A bell rings throughout the grounds, it's sonorous chime floating up and into the wind, the bell's owner stepping lightly across the leaf strewn field.  Each five steps, a ring.  Each second breath, a step.  This was the duty of the Keeper, watching and ringing the bell.  It was clasped in a gloved hand, black as midnight, no seams or stitching visible.  The Keeper's robes made no sound, but ruffled the leaves with each step.

Stark trees stood like skeletal hands reaching towards the sky, devoid of life save for the few dying leaves that remained on their branches.  Stone tablets on either side stood thigh high, the only solemn remembrance of those lain to rest.  The Keeper knew each name and face, memory cemented deep within the earth itself.   Some were shaped like crosses, others were long and thin with names carved from top to bottom.  One of the greatest of the epitaphs was an obelisk in the distance, cracked and blackened, characters describing the brutal death of a common man made ruler by the hands of a jealous minister.

Whether those who lay here had been evil or good, old or young, cowardly or courageous, the Keeper cared not.  The vigil remained, the chiming of the bell keeping the dead asleep and dreaming.  There were many things in every world the Keeper had seen in the memories of the resting, things of terrible devotions and intoxicating destruction.  One had seen the love of his life, sharp and in contrast to the rest of his world, speared through the back by soldiers as his king burned the greatest city in the known world.  Another, a little girl, watches a flash of light, then cries out from the sudden pain of deep burns, a torii standing tall against the destructive wave while all burned around it.  Two more side by side, a crowd led by a man with a headdress of the sun chanting, spitting and throwing rocks at the final loving embrace of two women, hooped ropes swinging on thick branches.

In all of these memories, hatred and fear flows deeply, like a river.  The Keeper feels none of the emotion, face covered in a deep black hood, ringing the bell of the vigil.  No soul could leave, no light would beacon.  This, too, was the duty destined for the Keeper.  For if there were no vigil, there would be no Keeper.  If there were no Keeper, there'd be none to ring the bell.  If the resting heard no chime, then that river would break, swallowing the world in black despair for the wrongs committed to these souls.  

Another step, and the sound of a bell chimes.