Sam

Sam found herself standing at a crossroads. It was surrounded on all sides by impenetrable pine forest. A bruising purple twilight reigned overhead; moonless and starless. Feeling at her neck, she found no gaping wound there, and there was not a speck of blood on her clothing. In fact, even her wounds from the fight with Luke were nowhere in evidence, her skin unblemished and pain-free.

The air was neither warm nor cold, completely still and windless as though the place were holding its breath. An oppressive silence hung thick over everything, with not so much as the creak of a tree settling to break it. Aside from herself and the uniform conifers standing in perfect, wall-like formation, there were no signs of life.

Sam felt that she should be scared, or worried, or angry, or something. But the level of absurdity had risen to such a degree that her brain had abandoned any effort to keep up, leaving her completely numb except for, of all things, a vague feeling of amusement.

This was just a really weird fever dream, after all. That was all it was. Luke must have hit her harder than she thought. Maybe she ought to take that trip to the clinic after all, once she woke up.

Remembering the letter she had been given, Sam searched her pockets and produced the slightly crushed envelope. There was no writing on the front, so she simply tore it open and extracted its contents, which turned out to be two small pieces of paper covered in neat writing.

The first one read:

Sam,

If you’re reading this, that means you’re dead. Sorry, I had to say it. I bet you’re feeling pretty confused right now, but don’t worry, everything will be explained soon enough. Right now, whatever happens, just go along with it.

If you can, try to find Nyx. She’ll take you where you need to go.

When you get to the Tower (you’ll know it when you see it), sign the contract you’re given, then read the second note. After you’ve read the second note, eat it.

When prompted, choose Laborer. Allocate your abilities and attributes however you want (hopefully you don’t pick anything too stupid), except you must only pick passive abilities when given the option. I repeat, ONLY pick PASSIVE abilities.

Whatever the Tower custodian tells you, don’t listen. He’s full of shit.

That’s it. See you soon.

-A Friend.

PS: You will need to take a leap of faith. Enjoy the way down.

Sam read the note once, then more carefully a second time, still not quite able to absorb all the strange instructions detailed there. Looking at the second note only added to her confusion, as all the text was written in some strange language she neither understood nor recognized.

Wait, she thought, returning to the first note with a deepening frown. It wants me to eat the second note when I’m done with it? How the fuck would that ever make sense? And how am I supposed to read it in the first place when I don’t know the language it’s written in?

Trying to parse everything was making her head hurt. But the letter had told her to go with the flow, and with nothing else to guide her, she figured it was best to do what it said—at least what small part of it she could make sense of.

Sam tucked the letters back in the envelope. She looked around, saw nothing except trees and dirt paths, three of them branching off from the spot where she stood. Picking one at random, she began to walk.

From what the letter said, it sounds like I’ll get somewhere sooner or later. I guess I’m looking for a tower?

Dreams usually did not involve this much legwork.

After a few minutes of walking, she hit another crossroads much like the first, except this one had four branches, including the one she came from. There were several wooden road signs scattered about, but one of them pointed straight up into the air, a second into the woods, and a third had only gibberish on it like what she had seen in the second letter.

Sighing, Sam picked the middle path and kept going.

One crossroads was replaced by another, and another, and another. The sky retained that exact shade of unattractive purple-brown, giving her nothing to track the passing of time with. It had to be hours since she started out.

The only sign that she was making any progress at all was the pines gradually being replaced by oak trees, and the path widening, becoming paved with square-cut gray stone. More road signs appeared here and there, but after she found that they were all written in one of several nonsense languages like the first one she’d seen, she began to ignore them entirely.

Upon seeing a figure in the distance at the next fork in the road, she quickened her pace until she was half-running. As she got closer, she was both relieved and annoyed to find Nyx standing there; hands on hips, wearing a self-satisfied grin. Still wearing that god-awful blazer, though she had changed out her stilettos for some more travel-sensible boots somewhere. Not that they did anything to complement her disastrous outfit.

