Unleash Your Imagination

In the square at the center of the town of Fallenstone stood a bell tower, taller than any other structure in town. It was an oddity, part of an ancient ruin of perhaps a once massive complex, now only this one bell tower remained. The tower, overgrown with vines and avoided by most of the townsfolk, was a startling sight to newcomers and passers by. Its bulky form seemed to grow up out of the ground as though the vines entangling it had pulled it up from beneath the earth. What should have been the color of cool gray stone was instead a soiled black as though evidence of its subterranean origin. Imprisoned within the vines on every outer wall were the stone figures of men armed with sword or spear or axe or bow; From within the walls of the tower they fought alongside one another against creatures of unknown origin. These latter figures were more animalistic in nature. Some stood like men but had the horned head of an ox; wielding large double-sided axes these massive beasts bereaved many contenders of their heads. Other smaller creatures had devilish faces and deep sunken eyes; with sharp bony teeth and razor like claws they tore flesh from bone and rent their enemies to pieces.

The stonework of the tower figures was explicitly detailed. In every face the terror of war and death was real, and to those who beheld the images it was as if these were the true faces of once living beings turned to stone, waging a war that would never end, forever dying yet never dead. It was these faces which were most horrifying to onlookers and which bade most to avoid the square. At the top of the tower in the belfry still on its headstock hung the bell covered with the dust of a hundred thousand windless nights. The perpetual silence of the bell was the only consolation given to those who feared the stone images of the tower; so long as the bell hung silent, so long as the dust of ages past remained unstirred upon its bow, the stone figures would remain imprisoned within their vines and the horrors of the bell tower would remain within the square. But even outside of the square the tower was a symbol of some unknown fear. At dusk the shadow of the tower would fall upon the nearby houses and from there would seem to spread its blackness across the entire globe as though it were the bringer of night.

The black tower was the single remaining talebearer of long forgotten wars and of an age of wonder that had long passed out of memory. Few, if any, knew of the true origins of the bell-tower. Few, if any, ever heard the true story of the faces which were now forever engraved upon its walls. Could the events which had taken place before the eyes of those stone faces have been recalled they would have been terrible visions indeed. Could the sounds which had fallen upon those stone ears have been recalled they would have swept away all hope from those who heard them. Could the mouths of those stone faces have been opened to recall the words that had been spoken in their presence they would have told of unimaginable horrors and wonders alike. But no such visions were seen, no such sounds were heard, and no such words were spoken anymore in the presence of the tower, and none would likely be present to hear, to see, or to understand. 

The bell-tower courtyard was an altogether desolate place, devoid of faces that might see it’s dark figures, devoid of ears that might hear its absolute silence, devoid of hearts that might be frightened by its unchangeable blackness, devoid of souls that might become lost at the soulless gaze of its grotesque figures. Its ghastly appearance was the confirmation of the horror it brought to its beholders. The silence of the courtyard surrounding the tower was a testimony to its abandonment. The hushed voices and somber faces of those who passed through the nearby alleyways were the evidence of its foreboding impression. Its shadow was the shadow of doom stretching across the town of Fallenstone.  No rats made their nests among the dead leaves and twigs that lie fallen about the courtyard. No birds nested above the statues or upon the ledges or within the belfry. The courtyard of the bell-tower was an entirely dead place, made by the dead, filled with the dead, and if visited at all, certainly only by the dead or those soon to die. 

Yet on this night in the courtyard, the dead leaves upon the cobblestone found themselves displaced by an unlikely presence which made its way across the courtyard step by step pausing exactly in the middle of the square to face the rising blackness of the tower whose figure so darkened the sky around it that it was nearly impossible to separate sky from stone. Here stood, at the center of the courtyard, the figure of a young man. not more than 20, gazing up at the bleakness and despondency of the silent giant whose voice might start within the hearts of men a fire that had been dead for a thousand years. But on this night the black giant would withhold its voice as it had done for a thousand years. 

The only sound in the square on this particular night was that of the footsteps of this young onlooker as they took up their course again traveling out through the alleyways surrounding the square, past the locked doors of the shops and trade-posts upon the streets further out, past the darkened windows of the unlit houses where slept those somber faces who would never dare to glance upon the slumbering giant at the center of the town; now in dreams would they face it, unable to escape its shadow, always anticipating it’s dreadful voice. Past these houses walked the young man until he reached the boundaries of the town, here upon a small bridge he crossed over the mote which ran around the whole town. Out into the country east of the town of Fallenstone He continued to walk. Until he came across a small cottage about a mile outside of town. Here he stopped for a moment and looked intently upon the small cottage window.

In an instant he rushed at the cottage. There was a loud clash of metal and broken glass. A scuffle of feet and a piercing cry. The desperate call of a young child from the upper chamber, then the scuffle of feet again, out across the meadow the sound of feet running through tall grass until it met the edge of the wood and disappeared into the darkness of the forest.