A Tower for Desires

Heaven's Ladder

It was dead silent when Aniela landed, no lights shone anywhere near the enormous ruin that stood before her, except for the faint city luminesce in the distance. There was a glint on broken glass as moonlight broke through the large, but slowly shifting clouds and illuminated onto a skyscraper towered above all other buildings. A horizon of miniscule tacks in comparison. The stench and smoke from the dealers had disappeared, and yet when Aniela deeply inspired the air it still smelled so polluted and vulgar. It reeked of sulfur, of fragrances trying to mask a permanent, underlying, rotten malodor.

Aniela's chin bent toward the sky out of the hope she would catch a glimpse of one star behind the mist of a billowing cloud. During the nights when she would sneak out Aniela would always admire the stars, or at least peek up at their existence, but within the city, with all the lights it would always blind her sight, haze her view. But there were some places where the warm lamplights were faint, and noise only sounded like drums beating in the distance. Those were the places she would always escape to, for moments, for hours, for a brief minute, she would run away.

She looked at the building in the close distance, admiring her favorite spot. Age had touched its structure, eroding its stone, its gleaming looks of the past, worn down by the centuries. The moon's pearly, fleeting light revealed gigantic trees that laid harbor within the hollowed skeleton.

Orange glowed, beaming brightly as for a moment ghostly light pierced through the translucent leaves of the twisting trees. Its gleam as well, caught on the woody stemmed vines draped all along the concrete walls. Which wrapped itself around and worked its way through every crevice like the tentacles of a squid squirming through the cracks of a rock.

Aniela's footsteps no longer echoed out the noise of boots clattering on cut stone, but instead each step sunk lightly into moist soil, each stride produced the sound of gravel crumpling and popping under her feet.

Eyeing the plants with looping silvervines like thick leathery rope, a curl her hands could so easily wrap around. Her heart thumped fast in her ear, under the skin of her neck, deep in her chest with a rhythm of excitement, her adrenaline pounding its fire through her system. She had to do more, fuel it more.

Running towards the gigantic structure, she leapt onto one of the creeping vines hung from the tower. It swayed back and forth from the sudden momentum. She gripped the thick green ivy, her forearms bulged, as she pulled up her weight, climbing like it was a cord.

Making her way to the top of the tower, grasping bundles of entwined vines each time, she slowly pulled herself up. Her arms began to feel heavy, her hand barely lifted above her head, as if steel chains from below reached to yank her to the ground. Up above the dark gray-blue sky curved over the top, there were no breaks, only up.

Aniela grabbed onto one of the stone ledges before her, a slight shake beneath her hand as she squeezed it. She was ready to pull herself up, the rock stuck between a solid enough crevice of two stones. When 'crack', thin splits widened, the rubble broke free from the unsecure hold. Its particles crumbled in her palm, turning it an ashy gray, as she still clung onto the plummeting rock. She gasped, her legs flung up, the tendon in her other hand protruding out as her curled fingers struggled to keep her hanging. Instinctively her grip let go of the deadweight and she swung narrowly catching a sturdier ledge, her breath shaky as she pinned herself against the wall.

A beat skipped within her chest, a pause which numbed her for a second, as she watched the rubble of stone fall several stories down, sinking fast into a place unseeable to her.

Until the unseen rocks crumpled at the bottom, shattering like shrapnel, images of her own body twisting and breaking like glass to the floor flashed within her head. Her slender fingers gripping tightly to the cold concrete, and yet a new more intense adrenaline heated her blood making her brain feel light. With a final effort of strength she hauled herself to the top of the tower.