It was like waking up from a nightmare, the night I escaped the City of Death. I had stalked the barren, grey walls there for what seemed like centuries, meeting nobody, until I saw the Bell-Ringer. Robed in black, skeletal head exposed, they rang a massive steel bell again and again. I stood and watched, unsure of what to do. The scene felt sacred, as if I were witnessing some arcane ritual. Nobody else was nearby. Crows sat on barrels and lightposts, watching the Bell-Ringer, feeling the reverberations of the bell. Tattered flags fluttered in the wind, and broken doors creaked with nobody behind them.

The Bell-Ringer turned to me and said, “Your time here is done.”

There was no time to respond. The sight of the City of Death, where I had spent so long, vanished, and I was in my bed again. Only this time, I felt weightless. Curious, I called for my son who had been at my bedside, but received no answer. Yet I heard him crying in the living room. As I made my way there, I passed a mirror and balked at what I saw: there was no reflection. I was a ghost, and had not escaped the City of Death after all. It was now my immortal reality.