A Curving Tower Full of Depth
The house creaked under the weight of the structure. The “house” was actually shaped more like a tower, with layer after layer of stairs going up to finally reach the top. The house was not stable because the foundation had been made long before in a time long forgotten. The top did not reach to the sky; it was actually commonly associated with touching the moon with its tip. Of course a house with such numerous floors could never be explored, even by its owners. Tradition was to send the first son up the tower to build the next floor and inhabit it for a time defined as one moon’s rotation after it was built. The labor was intense, with many bricks to be placed and secured.
Every son had their own style befitting their personality, so each layer was different than the last. Consequentially, some layers were more stable than others and the house was fated by prophecy to fall after 100 generations had lived in the house. The prophecy was inscribed upon the base of the house and had both great things and terrible things: Upon this house is placed a curse and blessing both: prosperity for 100 generations who live within, but one collapse shall end it all. The carver was anonymous. Steward was a member of the 81st generation that had lived in the house, so he was not worried about the fate that would later befall his family. 19 generations between him and doom would ensure his survival until a more natural death, assuming the prophecy was correct.
With one final look at the neighborhood behind him, Steward began his ascent. A sudden noise caused him to turn around for a glance after that, but it was only the breath of the wind. Nervousness still dwelled within him from the immensity of his task, and he felt he was not ready, and would never be ready for this task. The great history of the tradition and the memory of his parents were the reasons he was doing it. The ascent would not be easy, considering how high he would be climbing and how many building supplies he would be carrying. It would be made easier, though, by the remnants of past generations’ supplies. Food would not be a problem either, because the roof contained a row of crops that continuously cycled new food with the help of machines.
The house had been built from the inside out. A central column contained the stairs and on the side of each flight of stairs there was a door. Each door was numbered, so it was easy to tell which generation had built each layer. Some of the doors had locks and some did not, and all of the keys were contained in a chest in the basement which Steward was not aware of. All of the halls had exceptionally complete light for such a long series of stairs, because a few generations ago, someone had strung up Christmas lights all the way up. This was quite fortunate for Steward, because he knew of no flashlights in his house.
As he climbed upwards, Steward began to think of the many wonders that awaited him at the top of the house. He almost wanted to peek through a doorway, so as to see some of the memories within. However he resisted the urge, and continued to climb. A loneliness began to develop within him, growing deeper and weighing on him more each step he took. He remembered a conversation he’d had with a good friend of his the day before, about his quest. “Surely you’re not going up that monstrous staircase tomorrow, without any warning before today?!” his friend, who went by the name of Xavier, had exclaimed. “I must, for it is a traditional burden to be overcome,” Steward had replied, and he had walked away to go prepare for his journey.
Perhaps that was a mistake, and Steward saw now the consequences of his actions. He might have been able to appeal to his friend, to convince him to accompany him. But it was too late for that now, and Steward set his mind on other things. He still had doubts and fears, but he repelled them, shoving them to the back of his head, and increased his pace so that he was moving more steadily than before. He passed through layer after layer of mundane brick, until he finally arrived at the first unique floor, which was marked 54. This particular floor had an aura of goldenness around it, and Steward was once again tempted to throw open one of the golden doors and look for treasure. He once again resisted the thought, though this time it continued to dwell in his mind, and resumed his climb.
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Xavier surveyed the outside of the house. He focused very hard on looking at the windows, which would allow him to pinpoint the exact location of Steward. With a rope in hand, and his excellent aim, he would be able to latch onto the nearest window and catch up to Steward. First he had to figure out where Steward was, and he did not anticipate that it would take so long. It was in Steward’s nature to get easily distracted, and Xavier had hoped that he would look out a window. This is a long time for Steward to do nothing but walk, he thought, and suddenly caught a glimmer of something. From inside, something Steward was carrying had reflected off the gold wall.
He squinted at the wall, trying to determine the distance between the ground and the window. Knowing he couldn’t waste much time, he quickly grabbed a rope which looked to be long enough and hurled it with great force at the wall. It fell short and fell back to the ground after sliding down the wall. Xavier tried to throw the rope again and failed yet again, and each subsequent try proved to be fruitless. Finally he admitted to himself that the rope was too short and he would need a longer one. The problem was, any rope longer than the one he currently had too much weight to be hurled up such a great distance.
He shuffled through his backpack, looking for anything that might help him propel the rope. Perhaps he could make a rocket from the supplies in the pack, or a catapult. Frantically, he emptied the backpack in a search for anything that could help him get up to the window. Various miscellaneous items flew out, from ropes to grapples to rope ladders, until Xavier had emptied out every pocket but one. As he emptied the last items, he realized a solution was right in front of him that he had not noticed until now…
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Clang!
