Zenith’s Tower

Ellis stepped through the doors. All he could see was white. He missed the sun, as stupid as that sounded. He finally felt safe. He took a deep breath in, expecting to smell the fresh grass or flowers but, instead, his nostrils were filled with a disgustingly familiar smell. Monster corpses.

It can’t be.

His eyes adjusted. There was no grass. No flowers. Destroyed military vehicles were scattered throughout the field. A couple of steps from him was the dead body. It looked and smelled as though the body had been there for weeks. The rotting carcass looked blankly into the sky.

Then Ellis’s eyes drifted to something huge laying on the ground. It had wings and spikes all down it’s back. It was probably ten feet long. He had never even seen anything like that in the Tower.

“What the hell happened?!”

Shock and fear enveloped Ellis’s face. Ellis clasped his halberd tightly and ran toward the city.

As he was running, he could see clouds of smoke floating above the city. Most of the buildings near the edge of the city were collapsed into piles of rubble. Ellis’s jaw dropped. It looked like a war zone. Panic overcame him as he scanned what was left of the city.

No. This can’t be possible. They have to be alive. They have to.

Ellis began making his way through the rubble, trying to navigate through the mounds of debris as quickly as he could. He knew the city like the back of his hand, but it was difficult finding his way around because most of the landmarks he was familiar with were all but destroyed. The city was in shambles. After jogging through the outskirts of the city for ten minutes Ellis finally spotted a group of people picking through the rubble. He ran over to them with a million questions in his mind.

“Hey! What happened here?”

An older gruff man turned toward Ellis and looked at him like he was stupid.

“What do you mean what happened? Have you been living under a rock? Those monsters attacked, that’s what happened!”

The rest of the group of people looked up at Ellis in distaste.

“Monsters attacked? How?”

Ellis’s fear came true and he was more worried than ever about his family. The gruff man saw Ellis’s surprise and realized that Ellis’s didn’t know anything that happened, so he decided to further explain.

“Monsters swarmed out from that evil tower when it first appeared a month ago. They destroyed everything in their path. The military tried to fight them off, but they were already spread so thin from the other towers around the country that they could barely fend them off. The military did as best as they could but were eventually overrun by the beasts.”

They look at him with concerned looks.

“Did you just come out of living in the wilderness for ten years or something?”

One raggedy looking guy asked.

Ellis looked at them in confusion and then realized that he was still wearing his armor that he made in the Tower.

Well I practically have been.

Ellis thought to himself.

“Oh, no. I’m part of a club that reenacts medieval times. We meet like twice a month.”

Ellis lied, unconvincingly.

They stared at him without saying anything for a few awkward moments before Ellis broke the silence.

“All this happened a month ago?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

The older man responded to Ellis with a furrowed brow.

How is that possible? I know I was in the Tower for at least a few months.

Ellis thought to himself as he racked his brain on how it was possible for him to have been in the Tower for months but only one month had passed outside the Tower. He could only chalk it up to some sort of time dilation that the Tower caused.

“Why is the city so destroyed?”

“When that tower appeared, all hell broke loose. Monsters poured out of them. All over the world. Then that huge thing appeared and destroyed everything in its path. The military was no match for it. Bullets were nothing but grains of sand to it. It rampaged for 3 days before a group of people lured it away from the city. Nobody has seen that group or the monster since. Some cities were entirely obliterated by the beasts. We were one of the lucky ones. Then two weeks ago it just stopped. Monsters stopped coming out of the tower, but no one dared to get close to the thing in case they started coming out again.”

One girl, around 14, said solemnly.

“Huge thing?”

Ellis asked them in awe.

“I saw it myself! It was a massive demon. Taller than a building. It was pitch black, with four arms, and had dripping lava all over its body.”

Ellis’s eyes widened in fear as he imagined the giant demon.

“Is some of the city still alright?”

Ellis asked nervously.

“The center is mostly intact, but the outskirts like out here are done for.”