“I found youuu,” Nyx said in a singsong voice. “I was starting to think I’d lost you for good. That would have been slightly embarrassing.”

“You murdered me,” Sam replied flatly, keeping a healthy distance between herself and the strange woman.

“And it was truly an honor.” Nyx gave a mocking curtsy and an even more mocking smile. In a more serious tone, she added: “It’s the only way to get where you’re going.”

“And where is that, exactly?”

“Did you read the letter?”

“Yeah. The first half mentioned some kind of tower. The second half was just gibberish.”

“Don’t worry about not being able to read the second part for now. It’ll all make sense eventually.”

“The note said that too. I’m not so sure I believe it.”

Nyx shrugged, pursing her lips in a way that seemed to say she thought Sam was being unreasonable. “Anyway, as for the tower you mentioned, it’s known as the Tower at the End of Time. It lies at the end of one of these paths.” She motioned around her at all the different directions available to them. “It’s a good thing I found you, because it would be almost impossible for you to find the right way on your own.”

“What would happen if I picked the wrong one?”

“Oh, nothing all that bad, for you at least. Well, probably. All these paths lead to what humans would consider ‘afterlives’. Some of them are quite pleasant, or so I hear.” Nyx’s smile dropped away, her face going unnervingly slack. “Some aren’t.”

“And this… Tower? It’s one of those afterlives?”

“Oh, dear me, no. The Tower is the entrance. The actual place is known as the Frontier.” Nyx spent a moment deliberating, then picked a path on the left and started moving, waving Sam along. “Come on, let’s walk and talk. We’ve got a ways ahead of us. We’ll have to do some backtracking since you started along the wrong path.”

“Okay. So shouldn’t we go back the way I came, then? Trace it to where I started?”

Nyx snorted derisively and hit Sam with a sidelong glance. “Just leave this to the professionals, dear.” As they walked on, oaks replaced by poplars and birches, she added: “Point being, if you ended up anyplace other than the Frontier, there would be no going back, and you would never get to meet with my employer, which is sort of the whole point of this, so.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“You’re not human, are you?” Sam asked abruptly.

Nyx chuckled. “Oh? And what do you think I am?”

“Um… A vampire or something? Or an evil spirit?”

“Your second guess is not too far off. I’m a demon. At least, that is the name your kind has given mine.”

Sam stopped in the road. “Wait, seriously?”

Nyx went on for a few moments before following suit, turning back with her arms folded beneath her breasts. “I’m perfectly serious. Is that really the part of this you’re having the most trouble with?”

Sam reluctantly started moving again. “I guess it doesn’t matter at this point.” That doesn’t mean I have to like trusting a literal demon to be my guide.

“Don’t worry, my employer is quite human, and he has your best interests at heart, bless the poor dear.”

“The letter said he was a friend.”

“I suppose it would, at that.”

“I don’t have a lot of those.”

“Aw, that’s too bad.”

“Shut up. Are you going to tell me who organized this whole thing already?”

Nyx wagged an admonishing finger. “Nope. My lips are sealed.”

“It’s Will, isn’t it?” Sam blurted out. If she was already dreaming, why not dream big? Besides, out of everyone she had ever known, Will was the only one who would ever come up with anything half this convoluted, let alone actually do it.

The demon’s face fell a bit. “Way to ruin the surprise.”

“So it is him?”

“Mmhmm. No point denying it now. Of course, you’ll still have to act suitably dazzled and amazed when you actually meet him.”

“Of course,” Sam said numbly. Despite the fact that she had arrived at that conclusion herself, she couldn’t quite believe that Will was somewhere out there, waiting for her. As she thought about it, though, she found herself frowning, feeling a twinge of annoyance. “Hold on. If Will is behind all this, why didn’t he just say so? I would have come running straight away.”

“Something boring about not wanting to influence your decisions and bla bla bla. I wasn’t really listening. He certainly knows how to drone on, that boy.”

