"It is alright, we do not need to enter it anyway." Zach was crouching next to Harid behind a window frame, staring at their destination that towered into the sky in its silent majesty, the style of the Azure Tower was similar to gothic cathedrals, but it had multitude of futuristic elements as well. Like a thick torn cable hanging down alongside its wall. Harid thought that he was probably not the first one who directly experienced its fall.

"No, all the possible answers and solutions are here." Harid placed his hand firmly on Zach's shoulders.

"You don't know that!" Zach urgently whispered in return, but Harid faced him with unusual determination.

"I am going. With, or without you." He insisted and the two were frozen in place for a time.

  When they had arrived at the tower, they found out that there were two knights standing near its entrance. When they circled the city's landmark, they could not find any windows that were easily accessible and would not be able to use any of them anyway, because the two knights were too close. After a long moment of waiting, they had realized that the knights were not going anywhere and were stuck in place since then.

  Harid felt that at some point he had lost control over his life, he kept running around the ruined city in a purely reactionary way, forced by circumstances to do what he had to, or rather what he felt was inevitable for his survival. The tower in front of him was like a personification of all of it. It felt like by conquering it he would be able to end that erratic part of his life, or completely fall into madness. One way or another, it was necessary to end it and he would do it on this day.

"Fine, you go alone. I will distract them." Finally, Zach responded and sneaked to the exit of the room they were using as a watchtower.

  Harid's gaze returned to the tower. There was not many buildings near it, meaning the danger of something noticing him was high. Despite the fact, he felt that he simply had to try. He was sick of all the running, hiding and all the unknowns that veiled the whole place like a web. He felt that he would go insane if he did not break the stalemate that he had been in since the moment he stepped onto the subway station's platform.

  He took a deep breath and followed behind Zach who would hopefully be able to lure the two monsters away at least for a while. Outside of the building, he hid behind a pile of rubble and waited for his accomplice to circle the spot and lure the threat away. He did not have to wait for long, a small rock flew from the other direction in a wide arc and most likely just by accident hit one of the golden knights directly into its helmet.

  A quiet sound echoed though the area, its loudness unnaturally magnified by the eerie stillness of the city and all four protagonists were stupefied by the action, although every one of them for a completely different reason.

Zach was most likely cursing his luck for not hitting the pavement.

Harid was surprised by the attacker's boldness, not knowing why Zach was so committed to their cause.

The knights were royally pissed, no one ever daring to hit them with a thrown stone, mocking them openly.

  Shortly after a thundering roar that replaced their usual evaluation of the others' level of beauty, both knights dashed in the direction of the attacker and Harid worded a silent prayer for him with his mouth. When the sounds of their steps through the dilapidated streets faded to a fain echo, he left the safety of his hideout and quickly moved to the tower's main entrance.

  With his steps light and quick as a cat, he reached the door that were ajar. He only needed to pull lightly on its handle and it opened without any sound, Inside he saw a spacious reception that instantly took his breath.

  In its center there was a statue of a metallic tree with leaves made of glass that glittered in the dim light. The tree was a part of a fountain that no longer worked and its water was no longer present, the fountain's edges lined up with benches and a spacious marble sidewalk that might have been even called a square if the space was a little big larger. From the sides, the area had been encircled by walls of metal and glass that towered to an incredible height, five large glass platforms serving as lifts along its sides no longer traveled up and down, stuck in place, positioned into the shape of a pentagram with its top edge directly against the entrance.

  When Harid looked to his left and right, he saw white reception tables for employees that were obviously supposed to take care of the entering customers, or officials, depending on the actual function of the tower.

"Oh God." He could not but look up to search for the ceiling and he felt dizziness when he was unable to find it. Interestingly, there was not a spec of dust and only one of the lift platforms had been shattered. He noticed that in the continuation to the motive of the glass leaves of the tree, there were stripes of glass leaves on the walls that created a spiral that proceeded almost indefinitely, always up. Combined with the reflections of glass and metal that was clear and ever present, it had to mesmerize and confuse anyone that looked up, which might be the whole purpose of the lobby.

  He walked towards the tree and strewn around him were various possessions, jewelry, a damaged wallet and something that looked like a cellphone. He picked it up and touched every inch of its surface, but the device stayed dead, his purpose remaining unknown. He wondered why everything in the lobby was spotless, like new even though there was damage apparent at places. It looked like everything was under a perpetual enchantment of cleanliness.

It was strange.

Yet, it was nothing compared to what he saw written on a short wall behind the tree.

"Go up the stairs to the top." A wiring said and Haird pitied again that he was unable to read the local language. Only for him to realize in the next second that he could read it.

"Impossible!" He quickly turned his head around and tried to read all the other mysterious writings that he had long perceived as the feature of the environment. However, he was unable to. He looked back at the particular writing and read it again.

"Go up the stairs to the top." He had half-expected it to not be there any longer, but it was. It was not an illusion, hallucination or a mirage. It was simple plain English like someone had been expecting him. He walked to the writing that was next to a door that led to a stairway and up close, it was clear that it was not a hastily engraved joke. It was consistent with the tower's style, precise, clean, engraved in steel.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

"What joke is this?" Harid was confused by the sudden mystery that was added to a growing pile of unknowns.

He needed time to think, but he was not fated to receive any.

  Immediately, Harid turned his head when he heard a loud sound of something crashing against the floor. When he looked in the direction of the racket, he saw a small crack in the floor, directly under one of the lift platforms that was just a few meters above the ground. For a second, he could no see anything else, but the game of light perpetually played by the glass leaves of the spiraling walls soon revealed defects in the perpetrators camouflage that was unable to keep up with the unusual environment.

