L I R A

The world comes back in pieces. Light first, too bright and then sound, a long metallic whine threading through my skull like the bell lodged itself behind my eyes. I’m on the floor. Maybe the stairs. Everything is vibrating, like the tower is breathing wrong. Cold air knifes across my face. Not normal cold—bell-cold, heavy and sharp. My breath fogs in front of me even though the loft door is open.

Someone calls my name through the ringing.
“Lira.. LIRA.. ” Ezra. I know his voice even distorted. Then another voice, closer, rougher:

“Don’t move.” Callen. My vision swims back enough to make out their silhouettes, both reaching for me at once. The frost from the loft followed us. I can feel it humming under my skin.

Hands clamp on my arms and suddenly I’m upright, swaying between them. Ezra has my left wrist, grip too tight. Callen has my right, steady but absolute, like he’s anchoring me to the floor.

“Let go of her,” Ezra snaps.

“You’re dragging her toward the resonance,” Callen fires back.

“I’m keeping her on her feet..”

“By pulling her into the worst place you could!”

“Stop.. please.. ” I try, but everything tilts and Callen drags me a fraction into his chest before I hit the ground. Ezra’s face flickers, hurt, rage, something raw.

“Give her space,” he bites out.

“You’re crowding her,” Callen says. A pressure shift rolls through the hall. Kids scream downstairs. The tower isn’t done. The bell isn’t done. Their hands tighten around mine at the same time, like I’m the rope in a fight the bell started and they’re both losing.

We stumble into the hall. Students are everywhere, crying, running, frozen. Phones aimed at the ceiling like they expect the bell to punch through it. No alarms. No teachers. Just panic. Crow feathers litter the floor. One skids across the tile like something nudged it.

A sharp pressure drop hits and every head ducks instinctively. Someone shouts that another toll is coming. Someone else prays.

“Don’t stop,” Callen mutters. “It’s choosing where to hit.”

“What does that mean?” Ezra demands, the fear in his voice making the question small.

“Move. Now.” A scream slices through the noise, pure, guttural, terrified. Everything inside me goes cold. Someone didn’t run fast enough. The crowd splits in a crooked semicircle. Some kids sob. Some just stare like they’re not sure what their eyes are doing. Ezra jerks to a stop. Callen does too. My stomach drops before I even see her.

A sophomore. Red scrunchie still tangled in her hair. I’ve seen her in the cafeteria with Pia, always laughing too loud. Now she’s slumped against the trophy case like someone arranged her for a photo. Head tilted. Mouth parted. Eyes open. A frost handprint spans her throat. Not a smudge—a handprint. Long-fingered. Too precise. Frost veins spider down her hoodie like roots. A thin rim of ice lines her teeth.

“She fell,” someone whispers. No one believes it. The case behind her is cracked in a perfect sunburst, a coin-sized patch of frost pulsing faintly in the center.

Ezra’s breath stutters. “No.. no, she..”

“This was a collection,” Callen says, voice flat and low. My knees wobble. DUE / 1 wasn’t a countdown.  It was a target. The frost patch trembles. Then curls into a symbol, hooked, sharp, deliberate. It glows white for a heartbeat.

“Callen, do you see that?” I whisper.

“Yeah.” His jaw clenches. “I see it.”

Ezra stares straight at the glowing mark. “See what? There’s nothing there.”

“It’s right.. Ezra, it’s right there.” He shakes his head, confused, scared. “Lira… there’s nothing.” But the symbol pulses, and behind the cracked glass, the dead girl’s name on a trophy plaque flickers,  smears and fades. The bell isn’t just collecting. It’s rewriting.

Ezra keeps staring at the glass like he’s waiting for something to materialize. Nothing does. Not for him. His brows pinch, and he does this sharp inhale, like he’s bracing for the possibility that I’m the unstable one. It hits harder than I expected.

“Lira, you’re in shock,” he says quietly. Too quietly. Like he’s tiptoeing around a diagnosis he doesn’t want to land on. “You might be seeing patterns because your body’s overloaded.”

“I’m not hallucinating,” I snapped, voice cracking. “Ezra, it’s glowing.”

“It’s not,” he says, sounding too certain. “That’s just frost. Ice reacts to pressure.”

