The Tower – A Full Circle

“Nolan WATCH OUT YOU IDIOT!” shouted a woman, grabbing the man in front of her by his sleeve and pulling him back. It was right as an ancient blade slipped out of a crack in the wall that would have cut the man in half.

“Oh, thanks Mary. Damn, almost left you widowed, shame it wasn’t a raging flame of an ancient beast, or your deadly embrace,” he remarked with a sneer, but Mary was quick to knock it off his face with a smack on the backside of his head.

“Agh! Fine fine, I’ll behave. Sheesh, don’t have to be so rough with me, we’re not at ho-” he began, but paused as soon as he noticed her death glare. It was the kind of look she gives you when you know you best bite your tongue and probably apologize. He swallowed audibly, turning away from the wall that had almost killed him and following in her steps. Quite literally at that – each step exactly as she takes it.

As they walked in silence for a while, their echoing footprints accompanied only by the sound of occasional crackling from Nolan’s torch.

“Say, Mary, do you ever-” his sentence was cut off yet again by a sudden ‘shh’ from Mary. She stopped mid-step and stood very still.

“What is it?” he whispered.

She glanced around cautiously, “Something is very wrong…”

He followed her gaze, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. It was a dark tunnel, much like all the others, stone walls, nothing unusual.

“Mary, should I take lead?” he whispered, taking a step closer, reaching for her hand. His fingers slid across her hand as she jerked it away. He realized now – she wasn’t wearing her ring. A moment of doubt washed over him.

“Silence! Listen…” she pointed to the right from where a distant rumble could be heard.

The rumble, akin to distant thunder, ceased at last. She let out a sigh of relief, “Tread carefully,” she whispered, taking a few cautious steps forward, toward an intersection with three directions to choose from. To the left was a very narrow opening, leading into a void of darkness. Straight ahead was the continuation of the current hallway. Then to the right was a wooden door.

L.L.: Narrow opening sounds like a great idea Kira FuntomRaiden: would prefer the wooden door >.>

O.F.: I recently learned that boring wooden doors are no good.. so narrow it shall be!

L.G.: void of darkness sounds safe I would take that route ^^ Niknax NougatSagittarius: the door, doors are meant to be opened.

S.Y.: >> Let’s say wooden door :P.

L.J.: I like dimly lit narrow hallways uwu.

“Door,” Nolan says.

“No,” Mary responds in a half hiss, “we go left, door is clearly going to lead to some sort of sacrificial chamber.”

Nolan glanced to the right, “Huh!? Why?”

Mary sighed, pointing at the engravings above the door that seemed to bear religious meaning.

“Sacrificial chamber, probably, most likely.”

He shrugged, “Fine, lead the way, as you ‘always’ do.”

The narrow opening was quite narrow. Not only did they have to walk in a single line, but the opening got narrower the further they went. Nolan kept noticing intricate scribing and engravings on the walls. Some of them were pictures. Others were a lot more bone-chilling as they resembled clawing, accompanied by what he could only assume were blood trails from the ripped off fingernails of people who fell victim here.

Nolan thought he heard a sound behind him, but it was far too narrow for him to turn and see. He stopped, staring at a picture that was basically pressed into his face, carved in a stone. It showed two doors, under them were pictures of a coffin, and a flower.

“Mary, what’s this!?” the hall was too narrow to turn their heads, they were almost stuck.

“What do you see!?”

He described it to her.

After a moment of silence she replied, “The door leads to heaven and hell at once.”

“Certain ancient civilizations believed that in death there was both eternal salvation and torment, same time. Who would want to live an eternity in heaven? Doesn’t that just sound like hell? I agree with their opinion.”

“You are my heaven,” he whispered softly. She only scoffed in response, “yea, right. Come on, we’re almost through.”

As they finally made it out of the narrow opening and took a breath of relief. At last, they were able to breathe with their fully. They rejoiced, but not for very long, as the path ahead split into two. Two gateways on either side, each darker than the other, as if doors made of a veil of shadows that one could not peer through.

“And now…” he whispered softly. She shrugged.

