Memory
A sudden flash of memories, like lightning, flickered before my eyes, triggering another bout of unbearable pain. It felt like my skull was about to burst, like an overripe watermelon. Yet, my head proved tougher, enduring this third attack in just the last few minutes.
Without asking for my consent, someone else’s memories invaded my mind, cramming a life I hadn’t lived into me within seconds. A life foreign and yet mine.
Days, weeks, months, years.
My mind couldn’t process such an overwhelming flow of information in such a short time. Each surge of memories, pouring over me like a waterfall, brought on a sharp, intense migraine. Through clenched teeth, a deep groan escaped my lips. To avoid falling, I instinctively reached out and grabbed onto something. My sudden movement caused a pile of construction debris before me to shift and collapse to the floor with a crash that seemed unnaturally loud in the surrounding silence.
The sudden noise made me freeze. Biting my lower lip, I dropped to one knee. The faint hope that the noise I made would go unnoticed vanished instantly, like smoke in a hurricane. From somewhere below came a guttural, bone-chilling growl, followed by the sound of metal being torn apart.
A chill ran from my heels to the top of my head. I knew what those sounds meant! The skyscraper’s guardian had awakened and broken free. It broke free much earlier than it should have.
And I had been clearly and explicitly warned: “Don’t make noise!”
A few minutes ago, I would have panicked, bolted away, anywhere but where I was now. But that was what the old “me” would have done, the one from just before the first wave of foreign memories hit me.
Obeying the fragmented images flashing in my head, instead of running, I approached the open elevator shaft and looked down. In the dim, flickering light, it was almost impossible to count the number of floors below me, but thanks to a miraculously preserved sign in the elevator lobby, I knew there were forty-two floors. And exactly twenty more above, which wasn’t that important.
The barely tolerable pain and flashes before my eyes did what no amount of internal persuasion, meditation, or other attempts at self-control could. A few minutes ago, I had been panicking, mentally screaming at the top of my lungs, cursing and lamenting, angry at the cosmic injustice that had pulled me into all this! Essentially, I was wasting precious time.
Now, all my senses were focused on the headache, and even the very real threat of being torn apart and devoured by an unknown creature had taken a back seat. Moreover, I now knew: last time, even without the foreign memory pack, I had handled this trial.
“Last time?!“—This thought seemed strange, but it was immediately washed away by another migraine attack.
The quester had recommended not making noise when setting the task for me, and the words of these entities usually had to be taken almost literally. But not this time. I had made too much noise a few seconds earlier. And just running away, climbing a few floors higher, might not be enough.
Approaching the pile of construction debris, I grabbed a handful of aluminum pipes and threw them into the open elevator shaft. The noise caused by these actions was much louder than what I had made earlier, and it didn’t stop until the items I threw reached the first floor.
Most likely, my trick wouldn’t confuse the creature here for long. But I knew for sure that the monster hunting me was not only immensely strong, fast, and dangerous but also incredibly stupid.
I knew?!
Yes, I had received information about this monster in the very first memory flash. Maybe I shouldn’t have believed everything that poured into my head in those moments of unclear consciousness without question. Perhaps I would have doubted it. If... If the foreign memories weren’t also mine. The “me” who had lived and experienced so much more. All this was incredibly strange, frightening, and had a cloying scent of madness. But after what had already happened to me, even something like this didn’t seem too extraordinary.
Waiting for the noise below to die down, I carefully examined the elevator shaft. It seemed like the simplest way out of the situation. What could be easier—climb down the shaft instead of navigating through floors, avoiding debris and traps, and risking being eaten at any moment. But the quester had clearly said that the elevator shaft was “an easy path often leading to death.” Last time, I had listened to his words.
Again, this “last time”?
It doesn’t matter.
Now I know: if anyone hangs on the cables and starts descending the shaft, the elevator, stalled on the top floor, will immediately plunge down. And the fate of anyone who ignored the quester’s words would be very grim.
With some effort, it was possible to artificially trigger the elevator’s fall, thereby freeing a path that, while physically challenging, was fairly safe otherwise. And this might have been the most correct and straightforward solution to completing the task. At least five people had done this, and since they could tell the tale, their attempt had clearly been successful.
“Five people”?
“Told the tale”?
I shook my head; fixating on irrelevant questions at this moment was definitely not the best choice. The foreign and simultaneously my own memories came to me in fragments, patches. And if I wanted to live a little longer than the next five or ten minutes, I shouldn’t ponder whether to trust these memories.
After one last look at the elevator cables, I, grimacing from another attack, regretfully moved away from the shaft. My trick with the debris was unlikely to distract the creature for long, and I needed to move on.
The uneven flickering of the dim lights from the few surviving fluorescent lamps in the local wreckage added to the eerie atmosphere. Although… How much worse could it get?!
