3.1 - The Tower of Waking
Simeon is eight years old. Simeon’s friends call him Sim. They’re imaginary, of course. He’s the only child in the Tower of Waking, and the adults don’t seem to notice him. He doesn’t mind though. Every chance he gets, he sneaks away into the Fertile Ruin. He doesn’t know why the adults call it that. All around the Tower of Waking is a forest, bigger than he can imagine. He isn’t old enough to go to the top of the tower, but he wonders if the adults up there can see the end of the woods. From the third floor, which is as high as he is old enough to climb, he can barely peek past the shortest trees. They try to stop him from going out, but he’s gotten extremely good at it. The Tower of Waking is very big, and he is very small, apparently smaller than average, but he doesn’t know if that’s true. He doesn’t think he would like to be much bigger, because the world would feel so much smaller. He could walk from one end to the other and see it all. No, he thinks he’s the perfect size for such a strange world. It will take him years to explore it.
It’s mid-morning now, and he’s farther away from the Tower of Waking than he’s ever been. The ground beneath him is mushy, almost bouncy, like one of the rubber balls he has in his room. Moss covers it, as far as he can see in every direction. He leans down and sinks his hands into it. He loves the feeling of moss. Sometimes he goes only a few steps outside of the Tower and lays down on it. Even there, the adults don’t see him. It’s as if they’re scared of looking outside. Today he has much bigger plans. He reaches into the pocket of his hand-me-down vest that’s too big for him and pulls out the map he’s been working on. The paper is creased and wrinkled and there’s a big dark spot on it from when he dropped it in a puddle, but it’s the most valuable thing he owns. With his finger now wet from the moss and dirty under the nail he traces his steps from the Tower through the Tongue Trees that look like trees but are the color of his tongue, around the Puddle Archipelagos (he overheard that word from some of the adults and searched for it in the library until he finally found it in an old adventure story about pirates) and finally up to the Dragon’s Egg Rocks.
Dozens of boulders, stacked neatly next to each other like Dragon’s eggs in a nest waiting to hatch. Sometimes Sim would sit and talk with his friends about what the Dragons would look like as they burst from the stones. Their golden skin would be bright enough for the flowers to bloom, and their gargantuan wings would pick up the little creatures scurrying about and send them tumbling backward, Sim along with them. They would laugh and call out together as the dragons roared hello, and then soared upward, breaking through the canopy and flying up into space. But no, there was no time for daydreaming today. Sim was on a mission. The Dragon’s Egg Rocks were as far as he had been beyond the Tower, but today he would surpass that.
Past the rocks was a valley with a fast-moving stream through the center of it, and beyond that, up the other side of the hill, was the biggest tree Sim had ever seen.
The roots extended out as thick as the Tower of Waking itself, in every direction. Their bark was a deep dark black with specks of silver and brown. The tree itself was covered in branches, from the very floor of the Fertile Ruin up past the trees around it, and each branch had hundreds of light brown leaves. Unlike the other light brown leaves that Sim had seen, the ones that are dying, these seemed healthier than ever. The tree was so large that a few branches extended over the valley and reached above the Dragon’s Egg Rocks. His last visit, he was able to shake a leaf free and catch it. It wasn’t brittle and crackly like other brown leaves, it was flexible and warm, and he could feel life in it stronger than anything else in the Ruin. Of course as he held it, the life faded and it shriveled up, and he felt terrible for what he had done. The slope downward from the Rocks was steep but clear of brush or roots that Sim could see. This was the most dangerous part of the journey, but he had been practicing.
He sneaks between two of the Rocks, a space just barely big enough for him, and collects his sled. It was an old, hard blanket from the Tower that he always hated. It was scratchy and uncomfortable, and barely kept him warm, but now he had a purpose for it. He had rolled two of the corners up into handles, and then tied ropes to each of them like reins. He places the blanket down at the top of the valley and very carefully sits. He coils both ropes around his arms and wrists so he doesn’t lose hold of them, then pulls the blanket up enough to place his worn-out oversized snow boots into the sled. With a few scoots of his butt, the sled starts moving. Fast. Very fast. Before he realizes it, he’s halfway down the valley and still gaining speed. He can’t help but laugh, he’s never moved this quick in his entire life. He knows there’s not much he can do about it, so he leans into it, making small movements to steer the blanket one way or another, which doesn’t effectively do much of anything. It’s hard to breathe with the air hitting him, but he’s smiling away, and still laughing. Then he hits the stream, or rather, his sled hits the stream and he tumbles over it into the water.
