Endless halls stretched and diverged into endless passages as Johan roamed the tower, trying to find his way to the next floor.
When he finally found a staircase to the next floor, he was completely exhausted, but to his astonishment, the room he found himself in was comfortable, familiar.
It was not a spacious room but a cozy one that reminded him of home. In the right corner of the room lay a moderately average-sized bed, a perfect fit for him. Across the room, facing the bed, rested a grand mirror; it was crystal clear, the frame gilded with gold.
Other than these two items, the room was empty, but Johan didn't mind; he was just happy to have somewhere to rest.
Johan lay in the bed, physically and mentally drained from his long trek throughout the tower. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he began to drift off to sleep.
His dreams were inhabited by terrible beasts and ruthless creatures that seemed to gaze past his dream state and straight at him, resting in bed.
Johan was fascinated by these creatures, incomprehensibly strange, mesmerizingly grotesque.
His dream was interrupted by a faint pulsating glow coming from the mirror. He groggily sat up to gaze upon the mirror.
Just as he was beginning to think it was just a trick of the light induced by the faint glow ever-present in every room of the tower, a voice pierced through the silence like an arrow from hell.
"Greetings, denizens of my great spire, though you do not know me by name, you surely have heard the stories."
"And I am here to tell you that they are true!"
"I, the man of miracles, God's chosen visionary, have a special message for all who seek the wonders of the spire."
"Starting now, the first man, woman, or beast to reach me at the base of the tower will be rewarded with their single greatest desire."
"LET THE GAMES BEGIN!"
Johan stared at the luminous mirror, dumbfounded at what had just occurred. He was at a loss for words when the pendant, still around his neck, started to blaze with a glorious light as if it were excited.
Johan reached to tuck the pendant under his shirt when he realized what he was wearing was not a shirt at all but a robe fit for a sorcerer from a fairy tale.
He would have remembered walking around the spire in such a robe, so he concluded that it had materialized around him after he had dozed off, probably to be a part of this game.
Johan proceeded with the action of concealing his pendant.
Johan now knew that what he was searching for was not just a legend, but it did not change the fact that he still did not have any direction on how to achieve this goal.
He felt a gentle warmth pulsating on his chest. Out of his cloak, he unveiled the pendant he had tucked away earlier.
The pendant spoke to him in the same indescribable fashion it had while leading him to it.
He gazed deeply into the pendant's dark red glow and knew what it wanted, where it wanted him to go.
Johan exited the room, took a sharp left, and walked down the dim, bare corridor.
He walked for a time until he was beckoned by the pendant toward a door that was vastly different from the others he had encountered up until this point.
Its eerie nature stemmed from its normalcy; it wasn't a run-down, ancient entrance or a gargantuan gate straight out of a mythological tale. No, this particular door unnerved Johan because it was familiar. Too familiar.
Johan recognized this door; it was the same door that he opened every day before going to school, the same door his sister Beth had swung open on many occasions with no regards to his privacy.
Johan slowly, steadily creaked open the door at such a pace that would make you wonder if it was even moving at all. He ever so quietly peeked into the room, then slammed the door shut.
Johan scrambled back away from the door, horrified by what he had witnessed.
His breathing was sharp, his head spun, but the pendant's calls were overpowering. He knew this was where it wanted him to go.
Johan opened the door and quietly snuck his way inside.
He wasn't just imagining things; in the back of the room was a mass of bloody, rotten flesh accompanied by tens of thousands of sharp, pointed teeth jutting out in every direction. In the center of this grotesque, vomit-inducing creature from hell lay an eye focused on its current meal.
Johan froze in place as the gelatinous creature absorbed what Johan could only assume was a person.
He began to step back until his back was pressed firmly against the wall.
From his forehead arose a drop of sweat. This drop journeyed down to his eyebrow and then made a mad dash down his cheek until it was precariously dangling from his chin.
And then…..
Plop
The beast in all its sludge-like horrificness veered its oozing form toward Johan and fixated its one big, brown, piercing eye on him like a bird of prey.
Then it materialized a giant, sludgy, fleshy hand and went in for the kill.
Johan ducked just in time to get out of the way of the striking hand, which, having missed him, created a massive crater in the wall.
The fleshy hand retracted back into the beast's main form, and then it lunged at him in an attempt to wrap itself around Johan like a colossal maw.
An attempt that succeeded, Johan felt the many razor-like teeth piercing and ripping at his skin, while his whole body was being burned by a gross acidic ooze.
He felt life slipping away.
Then suddenly, like a divine light breaching the clouds, a hand emerged through the beast.