Chapter 5

Towers Descend (I)

It’s a good day, Cain mused as he stepped out into the streets of L.A., taking in a deep breath. He couldn't help but feel excitement swell slowly, like a prelude to a song's drop. After all, his life was the Tower for over twenty years, and after so much time spent in it, he developed a sense of comfort despite the dangers.

He headed toward the Downtown L.A., though he could have stayed nearby as the Tower would encompass a huge swath of the city. However, just to be on the safer end and not accidentally be left out or, worse, crushed under the debris that would explode outwardly, he headed toward the epicenter.

Settling down in one of the coffee shops, he lit up a cigarette and waited, fiddling with his phone, mostly stalking through Emma’s numerous profiles and trying to piece what the two of them have been doing.

Occasionally he would look up and glance around, wondering how many of the thousands of people that would be thrust into the Tower from the get-go will come out alive. It should take them two-three days to find the entrance gate, he deliberated inwardly. Reportedly, over forty thousand died in this Tower alone.

The first floor of the Tower wasn’t exactly difficult, but that was after the world-shattering adjustments people underwent. For the first few months, mania would reign instead, so much so that even a nuke was eventually dropped on the Tower in Siberia. Not much happened, naturally, except that people needed radio-protective suits to gain access to the Tower.

Those distant memories, however, were quite blurry, melded together in a few photos and headlines that still somehow remained after all those years.

Sighing, he put out the cigarette and took the last sip of coffee when he felt it -- a sudden tremble. It was extremely faint, and most people would likely attribute it to an earthquake... but Cain knew better. It was a tremble he’d felt tens of times before, as the Towers would shake in the same fashion whenever a floor got cleared.

At the same time, he felt a sensation of pressure, making it more difficult to breathe as though he was shot up into the stratosphere. Looking up, he saw the world bending and distorting, as though glitched.

It all lasted for a few seconds, however, before the true spectacle began. By now, some people had realized that something was off as well and looked toward the sky -- and then it happened. A sound of thunder that deafened the world exploded out and space itself was ripped open into a gash through which the Tower began falling.

Nobody except Cain, however, could focus on it as everyone was reeling in pain, screaming as their brains scrambled to withstand the sudden onslaught. He could hear the horns and alarms of the cars and crashes ripping through the dirt in concert with the still-echoing boom of thunder, yet his eyes and focus remained sharply on the falling darkness.

It grew and grew, encompassing seemingly the entire sky, and pressure increased until, at one point, he was truly incapable of breathing. Even if, in his mind, he knew he wouldn't die, he couldn't help his rapidly-beating heart or his anxiety-infused brain. His whole body rang out thousands of alarms that the death was imminent, yet he prevailed through all of them and remained seated, taking a deep breath... just before the darkness crushed him.

Everything went murky momentarily, and he felt as though he was drifting through a limbo of sorts. Sounds were distant and muted, and colors didn't exist.

The sensation didn’t last long, however, as he soon found himself grounded, rapidly catching his breath as his mind barely recovered.

Groaning, he slowly lifted himself to his feet, his vision still blurry, the sounds still muffled as he was yet to completely recover. Shaking his head, he managed to regain some wits about himself, looking around at his surroundings.

A faint sigh escaped his lips as a sense of relief overcame him; he was far more familiar with this sight rather than the one on the outside. Huh, so I wound up in the Valley? Two heaving cliffs stretched on his sides, completely symmetrical, almost looking like two arms reaching out for a hug.

They cradled a wide and flat field of green and yellow, with a few scarce trees bearing strange, pear-shaped cyan fruits scattered about infrequently. The faint wind blew along, but otherwise, it was silent. Looks like I landed here alone...

It wasn’t strange, however -- the first floor was massive. The sole reason it was cleared relatively quickly was that people lucked out in finding the ‘boss room’. It would take almost six years until every inch of this place was mapped out completely, and it remained a constant source of a lot of herbs until well into the future.

