea from ever having a chance to grow into anything.