(Originally published on 7/13/2020 at AO3. Original Author's Notes will be mostly preserved and shown below.)

Author's Note: Done for the first USOE 24-hour Ficjam Challenge! The given prompt was "bells".

So hi guys! I'm finally back from thesis! Okay, to be honest, I'd say it took me a bit more than 24 hours (BUT LESS THAN 48, I PROMISE) to write this fic, but I did this to help get the rust off my hands and get back into the swing of writing things down and actually finishing them. I hope you enjoy the results.

I'd like to thank Doldrum for helping me puzzle out and come up with an actual plausible, semi-logical, and honestly really cool scientific-ish explanation for the Gift epidemic in canon: that it is a toxin-producing bacterial plague. I wouldn't have been able to complete this fic without her.

CONTENT WARNING: This fic contains depictions of a fictional epidemic. Due to current circumstances at the time of publication, this may be considered a sensitive subject. As such, reader discretion is advised.

Your shovel bites into the earth as the tolling of the chapel bell rings in your ears. You push the metal down with your foot and turn your shoulders with a grunt as you lift up another shovelful of dirt. The weight of it on your hands makes all your blisters sing. You only grip the shovel harder, letting the pain energize you as you dump the dirt into an ever-growing pile to your side, taking care not to get any on the blanket-wrapped corpse nearby. All this happens while the bell keeps tolling, resonating across Toragay, echoing in your skull.

You think it hasn't stopped ringing for a week now.

It is the thirty-first of October and you feel like it's been the longest two weeks of your life.

Two weeks ago, all the children at the orphanage died, right along with their caretaker. That alone, if it had stopped right there, would've been the talk of the town for months. You weren't there yourself, but you've already heard the story about how Miss Rita screamed and wailed about the children, right before dying in front of the terrified crowd.

"They say she just sat down, closed her eyes," your brother had said, "and just didn't wake up again! Like she had decided to just sleep forever..."

You look at the hole you've been digging. It's big enough, you think. Just barely big enough, but there are still many holes yet to be dug.

You pause.

The bell tolls, over and over. Seconds pass. Sweat trickles down your temple.

Your shovel shakes as it hovers over the dirt. For this one, just this one, maybe...

You hear a wagon creaking in the distance, and you snap out of it. You force yourself to move to the side and roll the corpse into the shallow grave with the head of your shovel. You begin to bury it, letting it slowly disappear with every shovelful of dirt. You do not think about the mud-stained blanket wrapped around the body, embroidered with the shape of flowers and fruits that you must have traced a hundred times with your fingers. You do not think of long green hair braided and secured with colored string, of ragdolls and pretend-princess playtime fantasies, of secrets whispered to each other in the dark, just before sleep.

You do not think of sleep.

You cannot think of sleep.

The bell tolls, over and over, an ever-present reminder.

The mysterious sleeping sickness had spread from the orphanage since that day, first taking the lives of everyone who lived in that street in a single night. Then, like a spot of mold on a damp wall, the area of infection only grew, and grew, and grew.

You've seen people fall asleep in broad daylight, collapsing to the ground and cracking their heads open on the cobblestones, stone cold dead. You've seen families, dressed in several layers of clothing and carrying hastily packed suitcases, attempt to flee the town, only to return dumbstruck from the border, bringing word that the World Police had apparently instituted a quarantine to "control the epidemic"... and trapping everyone within. You've seen the streets of Toragay become deserted save for the bodies of the forsaken, everyone refusing to leave their homes unless it was absolutely necessary. The town had eventually fallen near silent, save for the endless tolling of the bell, for death after death after death...

"This is our punishment," your grandmother had spat after your parents had explained to her yet again that no, there was no leaving Toragay. "We have turned our back on the earth, and now the earth has turned against us."

She was a Held worshiper, clinging to the old tree god even after your parents had raised you and your brother in the Levin tradition. You were sometimes embarrassed of her and her old-fashioned ways. This was a new enlightened age now! The old tree god was dead, burnt away a hundred years ago. Couldn't she at least worship the new one the Clarith nuns say actually exists? And besides, you had always thought that all the things she said about "the earth" were nothing but old superstitious nonsense.

You had thought that, at least, before you had peeked out the window and saw people load the body of your next-door neighbor into a wagon filled with many other corpses.

That night, you didn't pray to just Levia. You made sure of it.

You turn your face to the wind as you finish burying the body, letting it cool you off as your long hair blows in the wind. Your body screams at you to just stab a stick into the mound of dirt you had just made and move on, but you can't do it. The bell tolls, reminding you of all the time you're wasting. You kneel instead, wishing you had something, anything, a seed, a leaf, or even a flower cutting...

All your prayers, no matter who you prayed to, were of no use. Every sunrise would only reveal more dead, more people who had slept the night before and simply never woken up. By the tenth day, people had become afraid to sleep, yourself included. The chapel bell, rumors said, now tolled endlessly not just because of the countless number of funerals, but also to keep people awake. Sleep and death soon became synonymous, and equally feared.

And you are so tired.

You look up, letting out a deep breath, seeing rows and rows of dirt mounds that stretch out before you, all empty and bare save for a single stick stabbed into the earth, right where the heads should be.

The funerals, having started soon after the deaths of the children, eventually became a never-ending chain. When the announcement came at the end of the first week that families would no longer be allowed to attend funerals, there was a massive outcry. How could people say goodbye to their loved ones? Why were they being denied the chance to personally prepare the grave for planting? Why were they being expected to be happy with the plain generic church-provided daisies and chrysanthemums when they knew the dead best? When the friends and family of the dead obviously knew which plants best represented them?

