Story 1034: The Bell Tower Bleeds

They said the bell hadn’t rung in fifty years.

Not since the final sermon, when Reverend Alden Grieves locked himself in the tower and set the church ablaze, his screams muffled by the roaring flames. The congregation called it divine punishment; others whispered of forbidden gospels and blood sacrifices.

The town of Marrow’s Reach buried the ruins, planted thornbrush around the old church, and forgot.

Until the bell tolled again.

Once.

At midnight.

Talia Grimm stood beneath the skeletal remains of the church, her boots crunching bone-dry petals left by the wind. Her sketchbook trembled in her hands, stained with charcoal and crimson.

She had drawn the bell.

Days before it rang.

She had never been here.

Her mute lips trembled. The drawings were never hers—not really. Something guided her hand.

Something trapped above.