A Looming Tower

1

Hey, just saying- this is unedited! I'll read it over later. Hope you like!

Tick.

Tick.

My ear rests flat on the floor. My hair is spread over my face, over and onto the ground, and a drop of sweat drips down my brow. I groan, shifting.

Tick. My eyes are shut tight, my body limp against the wood.

Tick- BOOM! My throat is dry, and my body shudders as the room cracks to the sound of thunder.

Tick. I'm all alone.

Tick. But there must be a reason.

Tick.

Tick. I wearily raise a hand to the source of the ticks around my neck and grab it, glaring at the form with squinted eyes. It glimmers. In a fit of uncontrollable rage I'm suddenly tearing it off of my neck, snapping the chain. Breathing heavy, I fling it across the room. The glass forged on the golden pocket-watch cracks as it hits the wall, and as it clinks to the ground the ticking stops with a sigh. The madness fades.

As I blink, looking around, I realize: It starts with a room.

A simple room. No doors, ornery windows. The shimmering glass panes on each side yield to a pitch, starry expanse of night, and the walls they lie on are a base of oak, delicate designs inset within the wood where it meets the ceiling above. I vaguely wonder how high up I am as, slowly, I plant each pale and shaking hand against the floor. I push myself onto my knees. The world spins.

BOOM. Another bolt of light strikes through the night outside, and though something tells me that I would usually like this, I only feel nauseated. This isn't... new. I've... done this, been here before. A room, a storm...

I blink, and the room is changed. In the center now is a carpet; red, frayed, and rugged at the edges. Upon it is an ochre box, held up by carved-in claws.

It starts with the room. It begins with the box.

The box. Like a beast it looms before me, it's darkened opening like an entrance to another world. As I rise, trembling, a bolt of lightning illuminates the room, flashing through the windows as pain erupts in my head.

I am Anna Drey. And this is the Second Project. That is what's in my mind. Otherwise, it is empty. I cling to the words as if they were a fading dream, funny how I can remember dreams, but as I think these thoughts the screaming pain is back, tearing through my brain. ...Project Dream, I think, clutching my head as my vision blurs, my eyes tear up, and my ears ring, First was Project Appraisal, and now, Project Dream.

As the ringing fades and the silence is back, I pull in a wavering breath and take a step forward. To my surprise, a dagger's clenched tight in my hand, leveled in front of me like a torch. I slowly stop, holding it up to the light. I... remember it. But something's wrong- it flickers gold to white, gold to white.

The worlds are merging, Anna Drey, a voice booms, and I gasp, You do not have much time. Choose an Orb.

Recognition flickers over my face, but I don't move forward. That was... A voice, I've heard it... A... No, The Haunter's voice?

A horrible pain, worse than before, shoots through my head, and as white-hot metal seems to poke and prod my skull, I run forward in an unexplainable rage. Again, again, He's done it again, the Madman. The pain gets worse and worse, and I have to clutch my head even harder as I charge the box, but I can't stop the memories flooding into my brain.

Maddy's bloody father, the bloody Madman, sent us on the Second Project. But not all of the others.

I cry out as my body flares with incredible heat, and tumble forwards to collapse onto the box. My arm dangles in at a crooked angle.

This is not like the Haunting, Anna! the Haunter's voice booms, you can't slow down! You will die!

I suck in a breath, engulfed in nonexistent flames, and reach as far as I can with my hand in the glowing box. I brush against something, and close my fist to close around an Orb.

And then the pain is gone, but so am I.

--Hello! This is going to be the third book in the Azurelon's Folly series! (Once the books are compressed.) But you can read it as a standalone as well, because *removes my old reasoning* I said so!

This is how the series goes:
A Dragon's Arc (What Was Missing) DONE
A Catalyst Key (A Catalyst Key + A Madman's Vial/Project Appraisal) FIRST HALF DONE
A Looming Tower (You are HERE! Technically Project Dream + Project Timeline) WIP

-and then, later-

An Incipient Seed *POSTPONED* (Can also be standalone)
A Pestilence Clock *POSTPONED* (Not what it currently is, name being reused for something else I started, will be a direct sequel to The Game Of Tag/ A Catalyst Key)
A Frigidus Plan *POSTPONED* (Current Quibble/A Pestillence Clock + A Frigidus Band, prequel to the entire series)
A Pheonix Plume *POSTPONED* (Either What Was Taken, Project Canopy, or both, after previous events)
A DragonGold Hand (Future, not now)
HAHA, GET IT? Every other title loosely rhymes, starting with the second! Anyways
A Planet Merge
A Final Journey
An Unorthodox Gem
Etc Etc Etc.

Anyways, hope you like! This is to be my next pet project (I'll announce this tonight.)

----DraconisSolutus