The fall

I started hearing it in the morning, but when I looked around me for the third time today, I saw no bells around. Nevertheless, I could swear I could hear a chime, low, but unmistakable, from somewhere I could not identify.

Trying to ignore the foreboding feeling it brought me, I put my headphones in and kept walking. The experience was bad enough as is, I didn’t need to get myself crazy by looking for the source of the phantom chime.

I have been walking for more than two hours now. I knew that the trek was six hours long from the start, but I was too angry back when I decided to come here and I did not stop to think about what that truly meant. The day was reaching a new record for the annual summer heat wave, and even if everyone else seemed to be dealing with it gracefully, I felt as if I was melting alive.

I was dissociating, putting one foot in front of the other, ignoring how heavy my legs were now, how my blue uniform was now drenched in sweat and the annoying weight of the backpack behind me. I had brought only the basics, but when you are walking through the mountains, any weight becomes bothersome after a while carrying it.

The scout chief was giving instructions, but I simply stood in the end of the line, feigning to listen, only taking my headphones out when the chief was close enough to notice them. When I walked forward and stood by his side I understood why we had stopped so suddenly.

We were walking in a narrow path, halfway up the mountain, trying to reach the top. In the path, there had been a small landslide that destroyed a considerable part of the road and created the risk of falling through the steep mountain slope. To solve it, someone had attached a rope to the side of the mountain so people could grab it and pass, walking sideways, to the other side.

“Be careful, just walk slowly to the other side and everything will be fine” Said the chief to me, letting me go before him.

The chief’s assistant and all the other members of the group had already passed, leaving only us two on the other side.

Well, the sooner I start this, the sooner I finish.

I grabbed the rope, and with a completely unwarranted rush, I started crossing the path. The chief was screaming something to me from behind but I couldn’t quite understand what it was. I just walked forward until the chime sounded again.

It was as if a bell had chimed just at the side of my ear. I looked behind me but all I could see was the landscape and the long fall I would go through if I fell. A sudden sensation of vertigo assaulted me and I pulled back to grab the rope, but the chime sounded again.

I closed my eyes, trying to calm myself down, and something gave way. I felt as if the ground below me just disappeared, probably brittle due to how dry it had become.

As the ground gave way, I grabbed the rope with all my strength, but just as the road collapsed, so did the wall the rope had been attached to. For a moment, I felt as if I was in space, as if gravity was non-existent and I was just suspended in the air.

The next moment, I was barreling down the mountain, hitting the trees on the way down, while the screams of everyone in my group got farther and farther away.

Am I dead?

From some point onward, and after another foreboding chime, all I could see was darkness. I tried to stand up, but the pain from barreling down assaulted my entire body and I collapsed again.

Slowly, far away, but steadily, the sound of bells resonated. At the start it was one, but in a matter of seconds, it felt as if it was everywhere around me, somewhere far in the distance.

I don’t consider myself a coward, but for the first time, I was struck by a bone chilling terror. I was dead, was I not? I had died, and this horrible place is my punishment, isn’t it?

“The world has blessed us with a new light, now, the lightening can begin!”

With that scream, the world recuperated its light. For a moment I had to close my eyes, but soon enough, I could see what was around me.

I was at the top of a pyramid-like structure, in the center of what seemed to be a small village. I could probably count the amount of buildings on it with my hands, and down the pyramid, in front of me was a long set of stairs that led to the bottom, every edge of the structure illuminated by a small lamp.

I looked at my side and I found who had screamed the proclamation I heard before the light returned. It was a woman with a strange mask on her face, looking at me closely. She was wearing a ragged dress that covered her entire body, a thick piece of fabric that covered her entire torso and had a single hole for the head, and a strange golden collar that extended down to her waist.

That woman was pointing at me with a colorful ceremonial crosier, with four bells attached in a line. The last one seemed to be dripping blood.

“Welcome to our home, light, and thank you, for your sacrifice.” Said the woman, with a strange tone of melancholy in her voice.