I awoke to the blinding absence of light; a void brighter and more deep than any darkness. The ground felt no different than hard concrete—pressing uncomfortably up against my arching spine. Slowly getting up to relieve the aching pain on my back, I spotted a figure sitting quietly on a lone bench next to a broken street lamp in the distance. It grasped a large branch with a cluster of brightly colored bells strung betwixt the interweaving branches, with them softly ringing to a gentle wind blowing across the land. Upon closer inspection, the initially odd-looking entity seemed to be a girl with a large, misshapen cloak covering its head. Intimidating, for sure, but only quietly so.

"Hello?" I called out, hoping to hear at least another voice in this isolating place.

She notices my presence, but doesn't respond to my inquiry. She remains sitting, with her bell branch swaying gently. Then, as if speaking to herself:

"Pity. Pity indeed." Her voice sounds higher than I expected. Perhaps one of a high-schooler.
"How unfortunate."

"I'm sorry?" I ask, caught off guard by the unconventional response.

"The bells. They are chiming out of phase."
"Each one clashing in dissonance with one another. The noise upsets me much so."

The sound of the bells sound the exact same as it did before. Maybe a little louder due to her movement.

"I'm sorry to hear that." I add, not knowing what to make of the situation.
"Why are you feeling pity for bells?"

"Because bells know no better."
"Outside stimuli forces them to ring in such disorderly fashion."
"Themselves utterly powerless, ultimately succumbing to cacophony." She speaks with a mournful sorrow.

"Yet it is you that wield them, is it not?"
"Why not correct your bells to ring in harmony?" I question her logic.

"It would be in my best interest to do so."
"However, it is against the law."

"The law?" I did not expect this place to have such arbitrary concepts.

"Yes. Are you not aware of them?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Then you must be the bellringer."
"You have made my bells ring in such disastrous commotion." She speaks, without contempt, but rather matter-of-factly.

The accusation hung in the stale air between us, neither of us moving to break the silence. I tried to process her words. The bellringer. A title unfamiliar to me, yet she spoke it with the certainty of someone naming a centuries long occupation.

"I don't understand," I said, taking a cautious step forward. "I've only just arrived here."

She tilted her head slightly, the misshapen cloak shifting with the movement. The bells chimed again, and she flinched as though struck.

"Ignorance is no excuse," she said quietly. "The bellringer is always appointed."

"Appointed by whom?"

"By the Void itself. By the laws of the universe." She tilted her head slightly, waving her hand in a small circle. "I am unsure by whom exactly. But the appointment stands, and it is you who has been chosen."

I moved closer, emboldened by her melancholic resignation. As I approached, I could make out more of her features beneath the cloak: pale skin, eyes that seemed to reflect the blinding absence of light around us, lips pressed into a thin line.

"And what exactly is my duty?" I asked. "As this... bellringer?"

For the first time, she looked directly at me. Her eyes were unsettling, infinitely tired, as though she had seen something break inside the world itself.

"To ring the bells in harmony," she said. "To align the discord. To make the cacophony sing as one."

"But you said it was against the law."

"It is." She turned back to her branch, watching the bells sway. "This is the paradox that binds you. You must succeed at what you are forbidden to do. You must break the law to fulfil your duty, and fulfil your duty by breaking the law."

A shiver ran through me, despite the absence of temperature in this place.

"That's impossible," I said.

"Yes," she agreed, without a trace of sympathy. "All bellringers discover this eventually."

"What happened to the others?" The question escaped before I could consider its weight.

She was silent for a long moment. The bells continued their supposedly discordant ringing, unchanged and unchanging.

"They are still here," she finally said. "Somewhere in the Void. Trying. Always trying."