Hours passed. I was curled up on the floor hugging my dented toolbox. My disconsolate crying had been reduced to a weary whimper and my eyes and throat stung from all the tears and snot I spread on the floor. All around me no more monsters were falling and all the circles were occupied with some kind of creature.

Most of the creatures were already tired of trying to force their way out, screaming or, like me, crying. And they seemed calmer. Except for the tyrannosaurus, he was still making the ground shake with each of his furious stomps that never seemed to end.

Then one of the rock walls opened like a sliding door, revealing a new room, it was large, but not as large as the space I was in, maybe a quarter of it.

And hundreds of people entered, clearly humans, all in colorful robes or shining armor. They spread out all over the place walking between the circles. When they chose a circle, they held a luminescent glass sphere in the air and then proceeded to forcibly drag whatever was trapped inside.

One of those people approached me, it was an intimidating guy in shiny black armor that didn't even show his eyes. The guy held up one of those glass balls and whatever was blocking the noise disappeared. A cacophony of screams, whimpers, roars, meows, mechanical shrieks and other sounds unknown to me flooded into my ears. The subject approached me and I backed away in fright, holding my toolbox against my chest as a protective shield.

But it was no use, the guy in armor was much faster than me, impossibly fast. He grabbed my arm and pulled me like an adult weightlifter pulling a child, he might as well have been a year old by the ease with which he led me through the huge door.

In the new room there were five rock podiums at the back, before each podium was a large square painted on the floor as a dais, with soldiers in armor at each corner. And just as many were forcing the various creatures to line up in rows beyond the squares. The rows seemed to be organized according to the size of the creatures, with the smaller ones in the row on the left, and the size increasing with each row to the right. All overseen by more soldiers in armor and those strange guys in colorful robes.

I was terrified, hugging my toolbox as I looked around in panic. I thought about escaping, but I couldn't let go of the steel grip of the soldier leading me. The guy led me to the second row on the left and released me at the end of the row and then went back to the circle room.

In front of me in line was a strange woman of fine figure who looked human except for her blue skin. And in front of her was this strange shadow with a humanoid outline. And further down the line, at the front of the line, was a white shark trapped inside a huge round fish tank on wheels.

In the row on the left were some creatures that looked like tiny humans. Some animals like the huge squid I saw falling near me from one of those tubes and other things smaller than me.

In the row to my right I saw beings bigger than me, but not that big. The lion with scales, the giant squid, the robot, an eye that was held by tentacles, a huge afro descendant man that I was sure was a normal human like me, only taller and more muscular than most people. He also saw me and I could see reflected in his eyes the panic I felt myself.

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In the rightmost row were even bigger creatures, like that giant fly and the plant creature. And in the last row was the tyrannosaurus. Hardly held up by a dozen armored soldiers with thick chains attached to its neck and legs as it roared and stomped furiously.

Other soldiers were still bringing more strange beings to put in the ranks, there were hundreds of them and they seemed endless. As I watched, a winged snake was formed behind me. Clearly upset. I quickly held my toolbox between me and it. It wasn't going to bite me.

Before long, more creatures stopped coming in and a beautiful green robed woman hovered above the rock podiums, watching the crowd of creatures like a breeder watching his cattle. She raised on her hand a glass ball that glowed green and a light came out of it and illuminated all the entities in the large room, I was disoriented for a few moments and then my mind cleared. I was not the only one, I could see. The hundreds of creatures in the room experienced the same thing. Then it spoke, in an unknown language that for some reason I could understand and in a slow tone that somehow came through clearly above all the noise in the room.

"Now they are in the Tower" said the woman without changing her expression "Whatever their life was, wherever they came from, it doesn't matter now, because they don't have it anymore."

He looked at everyone in the room, and for a moment I felt like I was staring at the sun and if I kept looking at him I would go blind. So I looked down, then I noticed that my heart was beating so fast and strong that I could see my shirt throbbing on my chest. The room at some point became completely silent. This I felt was terror, I realized. An abject fear that sharpens your mind but freezes your body, making it difficult to even breathe. My whole body was trembling.

"You are now the property of The Tower, and will live and die in, by, and for The Tower. Many like you in the past have harbored the false fantasy that you can escape The Tower, I tell you beforehand that it is impossible and do not waste time thinking of such futilities. Even in death, you will still belong to The Tower.

Just humbly accept your own natural inferiority and do what is asked of you as the inferiors you are. Then perhaps your next eternity in The Tower will be a little less unpleasant for you..."

Just humbly accept your own natural inferiority and do what is asked of you as the inferiors you are. Then perhaps your next eternity in The Tower will be a little less unpleasant for you..."

"ROOOOOOOOOAAAAARRRRRRR!"

The tyrannosaurus roared fearsomely, and shook himself, tossing the mighty armored soldiers who held him in heavy chains through the air like scraps of paper held together with threads.

"RI WRILL NREVRER SRUBMRIT TRO YROU, RINSRECT!!"

roared the tyrannosaurus in the same language the woman spoke. Then it flexed its powerful hind legs and took a mighty leap over everyone present, crossing the entire length of the room straight towards the floating woman. With its terrifying maw full of large fangs on its way to devour her completely like a snack.

Without any fear, the woman took out of her robe a thin, glowing wand and pointed it at the tyrannosaurus, which then stopped in mid-air like someone pausing a movie, simply stopped moving and hovered there, paralyzed, its mouth open inches away from the woman and its terrifying gaze almost devouring her with its eyes. All of his massive bulk helplessly paralyzed before the horrified sight of everyone, as if mocking them. After all, if the almighty tyrannosaurus could do nothing, what can they do?

"You are strong, I like strong" declared the woman with a pleased look "I will keep you for myself, I will educate you properly and you will surely prove to be a very useful pet" she said to the tyrannosaurus with a soft, almost affectionate voice, while stretching out her arm she stroked his snout between his nostrils. His small figure was almost insignificant before the immensity of the huge reptile.

"As for everyone else" said the woman without turning to look at them "do as you are told, either way you will have to" then she turned and floated to the back wall where a huge hatch opened in her wake. The tyrannosaurus floated after her and disappeared when the hatch closed.