James's phone rang several times before he finally got up to answer it. On the other end of the line was the pizza delivery driver, the same one he had ordered from about half an hour ago.
James quickly slipped on his favorite sneakers and threw a leather jacket over his shoulders, confirming that he was on his way down. He moved with sudden urgency, tucking a twenty into the pocket of his jeans as he headed for the door.
He bounded down the stairs toward the ground floor, feet barely touching each step. The building echoed faintly with his movement as he reached the entrance, accepted the pizza box, and turned back almost immediately.
Taking the stairs three at a time, James climbed back up, breath slightly quickened, the warmth of the box seeping through the cardboard into his hands.
He entered the apartment and set the pizza on the table facing the television. The room settled once more into quiet anticipation.
The lines on the television stretched and shifted, angular patterns crawling across the glass like invisible fingers searching for a way through. James stumbled backward, heart hammering. The hum from the speakers had grown into a steady vibration, thrumming through the floor, the walls, even his bones.
"What is happening?" he whispered.
The glow intensified. Pale, unnatural light flooded the apartment, casting everything into sharp, distorted shadows. The coffee cups on the counter wobbled as if the air itself were pulling at them. James's stomach twisted. The pressure pressed against his chest, as though gravity had tilted and the room was sliding sideways.
He tried to step back, but the space behind him seemed to stretch away. The floor beneath his feet felt soft, almost liquid, yielding in a way that made him stumble.
The screen pulsed. A flash of white light erupted, and the images twisted and bent into shapes that had no right to exist. Towers rose and collapsed in milliseconds. Figures moved in impossible ways. Landscapes flickered like shattered reflections.
James reached out instinctively, trying to push the screen away, but his hands met nothing. The television was no longer an object.
It was a force.
A threshold.
Before he could retreat, a sudden tug seized his chest. Sharp. Cold. Powerful. He fought it, pulling back with everything he had, but the invisible grip was stronger. The apartment warped around him. Walls stretched outward. The ceiling melted upward. The floor dropped away.
"Stop! Please, stop!" James shouted, panic tearing at his throat.
The lines on the screen tightened, forming shapes like runes. Symbols he could not understand, yet felt deep in his chest, as if meaning were being pressed directly into him. They flared white-hot, then dimmed, leaving only the pale glow behind.
And then it pulled him fully.
He felt himself lifted, suspended, as though the room had vanished. The refrigerator, the couch, the scattered shoes, even the pizza application glowing on the coffee table, all fell away at once. Only the screen remained.
James screamed, but no sound escaped. Air vanished. He could not breathe. His stomach lurched as the pressure intensified.
He was being pulled.
Faster.
The light swallowed him whole.
And then, he fell.
There was no floor.
No walls.
No ceiling.
No apartment.
Only motion.
Endless, spiraling motion. Colors collided and merged, twisting around him like liquid fire. Light bent at impossible angles, forming shapes that appeared and dissolved before he could grasp them. Voices whispered in strange, ancient tones. Words he could not understand, yet they cut into his mind, cold and sharp, like frost on bare skin.
James tried to scream again. Air rushed into his lungs and vanished. Gravity ceased to exist. Time fractured. The sensation of falling stretched into something endless.
He could not tell whether seconds had passed. Or minutes. Or years.
A voice whispered inside his head. Faint. Metallic.
"James. You are chosen. You cannot resist."
He tried to find its source, but it came from nowhere.
And everywhere.
It pressed against his thoughts, and for a moment his mind strained beneath the weight of it.
James shut his eyes, curling inward, clinging to the only thing that still felt real.
His body.
Then the light shifted.
Not white anymore.
Not pale.
Violet bled into the edges, dark as bruised clouds, pulling inward toward black. Shapes began to form within it.
James opened his eyes.
Sand sprayed beneath his hands.
He bolted upright, heart hammering. Cold air tore into his lungs, sharp with salt and sea. Every muscle screamed as his body trembled. He lay sprawled on coarse, wet sand that clung to his palms and clothes.
The roar of waves crashed into his ears, louder and closer than anything he had known. He scrambled backward, staying low, hands digging into the grit as his legs protested.
Slowly, cautiously, he looked around.
He was on a beach.
Not any beach he recognized.
