THE AFTERHOUR

III. The Tower:

The Tower now stood in front of him with all of its plain glory. Overwhelming would be a good way to describe it. It was about twenty meters in height at least, reaching into the dark above. Its appearance resembled a Rook in chess, which, he guessed, would also be similar to a medieval tower. It was also coated with a ghastly white glow, one single shade of white that seemed to be messing with his ability to make out the details. The white glow was similar to his, he noticed, unreal with an utter refusal to illuminate anything else beyond its object. With focus, he could see that it was made of bricks, one stacked over the other with brilliant craftsmanship. They seemed to have just been put together perfectly symmetrically, without any cement or traces of adhesive agents. He put his hand onto that surface to inspect it, intrigued by its smooth appearance. He was greeted with a lack of sensation, which disappointed him. It felt like someone had pumped his hand full of numbing agents, the surface seemed to be as unreal as the ground beneath him.

Near the top of the tower was a small window, he took a few steps back to look inside: it was a bell. An old fashioned church bell was resting motionless on the other side of the window. It was large, maybe two meters in height. The bell was suspended from a beam attached to the ceiling, hollow with a clapper hanging on the inside. He knew a church bell was typically made of durable metal like bronze or cast iron, and it sure did provide a rich vibrant sound before, supporting that theory. But it's bathed in the same glow as every other inch of this structure, making it hard to judge. In front of him was a plain, simple door, about two meters high and off the ground, with a few steps leading up to it. There was no knob or handle on the door.

"Strange"

The man muttered. He was still amazed by the sound of his own voice, even though he'd said five words in total now, the other four being foul curses. It was young, as he expected, a bit flat and of an unmodulated quality. It contained a lack of expression and variation in rhythm. He wondered what a tone like that was doing with such a young voice. And from what he'd seen, he wasn't talkative either, which might have been a trait, or he just didn't really want to waste words without an audience.

He knocked on the door three times. The sound suggested that he was knocking on solid wood, even though it felt like his knuckles were just pushing against solid air.

No answers.

He knocked again, this time louder, giving off three sounding clack- clack- clack.

He waited for another few minutes, but no one seemed to be on the other side.

"Hellooo?"

He yelled at the top of his voice, banging on the door this time. Contrary to his expectations, it did not generate a single echo, his voice just went on with a long suspense, then drowned in the distance. His greetings went unanswered. Well, it looks like no one's home, but he wasn't going to wait a minute longer. He took a step back, focused his weight onto his hind leg. With a quick spring of his knee, the man barged at the door with all his might. He regretted that as soon as the door opened with a force that was about one tenth of what he had put in, rendering him to lose his balance and fell flat on his face, which he was now quite used to from all the tripping and tumbling from his time in the dark. Muttered another curse to add on to his collection. He looked up at the interior of the tower. Whoever had built this place with that amount of precision and accuracy apparently did not pay equal attention to decorating it. As the place was in all sense of the word, empty. But mostly, it just did not look like the inside of anything, as in front of him stood a vast whiteness. He seemed to have traded an empty dark void for an empty bright void.

He chuckled again, sarcastically, which was the only type of chuckling he had been doing. What exactly did he think he was going to find here? A TV? Sofa and framed pictures? Maybe a well stocked kitchen? At the mention of that, the man noticed that he did not have a feeling of hunger, nor thirst, even though days must have passed. But that didn't mean he wouldn't trade anything for a nice warm meal right now. As expected, he couldn't quite remember what his favorite meal was. But still, had someone asked him to, he could describe accurately the rich flavor and juicy taste of a well made beef burger, just as well as the refreshing sensation of cold ale running down his throat. The man couldn't even begin to guess the logic in all that, this case of "selective amnesia" he had found himself in. But more than anything, he wanted it to end.