shhhiinnk--shhhink A rythimic sound of stell sharpening steel while a slow drizzle of water cleans it.
A steady hand put down the sharpener and examined the blade - a mirror side and a razor sharp edge. Satisfied, he walked to the dirtied table behind him and grabbed the fleshy pile on top of it with his free hand.
The man slammed down with his arm, severing the meat and crushing the bones.
Thump
Second hit, and the second leg of the meat creature was chopped off
THUMP
Third hit, third leg. But the man was not happy with this strike, as the leg did not fully leave the rest of the pile. He looked at the blade once more, and sliced again.
The meaty lump fell to the plastic covered floor with a weird slimy sound.
"Tsk" Voro crouched down to pick it up and threw it into the grinder.
Final and fourth leg to be hacked off, Voro cleaned the blade again just to make sure he won`t be annoyed by such small imperfection in his work again.
*THUMP AND CRACKS*
The leg did fell off with a noise that was way to loud. The man looked at it, looked at the table and the knife. Nothing really out of the ordinary.
But then more thuds and crashed were coming from somewhere. Somewhere else though.
Voro threw the meat and the bones to the grinding machine and left the sterile room, taking off his protective clothes slowly and hanging them on a bit shaky hook.
"What`s going on man" As he cleaned up his hands outside the cooler room.
A low frequency hum filled the air, moved through the floor and up his legs all the way to his gums. The scales in the shop began to rattle and fall of their places to the ground.
"GET DOWN, THE EARTH IS SHAKING" His coworker shouted from behind the counter, but it was drowned out by the scream of breaking concrete walls.
Voro looked briefly outside the window and noticed what was going on, and in fact it looked like an earthquake. Asphalt cracking, lampposts bending and falling down, windows breaking and things just falling down from the buildings.
Maybe he got a just little concerned, and went back into the safe butcher room he was in while the streets were breaking down. Event when he closed the doors, the meat hooks above him were swinging in a rhythmic - clang clang clang - beating into each other, shelfs dropping the tools and jars to the floor and blood on the ground created waves and waves.
Brief moment later, just as the alarms stopped ringing in his ears, Voro pushed open the metal doors he locked behind himself only to find his meat shop in shambles, tiles cracked, the products on the floor and the one guy who was supposed to be taking care of the place covering behind the register.
"Go home" he said very calmly to his employee "I`ll .....do something about this"
The young shop worker ran out instantly in his beautiful "Prime Cut" shirt, the Vane`s family old meat producer over the years. Now...well not so prime.
But that wasn`t important, that was outside right now since there were no previous earthquakes in the country nor any announcements or warnings from the government.
So...what was it. The simple question Voro and everybody else around him asked themselves.
And the simple answer was...a big stony monolith that appeared nearby, as if it grew from the ground straight trough buildings.
The tower has emerged.
Voro checked his phone, and even though people were clearly hurt and dying around him, property damaged and he himself not in great shape- he was calm. And the internet was too.
Not even 5 minutes after the shaking, live streams and posts appeared with one word in common. Tower. Everywhere around the globe, countless have grew from the dirt, destroying anything that happened to be on top of them.
That did not stop the "influencers" to record and stream the situation. Anything for a view these days. But it helped understand some things for Voro,as he scrolled past a shaking video of a streamer in Seoul screaming into his phone as the dark spire split his apartament in half. It made one thing clerar - the thing outside was not the only one. And two, everybody knows about them now.
He smirked.
Finally, he felt that something interesting will finally happen in his life. He could leave his father`s and his grandfather`s place and do ..... well whatever that tower would bring him.
And so he waited for a few hours.
Meanwhile the police tried their best at maintaining the situation, removing anyone from the vicinity of the "crash site", yellow taping the whole place while trying to calm the surrounding hundreds of people down.
Medical teams driving in and out were carrying injured and dead from the site, city cleaners tried to lift concrete of the street to make way for them. Truly, a horrific scene.
At least that`s if you saw it, but Voro didn`t really care today. He prepared himself.
With 0 information about the situation, he could only guess what was happening.
'Tower. Police. Ruined buildings.....not great'
But nonetheless the semi-apocalyptic events were something he imagined on a daily basis, from toxic waste spill to nuclear zombie breakout, so he "knew" what to bring for that.
His old trusty leather jacket-pants suit, great for motor rides, but also sturdy and comfy.
Knives. A lot of them, especially the 5in1 pack from the Black Friday sale last week, and some better quality ones too of course. The butcher shop did have a nice assortment of those.
Classics like bandages, water and canned food were tossed into the backpack and closed off. Now he only had to wait.
Noon.
1 am
2 am
2:30 am
The police finally started to tone down. almost all of the police cars drove off, leaving only a handful of officers dosing off at their posts. And since the public lights were on the ground, it was nice and dark.
Perfect for a slim 22 year old in dark clothes to sneak around them.
And he did. Reaching the dark monolith in 5 minutes with 0 attention on himself, Voro touched the tower side.
A small blue pop-up window lighted up his face and almost blinding him for a second
[???? Tower ??? ?????]
[Would you like to enter]
[yes] [no]
After his eyes adjusted to the light, he reached his hand towards it, passing through it like it wasn`t there.
Stunned by the thing, he admired it for a while. There was no light around it, no screen to make it , no heat or sound. Just ... a thing.
"Hey you heard something?" Some police started to shine their flashlights around where Voro was.
"Shit" And he turned around to see the light closing onto him. Quick judgement was necessary, does he want to go back and retry later or will he try to accept the unknown invitation.
The answer was obvious as he put his finger with confidence into the [yes] button in the air.
And...puff.. he was gone
"Man, don`t wake me up for nothing." the other policeman hit the first one with his flashlight
"I`m going back to sleep"
"Sure....Must have been the wind" and they both went back to their cars.