The shoreline curved unnaturally, stretching far into the distance beneath a sky shimmering in shades of violet and gray. Clouds churned overhead, moving too fast, too deliberately, as though driven by unseen forces.
The sea was dark. Not blue. Not black. Something between. Foam glimmered faintly along the edges, glowing with pale, unnatural light.
The wind cut through his clothes with icy precision. His shirt snapped against his chest. His jeans were soaked at the cuffs. His watch still clung to his wrist, ticking steadily, as if nothing had happened at all.
James swallowed hard.
"What is this place?" he asked.
No answer came.
No buildings.
No people.
No signs of civilization.
Only sand, restless water, and an alien sky.
Something moved in the mist at the far end of the beach. A shape. Tall. Distant. Unclear.
Fear pooled in his chest, heavy and cold. Every instinct screamed for him to turn back, to run.
But there was nothing behind him.
James checked himself with shaking hands. His wristwatch was intact. Shoes still on his feet. Even the candy bar in his pocket. A pack of gum. His phone.
He pulled it out.
No signal.
No bars.
The screen flickered once and went dark.
This was not a dream. The air was too sharp. The cold too real. The fear too heavy.
He ran his hands over his body. Nothing broken. Nothing missing.
But his thoughts raced.
The television.
The patterns.
The hum that had grown too loud.
Whatever had happened, it had not been normal.
James sank to his knees, pressing his palms into the sand. He took slow, shuddering breaths, forcing his racing heart to slow.
"Okay," he whispered.
"Okay. Think."
The words felt thin. Fragile.
He focused on what he remembered. The glow. The pull. The sensation of crossing something he had never been meant to cross.
And now he was here.
Somewhere else.
James stood slowly, scanning the horizon. The beach stretched endlessly in both directions. On one side, jagged cliffs rose like broken teeth. On the other, mist swallowed the distance, hiding shapes he could not bring into focus.
The water lapped at the shore with faint luminescence, glowing in rhythm with distant thunder rolling across the sky.
A shadow moved at the edge of his vision.
James turned sharply.
Nothing.
He took a cautious step forward. The sand shifted beneath his feet, not just yielding, but resisting, clinging to his shoes.
Another step.
Then another.
Something whispered through the wind. Not words. Just sound shaped like intent. Cold. Insistent.
James stopped, he felt it then.
A pull.
Subtle at first, but then it gotten stronger.
The same pressure he had felt before, now spread across the world itself.
As if the place were aware of him.
Watching.
Waiting.
Testing.
His eyes finally locked onto a shape ahead.
A tower.
Blackened and twisted, rising far beyond the beach. Lightning clung to its jagged edges, frozen in unnatural stillness. Shadows moved at its base. Figures. Some tall. Some small. Some flickering in and out of existence.
His pulse quickened. Terror and curiosity tangled in his chest.
Whatever this place was, it was not empty.
And it was not safe. Far from it.
A cold thought settled into James's mind.
This place did not care about him.
It would not explain itself.
It would not wait. It was vast.
It looked very ancient, and dangerous.
And he had arrived with nothing but questions. And his clothes. And of course his most favorite sneakers.
Fear crept in. Real fear. Not the kind born from school or failure or loneliness.
This fear came from being small in a world that did not measure itself by human rules.
Somewhere deep within the tower, something stirred.
Watched.
Waited.
Hungry for fresh meat.
James swallowed hard.
"What do I do now?" he whispered.
He pulled his phone from his jeans pocket. The screen stayed black. Dead. Useless. Even if it had power, it would not have saved him here.
He slid it back into his pocket and lifted his gaze. The sea stretched before him, waves rolling in slow, measured rhythms. Too calm. As if the world itself was holding its breath.
The beach ran on endlessly in both directions, pale sand fading into uncertainty.
Mist crept low across the shore, thick and soundless, swallowing distance, swallowing escape.
And far ahead, the black tower.
Dark. Immovable. Waiting.
It rose from the haze like a verdict carved into the horizon, ancient and patient, as though it had been standing there long before James ever arrived. Long before he ever existed.
James felt it settle deep in his bones. The moment he took a single step forward, everything would change. The shore behind him would cease to matter. The path back would vanish.
He could not stay in one place forever. He had to move. He drew a slow, steady breath… and took his first step toward the tower.
He felt it instinctively. The moment he chose to move forward, there would be no turning back.