Short Stories

Tower of Old

Finally, summer is here. I can finally do what I need to do. Getting there will prove quite difficult, but I believe it will be worth it.

I've been preparing for this all year long. I am ready to begin.

I walk downstairs and meet my parents. "Hey mom, I'm going to be out for a bit. If i'm not back by dinner, save me a plate, will you?" My mother turned to me with a frown. "Cait, where will you be going? And are you goig with friends? Is there a parent in charge?"

"Mom, I'm going by myself but I am 95% sure I will return in one piece. Anyway, I got to go now, see you later."

"But Cait! Oh, that child is going to get herself killed."

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The forest was quiet and the trees were still. I could only hear my footsteps crunching the sticks on the ground. The sky was a dark blue, turning into a calm black by the second. I had to use my phone flahlight to watch where I was walking.

"Um, I think this is the direction. It said to follow the line of Toadstools but I'm only seeing a few everynow and then, but I think it's the right way to the tower."

As soon as the words escaped my mouth I saw it in the distance. A massive tower covered in vines. It looked old and decrepid.

I walked closer and saw that it was surrounded by a ring of mushrooms. I walked closer to the tower and stepped over the mushroms. As I passed over them, I could feel a calming sense coming over me. That's weird. In all my studies of this tower, I never heard of the ring of mushrooms.

The tower looked the same from inside the ring. The door to the inside was rotten, but convieniently left partially open.

I pulled it open with my feet, bor wanting to touch it. I walked in further and oh my gosh it smelled so bad. The entrance to the tower was a small room with old crates and cobwebs everywhere. In the far back of the room were long winding stairs.

I passed the old crates and avoided the cobwebs and made my way up the stairs. They were dusty and made out of stone. I traveled up the stairs, minding a few that looked unstable and went up to the next level in the tower.

It wasn't the room I was looking for. This one held the kitchen where pots and pans sat strewn around the room. Nothing that I saw made me interested so I continued up the stairs.

The next room was the bedroom. It was simple; one single bed in the far left, a desk and some books here and there. The man who lived here must've liked the simple side of things. I took a second to look at the books on the desk. One said "Small Animals and What to Use Them For."

A book separate from the pile caught my eye. It read "Magic for Dummies" I picked it up and skimmed through it. I saw words in a different language and pictures of sprites and demons. I stuck it on my bag to look at somewhere safe. I turned back to the stairs and continued upward.

The last room was the one I was looking for. This was the reason I stayed up countless of nights researching. The room was smaller than the others, but much more crowded. It had a big cauldron in the center of the room, sitting on an elevated part of the floor.

The room had man tables covered in jars all labeled with words I couldn't read. They had some pretty basic things in them, such as flowers and roots. One of them had a jar of what seemed to be fish eyes. Gross.

I went to the cauldron and peered inside. It was very big and seemed it could hold a big human.

Time to get started.

I pulled off my bag and opened it up. Inside where some matches, the book I stole from the other room, and finally the most important things I had; some fabric, a cup of crushed up tree bark, and some stone dust.

They were some weird ingredients, but if my sources could be trusted, they will work.

I threw them all in the cauldron and recited some words. The cauldron began to bubble a bright blue. The tower began to shake and bottles fell and broke.

POP!

A light shined into my eyes and when it went away I was greeted with an old man standing in the cauldron.

"Hahaha I did it! So it was true! Ahhh omg I cannot believe this worked" I jumped around with glee when someone interrupted.

"You have summoned me. What is it that you want. Power? My knowledge? Be warned it comes with a price. A horrible and terrible price."

"Can I just get a selfie?"

"Yes- wait what? You want a selfie with a famous wizard? That's all? What about magic? What about infinite knowledge?"

"Eh, sounds tiring. Now, smile for the camera!"

I took the picture and looked at it.

"You could have smiled, but whatever. Now Sarah will have to believe me about magic. No way I could fake this! Bye magic man! Have fun in your nasty little tower!"

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I know, I know. This one was very bad but it was just a quick little exercise. The first two times I wrote it they were so bad, so it could've been worse.