Entering the Tower

Three years earlier.

The Gate

The Tower has one entrance. No one knows why—the structure is massive, yet only one door exists. Perhaps the builders wanted control. Perhaps the door chose itself.

It stands forty feet tall, made of a material that is neither stone nor metal. When you touch it, you feel... watched. As if the door itself is considering whether to let you through.

Most people who approach the door turn back. Something in them—call it instinct, call it wisdom—screams that this is wrong. That humans were not meant to enter.

I did not turn back.

The Price of Entry

To enter the Tower, you must pay.

Not in money. In memory.

The door requires your first memory. Not your first clear memory—your actual first. The moment of birth, or as close to it as your mind contains. The foundation of your identity.

You do not experience this trade consciously. You approach the door, it opens, you step through—and somewhere in the transition, that memory is gone.

Most people do not miss it. How can you miss what you cannot remember?

But I have spoken to those who have been in the Tower long enough, and they say you feel it. A rootlessness. A sense of being unmoored from your own beginning.

I felt it immediately.

The First Floor

The first floor of the Tower is called the Gallery of Strangers.

It is a vast hall, larger than the Tower's exterior suggests possible. The walls are lined with alcoves, each containing a memory crystal on a pedestal—memories left by those who entered before.

Some of these memories are recent. Some are ancient. Some pulse with vibrant color; others have faded to near-transparency, their emotional charge spent.

In the center of the Gallery, a figure waits. They call themselves the Curator.

The Curator

The Curator is not human.

I do not know what they are. Their form shifts—sometimes humanoid, sometimes geometric, sometimes a pattern of light that hurts to look at directly.

They speak, though, in a voice that somehow feels like every voice you have ever heard.

"Welcome to the Tower. What do you seek?"

I had prepared for this question. Everyone who enters must answer it, and the answer shapes what the Tower shows you, what paths open, what trades become available.

"I seek... memories that do not belong to me."

The Curator's form shifted. Something like a smile. "A thief. We have not had one of those in some time."

The Rules

Every newcomer receives the Rules. They are simple:

One: The Tower is not linear. Floors connect in ways that change. What was above may become below. Trust nothing spatial.

Two: Memories can be traded, but the trade must be willing. Forced extraction is possible but costly—something in the Tower keeps track.

Three: You may leave at any time. But each floor you ascend makes leaving more difficult. Not impossible—difficult. The Tower does not want to lose what it has gained.

Four: At the top, there is something. No one who has seen it has returned to describe it clearly. Some say it is truth. Some say it is death. Some say it is nothing at all.

Five: The Tower watches. Always.

The First Trade

Before you can ascend, you must make a first trade. The Tower insists on this—a demonstration that you understand the system.

In the Gallery, other newcomers wandered, examining the alcoves, some weeping, some laughing, some frozen in place.

I approached an alcove containing a memory that glowed pale silver. A memory of snow.

"This one," I told the Curator. "What does it cost?"

"Ah. A memory of a child's first snow. Very pure. Very simple. The cost..."

The Curator examined me, or seemed to.

"Your memory of your father's face."

I thought of my father. A man who left when I was young. A face I barely remembered anyway—vague, distant, marked by the passage of years.

"Done."

The trade happened instantly. One moment I held the snow memory, the next I was placing my father's face—clearer than I realized, now that it was leaving me—onto an empty pedestal.

Something strange happened. As my father's face settled into its new home, I felt... lighter. A burden I had not known I was carrying, gone.

The snow memory hummed in my hand. Someone else's childhood joy, now mine to carry.

The Lesson

The first floor teaches you that you have more than you know.

Memories you barely thought about? They have weight. Value. Someone wants them.

Memories you cling to? They might be traded for something better. Or they might be exactly what the Tower needs to trap you.

The Gallery of Strangers is where people learn to calculate. To see their own past as currency. To understand that in the Tower, sentiment is expensive.

I spent three days on the first floor, trading small memories, acquiring smaller ones, learning the rhythm.

Then I found the stairs.

The Ascent Begins

Ascending is not simply walking up. The Tower resists.

The stairway between floors is a test. It shows you memories—not yours, not trade memories, but something else. Echoes of others who climbed. Their fears. Their doubts.

The first stairway showed me a woman dying. She had traded too much. Her mind was hollow, her self dissolved. She climbed because she could no longer remember why she should stop.

Is that what I would become?

The vision passed. The second floor opened.

And my real education began.

The Tower lets everyone in. The question is not entry—it is whether you will recognize yourself when you finally leave.

Next: The Traders—the people who have made the Tower their home.