Li Ciçad dis Vela. The City of Bells.

Mostly it was just known as the City. Sometimes Ciçad. I knew it as mi Ciçad – my city, my home. It was the largest city for miles, perhaps on the entire continent, perhaps in the entire world at one point. It was also the most beautiful, or perhaps that was just my biased opinion. It was true, though, that no other city had bells quite like ours – hence the name.

There were three bells in each tower, and three towers, one at the east side, one at the west, and one in the center. They would ring at sunrise, at noon, and at sunset, and many visitors would stop in the street just to listen. Such was the effect of our silver bells. You could never tune them out entirely, no matter how long you had lived in the city; they were beautiful, magical, ringing, unignorable. They made you feel like dancing in the street. For one moment, while the bells rang, three times each day, there would be no sound in the city but that music.
I built the city. I made the bells. I drew up the towers, the houses, the buildings, the gates. It was my city, and I loved it like it was my own child. I cared for it, each day. When the bells rang, and I heard the music, I knew I had done well. Three times a day I knew my city, mi ciçad, was truly the greatest accomplishment anyone could hope for. Mi ciçad, mi bele ciçad. Mis beles vela.

I do not hear those bells anymore. No one does. The sound exists now only in memories, and only in mine. All others who heard the music of my bells have perished with the city.

There was a monster, you see. Not a beast – a monster born of jealously, of envy, of pride, of vanity – a human-shaped monster with acid in its stare and fire in its mind. It knew nothing of happiness, of joy, and the music of the bells hurt its ears with its beauty, enraging the monster beyond reason. Each day it endured the sound, three times a day, unable to escape its prison, unable to leave the city. I knew nothing of the monster. No one knew of its existence until the day it broke free, not even I.

Rage, greed, hate, anger, pride, jealousy – these it knew, these it understood, and so it was these it left alone. It hated what it did not understand – the joy of the music of the bells, the happiness people felt when they were rung. And what it hated, it destroyed. My city, mi bele ciçad, was ruined before the sun had fully risen. Its residents lay dead or dying in the rubble; the towers had been crushed to dust; and the bells – mis beles stas vela – my beautiful silver bells – were cracked, broken, covered in the dust of the city, prevented forevermore from ringing out their song. This I saw from where I stood on top of the rubble of my own house. I was the only survivor. My city, every brick, every building, lay dying, lay destroyed before me.  Li ciçad dis vela was no more.

My grief did not last long before it turned to anger. The monster that had destroyed my city, my bells, must die. It must be destroyed. I would seek it out, wherever it was hidden, and I would kill it. I had no plans beyond that; what the death of the monster would bring I did not know, and I did not care; I was blind with my fury. For me, the future held only vengeance.

I did not wait for my head to clear. I began my search for the monster immediately.

There was a problem, though.

The monster was me.