The Tower twists around me like a living being. Each corridor feels narrower, as if breathing down on me, judging whether I deserve to exist.The crystals and bones form passages that stretch and warp before my eyes, and I feel my feet walking on the flesh of those who did not survive.
The Man with the Harmonica has vanished for a moment, leaving me alone with my instinct. But I am not entirely alone.A wet, broken moan cuts through the darkness, and as I turn a corridor, I discover an open room: corpses piled to the ceiling, in impossible positions, as if death itself had forgotten its dignity.The smell is unbearable, but I cannot stop. Something inside drives me forward, a mixture of horror and the need to understand.
Among the bodies, I find traces of cannibalism: broken bones, torn flesh, eyes that still seem to accuse me. Sanity threatens to break.Yet, I cling to my survival instinct. I must move forward. Each step reminds me that I am still alive, that I still hold control… even as the world here has lost all sense.
At the far end of the room, I see something I did not expect: another survivor. His skin is marked, eyes hollow and shining, a twisted smile across his face as he mutters words I cannot comprehend.He watches me with hunger and recognition, and in that instant, I understand the Tower discriminates not: it turns all into monsters, echoes of its voracity.
The man lunges at me. My reaction is immediate: dodge, push, strike. Violence becomes a dance, salvation through chaos.With each blow, each dodge, I feel on the verge of losing myself, joining the chorus of corpses and screams, yet I resist. I resist for the thread that still binds me to my daughter's memory, to the fragile thread of life that remains mine.
At the end of the struggle, I am alone, gasping, among the bodies of the dead and nearly dead.The Tower groans, stronger, more alive.The Man with the Harmonica reappears in the shadows, his gaze fixed on me, and I know this is only the beginning.
A shiver runs through the structure, and a terrifying thought pierces me: the Tower feeds on me as much as on them, and I have yet to see its true appetite.