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 ^{(it's beta!)}

No one really questions what the tower's for. It's been there since anyone can remember. No one's ever been seen entering or leaving it. I don't even think there's a way in. Just featureless stone bricks stacked upon eachother, climbing into the invisible reaches of the sky. Vines grow all along it and the stones are bleached with age from the sun and rain. It doesn't even have a name.

But still no one questions it. No one discusses it. It's as if their minds don't even register its existence. Right in the middle of town, people just walk right by it, without even a glance in its direction. Almost like they don't know it's there, but they do. It's been there all this time.

I haven't really payed it any attention until today. All day it's been all I can think about. I've asked people about it but the moment I mention the tower they simply walk by me. I call out to them but they don't listen.

They ignore me. Like I'm not even here.

But I am here. I'm here and the tower's here and I'm going to find out what's going on. I approach the massive structure as people walk by me, only registering my presence enough to maneuver around me.

I look up at the tower and hold back a gasp as I fail to see the tip of it. There has to be something to it. It's so huge. Maybe there's something inside it or waiting at the top of it. There has to be.

I take a few steps near the cold stone and place a palm against it.

It's cold.

So cold I quickly pull my hand back from its surface. I hold it in my other hand and try to rub the warmth back into it. While I do this, I look back at the stone where I can see a clear outline of where my hand was, in stark black. Within the outline is something else. It looks strange, different. Not like stone, to be sure.

I can see inside.

The warmth has returned to my hand. Looking down at my palm, I see a thick blackness, like soot, but it looks more like it's actually part of my hand. Looking back at the wall, the outline of my hand is gone. All that's left is plain stone, faded, dirty, and slightly green. I turn around and look behind me at the busy street, the walkways bustling with people walking by, carrying on about their business, none of them sparing a single glance in my direction, or even anywhere near. It's like they're all making a point to avoid me. Every one of them. I can hear them talking, too. Not any individual one, but the full, cumulated noise of their voices as one. Though even that is unclear. It's faded and muffled, as if my ears need to pop. I notice that as I blink, the noise cuts out. I experiment with this, closing my eyes and then reopening them. Yes, I can't hear them when I close my eyes.

That is more than a bit strange.

I turn back to the tower. I slowly gaze up at it's massive height. I notice that I can't hear the crowd of people behind me when I look at the tower. I close my eyes and I can hear them again. While this is certainly odd, my logical mind tells me that the only thing that doesn't make sense about this is that the tower isn't saying anything, or making any sound at all.

I can't help but to agree.

A thought occurs, and so I cover up both my ears with my hands.

And I listen.

Nothing. Not really, anyway, but somehow I can feel a faint distortion run through me and suddenly I can't move.

I can hear the wind blowing. The rest is silence, but I hear the gentle yet powerful whisper of the wind surrounding me, and though I can't feel this wind a brief shiver runs through my body. Everything is silent but the wind.

And a singing bird I can't recognize.

The sound of the wind grows stronger, more droning. As it reaches its voluminous zenith, it quickly deteriorates into rhythmic clicking and grinding. But more complex than that. Like the sound of one thousand gears, large and small, spinning and cranking in unison. The sound fades and grows as specific minuscule details fade and are quickly replaced by others, until finally they all simply stop.

After a few moments of silence, I slowly remove my hands, and immediately regret it.

All at once a monstrous colossus of sound barrels into me, knocking me backward off my feet and filling my skull. It hurts, and suddenly I can't think.

I clench my eyes closed and cover my ears once more. The sound quickly tapers into something smaller, more concentrated and quiet. I relax and begin to breathe deeply, filling my surprised lungs with the warm, salty air.

It is then that I realize the ground is swaying. I can feel a strong wind blowing across my body and the call of unfamiliar birds. The creaking of wood.

I open my eyes.

The sky is tall; deep blue, with a green tinge. The clouds stretch loosely across it, moving slowly.

The ground beneath me is cold and hard, but not firm. It's rough and creaks when I move.

I sit up and look around.

It's an older ship, made with some wood that I don't recognize. I make out the mast and a set of stairs leading below the deck before my head begins to pound and I clench my eyes shut and rub at my temples.