Sam’s negativity was drowned in a sea of fondness at the memory of him. “Yeah, he really does. And once he gets going, anything you say goes right past him.”

“Yes. Quite tiring.”

“Infuriating.”

“Men.”

“Men,” Sam agreed, though it came out sounding a bit more dreamy than she had intended.

They kept walking. More crossroads. The path changed again, becoming a smooth mail of what looked to be huge green fish scales. She had to be careful when she walked on them, lest she trip herself up on the edges. Every so often, Nyx would stop to read one or several road signs before picking a direction. Evidently, she had no trouble reading the nonsense words. Maybe it was a demon language.

“This Frontier place,” Sam said as they continued on, “I assume it’s a nice afterlife, then?”

Nyx quirked an eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”

“I mean, if Will’s there, then…”

The demon laughed. “You have a lot of faith in your little friend, it seems. Actually, you might describe the Frontier as more hell than heaven at this point. Unless you’re someone like me, in which case it’s the perfect playground.”

Sam frowned. “That doesn’t sound right. Will is a good person. He wouldn’t get sent to a place like that.”

“Maybe you don’t know him well enough, then. The Forlorn Frontier is a world created by the goddess Era to serve as a place of redemption and rehabilitation for humans who have led particularly criminal or immoral lives. A second chance, you could say.

“As a nice way of helping these people adjust to living proper, peaceful lives, the goddess introduced something known as the Concord—an autonomous system that presides over the whole Frontier, bestowing certain supernatural abilities upon every mortal who comes there. These gifts are exclusively designed for peace. To promote productivity and happiness. All perfectly harmless.” Nyx grinned. “What do you think happened next?”

Sam gave a half-shrug, jumping over a green road tile that jutted dangerously straight up. “Dunno. What happened?”

“Well, you humans are deliciously shrewd things. Busy little bees, too. Give a world full of convicts each a soft pillow made with love and kisses under a perfect rainbow, and it doesn’t take them very long to figure out how to smother each other with them.

“Which is exactly what happened. One human—don’t ask me how, because I have no idea—murdered the goddess. Crow, they called that one. The Frontier fell into chaos, every man killing his neighbor in a brutal bid for power and resources, twisting the Concord against its intended purpose to forge themselves into deadly tools of war. Well, that happened some years ago, and things have mostly stabilized since. The goddess’s angels all fled into exile, or killed themselves out of grief, or retreated to plot their revenge against humanity, or met with one of a dozen other fates depending on who you ask. Unambiguous, however, is the fact that my kind are the ones who stepped in to take their place. The angel who used to man the Tower was replaced by a demon named Unger who is only concerned with his own personal amusement, often at the expense of the poor mortals who must pass through his domain to reach the Frontier.”

Nyx threw her arms wide. She spun in lazy pirouettes while somehow nimbly stepping along the scaled roadway without snagging on anything. “Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? So much violence. So much depravity. So much opportunity.” The demon let out an almost orgasmic sigh.

Sam licked her lips. “Uh, sure.” It sounded terrifying. “And… that’s where Will is?”

“Mmhmm. Oh, don’t look so put out. The Frontier might not be the endless field of daisies that every human girl dreams they’ll go to when they die, but your William has paid dearly to get you there. He seems to be on some sort of one-man crusade to turn the place into something better—pointless if you ask me, since it’s already perfect, but to each their own—and he thinks you’re absolutely imperative to that endeavor. So how about you try on some gratitude for size? It might suit you.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam grunted, suppressing the hysterical urge to laugh. She didn’t have a clue what to think about any of this. It was probably best not to give it too much thought.

Just a dream, remember. It’s aaall a dream.

But man, I never knew my imagination was this good.

“Well, here we are.”

Sam looked up, and started as she found a giant vertical bar of white blocking most of her sightline. Taking a few steps back and craning her neck, she found a pearly tower rising as far as the eye could see, disappearing into the churning purple clouds high above. Lacking any seams or windows, it was a perfect, unbroken pillar whose very existence seemed to defy its dreary surroundings, a slash of utter purity brightening the land's dark and muddy palette.

