Chapter XIII: The Tower

Tom traverses the tower.

What I found inside the tower was… unexpected. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had simply exploded; or if it was some horrific hellscape from another universe. I wouldn’t have even been shocked if there were thousands of burnt, mutilated bodies strewn across the cavernous rooms.

I did not expect the chrome interior of what appeared to be a war-centered history museum. Weapons from all different eras, from the stone age to current, lined the walls surrounding the single helical staircase that led towards the top of the structure. There must have been a thousand armaments, easily. There were guns, swords, cannons mounted to the wall, battleaxes, caesti, and tattered, broken suits of armor. None of the armor pieces were undamaged. As unsettling as it was; it was impressive. I started to climb, dreading the ascent.

It was about three stories up when I began to feel anxious. It seemed as if the cannons pointed directly at me at all times. The sound of guns cocking echoed around me. Swords seemed to vibrate in their displays. The armor creaked and groaned, ready to fall apart completely. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I stopped climbing, and all went silent.

“Ikai…” I whispered to myself.

There was no response.

I took a step, and in a split second, I felt an immense heat shooting through my leg. I looked down to see the flames from outside pouring into the structure. They almost seemed fluid; alive. I started to run up the stairs, and the stair I had just left exploded into shrapnel. I looked back to see a cannonball falling into the inferno. Looking around, I noticed that one of the cannon muzzles was smoking. I hear a fuse ignite. I bolted up the stairs.

My heart was pounding with each step. The heat from the fire below me was getting more and more intense, cannons were firing at me from all angles, loaded guns discharged, their bullets ricocheting off the steel walls, and I had to avoid falling to my death. I was not having fun.

I miss that bear. I thought to myself as a cannonball whizzed over my head.

Suddenly, one of the cannons fired a chain shot. I wasn’t expecting it, and I didn’t have time to predict its erratic spinning trajectory. It caught me on my leg, pulling it out from under me. If it had hit my real leg, the shot would have easily cut my leg in two. Even as it was, the shot pulled me along, sending me careening over the railless edge in the center of the staircase. I punched my prosthetic hand through the metal, grabbing hold of the hole just before completely falling.  My other hand caught my hat and put it back onto my head.

I hung from the stairs by the middle of my fingers. A cannonball finally connected, landing square in my gut. I coughed hard, and my grip loosened. My hand slid down, and I barely managed to tighten my fingertips onto the hole. I was getting desperate. I saw the cannon directly across from my head ignite. Putting my other hand into the hole, I winced as the rough-cut edge sliced into my hand. The laser cutter on my hand charged, and then over-charged. I took a deep breath, which was hard because of the amount of pain shooting through my hand. This cannon would either kill me or save me.

I counted down in my head.

3…

2…

1…

Now!

I blasted my laser forward just a hundredth of a second after the cannon fired. The ball of energy and the cannonball collided just in front me, and the ball exploded. The force of the blast blew me back, swinging me up as my hand dislodged from the hole. I sailed upwards through the air. I reached out and grabbed the outer rail on the other side of the stairs and pulled myself back over. I didn’t have the luxury to take a breath before I bolted up the stairs once more.

The tower felt like it was a million stories high, but eventually, I reached the top. There was a plain wooden door at the top of the landing. Throwing my shoulder against it, I busted the door open, tumbling inside. The ground was cold and steady, apparently unfazed by the madness that had just occurred. I laid there for a few moments. My clothes were smoldering; a few embers had attached themselves to my coat. I clenched my fist. As the adrenaline dissipated, I felt the blood oozing from my hand. I bit my scarf and tore a piece off of it, wrapping it around the wound. Wincing, I pushed myself up off the ground. I stood and immediately slumped back against the doorframe. My leg was locked up and not responding. With my good foot, I stomped on the broken door. One of the planks splintered off and, grudgingly, I picked it up and held it under my arm.

The room I was in now was even more unsettling than the staircase. The only lighting in the room came from candles, but their dark hue gave the space a sinister feel rather than a romantic one. The fires did not seem to be natural. Hobbling over to one, I found that I couldn’t blow it out. Even stranger, the room was large and circular, with no doors and no exits except the staircase. Leaving aside the frivolity of having a giant, deadly, man-slaughtering staircase that led to an empty room, I was sure that I hadn’t reached the very top of the tower.

I sighed. Someone was testing me. I walked willingly into a trap, and I’d be damned if I couldn’t figure it out. I started compiling all the information I had in my head. Given the recent events, I thought it would be safe to assume that I would need to pay attention to the fire. There were exactly ninety-seven lit candles in the room. I saw two unlit candles on the antipodes of the room. Assuming I could light those, there would be ninety-nine candles lit. Of course, whether that f*****g meant anything was a mystery. The room also had three mirrors in it; spaced seemingly at random positions along the wall. Other than the candles and mirrors, the room was completely empty.

I’d had enough fire already, so I decided to take a look at the mirrors. They weren’t mounted to the wall in any way; they just stayed where they were put. I looked into one of them, and it showed the back of my head. Strange… Another showed the left of my profile, and the other, finally, showed my front. My glasses were burnt, the plastic melted into itself. My hat was frayed along the edges, matching my coat. I looked like s**t. My hand was still bleeding. After a short period of indecisiveness, I unwrapped my hand. Gritting my teeth, I held my palm over one of the candles, searing the wound shut as the flames licked my hand. Oddly enough, the flames did not catch my sleeve on fire.

With my hand in a semi-usable condition, I tried using the candle to ignite different things around the room. They wouldn't burn my scarf, nor the wick of either of the unlit candles. Each flame seemed to be confined to a specific candle.

Next, I went to pry one of the mirrors from the wall. It wouldn't budge, but I found that I could slide the mirrors in any direction along it. Since I couldn’t do anything else, I began shuffling the mirrors around, finding that the angle of their images were also fixed. I moved the mirrors around into just about every position I could, even when they didn’t make a pattern (which really irked me). I decided to replace the unlit candles into their respective holders.

Eventually, I happened to move the left-view mirror above the stand for the unlit candle on the left side of the room. The candle ignited, and the mirror showed me a different image; Alex. She was chained to a wall, slouched onto her knees, and unconscious. It made me angry. Forgetting about my leg, I dropped the crutch, moving to the other side of the room. I moved the back-facing mirror into position above the other candlestick, but nothing happened. Frustrated, I turned around. Once my back was facing the mirror, I heard the candle ignite. The Alex mirror shifted and showed me another image. It was a picture of another unlit candle. I turned and looked directly into the last mirror, and that candle ignited.

There was a slow, methodical clapping coming from behind me. I turned, and the door had been fixed and re-mounted on the wall.

“Quit f*cking toying with me!” I shouted and broke down the door again.