  Swallowing curse words, he bolted to the stairs and began to run up its wide loops, the pillar that stood in the stairway's center adorned by similar glass leaves as the lobby, yet he had no time to appreciate the beauty of his ascend, his legs pumping like crazy in an attempt to outrun the Lurker that would enter the stairway in seconds.

  Sprinting with all he had, he knew that the physically superior beast would be able to catch him in under a minute even if he kept his insane sprinting tempo. He watched the wide loops of the stairs go by, ascending nearly a dozen meters with every single one and thought about how far he dared to go. He planned to use his usual trick and his advantage would be greater with every meter of altitude he managed to gain.

  After a moment of a wild sprint, he finally judged that he should not dare to go for another loop and almost flew through a door, heading directly towards a glass panel that bordered the lobby. Through it, he saw the metallic tree down below, his destination. With his last steps, he charged with all he had and slammed his body against the glass panel.

  A loud sound reverberated though the glass wall of the lobby and Harid, to his great horror, was left standing propped against the intact glass panel, the quick steps of his adversary's clawed legs directly behind him. In panic, he turned to face the danger and had a single heartbeat to decipher the position of the enemy thought the reflections of light, the lingering pain in his side and adrenaline sharpening his senses.

  He was not sure, but had a feeling that a thin part of the reflecting lights stretched toward his head that was pressed against the glass. His instincts made him duck and when the concealed claw passed above and hit the wall behind him, he heard a shattering sound that was like a music to his ears. A split second later, something slammed into his body and he realized that the confused Lurker probably did not see the glass wall blocking the way at all and slammed into his body, carrying them both into the thin air above the benches of the tree far below.

  They both began quickly falling to their deaths, but Harid activated his power and appeared up in the air, directly next to the broken glass panel where he had placed his teleport location right after they had shattered the panel. He watched with glee as the flailing monster fell to its doom until it finally stabbed itself onto the metallic tree, shattering some of its glass leaves, turning the whole piece of artistry into a scene out of a horror movie.

"That went great." Harid sighed with relief. He had expected that the monster would not die, only gaining on it because it could not jump down without dying, forcing it to run all the way down through the stairs. In the end the result was much better.

  However, his thoughts changed radically the next moment when he saw a second monster enter through the entrance, looking excitedly at the top of the tree. Lurkers were cannibals and the newly arrived scavenger would certainly not be moving away from the tree anytime soon.

  That was a problem, because Harid had originally planned to descend and was stuck high in the air where the monster had not yet noticed him. His right was facing the shattered glass panel that was less than a meter away. He looked at its rough edges that were lined with shattered glass. Constantly using his tattoo, he kept teleporting himself where he was, resulting in him effectively hanging in the air.

"The world shall know pain." He mumbled while looking at the jagged glass edge. He took of his shirt and wrapped his both hands in it the best way he could. The next moment, Harid stretched his body to the side and grabbed onto the shattered window's edge. His body slammed lightly against the glass panel below and his muscles began to tense, pulling him up though the broken glass.

  He would have never been able to do it before, but life in the ruins demanded from everyone physical fitness, those who had been unable to adapt were no longer among the living and after an intense exertion and pain coming from the places at his hand where his shirt failed to completely protect him from the rough edges of the shattered glass, Harid managed to stand in the shattered window, observing if the Lurker noticed his activity.

  Luckily, all the brain capacity of the beast was assigned to the task of getting to the corpse atop of the tree and Harid could let out a breath filled with satisfaction and a bit of pain. His wounds were not serious, but were still unpleasant. He gave the beast at the ground level the last look and reread the mysterious writing.

"Go up the stairs to the top."

And as he read, he did, reentering the stairway he continued up to the top of the Azure Tower.

  Panting and cursing under his breath, it took him a lot of time to finally reach the top of the tower, where a spectacular sight opened before him and a robotic voice almost caused him a heart attack.

"Welcome, Tower Master Harid Reyllin."

Year 347 After Enlightenment, Karnas, the capital city of The Ulyan Empire

  Hem of an azure robe was dragged up the stairs that circled around a collection of leaves made of glass that ran all the way down along a thick pillar the height of which should not be even structurally possible if considering ordinary materials. The robed man paid no attention to any of it, all the spectacles of his tower had long been taken for granted by him, perceived as mundane.

  Any other day, there would be people everywhere, but under the great reset protocol the top floors had long been evacuated, along with the whole tower.

  With his last steps, he reached an open space, an office that took the whole top floor and the central pillar of stairs finally reached the ceiling along with the spiral of glass leaves that joined into the ones that covered and lit the ceiling.

"What is our status." The man barked in a commanding voice as soon as he exited the stairs.

"All personnel evacuated. Maximum security protocol Initialized." A monotonous voice stated into the open space of the office making it feel more empty than it already was.

"Unlocking condition set, DNA sequence." The voice continued while the man slowly walked to a massive glass table that stood in the center of the office and sat on a spacious sofa next to the table.

"Good luck my unwilling successor." The man chuckled and stretched his hand to a gleaming blue orb placed on the edge of the glass table. He wrapped his finger around it and commanded in an uncompromising deep voice.

"Initiate teleportation, orbital station Helix." Even before his words were fully absorbed by the walls of his office, the person in blue robe lit like a blue Sun and vanished from the interior of his office, leaving the Azure Tower empty without a single soul.