Chapter 7: The Bell That Rings Alone

They didn't speak on the way back.

The three of them—Elior, Maren, and Noah—walked in silence, haunted by the empty space where Rin should have been.

The only sound was the crumpling of the letter Elior kept clutched in his hand.

> "Three locks undone.

Four remain.

The price of memory is grief."

He hadn't cried. Not yet. He didn't know how.

There was too much else to think about.

Noah had barely said a word since they pulled him out of the mirror. He sat in the backseat of Maren's car, hands shaking, staring at his own reflection in the window like he wasn't sure it was really his.

It wasn't until they reached Elior's house that he finally spoke.

"She's still alive."

Elior turned. "What?"

"Rin. She didn't vanish. She crossed over. She's in the hallway now. The one with the mirrors. The place between places."

Maren looked at him. "How do you know?"

Noah's voice was quiet. "Because I can still hear her breathing."

---

That night, they stayed at Elior's place—Maren on the couch, Noah curled in a blanket near the fireplace.

Elior couldn't sleep.

He sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the mask from the second grave. It no longer whispered to him. It simply watched.

And then, at 3:17 AM—

The bell rang.

Once.

Loud. Low. Echoing through the town.

Elior froze.

Maren ran into the room. "Did you hear that?"

Noah was already standing, wide-eyed. "That's the bell tower."

"But it's been abandoned for years," Maren said. "They sealed it off after a student fell from it and died."

Noah's voice was cold. "It rings when the next mark is found."

---

The bell tower stood at the edge of Greyhollow Academy's old campus, overgrown and sealed by iron gates. But the gates were open now.

The three of them pushed inside at dawn, just as the morning fog curled around the trees like ghostly fingers.

The tower loomed like a spine from the earth, cracked and leaning but never fallen. Its doors creaked open without a touch.

Inside—darkness.

Dust.

And footprints on the floor.

Fresh.

Maren shivered. "Someone's been here."

Noah nodded. "Or something."

They climbed the stairs slowly. The air grew colder with each level. Pictures lined the walls—portraits of old students, all with their eyes scratched out.

And at the top—

A single room, round and stone-walled, with the bell hanging in the center, wrapped in chains.

The room was empty.

Until it wasn't.

Elior turned—and saw her.

A girl.

Maybe fifteen. Long black hair. Thin. Pale.

Sitting in the corner.

Writing something on the wall.

In her own blood.

> "Do not ring. Do not wake. Do not speak his name."

Her name tag from a torn uniform read:

VIANNA LOCH

Maren stepped forward carefully. "Vianna?"

The girl didn't move.

Noah approached next. "You've been hearing it, haven't you? The voice in the bell."

Vianna looked up then, and her eyes were full of sleep.

Not the kind from rest.

The kind from forgetting.

"They told me I was the fourth," she whispered. "They wrote it on my skin when I was six. But I don't remember who I was before the bell started singing."

She lifted her shirt sleeve.

Carved into her arm, in faint scars:

#4

Elior felt sick.

"They marked her like cattle," Maren said.

Vianna reached into her coat and pulled out a small paper.

A letter.

She handed it to Elior without a word.

He unfolded it.

> "The fourth was taken early.

She is not whole. She has forgotten her name, but the bell remembers.

Do not let it ring a second time.

Or he will hear."

Beneath the writing was a sketch of the bell.

But something was wrong.

It was split, with black tendrils crawling out from the crack.

Elior turned to look at the bell.

It had a crack in the exact same place.

And it was growing.

---

Noah stepped toward the bell. "We need to break the connection. Sever it."

Vianna's voice rose sharply. "No!"

The room shook.

The bell began to hum—low and angry.

"Don't touch it!" Vianna screamed. "It will call him again!"

"Call who?" Maren asked.

Vianna fell to her knees, clutching her head.

"The Warden of Silence. He lives beneath the tower. He eats voices. He wants to trade names for silence."

Elior felt the air tighten. "We need to get her out of here. Now."

But the bell rang—

Once.

So loud it made blood leak from their noses.

And the walls began to melt.

---

They were no longer in the tower.

They were beneath it.

In a cavern of bones and silence.

Noah groaned. "It's pulling us into its memory. Into Vianna's."

Maren looked around. "Where is she?"

And then they saw her.

Little Vianna. Six years old. Crying.

Surrounded by black shapes. Humanlike. Masked. Whispers curling around them.

One of them held a knife. It carved something on her skin.

#4

The child screamed.

But no sound came out.

That was the price.

A voice for a soul.

And then the memory faded—

They were back in the tower.

Vianna lay on the floor, silent. Not breathing.

Noah dropped to her side and pressed his hands on her chest.

"She's not dead. She's stuck."

Elior reached into his bag—and pulled out the mask from the second grave.

"No," Maren said. "Don't—"

But he put it on her.

Just for a second.

Vianna gasped.

Her eyes snapped open.

And she spoke—for the first time in ten years.

"My name is Vianna Loch. I remember now. He lied to me."

She cried.

And the bell went silent.

Its crack sealed itself.

The chains turned to dust.

And another letter fluttered from the ceiling.

Elior caught it.

> "Four locks undone.

Three remain.

The Warden waits for the final call.

The next gate lies beneath the water.

Find the drowned.

Find the fifth."