Chapter 5: The Forever Tower – Part 5

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been moving for. I hadn’t stopped since I’d left the woman behind to face whomever they had told me to run from, but how long ago that was had already slipped my mind. I imagined that the walls had fingers, and those fingers reached into the top of my head and rummaged about in my mind until they found the memories they were looking for and tugged them out. Already the smaller details of my life were beginning to slip into their grasp, into the grasp of this place… these corridors… Was their purpose just to lure in unlucky souls like me or that woman and drain away our memory? Was this what had happened to her? Would I begin to fade and turn transluscent too?

No. I still had an old man to remember, so I focused on that. If I kept the memory in mind then my grip would be strong; nothing could snatch it away. I couldn’t allow myself to become like the woman, trapped in such uncertain existence, my presence never truly manifesting again ― not when I now had the memories of two people to carry forwards. Two people who had told me to keep going, who had been fading in one way or another, whose words echoed around my head in chorus. The burden of one legacy had been heavy enough ― how was I to carry another?

I stopped suddenly, brought up short by a noise from behind me. I stood in the middle of one of those empty rooms, doors on either side of me leading to more corridors, and through the one I’d entered came the faint sound of footsteps. Tap, tap, tap, against the smooth surface of the floor. In the corners of the room, the shadows grew stronger as a stale breeze raised itself on the air, drifting slowly around me, pulling at my hair, beckoning towards the source of the noise. Tap, tap, tap.

It was then that I truly realised the woman had never told me what I was running from, nor what they would do if they caught me. ‘They clean us up,’ I remembered her saying, and the memory gave me a jolt and a push forwards, and I started walking again.

It was becoming clear to me now that I had become accustomed to losing myself in thought throughought my life in the Tower. That was a world where things normally happened slowly, if they happened at all. Aside from in the plague sectors, you could generally just keep walking forwards on a sort of autopilot and nothing bad would ever happen to you. In the end, you’d grow old and your hair would turn grey and your skin would wrinkle, and finally you would lie down to sleep, time would have its due, and you would not wake up. But here the rules were different. As I quickened my step I listened to the footsteps fade, watched the shadows recede, felt the air still once more. Here, something other than time had its due, and if you stalled, it was had all the sooner.

I was halfway down the corridor when I stopped again. Something was wrong. I cocked my head and listened carefully. For a moment, nothing. Then ― there it was! Tap, tap, tap. Ahead. Had I been turned around? The shadows in the corners reared and towered over me. How many of them were there? The air picked up and flowed gently between my fingers, urging me forwards and into the embrace of the thing hunting me. How close were they? They were at the very end of the corridor, I could feel that. Just around the corner. About to appear…

I dodged into one of the empty rooms and closed the door behind me. The frantic movement of my eyes across the far walls told me there was no other exit. I had cornered myself, and outside I could hear them approach. Tap, tap, tap. There was only one thing I could think of ― I sat back against the door, pushing my whole weight against it, screwed my eyes shut, and held my breath. Outside, tap, tap, tap. Closer. Closer.

Tap, tap―

A moment of breathless, crushing silence.

The doorknob rattled. I felt the door push against me, but I braced myself and pushed back, defiant. For a moment it relented, then returned a little stronger than before, rattling, pushing. I responded in kind, with all the strength I could muster, and for a heartstopping moment I was certain it would not be enough… and then it stopped. Silence again.

Tap, tap, tap.

I held my breath a while longer, as long as I could, until all the other sounds of the world had dwindled to nothing and the shadows retreated into themselves. Carefully, I opened the door a crack and peered out into the corridor. All I could see was empty, so I pulled it open further and poked my head out, looking both ways to confirm. Standing up, I stepped out and slowly closed the door behind me. It was only as I was about to take a step forwards and looked down that I saw the residual presence of the thing that had been outside: footprints, in the dust. They looked like the prints of some kind of shoe, but I wasn’t sure what type. All I was sure of was that they would be my trail of breadcrumbs. As long as I was following the footprints, I could be sure I wouldn’t be turned around.

So I started walking again, trying each door I came to, but none to any avail. By now I had to have been walking long enough that I should have come across a locked door; I was certain they hadn’t been all that infrequent back before I knew how important they were. Or maybe they had. Or maybe the corridors were peering into me and reshaping themselves according to the things I knew. I glanced over my shoulder, but there was nothing there.

I rounded a corner into another corridor and stopped. The woman was in front of me, a small way down the corridor. She was even fainter than before, so much so that I felt what was behind her was easier to see than she was. Not until I walked up to her did I realise she was hovering just off the ground, her mouth moving soundlessly. I reached out to touch her shoulder in an attempt to get her attention, but my hand went through her. Retracting it, I took a step forwards so I was standing beside her. Her gaze did not follow me.

Just as I made to move on, I felt something catch my arm. When I looked down I saw that she was holding on to me, her knuckles turning white with the tightness of her grip. Solid, opaque knuckles. I looked up to a solid face, eyes wide, pupils contracted. ‘Go now!’ she hissed again, and then she was gone. Only empty air remained.

Tap, tap, tap.

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