They landed hard.
Nima's breath was knocked from her lungs as stone and dust scattered in every direction. Dmitri's grunt echoed nearby, followed by the sharp clang of his blade skittering across the uneven floor.
The fall had not been deep, but the space they landed in felt wrong.
Wrong in its silence.
Wrong in its age.
Nima pushed herself up slowly. Her limbs trembled from the shock, but nothing felt broken. A dim, bioluminescent glow lit the chamber from thin, web-like filaments strung across the ceiling like nerve tissue.
Dmitri retrieved his weapon and scanned the room. "Where are we?"
Nima didn't answer. She was staring—transfixed—at the walls.
They were alive.
Not pulsing or moving, but grown, as though they had formed organically. Faint patterns etched across the stone like veins, or roots, curling inward toward the far wall, where a single door stood: sealed and ancient.
"The Hollowroot," she said. "This must be its heart."
"How can a place be alive?" Dmitri asked, but his voice lacked defiance. The evidence was all around them.
They stepped slowly toward the door. It looked metallic, but not of any known alloy—slick, oily, and reflective like obsidian wet with dew. The patterns on the walls converged here, as though feeding into the door's shape.
Nima reached out her hand, but before her fingers could touch the surface, the shard inside her chest pulsed sharply.
The Song rose.
It was faint—but immediate. A whisper like a tuning fork vibrating in her skull. Words didn't form, only tones—low, mournful notes that tugged at something deep inside.
Dmitri stepped forward, worried. "Nima?"
She looked pale. Her eyes were glassy, locked on the door.
"It's… singing back," she said, her voice distant.
Then the door opened.
Not with a groan or a blast—but a breath. A single exhale of warm, humid air washed over them, and the seal slid inward, revealing a passage lit with a dim red glow.
The Song faded.
They entered.
The corridor narrowed until they had to walk single file, the walls pressing close. Strange symbols—etched in a language neither of them recognized—lined the surface. Some glowed faintly, reacting to their presence.
"This wasn't built," Dmitri murmured. "It was… grown."
Nima nodded. "Like everything else touched by the Bell."
They emerged into a chamber shaped like an amphitheater, descending in concentric rings toward a basin at the center. Suspended above that basin, floating with unnatural stillness, was a body.
Or what had once been one.
It was draped in decayed ceremonial garb, strands of golden thread still shimmering in the low light. A crown—broken—sat lopsided on its head. Its eyes were hollow. Its mouth was sealed shut with lengths of root.
Nima stepped closer. The Bell shard in her chest vibrated again.
"This was one of them," she whispered. "One of the Keepers."
"You think it's… dead?"
"No," she said. "I think it's waiting."
The walls of the amphitheater vibrated softly. A voice—not spoken, but felt—reached her.
"Complete the Song."
Nima fell to her knees as the words drilled into her skull, pressing visions behind her eyes.
—A great tree sprouting from the corpse of a world.
—A bell hanging not from a belfry, but from the neck of a god.
—A thousand threads converging into one—a loom twisting through time.
—A Song unfinished.
Dmitri caught her. "Nima! Stay with me!"
Her eyes snapped open. "The roots run deeper than we thought. This place… it's not a ruin. It's a memory. A prison."
"Of what?"
"Of the one who rang the first Bell. And failed to finish the Song."
A tremor shook the room.
Cracks splintered along the edge of the basin. The figure above them began to stir.
Not with life—but with remembrance.
"Run?" Dmitri offered.
Nima was already backing toward the corridor. "Run."
They turned and sprinted as the chamber behind them roared to life. The Bell's Song surged, no longer a whisper but a scream.
And something ancient began to follow.
Darkness surrounded them like a shroud. Nima landed hard on her side, a sharp cry escaping her lips as the breath was knocked from her lungs. The fall wasn't far—but it was disorienting. She heard Dmitri grunt nearby, followed by the scrape of his boots against stone.
She pushed herself up slowly. The chamber they'd fallen into was immense. Vaulted ceilings disappeared into shadow above them. Strange shapes jutted from the ground—monoliths carved with the same symbols she had seen on the bell shard. Their light was faint now, but pulsing, like a heartbeat.
"You good?" Dmitri's voice echoed slightly. He was already on his feet, blade drawn.
"I think so," she said, brushing dust from her coat. Her ribs ached, and there was blood on her palm where she'd scraped it. "What is this place?"
"Feels older than anything we've seen," he muttered.
The walls pulsed once—dim light swelling in patterns, revealing not a chamber, but a massive crypt. Rows upon rows of stone tombs lined the walls in tiers, each one marked by a name, a sigil, or an empty seal.
Nima shivered. The cold here wasn't just physical—it was emotional, ancient. A sorrow that settled on the bones like frost.
"I think this is… a sanctuary," she said. "Or was."
Dmitri walked toward one of the tombs. He ran a gloved hand across the surface, brushing off centuries of dust.
"No dates. No known language. But look—" He pointed. The seal on the tomb wasn't just decoration. It was broken. "They were sealed in."
"Not buried?"
"Maybe both."
Nima stepped back, unease curling in her chest. The Bell's shard in her satchel vibrated faintly, like a compass needle twitching toward true north. She turned in the direction of the pull. Between two stone columns stood a gateway—half-collapsed, its arch cracked, but still whole enough to invite passage.
As she stepped closer, she heard whispers. Faint. Not in words, but emotions—grief, guilt, longing. Her eyes blurred for a moment as images surged to the surface of her mind: a robed procession, figures holding bells, each tone echoing with intent. But something had gone wrong. The ritual fractured. A scream buried in silence.
