The girl in the tavern

The Girl in the Cavern

She was no one.

At least, that’s how the story always went.

Her name was buried under dust and echoes in the cavern halls. She carried water in chipped buckets, swept coal dust from the stone floors, and stacked crates for men who never looked her in the eye. When travelers passed through on their way to some shining quest — knights in armor, sorcerers with staffs, even wide-eyed farm boys destined for glory — they never saw her. She was the background blur, the faceless figure scurrying out of frame so the “real” heroes could march on.

And yet, she could hear it.

The Voice.

It didn’t speak to her, not directly. It narrated the rise and fall of kingdoms, the valor of knights, the triumph of champions. But sometimes, when she paused with a broom in hand or knelt to scrub the same patch of stone she’d scrubbed a hundred times before, she caught fragments between the words.

“…the Chosen One entered the cavern, torch in hand…”

“…the guards looked about, wary of shadows…”

And she thought: I was here too. Why don’t you say so?

The others never reacted. They didn’t hear the Voice. Only her.

One night, while hauling water down the forgotten tunnels, she noticed something she hadn’t before. A shimmer in the rock wall. Not a torch flame, not a trick of her tired eyes, but a sliver of light that pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat. She set down her bucket and reached out.

Her fingers sank through the stone.

The cavern dissolved.

---

She stumbled forward into another world.

The sky opened above her, deep purple, scattered with stars. A battlefield stretched below, where knights in silver armor clashed against a dragon whose scales glittered like molten glass. The Voice boomed with grandeur, loud enough to rattle her bones.

“…and the brave knight Ser Callon raised his blade high, destined to strike the beast…”

No mention of her. Not even when she tripped on a discarded shield and nearly fell into the fray. The warriors rushed past, too focused on their glory to see the girl in rags skirting the edges.

But when the dragon’s tail smashed against a crumbling tower, a flagstone loosened and slid. She caught it before it crushed a squire cowering in the shadows. The boy blinked at her, trembling. “Th-thank you,” he whispered.

No one else noticed. Not even the Voice.

---

The shimmer came again. Another doorway. She stepped through.

Now she stood on the deck of a starship. Lights blinked, consoles hummed, and a captain barked orders at his crew as they steered into the maw of a black hole.

“…and Captain Deylan faced the impossible odds, never flinching…”

Again, no mention of her. But she saw something the rest didn’t: a warning symbol, faint, half-buried in static. The navigation system was miscalibrated. She tugged at the sleeve of a passing officer, pointed to the console. He blinked, then rushed to adjust it. The ship veered just enough to escape the gravity well.

The crew cheered their captain. No one cheered her.

---

Another shimmer. Another realm.

This time a city skyline burned, skyscrapers splitting as a masked villain laughed above the chaos. Heroes in capes soared through the sky, trading blows with thunder and lightning. She stood on the sidewalk, unnoticed, dust in her hair.

“…and the city was saved by the courage of the Champions…”

But when rubble fell from the sky, she shoved a child out of harm’s way, taking the cut on her own shoulder. The heroes never looked down. They never knew.

---

By the third world, she began to realize: the Voice wasn’t just narrating. It was choosing. It decided who mattered. Who lived in light and who stayed in shadow.

And it had decided she was nothing.

---

But the Voice was wrong.

Each realm she touched bent, however slightly. A boy saved. A ship steered. A child spared. She might not have been in the story, but she was changing it.

And then, one night, while resting in an empty alley between worlds, she heard something new.

The Voice hesitated.

“…and the girl—”

It stopped. As though startled by its own words. Then:

“…no, she does not matter. She was never meant to matter.”

But she had heard it. The girl.

Her.

---

She pressed forward, past the shimmering doors, deeper and deeper, until she found herself not in a world at all, but in a library.

Endless shelves towered above, stacked with books that glowed faintly in the dark. Each spine bore a title: The Kingdom of Fire. Starborn Command. The Age of Champions. She touched them and felt the pulse of the worlds she had walked.

At the center of the library sat an old man at a desk. His eyes were deep as wells, his quill scratching across parchment.

He looked up. And for the first time, the Voice spoke directly to her.

“…you weren’t supposed to find me.”

Her knees trembled. “You’re… the Narrator.”

He sighed. “I am the keeper of stories. The one who gives them shape. Heroes, villains, epics. I create them. I sustain them.”

“And me?” she whispered.

His face tightened with sorrow. “…you were never meant to be more than a shadow in the background. A reminder of what was left behind. My… my granddaughter.”

The word shook her more than the truth. Granddaughter.

“I thought if I left you in the caverns, quiet, unseen, you would be safe. Forgotten. But you… you slipped between the cracks. You were not meant to matter.”

Her hands curled into fists. For so long she had been no one. But now she knew: she was not an accident. She was the thread that tied his stories together, the living echo of every forgotten detail.

“Maybe you didn’t mean for me to matter,” she said softly. “But I do. I’ve walked your worlds. I’ve changed them. And I’ll keep changing them.”

The old man’s quill trembled. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, as though unable to shape the words.

She stepped past him, toward the endless shelves, where thousands more books waited. Portals hummed faintly between their spines, whispering of realms yet unseen.

She looked back only once.

“Grandfather,” she said, “you don’t get to choose who matters anymore.”

Then she reached for the nearest book. The air shimmered. Light spilled out, painting her face in gold.

And she stepped forward, not as a background girl, but as the beginning of a story all her own.