“Each door leads to heaven and hell, pick your poison,” speaking softly she pulled out a torch of her own and lit it off of his. The ground beneath them shook, and the wall behind them ground to a closure.

“Of course,” he replied softly, “…and still no flames.”

Mary glanced at him and sighed, “So? Which will you pick!?”

He looked at her with a hint of concern, “I want to go with you,” he whispered.

“I don’t think that works. Left or right for you?”

L.L.: left is faster Niknax NougatSagittarius: left! because Mary is always right.

L.G.: right ^^.

L.J.: i say go right then.

S.Y.: Left.

“Since you’re always ‘right’ I’ll go left,” he mocked her, brushing his hand against hers as he walked past her. She gave him a sarcastic half smile, “Yeah, I am.”

Watching him take a step through the shadowy door, she couldn’t help but be fascinated. As soon as he went through it, he disappeared and the door turned into a solid wall.

“Haaah, I knew it, can’t follow him,” she uttered to herself, passing through the right door.

On the other side, Nolan found himself in a chamber, a typical trap room. There was a slit in the wall to his right, through which he could see Mary, his wife, wandering into her room. It was almost an identical room. He heard a noise, as if a distant whisper, incoherent yet obvious. For a moment he thought it was his own voice. Something inside him sank, a chill ran down his spine as he peered through the slit in the wall at his wife.

Her room trembled momentarily, he heard her sweet voice whisper, “Damned you be, stupid towe-” her words were muffled by a roar of flames that erupted from the ceiling. As if a fireball shot by an ancient vile beast. This was a creature of nightmares in horror stories. Nolans jaw dropped as his heart sank. In disbelief he watched his wife consumed by the savage flame. The shock left him frozen in place, his mind shattering in the heart-stopping moment.

Tears flowed down his cheeks, yet he kept his eyes wide open- watching the horrifying scene before him. It was as if the time had slowed, he could see her writhing in agony as she succumbed to her destiny. The roar of flames muffled her screams, but in the last moment she glanced at him, at the slit in the wall.

He thought himself trapped in a waking nightmare. A scene he couldn’t believe he just witnessed. She was there one moment, and now, only smoldering remnants and half molten stones remain in her place. His heart pounding, beating against his ribs as if desperate to break free from this nightmare. His mind swirled into a chaotic mess of despair, regret, and disbelief. His decision just led to her death. He was the one responsible for it.

His helplessness left him dumbfounded as he stood there, engulfed by sorrow and regret.

“M-Mary… no, this, this can’t be happening. This surely can’t be!” he turned to face the door through which he entered, one that was no longer there. A wall in its place.

“No, this, surely, not, this did not happen this can’t be real!”

However the wall proved to be quite solid, and the stench of burned matter seeping through the slit in the wall seemed quite real.

Before his mind had a chance to process it further, plunging him into despair, letting chaos overwhelm it, a wall on the opposite side slid open. From within it a whiff of fresh air beckoned for him. He felt obligated to follow the scent of freshness. He felt that if he lingered in this room any longer he’d break, and never take another step in his life.

“Onwards,” he whispered, swallowing audibly. For a moment a thought crept up on his mind, ‘it was a beautiful flame.’.

He clenched his fist, nails digging into his own flesh, “No!” he grunted, taking a step through the opening. On the other side – a cozy scenery welcomed him. As if made to soothe his despaired mind, before him was a haven. Lush greenery, beautiful orchards, berry bushes all around, and not a soul in sight. Blissful quietness, fresh air, gentle breeze.

He stayed in the heavenly garden for a few hours, or so he thought. In reality – days passed, or maybe more. Here, his mind was at peace. There were no thoughts that bothered him. Every time he’d step out of this blissful place into another one of several corridors, memories of her death, of the rampaging flames would return. Memories of their arguments, and his mistakes would resurface in an instant. Unbearable memories he sought to escape.

Days passed in a blink of an eye. He foraged for food, fortunately for him – it was in abundance in this garden. There was even a cycle of day and night, or rather – light and dark. He wasn’t quite sure where the light was coming from. It was as if the ceiling itself would turn light or dark, driving his sleep cycles. A convenient place to live out the rest of his life – he thought to himself. In solitude and comfort.