I faintly discern a growing thumping sound coming from behind me, but I don't look around. I feel the vibrations in the wood as it finally stops just at my back. "A new passenger?" a rusty yet hearty voice calls from behind me. I slowly turn and look up, squinting at the suddenly bright sky. It's a youngish man, though obviously well-traveled. He has short brown hair and a full, though short, beard. He grins wryly at me and winks "Or are you perhaps some clumsy stowaway?"

He holds out a hand and I reach out to grab it. He pulls me to my feet, but doesn't let go of my hand. Instead, he takes a good long look at my palm. After a second, I look too, and am somehow surprised to see it still black. His clever smile is gone and his eyes are somehow more solemn. "Well now, I think you're a bit late, eh?"

My clothes cling to my body as suddenly the wind shifts direction and the boat makes a long, groaning turn. "Get below deck." he calls to me after he turns about and begins to run toward the bow. The ship is immediately alive with the sound of creaking boards and shouting, but as I make my way to the stairs, I don't see a single person.

I hastily walk down and through the large, thick doors. As I walk in, they slam shut behind me, causing me to jump and let out a short gasp of breath. Everything is dark inside save for a long sliver of light coming through a small glass window in the door behind me. I watch for a moment as the dust dances in the light cast before me. I take a step to the side and block the light.

And then I notice a far away glow.

It's slightly green, and not very bright.

And it's flickering.

I take a brief glance behind me to notice there is no more light coming from the door. I can't see anything behind me.

Or in front of me. Just the glow. It pulsates and quickly spreads. It rapidly forms veins of bright green light, piercing the darkness and surrounding me in fluorescent jagged wires.

They pulse brightly for a moment as I hear an all-encompassing sigh emanate from their source.

As I walk towards it, the air begins to cool. There's no wind, and no moisture, but I can feel a strange, dynamic energy permeating all around me.

I shiver. Suddenly my clothes seem rather inadequate. My breath billows out in smoky green puffs.

After a while, I slowly realize that I don't appear to have gotten any closer to the source of the light. I pause for a moment and simply gaze absently at the crooked green wires. Their glow does seem incredibly unnatural. It's as if they are themselves made of light, but it's still very faint. It's a strange, concentrated glow. I notice that they are still pulsating, but softly. It comes in small pulses of light traveling along the length of each wire. They move very quickly, and each is followed mere seconds later by another.

I approach one and touch it. It's cold to the touch, but not unpleasantly. I hold a finger there for a moment, silently waiting for something to happen. Then I remove it, gazing curiously at my finger, then the wire.

Then I place my other hand on it. The blackened one.

I am light for a moment.

And I am before the source of the wires.

I look up to see a man floating high above the ground. He is a very young man. A grown boy, even.

The wires are growing from his head.

His mouth doesn't move as he addresses me.

"Some say it was built by those who wished to reach the heavens.

it is our duty to protect and maintain its presence..."

His eyes shifted about strangely before resting on mine.

"Until those who could use it might emerge."

The green light pulsated behind his eyes. It was as if he was held aloft and completely powered by the green wires. His head lolled to one side.

And I felt a stinging in my hand. I looked down to see a wire had punctured it. I tried to jerk it away, but it was stuck. The pain crawled across my arm as the wire burned bright and my vision became white.

The stinging faded, but I began to feel more wires burying themselves into me; my hand and the back of my skull.

"You will need the both of them."

I felt myself held aloft, dangling limp, unable to move. My eyelids fell and my vision cleared.

It was slightly dim, but not unclear. There was faint light glowing through the windows, through the thin curtains. It seemed natural enough. I could see the dustmotes floating lazily over desklamps, books, pens, an old chair in the corner and all manner of antiquities. I was comfortably seated before a large desk, covered in many obviously valuable items and dust.

There was a man sitting on the other side, smiling at me, his head lazily lolled to one side.

He winked. "And here we are."

He was an odd sort of man. He leaned back and to the side in his seat as he rested one arm on the desk and draped the other behind the back of the chair. He wore thick glasses, with thin, wiry frames. The light from the windows glinted off of them like gold.

He smiled at me, as though curious and somewhat eager.

"'How did I arrive here? It's so strange. It's like I'm in another world.' That's what you're thinking. You'll excuse me, but that's a silly notion at this point, and I think you'd agree. Oh, but please, how was old Comodon? I swear, that ship's become as much a part of him as his flesh. I understand your time was brief. He seemed quite flustered when he contacted me. I'm a bit jittery myself, really. This is the first time in either of our lifetimes one of you has ventured here. It's almost a curse that it doesn't happen more often, but I suppose it's only become natural.

