StoryTree
you are here

The Debt of Hollow Bells

fantasy◐ Mature
5 contributors · 4 paragraphs deep

Maren laughed, sharp and scared. "I bury the dead. I don't take orders from them." The polite voice sighed. "You misunderstand. I am not dead. I am the thing that makes your bells work. Stop feeding me names, and I will stop. But then so will they."

Maren made her choice fast. "Then we stop," she said. "No more waking the dead. Let them keep their last words." The voice went very still. "You would give it all up?" "Yes." The humming faded from the air. One by one, six hundred bells fell quiet, and for the first time in years the graveyard was just a graveyard.

↔ version 1 of 2 of this paragraph — hover its sides to flip. The card below is what happens next.

What happens next?

0 ways forward
Vote share across the top 0 branches
No futures yet — be the one who decides what happens next.