However, one night a storm was brewing. Flashes of light akin to lightning, roaring and grinding as if rolling thunder. The floor beneath him shook as if a violent thunderclap propagated through the room. It jolted him awake. Unlike all other nights, this one wasn’t peaceful. Full of fear and anxiety he watched flashes of light getting ever closer, from within one of the tunnels.

A shape leapt out of the tunnel with a roll, jumping swiftly to their feet. The person shone a light at the tunnel that crumbled behind them. Nolan watched it in awe – the agility, precision, it was a well-trained adventurer he could tell. He took a step closer, stepping on a twig that snapped under his foot.

“Oops,” he whispered. The person turned, shining their light in his direction, blinding him.

As the light got closer, his heart pounded faster. Fear and anxiety consuming his mind, “Uhm, h-hey. Uh, there’s, plenty of food and it’s s-safe here,” he spoke softly, holding his hands out in a soothing gesture while taking a hesitant step back.

“I-I mean no harm! I’m just, uhm, stuck here. Who are you!?” he stuttered but the light-bearing shape only kept walking closer in silence.

There was a certain aura about them. They were cold, collected, and intimidating. Each step they took was filled with resolve and determination to get closer to their goal. Nolan’s heart stopped the moment the person stopped their advance a step away. He couldn’t see their features since the light was still blinding him.

“C-could you, the light, uhm,” he hesitated, but before he could utter another word he felt arms around him. It was a tight hug that he was not expecting. Her scent instantly flooded his mind.

It was her. It was Mary, there was no mistaking her scent, her grasp.

“M-Mary!?” he gasped. Instantly wrapping his arms around her he pulled her into a tight embrace. His right hand on the back of her head, holding her tightly. For a moment he got concerned that he was harming her.

“Mary!? Is-is that really!? No, yes!? Please for the love of gods tell me it’s you.”

He felt her fingers on his back, her nails digging into his back as she squeezed herself tighter against him.

“Nolan, you idiot. I’ve missed you so dearly, where had you gone!?”

His body trembled and his knees buckled. He brought her down to the ground with him. They sat in a loving embrace for what felt like hours.

At last, when the light came yet again. When they had enough of embracing each other, they took a long moment to gaze into each other’s eyes. The reunited lovers, at last, set out. At the threshold he paused. Hesitation and doubt filled his mind, his body trembled at the fear of thoughts that were about to come flooding the moment he stepped through.

She rolled her eyes, grasping his hand and tugging him along, “Come on Nolan. We’ve been through this before. Have you explored these paths at all!?”

He shook his head in hesitation, but followed her lead. As he stepped through, the thoughts remained at bay. The warmth of her skin on his, her gentle hand, and her familiar tight death-grip that she had kept his mind soothed and kept the despair tucked away.

Room after room, traps upon traps. The usual boulder traps, collapsing floors, and they all stood no chance before the reunited couple.

“Why are we h-.”

Nolan begun but Mary hushed him with a hissing ‘shhh’. It felt familiar, way too familiar to him. She was definitely his Mary.

“Oh no,” she whispered.

“W-what is it?”

Nolan replied.

“Did you notice that we’ve entered a palace? It’s palace. We’re being hunted. It has trapped us yet again,” Mary spoke softly, glancing around. They were in a room of sorts, akin to a ballroom. Along the walls stood tables with chairs, and the center was a large open space.

“How!? When?”

Nolan pondered, realizing that he was struggling to keep track of the environments as they were changing so rapidly.

She pulled hard on his hand, “Remember Nolan, do NOT bleed, it can smell your blood. Remember the layout!?”

Nolan swallowed hard, hesitating, “Remember!?”

She nodded, misunderstanding his intentions, “Good! Move swiftly.”

She led them up the stairs of the palace. Blood-red carpets lined the floors. Off in the corner a suspicious lump lay, but Mary pulled him the other way. He wasn’t sure what it was.

When they rounded a corner, Nolan tried to grasp the edge of the door, but Mary slapped his hand away, throwing an angry glare at him, “Nolan! Focus! We’ve been through this floor before, recall the trap placements.”

