When I sat down, I noticed something right away that I didn't see before. There was some strange looking watch on my wrist, or at least that's what I thought it was at first. It was made of intricately polished stone with a digital screen on one side. The screen itself was blank, though I didn't know how long that would stay that way. I looked to Violet in hopes that she might have an idea, only to be met with a little shake of her head. Fear slowly gripping me, I hastily began skimming through the story.
The writing was awful, as was to be expected of my chicken scratch, but there were a lot of details I could immediately pick out. One of which was some sort of tower that stretched into the heavens. I seemed to have given it several different names, though most of them were crossed out. Pillar of Eternity, The Dungeon, Kadingir were just a few of the names I could visibly read and it gave an ominous vibe. As I continued reading, something bothered me about this tower. I wasn't able to pinpoint what it was right away, though when I finally did, that's when it happened.
BOOM
Before I even had time to register what that was, a swarm of armed troops stormed into the room, surrounding me on all sides. I could even see in my peripherals that they were guarding outside my windows too. The uneasiness I felt from realizing what this tower was left me unable to be shocked by this sudden turn of events. I almost welcomed it, so I wouldn't have to think about what I had just created. At this point, I was willing to accept my death had they figured out I was the cause of all this.
In spite of my selfish desire to atone through death, the men seemed more interested in the object around my wrist. I found that strange at first until I heard one of the men speak.
"Target has heretic object already equipped." A man said into his comm. A muffled reply came through the other side and the man proceeded to grab me tightly by the arm. "Move." He said in a way that left no room for argument.
Resigned to my fate, I let the entourage of military trained soldiers lead me outside to an already waiting armored vehicle. I had no idea what they wanted with me or what they planned to do with me, but I knew that without a doubt, it had something to do with that tower. They prodded me inside the vehicle and closed the door, leaving me surrounding by yet another group of soldiers. No time was wasted as the car rolled off the stone driveway and onto the main road, heading to a destination I could only guess.
Having nothing to do as time passed, I occasionally glanced outside the car through the small windows it had. Violet had a similar look of concern when we both noticed how dead the town seemed. Almost every house we passed by looked as though it had been vacated in a rush or as if no one ever lived there to begin with. It was honestly creepy enough that I just sat silently in the car for pretty much the remainder of the ride. Violet tried to have a one sided conversation with me, since she didn't have to say anything out loud, but I honestly avoided thinking about anything. I didn't want to acknowledge that this was my fault and that this was now my reality. She eventually took notice of my discomfort and stopped trying to cheer me up. After an unknown amount of time sitting in absolute silence, we abruptly stopped, having made it to our destination.
As a glanced up, I could almost see something akin to fear in the eyes of the soldiers. The question as to why was almost immediately answered as the door to the outside world opened. A wasteland of unknown bodies littered the ground in front of my eyes, all having been reduced to bones. I almost vomited as I was shoved out of the vehicle just from that sudden movement as the shock of seeing dead bodies was not something I was used to, even if they were just skeletons. I could almost imagine them being disintegrated and that was enough to make me queasy. A kick from behind, caused me to trip over the bones and pass the pseudo-wall they formed. My balance was corrected almost immediately as the device on my wrist began pulling and drawing me closer to the center. It was at that moment I finally looked up and saw what I had created: the tower of man's pride personified. No longer able to turn back, as the force around my wrist was too great to resist, I faced the fact that I would have to be one of the people to brave that tower.
Come on, it can't be that bad Kylon. Violet tried to reassure me. You have me to protect you.
"Let's hope that's all the difference I need." I mumbled under my breath as I steeled myself to enter the tower.
