Bang!
It began with a scream. It began with a loud bang. It began with the end of everything I ever knew.
And I'm still here, breathing, remembering it all.
It started with that tower, the impossibly tall one. The one that had no end, just a line stretching into the clouds. It wasn't there one day, then it was. No warnings, no omens, just… there.
Brown as rusted iron, tall like a god's finger, and cruel. It didn't feel like a building, it felt like a wound in the sky. A wound that bled monsters, horrors, and grief. A wound that swallowed everything and gave nothing back. The tower of Forbanna they say.
I still remember the day I lost everything. That scream, sharp like a needle in my ears. I was just a kid, watching cartoons on the floor when I saw my mom, pulled in like smoke up a chimney. Like thousands of others, she vanished into the dark.
All I saw were her fingers, reaching. And all I did was scream, cry.
"UAAAAHHHHHHH!"
I sat up, gasping, my shirt clinging to my chest. If only I had someone to shake me, to say it was okay.
But I didn't. There was only me. There is only me.
I opened the blinds, hoping it'd be gone. Nope. Still there, cutting the sky like a scar. So big it could be seen from anywhere in the world.
I'm not special. Not a Dweller, not a Chosen, not someone working as government's agent. I'm just James. A kid with nothing but anger inside. It's boiling like crazy.
Dwellers get gear, sponsors, government backup. They go into the tower, clear floors, save lives. If they fail, monsters pour out and eat everything. So yeah, they're our last hope.
Me? I've got no sword, no skill, no power. All I've got is a pointless revenge.
I dragged myself out of bed, sore and bitter. The mirror didn't lie. I was still me. Chubby cheeks, black hair, nothing that screamed hero. Just a seventeen-year-old loser with bags under his eyes.
After brushing my teeth and rinsing the night away. I sat alone for breakfast, a cracked plate of eggs and rice. TV blaring in the background, another update on the tower.
"Floor Seven: not cleared. Four hundred dwellers are estimated to be dead."
The announcer's voice was trembling.
"It is advised to stay fifty kilometers away from the tower."I snorted.
"Well I am not in the radar I think."
But that damn thing loomed even from my tiny window. I left for school like every other day. Same streets, same faded faces.
The clingy couple holding hands near the bakery that almost makes me cringe.
The grandma yelling at kids for looking at her flower vase.
It was almost peaceful. Almost.
Bang!
A bang so loud it shattered windows five blocks away. My ears rang as I stumbled, heart racing.
"What the hell was that?!" "Is this a wave? Where are the Dwellers?"
We all looked at the tower in unison.
The massive door on its 7th floor had opened wide. Everyone stared, waiting, gasping and praying. Until they saw those tentacles.
No, it doesn't seem that way.
It's black, gooey things and elastic that perfectly resembled tentacles. They shot out like whips and grabbed people. One by one, people vanished, screaming mid-breath. It was happening again.
I ran. I ran like hell. But it was futile. The street cracked beneath me. A tendril wrapped my leg. I screamed as it pulled me up. My vision blurred, spinning. The world twisted into black and red. And I remembered that day.
My mom, her voice calling my name. The tower swallowing her whole. The same dark coils wrapped around her. And now they had me too.
We were pulled into the door—thousands of us. Some tried to resist, some cried, some prayed. But it was futile.
The last thing I saw was my destroyed city and countless people being sucked in along with me.