The Bell and the Man in the Hat
The bell wouldn’t stop.
Its sound wasn’t coming from the tower — it was beating inside Cristina’s chest. The light that night was blood mixed with fire, a filthy yellow pierced by red sparks that made the air shiver. The church was burning like something alive, like it was screaming.
Cristina ran.
Her feet slipped on the burning floor, heat climbing her legs as if trying to peel her skin away. The shadows of the people behind her no longer looked human — they stumbled and screamed, their eyes melting, their faces splitting open in sounds that didn’t belong to any living throat.
“Cristina!” — a voice called. Familiar, but broken.
She turned. The figure calling her was made of smoke, its face dissolving. When that thing’s hand brushed her leg, pain ripped through her whole body, and she screamed.
She jumped over broken pews, dodged the charred faces of saints, and the fire snapped on the walls as if laughing. The air was thick, gray, almost solid — breathing hurt.
The stained glass exploded, shards raining down like razors. The noise was unbearable — metal, glass, and screams all fused into one roar.
At the altar, a tall figure stood still among the flames.
A man. Wearing a hat.
The fire wrapped around him but never burned him.
His eyes glowed like embers. He walked forward slowly, and the flames bent toward him as if obeying his will.
Cristina stopped, gasping.
The bell’s sound turned into a whisper, calling her name in dozens of voices.
Then he spoke — low, rough, every word scraping the air:
“Cristina... don’t run.”
She ran.
The walls tightened, pulsing like veins.
The wood groaned under her feet.
The heat was alive — inside her.
Faces appeared in the smoke, repeating her name, laughing, chanting.
She found a side door, boarded from within. She slammed it hard. The boards vibrated — it sounded like the church itself was moaning.
Behind her, the man in the hat kept coming. No footsteps. No breath. Just those burning eyes, locked on her.
“They promised me your heirs,” he said, his voice close enough to scorch her skin. “And I always collect what I’m owed.”
Cristina crawled through a narrow gap in the wall, into a corridor that seemed to breathe. Something brushed her back — a hand made from her own hair.
The bell’s sound distorted into a scream.
Voices filled the air, chanting her name until it became a single, deafening wave.
When she finally burst through an exit, the street outside wasn’t a street.
It was a wasteland of people standing still, eyes blank, staring straight at her.
And among them — waiting, not walking — was the man in the hat.
Cristina ran again.
The houses collapsed inward; the windows blinked like eyes.
Every corner brought her back to the same place.
When she stopped, the alley was narrow, damp, and dead-ended.
He was there.
Close enough for her to feel his breath — though it wasn’t breath at all, just heat.
He reached out his hand, flames chained to his skin.
“I’ll take your heirs,” he said softly. “I always do.”
Cristina tried to scream, but the air had turned to stone.
Fear had a weight, a taste, a smell.
Her body froze as the hand touched her shoulder — a mix of fire and ice.
Then everything went black.
Light, sound, air — gone.
Cristina woke in darkness.
The real church bell was ringing outside — calm, human.
The room was cold. The window rattled in the morning wind.
She stayed still, wondering if she was awake or still trapped inside the dream.
Her heart beat like the bell — slow, heavy, wrong.
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