"You passed out."
Johan looked up to see the giant smiling at him.
"You must have been exhausted from all that walking. But you fell asleep before I could tell you the direction to the next floor."
"Once you leave this room, take a right, then another right, then a left, and go through the door on your left. There should be a set of stairs there leading to the next level."
Johan stood up, but before he left, he turned to the giant
"You never told me your name."
The giant looked at him with his big blue eyes
"I was never given one."
Johan gave the giant a nod and made his way out the door.
Johan followed the directions the giant had given him and indeed found himself at the top of a flight of stairs. He steeled himself for what was to come and took his first step into the abyss.
But then he felt something, something strange calling to him. He stepped back from the stairs and closed his eyes. He definitely wasn't imagining it; something was calling him. It wasn't a voice, but a feeling too strong to ignore. He felt it racing through every part of his body.
Johan turned and ran; he ran without knowledge or direction, just guided by a gut feeling of where to go. Finally, he stopped in front of two colossal black doors. Johan could feel he was being called here.
The twin doors eclipsed even the giant in size. It would take something truly gargantuan to open them. Just as Johan was imagining what such a creature might look like, the doors swung open with such force that gale-force winds created by them almost swept Johan off his feet, but he stood firm. Once the winds died down, he made his way past the colossal doors and into what he could only describe as a void, endless darkness everywhere he looked.
As Johan progressed further away from the doors, he caught a glimpse of something shining in the distance. Shining with a dim, ghostly light, like the light of the moon.
As he got closer, he could feel it calling to him. Whatever it was, it wanted him to find it.
Johan kneeled and picked up this strange object, which appeared to be a necklace of sorts. Attached to a string was a pendant, perfectly circular, separated into two halves. On one half was a face which was that of a demon prince, long curling horns framing long flowing hair that looked as if it crackled with flames. His head was topped with a curling, twisting, demonic crown. Portrayed on the other side was a dignified-looking man who wore a suit and tie; his head and face were entirely covered by a simple mask and a towering tophat.
Johan stood to his feet and donned the necklace. All of a sudden, he could feel otherworldly, almost eldritch energy coursing through his body. He felt reality losing control, and the cosmos had never seemed closer. A new level of understanding breached his mind as he came to his knees; he could feel sweat dripping down his chin, and his breathing got heavy. There was ringing in his ears, his eyes began to water, and he felt sensations not native to this world.
Johan couldn't take any more. He felt his eyes drooping, his vision blurred, then everything stopped.
Johan got to his feet, hand on his head. He could barely conceive what had just happened. His journey back to his own world suddenly felt a whole lot smaller. But he had gone off course. In the trance-like state he was in while wandering the spire, he could not remember how he got there.
Johan got up, walked out the door, and resumed his journey through this treacherous tower.