The cyan-dyed fruits hanging from the trees would come to be called pearies, and were an absolute delicacy when, strangely enough, fried with olive oil. Other than that, they also had an added effect of clotting wounds rapidly, which was why most Conquerors always carried at least a few with them, even at the higher floors.

He approached one of the trees candidly and plucked the fruit. The trees themselves weren’t too large, roughly ten feet altogether, and each would bear only thirty-to-forty seeds annually. Biting into it, the faintly bitter taste swelled inside his mouth as a surge of nostalgia hit him. He was rarely able to afford them as most were monopolized by the companies, so the sensation of the taste was still fresh to him. Yet, of all the places... I wound up here...

What was strange that pearies were one of the six fruits on the first floor that could not be identified through a status screen, which wasn't the case for others. In fact, a vast majority of things -- no matter how mundane -- could be identified through the status screen. For others, there were some prior requirements, such as consuming them -- but, there were also rare exceptions that would never be identifiable through the screen, no matter what is done.

Inventory should have opened by now, right? He mused inwardly before mumbling softly ‘Inventory’ whereupon a tall, rectangular screen flashed in front of his eyes. Four rows and five columns, totaling in twenty spaces. In many ways, he mused, the whole Tower Conquering was like a really, really grindy game, all the way down to trying to find expansion slots for the inventory.

Luckily, pearies stacked and, thus, he spent the next hour plucking every single one and stuffing them into the inventory. This alone would net him close to five million in the near future, but he had no intention of selling them. Healing classes, especially in the first year, would be incredibly weak, and as such people would be relying almost entirely on the herbs or the medicine made from them for the foreseeable future. A slice across the artery that would otherwise kill a man could be prevented by simply applying pearie's skin onto the wound, clotting it virtually immediately.

Stretching lazily, he headed out of the valley, which was also when he stumbled upon the first other soul -- it was a boy from what Cain could discern, his face and clothes covered in mud. However, he appeared no older than sixteen, a backpack flung over his shoulder, the face of confusion and horror present in his expression.

The boy jumped when he saw Cain, appearing alert, as though uncertain whether it was really another person or a hallucination.

“... are you hurt anywhere?” Cain asked casually, smiling at the boy.

“... n-no,” the boy replied lowly, still alert. “W-who are you?”

“Name’s Cain,” he replied. “A thirty-two-year-old waste of oxygen. You?”

“... Ben,” the boy replied. “A sixteen-year-old waste of oxygen.”

“Oi, oi, you’re way too young to be a waste of oxygen,” Cain said, chuckling. “Give it a few years at least.”

“... heh,” the boy scoffed silently, looking around. “Are you alone, too?”

“Eh? You can’t see all these hundreds of people around me?!”

“WHAT?!!”

“I’m kidding, dude...”

“... not funny.”

“I thought it was kinda funny.”

“Seriously, not funny man!” Ben cried out. “What the fuck is going on?!”

“... uh... aliens?” Cain tilted his head and replied with a smirk.

“... you’re one of those, aren’t you?”

“Those?” Cain quizzed.

“The batshit insane ones.”

“Ah, yes, very much so,” Cain nodded. “I’m completely off-the-rails, as they say. But I’m still the only one here. So, how about we tag along until we find someone more normal to steer us toward salvation?”

“...”

"You're quite distrustful," Cain chuckled when he saw the boy hesitating. "Good. A smart call. How about this, then; I'll walk upfront, and we can shout at each other if we have something to say."

“... it’s fine,” Ben said, taking a deep breath to calm down. “You look quite weak. I might even be able to beat your ass in a fight...”

“... do I really look that weak?” Cain mumbled, looking down at his body. “Eh, whatever. My nine year old once beat me in a wrestling match,” he added with a chortle. “So you can definitely wreck my ass.”

“... you got a kid?” Ben exclaimed with faint surprise as he joined Cain and the two began walking down a dirt pathway through a thick forest of what looked to be pine-like trees.

“Yup. You?”

“... dude.”

“Hey, don’t look at me like that,” Cain shrugged. “I met at least three kids who had kids. It’s a weird fucking world, man.”

“... by the way, you can’t see it?”