His arms are still tied to the ship, which is caught on something above the water, but his body and head are submerged. The water is cold, but not freezing. Still, it’s enough of a shock for him to breathe in and swallow some of it. He coughs, but he only swallows more water now. He’s never been underwater anywhere but in the big steel tub he bathes in. This feels much scarier than that, and his eyes are pinched closed as tight as they can be. The stream isn’t very deep though, as he feels his boots touching the bottom. He plants his feet and, with his arms still held above him by the sled, he stands up. As soon as his head clears the surface, he opens his mouth and spits up the water he had been swallowing and gargling with. A few good coughs and he feels as right as rain, although much colder as a harsh breeze sweeps through the valley. He untangles his arms from the sled and pulls himself up onto the shore, looking back upward towards the Dragon’s Egg Rocks. His biggest challenge was behind him. He shakes himself a few times to dry off and then jumps up and down trying to warm up. It helps a little, but he’s too excited to worry about the cold.
He crosses the stream where a root from the black tree stretches across like a bridge and begins to climb the valley. It isn’t as steep on this side, so the climbing is easily done, and he finds himself at the base of the tree. He puts his fists on his hips and sighs contently. He did it. He’s here. Now time to start climbing. One hand after the other and one foot after the next, he climbs from branch to branch like a monkey. Birds and squirrels and other creatures of the Ruin scramble away from him as he goes. The Ruin is always teeming with life, but this tree specifically seems to overflow with it. He’s careful with every branch, as nearly all of them are dotted with nests of some kind or another. He climbs and climbs and climbs. Even with the excitement of new ground, he’s beginning to tire out when finally a bright light hits one of the branches. He’s broken through the canopy. The branches of the black tree are too dense for him to see much from the trunk, so he picks a heavy branch that’s twice his size, straddles it, and shimmies out. He pushes through the tangle of other branches until only his and a few others remain, and there, he can see it.
All of it, the entire Fertile Ruin, splayed out before him with the Waking Tower at its center. Miles and miles of green and brown and black and red stretch around him in every direction. Far to one side, he sees the trees give way to a wide blue expanse, that churns with towering waves. To the other side, he sees a spine of mountains, dipping, and peaking, some covered in white. And in front of him, the way he came, he sees the entire Tower of Waking, reaching up into the sky. The top of the tower isn’t what he imagined it would be. Instead of a roof, it looks like a platform, wider than the base of the Tower. It’s hard to make out, but it looks like it's covered in pillars of some kind, and someone is standing at the center.
Then he hears it. A sound he’s heard before. They always told him it was the machinery of the Tower, coming to life. It’s a grinding sound, loud and echoing and sad. He looks over his shoulder, opposite the Tower, and sees the source.
Gliding through the air, casting its magnificent shadow upon the Fertile Ruin, is a creature. It has three sets of wings that look like butterfly wings. They’re bright and multicolored, with intricate patterns across them. The body of the creature is covered in mushroom-like plates that pulse in rhythm with each wing movement. Some are black like the tree, and others are a vibrant blue. A few of them are scarred, cut in half, or missing altogether. Hanging down like clean laundry are its legs, six of them, each one as big as the tree Sim is sitting on. They are brown and ringed, and at the ends are wide gray talons. The head of the creature is barely distinguishable from its body, but amidst the mushroom plates, Sim can make it out. It wavers in the air, gracefully moving to and fro with pointy ears like a bat. In the center of its head is one large eye, with four pupils. The eye remains still like a small body of water, while the pupils, like fish, swim about within it. Beneath the eye is a mouth that runs up and down instead of side to side like Sim’s. It opens and closes slowly as the beast moves, and he can hear the sound of it inhaling and exhaling even from so far away. It isn’t what is making the noise though, it doesn’t match up. The wings are. They scrape against each other in a wailing dirge, for who or what Sim does not know.