Callen huffs something bitter. “He really can’t see it.” Ezra shoots him a glare sharp enough to cut. Callen doesn’t blink.

“Stay out of this,” Ezra says.

“Wish I could,” Callen mutters. And the symbol pulses again, brighter like it’s choosing sides. Someone sobs behind us. A teacher shouts for people to move back. A phone clatters to the floor and skids right into my shoe.

Ezra steps in front of me, blocking the body, blocking the frost, blocking everything. His hands come up to my shoulders, careful, trembling slightly. He angles himself so only I can hear him.

“Hey,” he whispers. “Look at me for a second.” I do. Because I always do.

“You’re okay,” he says, even though I’m not. “We’re going to keep you safe. All of us. I’m not letting the bell or whatever this is touch you again.” 

The words hit something deep in my chest, something soft and stupid and hopeful. Ezra’s thumb brushes once along my arm before he catches himself.

“I should’ve gotten to you faster,” he murmurs. “That toll… I should’ve..”

“It’s not your fault,” I whisper, even though I’m starting to suspect it’s mine.

Ezra shakes his head. “You’re not dying. I don’t care what that frost thinks it knows.” For a second, I want to believe him. I really, really do. Callen steps in, close enough I feel his body heat even through the cold rippling off the trophy case. Ezra doesn’t move, but his jaw locks hard.

“You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep,” Callen says.

“Don’t start,” Ezra snaps. “Not now.”

“You think you can out-plan a curse?” Callen throws back. “You can’t logic your way out of a toll.”

“And you think being cryptic and broody helps?” Callen ignores him and looks straight at me. There’s something resigned in his face. Not dramatic. Not smug. Just… tired.

“Lira,” he murmurs, “the bell doesn’t stop because someone swears at it. You could wrap this whole school around her and it wouldn’t matter.”

Ezra bristles. “You don’t know her.” Callen’s eyes flick briefly to him, then back to me.
“I know what it feels like when the bell picks someone.” My stomach flips.

“And I know it’s not you right now. But it’s getting there.” The floor seems to tilt. Callen steps closer, not touching, just enough to steady my balance.

“You need to listen to me,” he says softly. “The countdown changes when you panic.”

Ezra’s glare could bruise. “You don’t get to talk to her like you understand her.” Callen doesn’t look away when he answers:

“I do.” And something sharp and electric snaps through me. The first teacher pushes through the students, Mr. Halden from the gym, face pale, voice too bright.

“Everyone step back, please! Give her space!” Her. Not a name. He doesn’t touch the girl. He just stares at the frost handprint on her throat for one frozen heartbeat and I see it. Recognition. Fear. Then he masks it behind some brittle teacher-voice.

“It… looks like she slipped,” he says loudly.

“No she didn’t,” someone whispers.

“Everyone, please, do not speculate.”

Callen mutters, “They’re not calling anyone.” And he’s right. No one reaches for a phone. Another teacher starts confiscating devices. A third ushers kids away from the frost blooming behind the body without even glancing at it.

Ezra stiffens. “Why aren’t they.. why isn’t anyone..”

“They are,” Callen says. “They’re covering it.”

“No,” Ezra insists. “No, they wouldn’t..” But Sister Margo moves past the teachers, eyes sliding over the cracked glass, the frost, the dead girl, like she’s inspecting a painting she commissioned. She exhales. Smiles. My stomach lurches.

“So that’s it?” I whisper. “We just pretend this didn’t happen?” Callen looks at me. Ezra looks at the teachers. Neither answers. The frost symbol pulses again. Once. Twice. Thinning like a dying heartbeat. A single crow feather drifts down, landing on my shoe.

Everything inside me goes still. Then, I swear, I feel it. That faint vibration. Like a metal strip skittering across tile. Like the bus. Like the tower. Like something tallying its next move.

Ezra grabs my hand. “We’re getting out of here. Before this gets worse.”

Callen’s head lifts sharply. “It’s already worse.”

“What does that mean?” I whisper. Neither answers.  Both pull me in opposite directions again. Behind us, the frost melts into a single streak down the cracked glass, sliding like ink.

1.
Paid. And somewhere deep in the school, too far to be real, too close to be imagined,
a faint metallic hum starts counting.