The reasoning soon became horrifyingly apparent: the first few families who did get to properly grieve their loved ones soon ended up struck with the illness themselves, sometimes even all at once. Entire bloodlines, families that had lived in Toragay for generations since even before the Green Hunting, had been wiped out completely.

The orphans already had the pitiful misfortune of having no kin to plant anything on their graves that would identify and memorialize them save for daisies, but soon there wasn't even enough of those to go around. The church garden was eventually stripped bare, unable to keep up with the rising number of victims.

But that still didn't stop people from trying, and you understood why. Seeing all those bare stick graves felt wrong, in a way that twisted your stomach and sent cold shivers up your back. It felt wrong, to just leave them like that, unmourned and anonymous. If you squinted right, it really did feel like the earth had risen to swallow them whole, something like your grandmother had said. And if you weren't the only one feeling this way, not even an epidemic would be enough to keep people away from making it right.

It certainly didn't stop the little girl you saw a few hours ago, holding a potted plant in her hands and begging for someone, anyone, to please help her find her Mama's grave, please, this was her favorite flower, I just want to plant it where she's sleeping...

You'd taken the plant and sent her home, swearing to the Heavenly Yard and back that you'd plant it for her. But if you were completely honest, you had no idea where her mother's grave even was. She was probably buried two gravediggers ago, or even more.

The families of the dead weren't the only ones dying from funerals.

As the bodies had begun to pile up, there soon became a shortage of people who were able to bury them. The town undertaker had run himself utterly ragged, but so many people were dying so quickly that when he finally succumbed no one could tell if he had dropped dead from the illness or from sheer exhaustion.

Gravediggers too, had been dying in droves. Even the priest himself wasn't safe, eventually being found dead lying across one of the pews in the chapel. People had begun to realize that perhaps the corpses of the dead were the source of the illness, and eventually began wrapping them in sheets and tossing them in the street to rot as soon as they couldn't be roused, like they wre nothing but garbage.

But others in the town had also realized that rotting corpses on the streets of Toragay wouldn't help at all in an epidemic, so regardless of the dangers, they had taken it upon themselves to bury all the dead. They had gone around knocking on doors, collecting bodies and also volunteers. They took anyone who looked old and strong enough to hold a shovel, follow orders, and dig.

Even someone like you.

You hadn't planned to go out. Your family had agreed to stay inside for the duration and you had agreed. But when you saw the best friend you've had since childhood, limp and still, wrapped in that blanket and just lying there outside for the crows...

You couldn't leave her like that. You just couldn't.

You sit back on the ground, suddenly realizing how little strength you have left in your legs. Your hands are shaking, head light and eyelids heavy. How long have you been awake now? A day? Two? Three? You don't know. You've been working almost non-stop since you volunteered.

You idly listen to the ringing of the chapel bell. It suddenly comes to you that instead of keeping you awake, it is instead almost hypnotizing, lulling you to sleep.

It's very tempting. Part of your mind shouts at you to stand up and get back to work, but it's dull and fading fast. Your breathing slows as you slowly slump forward-

"HEY!"

Someone is shaking your shoulder. You think you recognize that voice.

"Don't sleep on me, don't you DARE sleep on me!"

You are suddenly pulled to your feet, the shovel dropping to your ground as you blink back to awareness.

It's your brother, with unkempt green hair and dark circles under his eyes. He looks absolutely terrified, and he's still shaking you frantically.

"WAKE UP!"

"'M awake!" you manage to sputter, gripping his wrists and pulling him off of you. "What are you doing here?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" he snaps back. "You had Father worried sick!"

You wince. "I'm sorry," you say, unable to meet his eyes. "But I, I had to-"

"I never thought my sister would be the kind of person who liked hanging around dead bodies," he says, grimacing at the mounds of dirt and nearby wagons.

"I don't!" you protest. "I just- I-" You consider trying to explain to your brother what possessed you to leave home in the middle of an epidemic, but you give up. "Look," you sigh, "if Father wants me to come home, then I'll go. Just... just give me a few moments."

You've already done what you've come here to do, after all.

Your brother's eyes suddenly shift. "Well, that's the thing. We're not going home."

"What?"

"The pharmacist has packed up all his medicines and he and a bunch of others are going to head for Lord Blankenheim's mansion-"

"Lord Blankenheim's mansion?" you gape in disbelief. "I know it's just a rumor, but didn't Lord Blankenheim die of the sleeping sickne-?"

"If we can join them and just hold out for the World Police, I think we can survive!" He holds your hands tightly, determination in his eyes. "If we go now, I think we can make it before they close the door!"

"Wait, what about Mother and Father?"

"They told me to meet them there!" He's tugging at your arm now, pulling you away from the mound. "Come on!"

"And Grandmother!" you ask, "What about her? You know she can't run that fast!"

Your brother suddenly stops tugging. He stands there, breathing heavily. "I-" he starts, but can't seem to say anything more as he looks at you.

It doesn't matter. His expression says everything you need to know.

You step back, shaking yourself free of his grip. Your heart seems to have turned to ice and dropped right down into your stomach.

"Oh Levia," you whisper, clutching at your head. "Oh Levia..."

Your brother reaches out to you, looking worried, but you can't bear to look at him right now. You turn away, hugging yourself tightly.

How could you have run off like that? How could you have been so selfish? Was she really that important to you, important enough to abandon your own flesh and blood? Your head is starting to spin, and you somehow feel more tired than ever.

You sink to your knees, and you realize that you really can't make yourself go anymore. You're tired of yourself. You're tired of this. You're tired of it all.

You just want to sleep.

As your eyes fall shut, the last thing you notice isn't your brother shouting, but that the ringing of the chapel bell has finally stopped.

fin.