Another replied as they motioned around at the ruins.

Ellis let out a slight sigh of relief.

“Thanks. I appreciate all the information.”

Ellis said as he turned to leave.

“Hey, don’t go on another reenactment for too long and miss another apocalypse. We might need your spiky boots.”

The raggedy guy said trying to make light of the situation.

Ellis gave them an embarrassed smile and waved before he started jogging toward the hospital.

The hospital is in the center of the city so it should be fine. Or at least Ellis told himself that, trying to remain calm. Wuxiaworld for visiting.

The farther he got into the city the less destruction there was which relieved him. Ellis stopped in his tracks in front of the hospital. The hospital was essentially untouched but there were crowds of people surrounding it. Before Ellis went inside, he went to the corner of the building and put his halberd and most of his armor in one of the dumpsters. He tucked one of his knives into the belt on his waist, just in case. He was too used to always being in life or death situation that he would feel naked if he didn’t have a weapon on him. Ellis pushed past the crowd to the front door where he saw the hospital lobby completely full of people screaming and shouting at each other trying to get to the front desk. Ellis pushed his way through the mob. Some of the mob turned to yell at him as he pushed past but stopped once they saw him.

Ellis didn’t realize it, but he had grown bigger and more muscular during his time in the tower. All the added stats and fighting had made his body look like that of a world-class athlete but with ten times as dense of muscles.

When he finally got to the front desk there was a huge wall of plexiglass and a speaker.

Well, that’s new.

“I’m looking for my mom? Last name Ryne? She’s was in room 707.”

He has to shout in order for the receptionist to hear him because everyone else is screaming so loud. After Ellis repeats himself three times, she finally hears him and looks it up on her computer before sliding a piece of paper to him under the glass with the room number as well as a stamp. Ellis thanked her and felt a bit more relaxed that they still had a record of his mom. She must be alright because they’re letting him go see her. Maybe she even got better.

He thought to himself as he pushed through the crowd again and made his way to the big double doors before the elevator. The area in front of the door was clear from people. Standing in front of the door were two, armed guards. Ellis walked up to go through the doors when one of the guards put a hand out to stop him.

“Paper.”

Ellis looked down and held out the piece of paper with the stamp on it. The guards looked him up and down looking at his weird attire with wrinkled brows.

“It’s laundry day.”

Ellis said with a straight face hoping they didn’t ask any questions.

To his surprise, they gave him a few more awkward looks before opening the doors for him and letting him through.

I can’t believe that worked!

Ellis thought as he chuckled to himself. If they questioned his clothes more, he would have to explain coming out of the Tower and they definitely wouldn’t let him through. He’d probably get arrested and they would experiment on him.

Ellis got to the room where his mom was. When he reached out for the door handle it swiveled open and a doctor walked out.

“Oh hi, Dr. Medicus. How is my mom doing?”

Ellis asked anxiously.

The doctor looked at him for a few moments, gazing up and down at Ellis with a puzzled look, then a light seemed to flash, and he remembered Ellis.

“Ah, Ellis. She is still in a coma. Her health is still declining slowly.”

Dr. Medicus replied. He looked suspicious of Ellis but decided not to comment.

“I do need to speak with you, with you being her main dependent. I’ll let you catch up for a bit though. Come see me in my office when you’re finished visiting.”

He said and turned to walk down the hall.

Ellis turned the doorknob and walked into the room. He saw his sister asleep curled up on a sofa by the window with a coat over her. He turned and saw his mother, exactly like she was before. An overwhelming sense of joy overcame Ellis and he rushed over to his sister. Right before he could bend down to hug her, she jolted awake, making Ellis jump back. She looked up at him and sprung up when she recognized it was Ellis. She wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed tightly. He wrapped his arms around her tightly in return. After a few minutes of embracing and Solara sobbing quietly, she took a step back from and slapped him upside the head.