Then he hears another sound. An electrical sound that always follows the first, and that he was always told was just another part of the Tower. It sparks and flares in an uneven beat, and he turns back to the Tower to see what it is. There, atop it, the pillars glow and the figure in the center wave their arms about frantically. The sound grows louder and louder, building on itself until the air is filled with static. Then the figure holds their arms up and forward, toward the creature. The pillars cease sparking and start glowing with white light.
In the center of them, above the raised arms of the figure, a spear of energy appears. The figure swings their arms forward, and Sim watches the spear careen away from the Tower and into the creature. It screams out, and the plate that the spear hit smokes and sizzles and splits. Why? Why is the Tower attacking this creature? Sim is scared and hurt. He doesn’t understand. Another spear hits the creature, this time on the side. It smokes more and heavily dips towards the ground. It should run! It can’t die here! Sim is panicking. He’s helpless. All he can do is watch.
The creature is nearly above him now, the sun is on the other side of it and its shadow covers Sim. A third spear collides with the creature and sparks fall down around him, sending dozens of birds fleeing from the trees. The beast cries out again and begins to turn away.
As it does, something falls from its body towards Sim. It flutters in the air for a moment, struggling to stay afloat. It falls faster, unable to sustain its weight. It looks like the creature, only much smaller. A baby. It must be. It starts to spiral. Sim stands up on the branch and begins to run back toward the creature. He slips but regains his footing. He slips again and grabs another branch to steady himself, looking down at the fall that would have surely killed him. The creature is nearing the tree and has given up any attempt at flying, its wings pinned to its body. Sim runs as fast as he dares along the branch towards it. He catches it.
Then he loses his balance. He’s clutching the creature tight. It’s squirming a little. It's warm and the mushroom-like plates are as soft as cloth. He falls off the branch and hits one below. It hurts, but he’s coiled up tight around the creature. You’ll be okay. I’ve got you. He hits another branch and loses the breath that was in his lungs. Then a third. Then a fourth. Then he hits two and his momentum stops, the branches pinning him. He breathes heavy, and hears another spear hit the creature above, now out of sight. As the creature yells, so does the little one in Sim’s arms, but it’s faint, barely a whimper. It takes him a long time, but he catches his breath and pulls himself up onto one of the branches.
The creature looks just like the bigger one, only with two pupils instead of four. It’s just barely small enough for Sim to hold. It looks up at him with terror and squirms a little more. He tries his best to comfort it, but he doesn’t know what comforts something like this. He strokes its belly, and talks to it, and cradles it, which all seem to help a little. Once it's calm, he starts climbing down the tree with it, feeling dozens of sharp pains and dull aches in his body from the fall. He realizes he’s crying. He doesn’t know how long he’s been crying. He sniffs and wipes his cheeks on his sleeve. Together, they reach the base of the tree and slowly, Sim makes his way back to the Tower of Waking with the baby in his arms.
He glances at the window of one of the many storerooms on the first floor, the way he snuck out hours before, but instead, he walks to the main doors of the Tower and knocks twice. They swing open and Joanna, the guard on duty stands in the entrance.
“What on earth are you doing out here? What…” she stops. “Simeon, what is that?”
The baby squirms uncomfortably at the sound of her voice. He holds it a little tighter.
“I need to go to the top of the Tower,” he says. He’s always felt confident, but now more than ever. He has to stop what’s happening. If only they looked at this creature, they would realize.
“I...I don’t...think you should bring that...thing…” Joanna is stunned. She’s always seemed so much older and wiser than Sim, but now he realizes that she isn’t much older. At least she doesn’t seem much older. It’s always been hard for him to tell. He knows his age, and then there’s everyone else.