"But enough of this, yes? Come!" He leaned forward and sprung into standing. Clearing the distance around the desk, he held out a hand, welcoming me to do the same, then he wordlessly led me out the door. He seemed almost too excited to speak.

We walked through a long hallway. While still dusty and seemingly ancient, this area was less comfortable. The walls, floor and ceiling were simple matrices of gray stone, rough and cold to the touch.

We continued down the hallway for several minutes, all the while the man never lost his air of unbridled anticipation. He would at times request that I excuse the fowl setting, as it was once used as a dungeon for prisoners (of what, he couldn't say). He would also remind me that I was the first of my kind to appear.

"The first in many ages, yes. This will be most extraordinary."

Eventually, we reached the end of the hallway. There were no stairs or turns, but a simple straight path, yet as I looked behind us I could not see more than twenty feet before everything faded into shadows.

He turned me back around gently by the shoulders and gestured with an open hand to a large, ornately crafted steel door. "To my extreme dismay, this is as far as I may escort you. But rest assured, I will be monitoring your progress every step of the way. Oh! And I will alert the Beneath of your arrival at once! Yes!"

For a moment, he made as if to shake my hand, but then seemed to think better of it and patted my shoulder instead. He then turned about and made a hurried walk back down the hallway, muttering jumbled thoughts as he went.

After his form disappeared into the shadows, I turned back around and faced the door. It was tall, looming at least a solid twenty feet above me. There was a large hole at the top, from which descended a long chain. It was crafted of what seemed to be interlocking gold and silver links, and stopped just short of the floor.

I approached the door and grasped the chain. For a faint moment I thought I felt it hum.

And as I pulled, the door began to slide open.

The light was blinding at first, but I shielded my eyes and stepped through the door. It took some time for my eyes to adjust to the natural light and just as I regained focus I heard the door close behind me with the sound of a latch behind it. I disregarded that as I took in the new panoramic spectacle.

Before me extended a stone bridge atop an endless sea of mist. Above me the sky was completely clear, a flawless shade of blue, the sun located directly overhead. But somehow I felt like there was a film over the sky. The sun shone in a strange, indirect way, like it was more distant than normal. The air was cool and still, but I could hear a roaring like wind coming from below. Beneath the mist I assumed.

At the other end of the bridge was a tower, nearly identical to the one that was now behind me. I began walking toward it, though cautiously, my eyes constantly scanning the horizon.

Yet it took me several seconds to notice that the sun had begun to set at an alarming rate. I stopped to observe it and so did it. It rested firmly in one place in the sky, though notably lower than mere moments before. I began to walk forward again, slowly, and I saw the sky begin to dim. I was halfway across the bridge when the glowing colors on the horizon grew into existence. They burned brighter and brighter until the sun was lowered into it and seemingly consumed by the amber flame.

And then a deafening crack pierced the silence and echoed indefinitely, never fading and growing and multiplying into a single but infinite sound that I could feel more than hear. In that moment words appeared in my mind, as though from a story or scripture, and I felt another presence.

"And from the silence came a sound - beyond conceivable pitch and louder than the universe. It pierced my mind and I was changed."

Just as I could feel my brain begin to vibrate the sound came to a stop, reverberating for only a second before returning to what seemed like an impossible state of silence.

And when I looked up at the horizon I was startled at what I saw. In the middle of the vivid colors just at the edge of the sky was a deep black circled. Just a circled floating at the end of the sea of clouds.

Within seconds I could make out black lines extending from the circle, branching into straight paths in all directions. They were cracks in the sky. I knew because I could hear it shattering. The cracks quickly spread across the sky, above me, and clear to the other side. When I saw pieces begin to fall from around the hole where the sun used to be I ran.

I kept running until I reached the end of the bridge. There was a large covering over the entrance where I watched dusk fall into the mist below me, leaving a newborn sky full of deep blackness and a million points of light. A breeze hit my face and I turned to the door. There was a large bronze ring the size of my head hanging from the clenched teeth of a gargoyle. I thought it was strange that its expression made it seem almost like it was crying.

I gave the door an experimental push but with no effect. I looked back up to the brass door-knocker. I took a moment to just sit in anticipation before slowly reaching up and grasping the handle. Another breeze ran across my clothes and through my hair as I lifted the strangely heavy brass ring and let it drop once.