Just half an hour ago, you were going to bed after a tough but normal workday. And now you have one task: to leave the abandoned and literally crumbling skyscraper before your eyes. Moreover, you must exit this building through the main exit on the first floor, no other way. And failure to complete this task leads to erasure. Whatever this erasure means.
To simply accept all this, to realize that what’s happening isn’t a dream, that you can really die or be erased if the task isn’t completed... A regular person needs time to comprehend all this. For some, it takes minutes, for others, hours, and for some, days. “The first time,” if the foreign memories were to be believed, I had curled up in a corner and spent over three hours there, simply not believing everything that was happening. Only the creature’s approach, or rather the fear it provoked, made me believe in the reality of the situation and start acting.
Now I had a sort of head start. Thanks to the memories of a “past life,” I didn’t need to understand or come to terms with anything. I just knew that everything around me was real. A strange, cruel, contradictory reality, but it’s the only one I have now. No more ordinary, familiar life that I lived for many years. Home, work, hobbies, the previous simple and calm life—all of that is in the past, a past that will never return. Never return. It’s over. Period. My life has just been split into two unequal parts: what was “before” and what has now become.
The trouble is, due to my carelessness, I woke the creature far earlier than it should have, depriving myself of the head start granted by the memories of the “past me.”
The “past” me knew of one person who immediately accepted everything as it was and began the descent as soon as he finished listening to the quester’s instructions. That “acquaintance” calmly left the skyscraper and thereby completed the task conditions, never once encountering the creature. Though he nearly died in the traps, he survived and completed the first “quest” in record time, earning a unique achievement and a significant bonus that came with it. I seem to even “remember” the name of this person...
An attempt to delve into the new memory and recall the name was interrupted by a prolonged roar, causing the glass to shudder and even the floor beneath me to shake slightly. Bad. My trick with the debris thrown into the elevator shaft didn’t distract the monster for long. Judging by the roar, it was very close, just one floor below. One floor. Just one!
The panic that had just begun was immediately swept away by a new wave of pain. Clenching my teeth to avoid screaming, I, barely seeing anything around me due to the flashes before my eyes, found the door leading to the stairs and opened it. Dropping to all fours, I slid forward. Something flashed overhead, and a sharp smell of ozone hit my nose. The wall behind me blackened, as if struck by a ball of lightning. In fact, why “as if”? That’s exactly what had hit. If I had entered the door upright, half of me would be left now. The half below the waist. The rest would have burned in the trap activated by opening the door.
And no, there was nothing about this trap in the memory pack I received. Despite all the pain tearing at my head, I began to pay attention to details. For example, above the door leading to the stairs, there was a warning clearly indicating that simply walking in was dangerous. How else to interpret a sign where a walking figure was crossed out, and a crawling or moving on all fours figure was highlighted in a green circle?!
Yes, the first “quest” is really quite simple. To complete it, you need only three things. First—to accept everything as reality. Second—to remember what the quester told you. And third—to look around and see the scattered hints everywhere. You could, of course, add to this: don’t make noise, beware of the creature, and almost five more conditions, but these were already mentioned by the quester before the trial began.
Pressing my ear to the concrete, I listened. Bad, even worse than I thought. The creature was definitely moving in my direction. Trying not to make noise, still on all fours, I quickly climbed one floor higher and looked around. Drawn in colored chalk on the wall, looking completely out of place here, like children’s graffiti, hints of the next trap on my path.
For a moment, I froze in place. What if I lured the creature into a trap? Another wave of pain and stars before my eyes suggested that the idea was useless. The monster was much more resilient than a human, and the local traps wouldn’t cause it much harm. There were those who managed to lure the creature into the elevator shaft and drop the elevator on it. But even that didn’t kill the monster!
How do I know this?!!
A guttural growl interrupted my exploration of the foreign memory and forced me to hurry. To bypass the trap, I had to stand on the railing and walk several meters up them. This almost ended fatally! Another migraine attack hit me at the wrong time, and I almost fell onto the mined stairway. At the last second, already losing balance and falling, I managed to grab the railing and stay up. Saved! This time.
Climbing three floors higher, I left the stairwell and found myself in a huge hall occupying almost the entire floor. Most likely, this was once a giant open office where hundreds of clerks worked. Now, this place resembled more of a dump of almost rotted floors, non-working office equipment, and computers. Some monitors, miraculously preserved intact, flickered with an otherworldly blue light. Flickering, despite not being connected to the power grid.
Carefully watching my step to avoid triggering another debris collapse, I made my way forward, trying to increase the distance between me and the monster. If only I hadn’t grabbed that aluminum rod! Everything would be much easier. There was no need to kill the creature chasing me to complete the task. The quester even specifically mentioned that such actions were overly dangerous, as the “skyscraper guardian” was on a completely different level of power. My task is simple: leave this crumbling building through the main doors. That’s it. How I do it doesn’t matter.