“Please, can you take me?” he says. She nods. The ascent is long and slow. The stairs of the Tower spiral upward, around the perimeter. They pass the first few floors, the ones Sim knows well. He stays along the wall with Joanna between him and the others in an attempt at hiding the creature. It mostly works. The fourth floor is the first he has never seen. With Joanna as an escort, he is permitted, although the guards do not look pleased.
This floor is much warmer than the others, and covered in throbbing machines, shaking and pumping steam like hearts pumping blood. Strangers in soot-covered overalls with stained gray masks work away with their hands deep in the body of the machines, twisting gears and pulling levers and humming to themselves in guttural tones. One of them stops and pulls their mask down as Joanna and Sim pass. He’s familiar. Someone Sim used to play with when he was younger. He stands and stares at the two of them, then a few others pull their masks down and stare. They don’t seem angry like the guards or scared like Joanna, they just stare. Then one of the machines coughs up dust and hot water and they all turn back to attend to it.
The fifth floor is much like the fourth, only hotter, and the sixth floor is like the two before it, only the machines are dormant. One woman sits atop one of the machines, peering down into it. She’s wearing a pale red jumpsuit with a belt of tools around her waist. She pays them no mind and peels a panel off of the machine with a loud sucking noise. Then she climbs down into it, disappearing from view.
The seventh floor is quiet at first, but slowly a noise builds as they cross the landing towards the stairs leading up further. Clanging pots and creaking pulleys. Sim peers around Joanna who is walking closer to him now, and sees six long wooden tables, covered in food. The smell is overwhelming to him, and even the baby seems to like it as it unfolds a little from the knot it has been curled into since they entered the Tower. Dozens of people move about, cooking and boxing and placing food into baskets. They take the baskets to various ropes along the walls and connect them to hooks, then pull the ropes, either carrying the baskets up or sending them down. Sometimes on the second floor, Sim was sent to gather food for a meal and he often wondered where the baskets in the wooden chutes along the walls came from.
The eighth floor is empty. Flickers of light shine through covered windows along the walls, and all Sim can see is a large burnt circle in the center of the room. Joanna ushers him forward quicker now.
The ninth floor makes Sim’s head hurt. The air is much tighter. He doesn’t know how else to describe it. It feels like pressure behind his eyes, and along the back of his neck. The baby whines and presses itself tight against his chest. Throughout the room are spiraling cables as thick as Sim’s arms. They tangle around each other, and up along the walls, and inside of oval-shaped structures. The ovals are slowly spinning, and making a loud deep hum. Most are bright white, but some are orange-red. Three men scramble about, freeing cables from one side and moving them to another. One man gently pokes at one of the ovals and pulls his hand away instantly, shaking it. One of them calls out for the other two as he stands next to one of the white ovals and seems to be slowing its spin with his hands. The other two rush over and assist until it stops completely, and dims until it’s nearly translucent.
The stairs to the tenth-floor end at a ladder. Joanna motions upward, then stands still, clearly not intending to go. Sim nudges the baby towards his chest until it lazily loops its claws over his shoulder. They dig in, a little, but he doesn’t mind. He climbs. After everything he’s been through, and the slow descent of the Tower, his muscles have become weak and inflexible so climbing the ladder is much harder than it should be. Halfway up, he feels rushing cold air from above and realizes he’s nearing the very top of the Tower, and the figure he saw attacking the creature. He doesn’t know what to say or do. He doesn’t know why he’s here. He doesn’t know what the thing is clinging to his shoulder. All he can think about is its whimper and the wail of its parent. He pulls himself up onto the roof of the Tower.
Around him are the pillars he saw from the tree. They are bright crystal fingers reaching into the sky from the palm of the Tower, and steam is radiating off of them. One has a large crack along its center, and another is missing a chunk near the tip of it. In the center of them is a man. He’s slumped over with his knees up and his head between them, back bent heavily. He peers up at Sim with a face that is wet and red and covered in tears that run down into his wild beard. His hands are bony and thin, and covered in burns. Sim walks over to him.
“Why are you doing this?” he says. The man doesn’t seem to hear him at first and stares at the little creature clutching to Sim’s chest. His face curls and sinks in on itself and he cries harder.
