The sun was up in the morning on this day 8 years ago, Lily was 9 when she first discovered this small hole. It wasn't far from the house of the mayor, but it felt like no one had ever come close to it. That day she wanted to see many flowers, she had the diary that she got from Naluri about the plants, and so she always went nearby to study the plants and learn more about them thanks to the description in the book.
"Mhmm where is the lavender? Here it says that it's normally purple… but I can't see it," whispered Lily as she searched around the tower. Near it there were many flowers of multiple types, here there were most of them, it was easy to find any type of flower.
Every time Lily saw a flower, she immediately went to search it in the diary, and she would always find it. After some minutes of research, she was finally able to see a flower that was similar to the description of the lavender. The first thing that came to her eyes was the soft purple color, but around there were multiple flowers of that color, it had happened that Lily had mistaken a flower for another only basing on the color.
"Let's see if this flower is really the lavender…" said Lily as she started to go through the pages of the diary. After she arrived at the page where the lavender was described, she started to read it loud.
"Lavenders typically grow as a sort of compact bush, they often appear dense and slightly stiff." The flowers were all compact together and it felt like they were forming a sort of bush.
"The stems are usually thin, tough and angular… wait the stems were…" said Lily as she had to return to the first page of the diary. She didn't remember what a stem was, luckily in the first page of the diary there was a description of a flower, and there were all the important words she found in the pages.
"Oh right, the stems are these sticks that support the plant," whispered Lily as she remembered again the meaning of the word. Many people during that time weren't able to read, but Naluri was one of them who could easily read, and she explained to Lily how to do that because she was already young and extremely interested in that diary.
Naluri explained to Lily that she had to be gentle with flowers because they were living creatures, and they needed to be treated equally. Thanks to these teachings Lily slowly touched the stem of the plants, and it perfectly matched the description written in the diary.
"The smell is slightly sweet, floral and distinctly herbaceous," said Lily as she kept reading the diary. It was her favourite part, when she had to smell the flowers. As she slowly got her nose closer and smelled, the scent she felt completely matched the description of the diary.
"Finallyyy!!" shouted Lily as she felt really happy now that she found another flower written in the diary. "Now… I must search for other flowers, I am missing many of them," said Lily as she sat down on the ground near the flowers, reading the diary to see which flowers she was currently missing.
"Mhmm I wonder if in the tower there are many other diaries like this one…" whispered Lily as she looked up toward the tower not far from her.
"It's so boring that only the mayor can enter…" she sighed as she clearly remembered the first time she tried to enter into the tower. The mayor stopped her, "Are you crazy? You are just a child, you can't enter here," said the mayor with his mask of copper and glass. Lily looked sad.
"B-But if there are more stuff about the plants… I want to seee," said her as she slowly started to cry. "You know that normal people can't enter… especially because you need to know how to swim to enter the tower… but you're still a child, you'll probably drown," said the mayor. Lily could only agree with that.
"Tch… I have been searching for another entrance but I can't see anything," said Lily as she slowly got up from the ground. Suddenly the ground beneath her started to shake.
"AHHHH!!" shouted her before the ground completely cracked, creating a hole under her feet.
Lily fell on what seemed to be old metal, she had never seen anything like that. "What is this…" said her as she looked around. The hole was right on top of her, but she was too small to reach that.
"I can use my power to get up there…" said Lily as she took a small step forward. "But what if this will bring me directly to the tower?" whispered her as she started to walk.
She walked in the right direction, because after a few steps in the other, there was a dead end, so Lily wouldn't have been able to find anything. But now it was different, this path kept going for so long.
"I wonder where this will bring me…" said Lily. Around her there were multiple bugs, but she wasn't scared, she even kneeled in front of one of them, that simply ran away.
"Why are you always scared of mee," said Lily with a sad voice as she kept walking.
After a minute of walking, she saw in front of her a hole. As she walked into it, everything around her started to change, first the floor was different, there were some desks made of metal, but they were all ruined and the floor was completely destroyed.
"What is this place…" whispered Lily after taking the first step. She had never seen something like that, she felt really curious and at the same time happy.
In the room there were two stairs, one was full of debris, the floor had collapsed and it was impossible to go down, while on the other stair it was easier.
Lily used her power to try to move the rocks that blocked the path on the stair, but they were too heavy for her power to move away. "Guess I'll have to take the other one," whispered her as she realized the rocks weren't moving.
Lily kept walking around, this place was really weird, there were multiple rooms that had multiple rooms, these rooms were closed and in one of them a desk was still intact, on top of it there were some papers that had been ripped apart in multiple parts.
"What is this…" whispered Lily as she tried to read what was written on the papers, but it was impossible, it seemed like the paper had been destroyed in a moment of rage, no one could ever be able to read it again. On the same desk there were some papers that were ripped in a totally different way.
The natural seemed more natural, Lily asked herself how it was possible, but they were cut down by a machine that cut papers.