He gulped, ‘have we?’ he thought, but found himself too afraid to ask. He simply followed her lead, too afraid to split up.

As they rounded another corner, his heart stopped. In the shadows before them stood a silhouette. Tall, muscular, but radiating an aura of murder. The stench of death coming off of it. Mary paused, glaring up at the creature of the night. In the flickering light of Nolan’s torch, the creature’s fangs glistened brightly as it seemingly grinned.

The moment she pulled an object from the back pocket of her pants is the moment Nolan’s suspicions came to be. She was different, not the Mary he knew. She punched at the creature with the agility of a well-trained fighter and a precision of a hunter stalking their prey. There was not a single hint of hesitation of fear in her movements, but rather – excitement.

His Mary was no fighter, yet she was now engaged in a hand-to-hand combat on equal grounds with a creature two heads taller than her. His instincts and reflexes were that of a survivalist, a hunter who is used to fighting for survival.

He pounced at her but as she sidestepped, realizing she put Nolan in harm’s way, she stepped back. His long claws, akin to knives, dug into her shoulder. A pained grunt escaped her lips, followed by a playful smirk and a sly whisper, “Revenge is a dish best served with titanium through the heart.”

In a swift strike she pierced the creature’s heart. Her eyes fixated on the creature’s distorted face. Blood dripped from the corners of his lips as fear-struck eyes shot wide open. He watched his hunter, one he assumed to be his prey, grinning madly at him.

His torch went out, and darkness swallowed them. As they stood there in silence, only his frightened breaths and her panting broke the silence; his thoughts rummaged through the possibilities. ‘She IS Mary,’ he thought to himself, ‘but, how is she so, different?’ He pressed the palm of his hand against her back, then slowly slid it up and to the side, over to her shoulder.

“Mary?”

“Y-yes!?” she panted.

“Are you,” he began then swallowed audibly, changing his mind.

“Are you alright!?”

She turned, switching her flashlight on and shining it around the room.

“It has escaped my wrath yet again…”

Nolan glanced at her injured shoulder, “You sure you’re alright!?”

She shrugged, “Been through worse, he didn’t get a chance to tear my flesh like last time. Let’s move.”

She led them out the room and back into the corridor, pausing just long enough to flash her light at the lying husk off in the distance before swiftly turning and walking the other way. Nolan caught a glimpse of it now, it was a corpse, wearing brown tactical pants, and a gray coat, akin to the one he was wearing.

He followed her in silence for a while before at last finding themselves back in the familiar stone corridors of the tower.

“Was that,” he gulped. She glanced over her shoulder, wincing from pain, “Finally get it!? Yes. My rage is fueled by loss of you, my dear…” she whispered softly, then forced a smile.

“Then how!?” he whispered.

“This tower, it truly lives up to its name, doesn’t it!? The Tower of Torment. We should never have dared step foot inside it.”

“How long!?” he asked curiously.

“How long were you in that garden of salvation?” she shot back with a smirk.

“I, uhm, I-don’t know.”

She nodded, “Exactly. Neither do I. Years? Months? I’ve seen you die twice.”

“Twice!?” he gasped, stopping in his tracks.

“So, wait, no but, how!?”

She shrugged, “Every decision you make is both heaven and hell at once. A Schrodinger’s tower if you will. At every corner you die and not die. Every door you choose not to open, you opened. You’ve noticed it right!? The rooms changing? Adjusting?”

“Y-yes,” he swallowed audibly, his mind overwhelmed with the information, flooding and washing away his rationality and logical thoughts.

“Yes, that’s how. Every room you didn’t go through is the room you went into at the previous intersection, and that’s how I am here, we went through the door on the right, you didn’t. Somewhere, in some room, there are you and I, making a life and death decision for each other. And somewhere, at the bottom of this tower, there lies a throne.”

“Throne?” he asked curiously.

“Ah, I see. You’ll find out in due time, for now – try not to die, I couldn’t handle watching you die a 3rd time.”

Nolan nodded softly, “S-sure, and you… uhm, stay away from flames.”

She glanced over her shoulder, holding his gaze for a moment before bursting into laughter.

