Cailen

Veilrend 59: The Bell-Tower Doesn’t Ring Anymore Cailen hadn’t spoken in three days. The bell-tower had fallen silent when the sky began to pulse. He sat beneath what remained of its fractured spire, clutching a rusted hammer once used to chime the hour. His hands trembled with every breath. The air was thick—not with smoke or ash, but with soundless whispers, like prayers etched into silence. Reality didn’t hold shape anymore. Time stuttered. Shadows bled upward. The cobblestones sighed. He didn’t know how many others remained. But he had seen enough to understand: something was wrong with the world itself. The streets of Dars-Myel had become a maze of dripping walls, where toys screamed and children laughed from behind eyes that didn’t blink. Faces shifted. Names meant nothing. Language tasted like rust. And in the center of it all—the Nursery. He’d only seen it once, through a shattered window across the square. It breathed. The walls moved. Dolls hung from ceilings by veins instead of strings. Something small stood at the heart of it—a girl, maybe. Or the idea of one. He didn’t know how long she looked at him, but it felt like drowning in syrup. He vomited blood for an hour after. Ever since, his dreams bled into waking. He tried to climb the tower yesterday. Thought he’d ring the bell. Thought it might matter. But the bell was gone. Melted. Or perhaps it had become something else. The stone held teeth now. It bit his hand when he reached for it. Now, he sat, muttering to himself. Writing warnings in chalk only he could read. Trying to remember what the world had once been. But then he saw them. The choir. Children—not children—walking hand-in-hand down the street. Humming a lullaby he’d never heard but instantly recognized. Behind them came shapes—bigger horrors, grown from Velith’s cradle. One carried a book that bled when opened. Another wore a mask made of mother’s faces. They passed beneath him, heading toward the cathedral ruins.