Steward heard a noise of metal hitting metal a few floors down. He had been resting in a state of tranquility from carrying his supplies up and did not want any problems. Apparently, problems wanted him. He rushed down the stairs and left all of his treasured building materials scattered on the floor. Without the weight of everything on his back and going downhill, he made very good progress and arrived back to the floor where he had heard the noise in less than a minute. Through the golden door he heard the railing rattling, and he worked to unlock the door.
Steward’s attempts had no effect, as he didn’t actually have the key to the door and was just trying to twist the knob. After a few failed attempts to break the knob, he fell to the ground in exhaustion, giving up before he had really even tried. Next to him, a hammer from his belt fell to the floor, sending his ears ringing. Steward rose up suddenly, an idea forming in his head. He picked up the hammer and began to whack the doorknob with it, sending the whole door vibrating. This only left dents, however, and did nothing to help him open the door.
His attempts having failed, and the sounds outside getting closer, he moved a great distance back from the door and set his feet to charge. As he hurtled towards the door at full speed, he swung the hammer wildly in circles and shouted, thinking anything would help the hammer destroy the doorknob. Having finally arrived at the door, he swung the hammer in a mighty blow towards the doorknob…only to miss and hit the wall instead. Because the wall was not pure gold, and actually a weaker alloy, the wall succumbed to the force of the blow, cracking and falling to the ground like broken glass.
Steward dropped the hammer and stood in the artificial entrance, stunned at the beauty of the golden room. Then he heard the noise again and saw a hand reach through the window, holding onto a metal hook. Steward walked over to the window to see who the hand belonged to, and as he did, the figure propelled itself over the edge and knocked Steward back from the window. The figure turned around and revealed itself to be Xavier. With a certain nonchalance about him, Xavier walked past Steward and uttered some words into his once again stunned ears. “Nice to see you again,” Xavier intoned, and strutted through the cracked wall to gather up all of the strewn materials.
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With the help of Xavier, Steward had arrived at the very top floor and began the progress of constructing a floor for himself. After all of the surprise and effort of the day, it was nighttime and the full moon shone bright above. Steward was still curious how Xavier had arrived up so high up the house with only a rope and a hook, though.
“How did you get up here?” Steward asked, tiredly sitting down from all the work of placing bricks.
“I simply used two things from my pack,” Xavier replied, sitting down next to him. “I had just found a silk rope, much lighter than any of my other ropes, and with a grapple gun to propel it up, the climbing was easy.”
As the two boys leaned back against the wall, it suddenly creaked, and falling back it revealed a secret glass room within the center column. Within, there was a pad with exactly 100 buttons, but only 81 of them were labeled with numbers. The others were blank, and had only red x’s carved into them. As Steward entered the alcove he recognized it as an elevator and was very angry. The journey up had been a long one, and he didn’t like to know there was an easier way. Xavier entered the elevator behind him, but was not angry and instead noticed something very strange about the elevator.
“The buttons don’t have any 9’s,” he observed with confusion.
This brought Steward out of his pouting, and he noticed it as well. Even though the number of numbered buttons only went up to 81, the final number was 100 because the carver had skipped all of the numbers containing 9’s. This made Steward curious what the other 19 buttons did. Xavier saw Steward’s hand moving towards the last button and tried to stop him from making such an impulsive decision, but it was too late. Steward had pressed the last button, which led to a floor that had yet to be created.
The elevator flew into the air, higher and higher, supported only by four thin metal poles. It hit the top with a loud clang of metal against metal, and began to shake. As the elevator veered left and right, waiting to fall, Steward began make the connection between the elevator numbers and him.
“81 generations…81 numbers, ending with 100…100 generations until the collapse…” he mumbled to himself.
Xavier, hearing his mumbles, answered, “Your family has lived for 81 generations, but also 100. And the 100th generation is apparently doomed, so…”
Xavier and Steward both realized in that moment what would happen, and prepared themselves for the inevitable. The elevator broke out of the base and began to plummet, with Xavier sitting and Steward standing. The last sight they saw before it hit the top of the tower was the reflection of the moon on the glass.
The elevator hit the roof with great impact and began to tear through half of the huge house, floor by floor. After the elevator had reached the ground, the other half of the house began to shake and with no supports separated into the bricks and pieces of wood and metal it was made from. A great number of bricks fell in all directions, and forever after the day was known as the “Day of Raining Bricks.”
After all of the rubble from the ruined house had been cleared, only a single part of the house remained. Almost all of the base had been destroyed and even almost all of the prophecy had been smudged away. Still, the two fatal words of the prophecy remained: 100 generations.
Category: Creative Writing, Short Story