The bell's toll still rang in Nima's skull as she stumbled down the hill, drawn toward the perfect, dead town.
Her every step felt heavier, as though the earth itself tried to swallow her whole.
Above her, the blackened sky hung motionless, a frozen bruise of cloud and void. And there, suspended high above the world by chains of bone, the enormous bell swung gently, unnaturally. Each movement sent a pulse of wrongness across the land, a low resonance that set her teeth on edge.
The dead sang.
Their song wasn't made of words—it was a hum, low and terrible, vibrating through the soles of her boots, through the marrow of her bones. A lament older than memory itself, full of grief and hunger.
But Nima could not turn back.
She passed the first houses cautiously, naginata in hand, her fingers bloodless around the shaft.
Each building was too perfect, pristine in a way that mocked true life. White-washed stone walls, dark wooden shutters, painted doors—all untouched by time or decay. No vines grew, no moss crept along the stonework. Every window she passed was dark, lifeless. But behind those windows, she felt eyes.
Invisible.
Waiting.
She tried the door of the nearest house.
It swung open at her touch, as though expecting her.
Inside was warmth—an unwelcome, cloying warmth that stuck to her skin. A fire crackled in the hearth without wood or smoke. Three places were set at a table, heaped high with food: roast meats, fresh bread, bowls of fruit shining like jewels. All untouched, steaming as if only moments ago prepared.
Her stomach turned at the sight.
And there, at the head of the table, sat a note, scrawled in trembling hand on thick, yellowed paper:
To the Traveler:
Sit. Eat. Listen.
She watches now.
Nima backed out of the house without touching a thing.
The door closed behind her of its own accord, clicking shut like the sealing of a tomb.
She kept moving.
As she wandered deeper into the town, the air grew heavier, more oppressive. The streets twisted impossibly, leading her back to where she had started again and again. No matter which path she took, the distant cathedral loomed ahead—a jagged silhouette against the bruised sky.
She began to notice the details then.
Small things.
Each house bore a red mark over the lintel, hastily painted in thick, curving strokes. A sigil, unfamiliar but strangely familiar, pulsing faintly with residual heat.
The wells at the corners of streets were choked with bones. Not old, brittle ones—but fresh. Still pink with sinew.
The trees lining the avenues bore fruits of metal and glass, hanging like ornaments. As she passed, she could hear them whispering in languages her mind rejected.
Still, no living soul emerged.
Only the dead singing their hollow chorus from unseen mouths.
At a crossroads, she came upon a fountain.
It gushed not water, but a thick, black ichor, bubbling and steaming where it touched the stones.
And atop the fountain stood a statue—a woman veiled in mourning cloth, arms outstretched, palms up.
Her face was hidden beneath the veil, but something in the statue's stance spoke of agony, of pleading. An inscription was carved into the stone base, worn almost illegible:
"For those who will not sleep."
Nima pressed her palm against the cold stone, half-expecting it to move.
Instead, she felt a faint vibration beneath her hand, a heartbeat too slow to be human.
She pulled away.
And that was when she saw the figure.
Standing at the far end of the street, shrouded in a long crimson robe, unmoving.
It faced away from her at first, but even so, she could feel its attention—a gravitational pull stronger than her fear.
Slowly, the figure turned.
Its face—or the void where a face should have been—was hidden within the folds of the hood. Blackness stared back at her. Not just absence of light, but an abyss that seemed to stretch infinitely inward.
Her fingers tightened around the naginata.
The figure raised a hand in a slow, fluid motion, beckoning her.
Nima hesitated—but the bell tolled again, this time closer, deeper, and her body moved before her mind could object.
She followed.
The figure glided through the streets like mist, always just ahead.
It led her through narrow alleys where blood ran like water between the stones, past doorways where unseen shapes whispered and wept.
Past a square where dozens of eyeless statues stood in mock prayer, their faces twisted in silent horror.
The town bent around them, reconfiguring itself.