Letting her gaze trail back down again, she found that the tower had only a single break in its perfection; a wooden door of rough-grain boards with a rounded top, adorned by a brass door knob that shone as though fresh-made.

“I didn’t see it on the horizon,” Sam said breathlessly.

“Yes, it does sort of creep up on you, doesn’t it?” Nyx chuckled. She made no move to approach the tower. “This is where you and I part ways for now, Samantha. I cannot enter the Tower—at least, I can’t return to the Frontier that way. I have my own back entrance.”

“All right.” Sam found herself suddenly apprehensive to leave her guide behind, however badly she despised her company. She went all the way up to the door and put her hand on the knob before looking back. “Thanks for everything, I guess. It seems like you’re on Will’s side, so I can’t hate you or anything. Still don’t appreciate getting murdered so much, though.”

“Your affection warms my heart,” Nyx said, a hand to her chest and sticking her lower lip out in a simpering pout. “Now go, before I start tearing up!”

Sam snorted and turned back to her task. She pulled open the door on well-oiled hinges, revealing a field of brilliant light through which nothing could be seen. Before doubt could root her to the ground, she stepped through.

The light passed over her like a warm membrane; blinding, yet somehow comforting. She poked through the other side, and found herself…

At the top of the tower?

She was clearly very, very high up, with no walls or roof to obscure the dizzying bird’s eye view. A sea of billowing clouds spread out around her and went on forever. They were cottony white, tinged golden by a kindly sun. She stood on a round floor of white marble shot through with rose-colored veins, low crenellations marking its edges some twenty feet off in every direction to prevent an unwary stepper from tumbling right off into the clouds. When she glanced back, she found that there was no door behind her, nor any indication of a way to get down.

Though it had been twilight while she was on the ground, now the sun shone almost directly down on her, leaving her shadow a formless black blob at her feet.

The far end of the floor was taken up by a lone apple tree sprouting from a handful of displaced tiles, standing somewhat to her left. The tree leaned over a large desk of dark wood, its sheltering branches offering shade.

The desk was so large and imposing that Sam did not realize it had an occupant until he spoke.

“Did you know,” the unseen man—the demon Unger, presumably?—said in a soft, droning voice, “that this tree has fifty-two apples and thirteen-thousand-two-hundred-forty-three leaves? I’ve counted, you know.”

As Sam walked closer, she could hear the telltale hiss and whir of hydraulics, and the demon soon rose into view over the desk on what Sam could only categorize as a regal-looking office chair, upholstered in rich velvet. His legs were thrown lazily over one armrest while he gazed wistfully up at the apple tree, whose green leaves shivered on a light breeze. One leaf detached from its branch and floated away. Unger’s eyes tracked its movements as it passed overhead, then spiraled abruptly over the edge of the tower, snatched off into eternity. “Thirteen-thousand-two-hundred-forty-two leaves.”

Unger had the same pallid complexion as Nyx, except his skin had more of a greenish undertone. He was bald as a marble, but made up for it with extremely long eyebrows that arched away from his head and ended in wickedly sharp black points. He wore a black suit with the jacket hanging over the backrest of his chair and a blood-red tie that he’d loosened and let drape limply down over one shoulder.

“Well?” Unger asked without looking in her direction. “What do you think about that?”

“I…”

“Yes?”

“It must have taken a long time to count them all, I guess.”

Unger let out a long, deep sigh, like a balloon deflating. “Quite the conversationalist, aren’t you? Well, whatever. Come over here and sign the damn contract so we can both get on with our respective days. Before you ask—yes, you have to sign the contract. No, you cannot bring any pets or possessions with you. No, I will not sit and explain every little thing to you. Sign the contract, pick your shit, and move along. I've got quotas to meet.”

Sam rubbed the back of her neck as she approached the desk. Well, this guy sure lives up to his reputation. And he thinks I’m bad company.