“See what?”

“This screen in front of me?” Ben pointed forward -- to nothing, at least in Cain’s eyes.

“... you can’t see mine either?” Cain randomly pointed forward as well, knowing that unless it was directly approved by a person, nobody could see their status screen.

“... this feels like a game,” Ben said. “All these stupid stats... and skills... and, under my ‘Traits’ it lists ‘Paranoid’ at ‘C+’... what the fuck?!”

"..." Cain looked at him oddly, though decided not to say anything. 'Traits' would, ultimately, become like a diagnostics machine for the human body. Besides listing out general tendencies of someone's personality and general, life skills, it also listed all aliments, temporary and otherwise. It was like a buff-debuff system in games, just packed into the single portion of the screen. I’ll offload him once we meet up with a larger group, he thought. Then I can head to the Shrine to get Classified...

The most important part of why he chose the Tower in L.A. over all others in the world is because it was the solitary place he could get the class he had previously. Each Tower would give out six potential classes, totaling in forty-two altogether. The most popular one would eventually wind up being the Tower in Rio as it was exclusively for the support classes, and those would get paid the most even if the people themselves were terrible at using them.

“Looks like there’s someone ahead,” Ben said, pulling Cain out of his thoughts. “Should we meet them?”

“Why not?” Cain shrugged. “Or did you get so attached to me you just wanna stay by my side?”

“... suck my dick.”

“Aii, I’m twice your age, kid,” Cain glanced at the boy with a smirk. “Do you want to send me to jail that badly?”

“...” Ben merely rolled his eyes at him, causing Cain to realize people around him frequently did that. Is it... me?

The new group was composed of eight people, five men and three women, of varying ages, races, ethnicity, appearances, and all manner of diversity that, if their picture was taken, they'd be the poster-children of the melting-pot nation.

Noticing the two, the group stopped in their tracks and waited until Ben and Cain caught up. The trees continued to block their surroundings, but, strangely enough, it wasn’t dark at all. That was one of the magical properties of the Tower; unless the floor itself is meant to be dark with low visibility, there would always be light coming from seemingly a completely separate dimension.

“Hello,” Cain greeted the group with a smile while Ben merely nodded. “How are you guys doing?”

“... ugh, are you the happy-go-lucky type?” one of the men in the group grunted. “How the fuck do you think we’re doing?”

“... don’t mind me,” Cain smiled lightly. “I’m just a moron...”

“Who’s he? Your kid?” one of the women asked.

“I wish,” Cain sighed, glancing at Ben who looked at him angrily. “He’s a good kid... but I’m afraid we just met like ten minutes ago.”

“Do either of you know what’s going on?” another woman, a tall brunette, stepped out and asked.

“... aliens?” Cain replied with the same line, tilting his head with a smile.

“...” everyone immediately shot him strange looks coated in a trace of disdain. He merely smiled in response, just wanting to ensure they don’t let him join them. And, as though they read his mind, one of the men quickly answered Cain’s prayers.

“The kid’s welcome,” he said. “You, though...”

“Hey, what the hell?” one of the women said. No, no, don’t do him like that, he’s right... Cain cried inwardly. “We can’t just leave people out, especially when we don’t know what’s going on. Especially... especially someone like him...”

“... what do you mean?” Cain, seeing the opening, jumped on it like a moth to a flame. “Are you implying that I’m off somehow?! I’m completely offended by it!”

“N-no, of course not--”

“Whatever,” he interrupted the woman with his angry front. “You guys can go on, and someone like me will just go his own way. Tsk, the audacity. Just wait until aliens kidnap you all and probe your butts! Humph, then we’ll see who’s going to have the last laugh!”

Reeling in embarrassment inwardly over his performance, Cain quickly stormed away without allowing anyone to even try and stop him. God, I pray I never have to do that again... luckily there were no mirrors around as he’d be seeing the dastardly-red version of himself. Hmm... east of the Fyrie Woods? He stopped for a moment to orient himself before dipping in-between the trees, heading east toward the Shrine. Well, let’s get Classified and leave for now...