As she took another stair, in the room there was more light. "Hey what is this light," said Lily. Suddenly in front of her there was a huge window. As she looked from it, she saw Yalemba from up.
"WOAHHH!" screamed Lily as she flinched at the sight of that. She had never been this much up, it felt scary. "Wait… if I can see everything from here it must mean—" whispered her as she returned to the window only to look down again.
There was only one building this high in all Yalemba… "I'm on the tower!" shouted her. The scream was really high, but no one heard her. Lily wasn't even able to recognize the people, they only looked like small ants.
"I can't believe… I finally got here," said Lily as she leaned back with her back against one of the walls. "I can't believe it… FINALLYYYYYYY," shouted Lily with all her voice. Now she couldn't contain her excitement anymore, she started to run all around the tower.
"If the diary about the plants was found here, that means there must be something more!" said Lily as she started to run around the tower. There were multiple papers around, but the same moment she didn't find anything about flowers she just left them there.
"Let's see if this one is about plants…" whispered Lily as she started to read about this weird paper, it seemed like it was written really fast.
"The experiment failed… now everyone has got them!! BORINGGGG," said Lily as she realized it wasn't about flowers, so she threw it away. Behind this paper there was written 'project white wings'.
In a desk she found this weird-looking metal bar with a name written on it: 'Donald'. Lily's heart jumped really fast, it was the name written on her diary. As she looked at it, the names were the same.
"HEY CAN IT BE?" shouted Lily as she realized the name written on the metal bar and on her diary were the same. "It must not be a coincidence," whispered her as she felt the diary was property of this Donald.
Lily kept searching around, but she wasn't able to find anything. She noticed it was already late up in the sky and decided to head back.
At the entrance, with her power she created a root that brought her directly up in the hole. "I'd better close this… I don't want people to notice this," said her as she used her roots to block the passage.
As Lily returned home, it was really late. Naluri wasn't used to seeing her return this late. "What took you so long?" said Naluri as she was already walking with a walking stick. Lily answered a bit mortified.
"Oh you see… nothing important," said Lily as she immediately returned to her room. Naluri simply sighed seeing that.
In the following days, Lily spent most of her time in the tower. As she returned in the iron pipe, she used her spell, "Vinewalk," this spell created some roots under her body that helped her move around in a really fast way.
"Ok, let's keep searching around," said Lily as she directly went to the floor she left. The ones she explored were at least 40, but there were more and more floors as she kept going up.
One day, as she was exploring around, she found something under a desk and kneeled to take it. She tried to stretch her arm, trying to reach something, but it was too far.
"Let's move the desk first," said Lily as she got up and moved away from the desk. With her roots she was able to make it go away, but she had used too much strength to move that desk, everything around it shook a bit, but Lily hadn't noticed it yet.
"Perfect… now I can reach it easily," said Lily as she was able to move her hand better. After she grabbed a paper, she found out that it was empty. "Argh useless," said Lily annoyed. Suddenly everything around her started to shake.
She was still on her knees as she had to take the paper, but the rock on top of the paper started to move. There were multiple iron wires that came out of it, and a small part of the rock came off, with a huge part of metal attached to it.
Lily couldn't do anything, she wasn't ready for that, and the metal part of the rock completely fell on her eyes, destroying them. "ARGHHHHH!" Lily screamed out in pain, her body was crying of pain and it felt terrible. Blood was dripping from her wound and she fell on the ground.
"Ahhh… AHHHHHHH!" shouted Lily as the pain was too much, she could barely endure it. With her hands she slowly tried to create some roots to carefully remove the rock from her eye. As she tried to remove the object, Lily's body was crying of pain. The right moment it came off there was Lily's eyeball that came off and it was pierced by the metal part.
Some roots remained near Lily's injury, thanks to that she was able to stop the bleeding, but at the sight of that, she completely passed out.
The night passed, Naluri was worried that Lily hadn't come home yet, but she couldn't go and search for her, she was too old to go out at that hour, so she simply waited, worried, looking at the window.
"And after that day Naluri has said that I mustn't enter anymore in the tower… but you know the curiosity is too much," said Lily as everyone was shocked to hear that story.
"So it is the first time you're entering the tower after all these years?" asked Liro, worried that it might have happened another time.
"Mhm… I don't come here usually as I did, but…" answered Lily, knowing that she shouldn't do this. "But like Naluri hasn't done anything to help me see out of this city, this is the only thing I can do to feel a bit of danger and terror," said Lily as she started to lead the way, everyone followed her.
"Let's keep an eye on her… I don't want her to get hurt, the responsibility will definitely fall on me," whispered Darian at Vane, who nodded with his head.
"I will try to be as much composite as I ca— WOAHH WHAT IS THATT?!" shouted Vane as they arrived at the end of the path. They arrived inside the tower, both Vane, Lily and Liro couldn't contain their excitement. Darian seeing them running sighed.
"Let's hope no one will get hurt alright Snowy?" said Darian to his small companion on his shoulder, who was watching with curious eyes at the entrance of the tower.