(flash story)

The wind was sharp on the cliffs of Ardell, carrying the smell of salt and storm. Kael tightened the grip on his cloak, eyes fixed on the lighthouse that had been dark for three nights. Ships had vanished near this coast before, long ago, when people still told stories about the sea swallowing souls.

He stepped over broken stones, hearing his boots echo on the ancient path. Once, years ago, someone else had walked here and never returned. They said she had heard the bell ring — the bell, silver and silent unless it chose you. Kael had laughed at that tale as a boy. Now he wasn’t laughing.

The lighthouse door creaked open under his hand. Inside, everything was dust and sea rot. Spiral stairs wound upward like a frozen wave. He climbed slowly. Each step whispered with a hundred memories not his own.

At the top, where the lantern should burn, there was only a tarnished bell, its cord hanging like a thread from the heavens. It was smaller than he expected. Less… grand. But it shone strangely in the gray light, as if untouched by time.

He reached out.

Behind him, the door creaked again.

No one was there.

A cold breath slid down his neck. He didn’t turn around. The stories warned you never to look back… not here. Somewhere in another life, maybe, Kael had turned and seen something that turned him into a story. Maybe in that shadow-world, a boy who looked like him was still standing at the bottom of these stairs, deciding never to climb. Maybe.

But this Kael gripped the cord and pulled.

The bell let out a soft, impossible sound, like the sigh of the sea and the cry of a bird that no longer existed.

Outside, the storm paused.

Far below, on the beach, someone else looked up. A woman in green. Her hair was soaked, her eyes wide. She had heard the bell too, once. Maybe she was the girl from the old story. Or maybe she would have been, if Kael hadn’t come first.

The wind started again.

From the edge of the world, ships that had disappeared began to flicker back into the sea. Their sails were torn, their decks empty. One of them bore Kael’s family crest. His uncle had vanished with that ship a decade ago.

He took a step back from the bell. Something had shifted. Something forgotten had awakened.

Behind him, the bell cord twitched on its own.

In a different version of this story, Kael might have fled. In another, he might have pulled the cord again and disappeared like the rest. In still another, the woman in green would reach the tower before him and ring the bell for her own lost reasons.

But in this one, Kael stood still. Watching the ships. Listening.

And far away, in the place where stories sleep before they’re told, another version of the wind held its breath.