“Where the hell have you been?! You never came back! I thought you were dead! I didn’t know what happened to you!”

Solara said as tears started to well in her eyes once again.

“It’s a long story. Just know that I’m back and I’ll never leave you again.”

Ellis replied, looking down at her arms. She had cuts and bruises covering her arms. One especially large stitched up cut stood out on her forearm.

“What happened to you?”

Ellis asked concerningly.

“Oh no, don’t try and switch the subject. You’ve been gone for a month. I need answers.”

Solara demanded.

“Okay, okay.”

Ellis let out a big sigh.

“When the tower appeared, I was on my way to work and for some reason, I just felt drawn to it. Like I had no choice, but to go to it. When I got inside of it, hundreds of people started appearing, and we couldn’t get out. Then this being, I don’t even know how to describe him, started talking to us about how we chose to participate in his Tower. How there are floors that we have to go through with monsters…-”

“Wait, so how did you get out?”

Solara interrupted Ellis in the middle of his sentence.

“After every floor, we have the option to leave the Tower.”

Ellis explained.

“So, finishing one floor took a month?”

Solara asked skeptically.

“Actually, it took four months because I’m pretty sure time is different in the Tower. I had to map out an entire labyrinth and fight thousands of monsters.”

Solara stepped back. She didn’t believe him. No one could fight those beasts. Not even the military could fight them.

Ellis could tell that she didn’t completely believe him. So, he put his hand to his chest and called out his TowerCard.

Solara’s eyes light up with astonishment as she watched the TowerCard materialize into Ellis’s hands. Ellis looked at her with a face as if to say, “believe me now?” Solara stood there for a few moments in awe before she returned to her usual self.

“Well, I guess that explains the funky get up.”

She chuckled to herself.

“How has it been over here?”

Ellis asked curiously as he thought about what she must have gone through.

“Hm, well kind of terrible. After the monsters started attacking and the military started coming out to try to stop them everyone has been going crazy. Then about two weeks after the monsters came out the military just stopped sending people. Probably because they didn’t have anyone else to send. Monsters just started making their way through the city.”

Solara explained, looking down at the floor.

“What happened to your arms?”

Ellis asked.

“Some of them are from people here just getting so angry and trying to shove me out of the way.”

Solara said, poking the bruises down her arm.

She came up to the large cut that was stitched shut.

“There was one monster that was able to get into the school. It was destroying everything and everyone in its path. I was trying to get a group of underclassmen out through a fire escape when the monster turned the corner. It was hideous. Blood was dripping from its mouth. I turned and rushed all my underclassmen down the fire escape. When I started down the fire escape it was right there and swiped its claws at me. I thought I was dead. I’ll never forget the sight of that thing.”

Solara buried her face into Ellis’s chest with tears streaming down her face.

She sobbed for a long period in silence before Ellis remembered the potion.

He pulled out the potion and gently grabbed Solara’s arm.

“What is that?”

Solara asked confused.

“I got it in the Tower, it heals minor wounds.”

Ellis said as he pulled the cork off the bottle and gently poured a steady stream over Solara’s arm.

They both watch as the wound slowly healed and the scab fell off, revealing only a white scar. It took only a little over a minute. Solara brushed her finger over the scar.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore! It’s completely healed!”

Solara said as she jumped with excitement before she suddenly stopped and grabbed Ellis’s arm.

“Wait, can we use this on mom? Do you think it’ll help her?”

Solara asked with hope in her eyes.

“I think it would. It wouldn’t cure her because this is a lower-tier potion, but I definitely think it could help.”

He said as they walked over to their mom’s bedside.

“How are we supposed to do it? Just pour it on her forehead?”

Solara looked up at Ellis.

“It only heals wounds if you pour it over them. If you drink the potion; it will heal from inside the body.”

Ellis replied as he gently opened his mom’s mouth and poured a couple of drops in. Ellis and Solara stood waiting anxiously to see if anything would happen.