“Oh, I see…” her voice carried a hint of knowledge that he couldn’t perceive.

As they passed through a room within which a skeleton laid against the wall, Nolan paused, picking up a diary from its hand.

“I need a break,” Mary whispered. With each passing hour, her movements were getting more sluggish. He remained oblivious of her wound for far too long, leaving it untreated. As he sat against the other corner of the room, he noticed her pulling a diary out to jot in it.

He flipped the one he picked up open.

“Day 37, I’m on the 17th floor, a vile beast hunts me, I hear its breath in my ear when I least expect it. It seemingly finds joy in the act of hunt, but not the act of killing. I hear it howling at nights, stalking me during the day, watching me from the shadows. When I fall asleep, I feel its breath on my skin. I’ve gone sleepless for three nights now, I must escape this floor else I will fall prey to it.”

He flipped a dozen or so pages later.

“Day 63, I encountered the old Nolan. He told me of the throne room at the 1st floor, said the access lies on the floor 57, suggested that the throne grants a wish, any wish one could desire, but the trick is not to ask it to escape the tower. When I asked for details, he spoke silently. As if his voice disappeared, he couldn’t tell me. Is there no escape!?”

Flipping to the last page, the writing was shaky, unstable, “The wound was more serious than I had anticipated. Damned bloodsucker got me as he got my Nolan. I’m so-” the note ended with a line to the edge of the page. He heard a thump, and as he glanced up from the diary, he saw Mary collapsed on the floor.

“N-no,” realization set in at last. The skeleton in this room, the diary, it was her. This happened before.

“Mary!”

He jumped up and rushed to her side, but it was far too late, she laid unresponsive on the floor.

“No! Not again!” his heart lurched as everything around him seemed to collapse. Any sense of stability vanished in an instant. His hope for a change was a joke as was her last breath.

“Mary…” his voice barely escaped his trembling lips as he sobbed on the floor, clenching her hand, “No, not this again!”

The memories of her first death came flooding in an instant. The roaring flames in his memories made his chest burn. His mind was ablaze from agony.

As he clenched her hand in his, and his mind – a chaotic storm of agonizing thoughts and memories of her deaths, both of them now, along with the realization that he had been here before, this very room, for the skeleton against the wall lies in the same position as her. The fact she watched him die as well, the torment she had gone through, these thoughts were unbearable to him. Amidst the chaos of emotions, something within him snapped.

Realization set in – if this had already happened, the best he could do was do something to make it not happen again. He had to break the cycle, he obviously succeeded before, somehow. If the diary speaks of old Nolan, he had managed to get past here without her death, probably. This tower was playing a cruel game, and the life of him and his partner were the prizes.

A silent sob and a shudder propagated through his body as he punched the floor with all his might, gritting his teeth and forcing himself up, “No!” he groaned, “Not going to die here. She is not going to die here!”

As he stepped away from the body, something new beckoned him now. A door opened in the wall behind him, a voiceless voice called for him, as if offering him a chance.

He turned. His legs moved of their own accord, ignoring the last call of his rational thoughts begging him to stop this game, to move on and accept his loss. Through a short corridor he walked, the sound of his heartbeat like thunder in his ears, shattering his thoughts with every step he took.

The corridor shifted ever so slightly, suddenly the path ahead was blocked, a passage to the left opened up. He followed it. A faint flicker of distant light through a narrow slit in the wall ahead of him sent a chill through his body. His eyes darted around two larger chambers – a place where it all began. To his left was a room with Mary. To his right – there he was, peering at her through a slit in the wall.

“No,” he whispered softly. His other self, glanced around. He remembered, a voice he heard that sounded like his own. His body trembled as his hands gripped a lever in front of him. It all made sense now. It was his own voice he heard, and now it all made a full circle. He was stuck here, playing this tower’s twisted game – he chose it, and now he had to choose again: left, or right.

His body jerked, tensing up as his eyes welled up. He was to watch her die again, for the 3rd time? Or perhaps the first. The choice he made remains, and his body would not object to his decision. He pulled the lever to the left, just as his first decision was to go left – sentencing her to her demise.

Related tales: Tower of Torment

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