“I don’t have a choice,” he says, through short breaths. “It will destroy us for what we’ve done.”
Sim sits down in front of the man and takes one of his hands. It’s nearly too hot to hold, but he resists the urge to let go.
“We caused this, you know,” he continues. “This was a city once. As far as the eye could see. But we fought, and we killed, and we bled each other. We destroyed that city, the greatest creation of mankind. After that, it started. The aggression of the world against us. We are all that is left here, and it wants to finish what we started.”
With his free hand, the man reaches out and gently strokes the back of the baby. The corners of his mouth curl into a smile.
“A sweet thing,” he says, barely loud enough for Sim to hear.
The Tower shakes slightly, and the crystals begin to pulse and screech.
“He’s coming back,” The man says. “Get away from here. It’s too dangerous.”
“No!” Sim yells, “He won’t hurt me!”
The creature emerges from the Fertile Ruin, pulling entire trees up with it. Some of its wounds are still smoking, and it is struggling to stay afloat. The baby cries out, and the creature answers. The man closes his eyes and lays back on the roof of the Tower.
“I cannot fight any longer,” he says to the sky. “If this is how we end, then so be it.”
The Tower of Waking grows dark, as the shadow of the beast covers it. Sim stands up and walks to the edge of the Tower, or as close as he dares. It’s a long way down. The beast comes closer, and latches its talons onto the tower, shaking the entire structure tremendously. Sim falls to his knees and catches the baby as it loses its grip on his shoulder. He looks up and sees the vertical open mouth of the beast before him, thousands of dagger-like teeth, undulating with the rest of the head.
“Your baby is safe!” Sim yells. “I protected him!”
The creature remains motionless, perched, prepared to swallow him whole.
“I am sorry for what we’ve done!” Sim continues. He doesn’t know what to say, or if the beast can even understand him. “I don’t know exactly what that is, but I am sorry!”
The four pupils are locked on Sim, and the mouth opens a little wider. He looks around the top of the Tower for something, anything. In his mind, this was going to be easy. Now he truly feels like a child. Unable to help. Unable to do much of anything outside of his own silly imagination. He sees the crystal with the large crack down its center. He gently places the baby down on the Tower roof and runs to the crystal. He places his hands into the crack. It’s hot. It’s burning hot. He pulls his hands away instinctively. He looks around frantically. The man is still lying in the center of the roof, staring up into the sky. He tries again. He burns his hands. He hits the crystal instead. He hits it over and over and over. The creature tilts its head around the side of the Tower and brings its mouth close again.
“Please!” Sim yells “I can fix this! I’ll get rid of these things! You won’t have to be scared of them anymore!”
His hands start to crack, and his knuckles are bleeding. The crystal looks the same as it did when he started. The wind picks up, harsh and quick. Sim loses his balance and falls on his backside. The baby cries, digging its infantile talons into the stone roof. The parent still looms over Sim, mouth only a few feet away from him. Sim looks at the man. He has given up, and will not budge. Sim slowly pulls himself up in front of the beast. He can feel its hot breath on him.
“You are a beautiful creature,” he says. “If you are going to eat me, please don’t hurt anyone else. They are my family. Just like your baby. Please.”
The beast’s pupils shift, for a moment, from Sim to its baby. With the gentlest movement, it picks up its baby with a talon and pulls it close to its belly. The baby cries out happily as it attaches to the beast’s stomach. The beast looks back at Sim but closes its mouth. It looks at the crystal Sim was struggling to destroy, and the blood now dripping down it from his hands. It wraps its talon around it and pulls, ripping the crystal from the roof of the Tower and flinging it miles away, into the Fertile Ruin. It does so with another, and another, until every crystal is pulled free and cast away. Then the beast lifts off, causing Sim to fall to all fours and grab at the stone. It curls in the air above the Tower for a moment and then soars off the same way it came.
“You have done what we could never do,” The man speaks up. “Thank you for freeing me from this prison of self-loathing.”
Sim didn’t know what self-loathing meant, but he nodded back at the man. His hands hurt tremendously. In fact, all of him hurt tremendously. His friends are never going to believe this one.