Dmitri touched her arm, grounding her. "Hey. You're drifting again."
She blinked. "It's the shard. It's… guiding me. Or trying to."
He nodded without question. "Then let's follow it."
They moved carefully, ducking beneath fallen stone and threading through the mausoleum. The deeper they went, the more the architecture changed—less ornamental, more raw, more primal. The monoliths gave way to pillars of bone and dark root, twisted together as if grown and carved at once.
The Song was louder here.
Not through the ears, but the blood.
At last, they entered a central sanctum—circular, open, with a shallow pool of ink-black water at its center. Suspended above it was an enormous bell. Not shattered, not broken—intact. But… wrong. It was not made of metal. Its surface shimmered like molten obsidian, alive and rippling. Faint whispers spun from its rim like smoke.
Nima stepped to the edge of the pool, staring up. "Is that the real Bell?"
Dmitri's voice was low. "Or a part of it. A piece left behind."
Her shard pulsed with furious intensity. She could feel it burning through the satchel. She removed it slowly. As soon as it was exposed, the Bell above responded—its surface vibrating, the air distorting around it.
Then the water moved.
From beneath its surface rose a figure. Human in shape, but not in presence. A woman, or the shade of one. Her skin was translucent, her eyes absent of pupils, her movements slow as smoke.
"I knew you would come," she said.
Nima gripped the shard. "Who are you?"
The shade smiled, sorrowful. "I was the first to ring the Bell. My name was forgotten, but they called me the Mourning Saint."
Dmitri stepped beside Nima, wary. "Are you… alive?"
"No. And yes. I am memory given shape. Bound to the echo of my final song."
Nima tried to steady her breathing. "Why are you still here?"
The Mourning Saint moved across the water without disturbing it. "Because this Bell is unfinished. The Song incomplete. You hold a shard of it. That makes you a Vessel."
"I didn't choose to be."
"No Vessel ever does."
The Saint paused, her gaze falling on Dmitri. "You stand close to her. But you are not meant to."
He bristled. "What do you mean?"
"You walk beside her, but your threads drift away. You must be careful. The Song has already claimed much of what you are."
Nima turned. "What is she talking about?"
The Saint raised a hand. "He is unraveling, child. The Bell tests not just the world, but those who resist its sound."
Dmitri took a step back. His expression had gone pale.
Nima's stomach dropped. "He's not—he's not bound, like I am."
"No," the Saint said. "But he walks with a bound soul. And that is enough."
The room dimmed, shadows crawling upward like rising smoke. The Bell began to toll—not loud, but resonant, deep and ancient. The shard in Nima's hand glowed brighter, then dimmed suddenly.
"You must make a choice, soon," the Saint whispered. "To complete the Song. Or break it."
Nima stared at her. "I don't even know what that means."
"You will. When the second toll comes. When the world around you begins to fade, and only the Song remains."
Dmitri clenched his fists. "Why us?"
"Because you were close when it awoke. Because you heard the first sound. Because you stayed."
The shadows began to recede. The Bell above shimmered once more, then faded—its image scattering into mist, the pool returning to stillness.
The Saint hovered in place, dimming with each breath.
"Find the next Echo," she said softly. "In the city beneath the world. In the ruins that remember."
With that, her form dissolved, leaving only silence and the aftertaste of sorrow.
_______________________
They sat in silence by the pool for a long while. Dmitri sharpened his blade absently, while Nima stared at the place where the Bell had vanished.
"What did she mean?" she whispered.
"That I'm… fading?" Dmitri's voice was flat. "Maybe it's true."
"You're still here," Nima said, placing a hand on his. "That's what matters."
He didn't answer.
They made camp in the crypt, reluctant to return to the surface just yet. The sleep that came to them was restless and filled with half-formed dreams—bells ringing beneath oceans, a city where the sky was held by chains, and a child made of ash that whispered Nima's name.
_______________________
They woke to find the crypt no longer silent.
Footsteps echoed from deeper in the passage.
Dmitri had his blade drawn instantly. Nima rose and pressed her hand to the shard. It was still, inert. But something was coming. Not a shade, not a vision.
Something real.
A figure stepped into view. They were clad in rusted armor, robes torn, face obscured by a mask shaped like a bell's mouth.
"Vessels," the figure said, voice metallic and strained. "You carry what was forbidden."
Dmitri held his ground. "Who are you?"
"I am the Warden of Hollowroot. I was left here to guard the Seal."
Nima stepped forward. "It's broken."
"I know," the Warden said.
"Then why are you still here?"
"To deliver a warning."
He raised a hand, and from his palm emerged a small sphere of sound—a trapped note, trembling like a caged bird.
"When the Bell tolls again," the Warden said, "the Song will spread. You must not bring the shard into the city above. If you do…"
He paused.
"You will wake the Bellkeeper."
Nima stared. "What is the Bellkeeper?"
The Warden's mask tilted.
"The one who remembers what the world was before the Bell."
And then, like the Mourning Saint, he faded—not in mist, but in silence, as if erased from time.
_______________________
They left Hollowroot soon after, emerging back into the twilight beyond the ruins. The land looked the same—but Nima could feel it. A tension. A breath held too long.
"The city beneath the world," she murmured.
Dmitri looked ahead. "Then we keep going."
Nima nodded, the shard now cool against her chest.
But the Song had changed.
And they were no longer alone.