The Tower

 Victoria sat next to her father's bed watching him intently. A nurse was fluttering around the room. A variety of linens and medical devices being carefully prepared. A doctor entered the room asking "are we ready?".

 "We're ready" Victoria said, leaning over and taking her father's hand in hers.

 "Very well then" the doctor said approaching the life support machine. He flipped a switch on the face of the machine and carefully began removing the machine's parts and pieces from her father's body. She held her father's hand until she knew all life had left him. A single tear fell from each of her eyes as she got up and left the room.

***

 Victoria sat in a pew in an old church, the same church she had attended every Easter and Christmas with her father and brother. Her brother was seated next to her, silent and emotionless. A man approached, the family's lawyer.

 "Hello Mr. Morris" she greeted him.

 "I'm sorry for your loss" he offered.

 "Thank you" she replied.

 The lawyer pulled an envelope out of his pocket, holding it out to Victoria. She took it and looked at him curiously.

 "Your father said I needed to give this to you upon the event of his death. I'm sorry I didn't come by earlier."

 "What is it?" Victoria inquired.

 "I don't know" Mr. Morris replied.

 "Nothing for me? Typical." A quip from her brother, Charles. "He always prefered you. He's probably giving you everything. Will you take care of your little brother Victoria?"

 "I can assure you Mr. Bennington you are getting your half" the lawyer stated firmly. "I'll leave you both be for now. Again, I'm very sorry."

 Victoria excused herself sometime after the funeral service had concluded. She opened the envelope. Looking inside seeing first a folded piece of paper, then a key. She pulled out the key and looked at it curiously. It was old, not quite a skeleton key but old nonetheless. She deposited it into her clutch purse and pulled out the letter.

 "Victoria, My dear. The key you now possess will open the door to the tower. You have been curious about it for some time I know. I hope upon arriving at the top you will understand why I have denied you access for all these years. Please use what you find wisely. Use it better than I have. Do some good as I know you wish always to do. Take something of your own that will have your DNA on it. Hair works best. Do not tell your brother or allow him to join you. He cannot be trusted with this kind of power. All of my love, your father."

 Victoria thought on it for a few moments. She had stood in front of the door many times. As a child it was the source of her greatest curiosity. The tower it would open into was the centerpiece of the expansive home she had grown up in. She had tried to follow him into the tower one night when she was around eight years old. It was the only time her father had ever yelled at her. The only time he had ever been angry with her.

***

 Victoria stood in front of the large wooden door. The old brass doorknob reflecting the moonlight that poured weakly through the windows opposite the door. She had intended to wait for morning but sleep had eluded her. She put the key into the lock and turned it, a large knock rang through the silent hallway. She had to use more force than expected to push the the heavy door open. Creaks filled the otherwise silent air as she pushed the door open and closed. She made her way up the spiral stone staircase. It took forever to ascend the nearly nine hundred steps. Upon reaching the top she was met with another door. The key unlocked this one as well. It was equally as heavy as the one at the bottom. Victoria pushed through, entering the room beyond.

 The room was larger than it looked like it could be from the ground. Four large windows of stained glass made up the compass points of the round walls. The room was empty save for a pedestal, standing about four feet tall, in the center of the room. Just above the pedestal was a floating orange orb. Victoria slowly approached the center of the room. As she got closer she could see images cycling inside the orb. It was like a snow globe with the scene inside constantly changing. They were changing too fast for her to make the images out.

 Victoria could almost feel the orange glow on her face. Confusion and fear filled her mind. Curiosity filled more of it. She slowly reached out for the orb, a low heat warming her hand as it came to within an inch of the orb. Finally she touched it, expecting her hand to pass through the glowing orb. It didn't feel solid but her hand did not pass through it. The images stopped rotating. She could see a man driving down a desolate road, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel along to unheard music. She watched for a while before removing her hand. When she did the orb began rotating through images again. She placed her hand back on the orb. This time it stopped on a group of young woman in a bar, talking and laughing inaudibly. She removed her hand again and returned it to the orb. This time a couple in the midst of lovemaking. Next a woman lying peacefully in bed, appearing to be asleep. A man reading a newspaper in a park. Wherever he was it was daylight. A child playing a hand held game on an airplane, his mother seated next to him. Then a man breathing deeply straddling a body, a knife dripping liquid onto the chest of the body. When Victoria realized what she was seeing she quickly withdrew her hand and took a couple steps away from the orb.

 "What the fuck" she yelled to the otherwise uninhabited room. What is this, what did I just see? She thought. She remembered the instructions her father had left about DNA and hair. She hadn't brought anything, having planned only to see what was in the room. She reached for her head, grabbed a single length of auburn hair, and gave it violent tug. She approached the orb again, unsure of what to do with the hair. She started to attempt to put it on the orb when she noticed something engraved into the top of the pedestal. A pentagram with a goat's head atop the northern point. It was barely visible in the glow of the orb. She carefully placed the strand of hair on top of the pedestal. The images began to glow orange and the orb turned blue. The image in the orb now was her, standing in front of the orb. She raised her arm. The image of her in the orb did the same. She took a step back, the image followed. What the hell? she thought. She could hear an echo of her footsteps coming from the orb.

 Victoria made her way back to the house and into her brothers bedroom. He sat in a chair, the glow of a tv lighting his face.

 "What the fuck sis?"

 She ignored him, grabbing his hair and ripping a couple of curls out of his head.

 "Vic! What the fuck! That hurt." he spat at her as she turned and walked away.

 Victoria placed her brothers hair atop the pedestal. The orb turned blue again. She could see her brother, still seated in front of the television. He sat down a game controller and lit up a joint, rubbing his head where she had pulled out the hair. She watched him smoke the entire length of the joint and return to playing his game. The sounds of simulated gunfire filled the room.

***

 Days later Victoria was back in the room, this time with more DNA. The toothbrush her boyfriend leaves at her apartment, a spoon she had watched a maid use to scoop ice cream for her brother, another strand of hair she had taken off the brush of a fellow college student.

 She started with the maid. The maid was using a broom in what she recognised to be the dining room. Carefully collecting all the dirt and dust she could find in every corner of the room. She left the dining room to clean the kitchen, not noticing the spoon was missing.

 Next was the college student. She was getting out of the shower. She watched as she took far too long to pick out an outfit, occasionally stopping the dressing process to check and respond to a text. She watched the student leave her dorm and walk to a class.

 Last was her boyfriend. She thought for a while before she sat the toothbrush on the pedestal. Would she want to know what he was doing when she wasn't around. Curiosity got the best of her. She watched as he and a friend smoked a bowl and drank a six pack. It's a little early for that. I'll have to talk to him about it. Wait, can I? How do I explain how I know? This was something Victoria would have to consider. Just like she would consider what to do with the orb.

 I can watch everything anyone does. I will know all of their secrets. I can use them to my benefit. Is that what my father did? That would explain his wealth... now my wealth. He wanted me to use it for good. Fuck that! I'm going to rule the world!