The bell tolled.
It wasn't the clear chime of a church bell, nor the graceful sound of music, but a noise laced with rust, wind tunnels, and stomach cramps. It echoed across every corner of existence, as if someone had pried open the universe's eardrum, shoved in an old organ, and deliberately switched it to the "scream" setting.
The sky above the Realm of Death split open. Black tides came crashing down, and with each peal of the bell, the souls on the ground instinctively crouched, clutching their heads, as though afraid they'd be called by name. In truth, the bell was calling names—just not individuals. It was calling out the whole of existence.
"End Summoning."A ghost muttered the words like a casual "good morning," before his body snapped apart, dissolving into a pile of useless echoes.
Ethan stood at the edge of the rupture, clutching the shard of the Void. It pulsed like a heart, not one that sustained life, but one that ticked down toward annihilation. With every beat, the bell grew sharper, more unbearable.
For a moment, he wondered if this was just another hallucination. After all, they had already witnessed countless parodies of world collapse before: streets taken apart like Lego bricks, rivers flickering like broken screens, even sunrises projected from the wrong reel. But this time was different. This time, the sound of the bell carried an irreversible weight—like a hospice doctor assuring you: "Don't worry, you can't be saved, but we promise the ambiance will be nice."
The surviving companions had already gone numb. Some screamed, clutching their ears. Some knelt and prayed. Others calmly opened notebooks to settle debts—because even at the world's end, ledgers had to be balanced. The traitor who once tried to sell them out clung to a broken lamppost, coughing blood and cursing, clearly too late to even finish betraying them properly.
"Hey," Ethan said into the air, "you all hear that? Is this thing inviting us to go die?"
The air didn't reply. Only the bell screamed in its stead.
The Gate of the Void had appeared, hanging in the depths of the sky. It wasn't so much a door as it was a colossal black grin stretched across heaven and earth, filled with teeth shaped like grinding gears. Each strike of the bell pried that grin wider, as if the entire world were nothing more than its appetizer.
"Go or don't go?" someone asked.
"Going means death. Not going also means death," another answered.
"Then why not go? At least we'll die with a sense of ceremony."
And they laughed—like drunks dancing on graves, as though discussing which hotpot restaurant to visit, not the end of all things.
Ethan didn't laugh. He knew the bell had chosen him. The shard of the Void throbbed in his arms like a child begging to be taken outside. His bones resonated with its rhythm, his soul was being force-tuned. He was being remade into a key.
The bell pounded faster now, like a cracked old bell beaten without mercy:CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
"Guess we don't have a choice," Ethan muttered, raising the shard of the Void high.
The sky ripped open. The teeth of the Gate began chewing the very air. And then, every soul heard the same whisper—not from the outside, but from the hollow within themselves:
"The end has arrived. Please, take your seats."
It was like an eternal funeral play, where the audience and actors, the hosts and the dead, all shared the same guest list. The bell was the overture, and the Void was the curtain falling.
Ethan chuckled, a sound layered with resignation, despair, and absurd comedy. Because suddenly, he realized—this so-called "Summoning of the End" was nothing more than the universe sending out a mass group notification.
And he, of all people, had been singled out to reply.