Streets stretched and narrowed, windows multiplied along the walls like watching eyes, and above all loomed the cathedral, impossibly distant yet impossibly near.
Finally, at the base of a long stairway of cracked stone, the figure stopped.
It turned to her fully, raising a single finger to where its lips might have been.
Silence.
Nima understood.
She swallowed her fear, steeled her heart, and climbed.
Each step brought her closer to a kind of gravity she couldn't fight.
The song of the dead grew louder, resolving into half-words, half-screams, harmonizing into something that clawed at the edges of sanity.
The cathedral loomed before her now, a monstrosity of black stone and bone.
Its spires pierced the unmoving clouds.
Its windows gaped like mouths.
Chains wrapped its towers, binding it to the ground—or perhaps binding something inside.
The enormous doors stood ajar, and the darkness within beckoned.
Nima passed through without hesitation.
Inside, the cathedral swallowed her.
The vastness of it could not be real. The ceiling soared so high above that the highest vaults vanished into mist.
The pillars rose like trees in a petrified forest, twisted and knotted, each carved with writhing figures locked in endless agony.
Ash coated the floor in thick drifts, muffling her steps.
The smell of burnt offerings and old blood clung to the air.
Down the central aisle lay the altar—a thing made of bones, cracked and fused, shaped by some deranged artisan into an obscene parody of holy reverence.
And atop that altar, a body.
The woman.
Nima's breath caught.
She looked young and ancient all at once.
Her skin was pale as ivory, cracked and dry. Her robes hung tattered from brittle limbs. But it was her face—a child's face, perfect and smooth—that froze Nima in place.
Her eyes were closed.
Waiting.
Above the altar, suspended by chains from the unseen ceiling, hung the real bell.
Colossal.
Its surface was a tapestry of etched prayers and blasphemies, thousands of hands reaching outward from the metal, forever frozen in their grasping.
The figure in crimson knelt before the altar, bowing low.
Then it stood and turned to Nima.
Again, the voiceless melody filled the space.
"She who sleeps in silence… will wake in song."
The figure gestured to Nima.
Forward.
Nima stepped toward the altar, her heart hammering in her chest. She could barely breathe.
As she approached, she saw the carvings on the altar more clearly.
Scenes of creation and destruction.
Worlds rising and falling.
Figures crowned in light and veiled in darkness.
And always—the bell.
The same bell, present in every scene, ringing over birth and death alike.
Her hand hovered above the woman's forehead.
Something deep within Nima screamed to turn away.
That to wake this being would mean the end of more than herself.
But something deeper—something ancient and buried—urged her on.
Her fingers brushed cold flesh.
The world shattered.
Not exploded—not broken.
Unmade.
The cathedral collapsed into infinite darkness, leaving her adrift.
Visions flooded her:
• A sea of hands reaching from beneath a crimson ocean.
• A staircase spiraling forever into a hollow sky.
• Eyeless children singing in a language made of grief.
• A bell the size of a world, tolling once—and whole cities falling silent.
And at the center of it all—the woman.
The Silent Queen.
She rose from her altar without moving.
She stretched her arms wide, and from her lips came a soundless note—a pure, aching sorrow that tore through the worlds.
Chains burst from unseen places, snapping taut around Nima's limbs.
She fell to her knees, gasping, her mind unraveling under the pressure.
The Queen spoke—not with words, but with truth:
"The Choir has been broken.
The Hymn is incomplete.
You must gather the lost voices.
Or the world will rot in its silence."
Nima screamed, but no sound came out.
The cathedral reformed around her, twisted and bleeding.
The Queen stood before her now, no longer a corpse, but a being of impossible majesty—skin of marble, hair like flowing silver, eyes twin voids that devoured thought.
She reached out a hand.
"Will you sing?"
Nima had no answer.
Only fear.
And the terrible certainty that no matter what she chose, nothing would ever be the same again.
The bell tolled once more.
The world shook.
And the Silent Choir sang.