The Broken Gravebell
There are moments that don't just change you.
They replace you.
Moments so deep they tunnel into the marrow of who you are and carve something out with fingers colder than death.
Moments that whisper:
"You were someone else before this."
"Now you're not."
That was me now.
Standing in the broken church.
Lantern burnt out.
Maren flickering.
The memory of a name I could no longer recall fading like smoke behind my eyes.
And above me, somewhere in the belfry long since sealed, I heard it:
DING.
A bell.
Cracked. Hollow.
Ringing without a sound.
Elias had once told me:
"When the Gravebell tolls for you, it means the city has heard your soul. And it doesn't like what it sees."
I didn't understand then.
I did now.
Maren floated beside me, no longer solid. Her hair drifted upward like smoke caught in water.
Her voice came slow. Strained.
"You forgot someone important… didn't you?"
I didn't answer.
Because I couldn't.
I knew there had been someone.
A face on a rooftop. A voice in the dark.
Gone.
Sacrificed to something beneath the world so I could become what I had to.
I told myself it was worth it.
I almost believed it.
The cultists stared at me differently now.
No more curious glances.
No more fake reverence.
They stepped away like I was contagious.
Even Victor Pale—the man who danced with dead gods—watched me like he wasn't sure if I was a disciple… or a mistake.
"You touched it," he said. "You gave it a piece of yourself, and it didn't kill you."
He stepped closer.
That shovel of bone still in hand.
"You're not one of us anymore," he said softly. "You're something worse."
Then, slowly, he smiled.
"I want to show you something."
We walked beneath the choir again.
But this time, deeper.
Past the singing mouths.
Past the pit.
Through a passage carved not by hands, but by something that clawed its way out.
The walls were marked with drag lines.
Flesh streaks.
Finger marks.
Something had crawled out of here — and Victor Pale had followed it.
At the end of the passage stood a room with no door, just a wall of bones.
He raised the shovel and tapped once.
CLINK.
The wall cracked and opened inward, revealing a narrow chamber lined with wooden coffins.
Seven in total.
Each had a name carved into it.
But one was still open.
And the name was mine.
Kashan Idris.
⚠️ [Grave Prophecy Triggered]
"All who walk the path of the Bound eventually lie down in their own box."
➤ To live as Gravebound is to know your ending… and keep digging anyway.
Victor watched me.
"Everyone sees their coffin eventually," he whispered. "But yours appeared too soon."
"You're saying I'll die?"
He shook his head.
"I'm saying you already did. Something else came back."
Behind me, Maren's voice trembled.
"We need to leave. Now."
"Something followed you back. From the pit. It's inside you... but it's not you."
And then—
The lights in the chamber died.
The torches blinked out like snuffed candles.
And from inside the walls came a scraping sound.
Like nails on wood.
Like someone trying to escape their own coffin.
SCRITCH.
SCRITCH.
SCRITCH.
Then a voice—
But not mine.
Not Victor's.
Not Maren's.
One I had never heard before, but somehow had always known.
It came from my own mouth.
"I remember now."
"You were the one who buried me."
✅ [NEW STATUS: Echo Host – ??? Detected Inside]
Maren: Severely Distressed
Victor: Terrified
The city will feel this ripple.
The Gravebell has rung.
The other Returners will hear it.
You have become a Beacon of the Dead.
And far across the city…
In a ruined subway.
In a flooded dormitory.
In a hollowed-out hospital—
Three other Returners woke up screaming.
Because they dreamed of me.
And the grave I had crawled out of.