Apex Of The Red Tower

Cold. The cold sensation creeping from the tips of his feet up to his spine was the first thing that awakened Arlo. He woke up gasping, as if his lungs had just been forced to breathe air after drowning for a long time. When his eyes opened, he did not see the sky. There was only a weave of pitch-black branches twisting together above, forming a natural roof that swallowed the sunlight.

Arlo tried to sit up, his head felt like it had been struck by an iron mace. He closed his eyes, trying to dig up the simplest memory. Who am I? Where is this? But the result was zero. His mind was like a library that had been burned down, only ashes remained.

“Woi! Who are you?! Why am I here?!

A piercing scream broke the terrifying silence. Arlo turned toward the source of the voice. A boy with messy hair was standing trembling, staring around with wide panicked eyes. Not far from there, five others also began to wake from their unconsciousness on a stretch of moss that felt soft and unnatural.

“Don’t scream, idiot! Your voice could lure something we don’t want!” snapped a girl sharply while holding her temple. The girl, who would later be known as Lira, looked extremely stressed. Her face was pale, her eyes kept moving wildly toward the black bushes that seemed to shift following the direction of sound.

“Who are you calling an idiot?! I don’t even know who I am!” the messy haired boy shouted back, his voice rising an octave. He looked like someone about to cry and rage at the same time.

An awkward silence covered them for several seconds. Seven unfamiliar teenagers, trapped in a forest that looked dead, with not a single memory of the past.

“Wait...” A girl who looked calm (Naya) raised her hand in front of her face. Her eyes were fixed on her left wrist. “There’s something on our hands.”

Arlo reflexively looked at his own wrist. A thin, dull silver metal band was tightly wrapped around it. There was no seam, no lock. He rubbed its dusty surface, and slowly, carved letters began to appear under the dim forest light.

A-R-L-O.

“Arlo...” he murmured softly. The name felt strange on his tongue, yet there was a vibration in his chest that told him it was his identity.

“Rayden? My name is Rayden?” the panicked boy read his bracelet too. He stared at it as if it were a bomb ready to explode. “What kind of name is this? It sounds like a power tool brand! And you,” he pointed at the girl who had scolded him earlier, “Your name is Lira. It’s written there.”

Lira looked at her own bracelet and snorted. “At least my name doesn’t sound like a toaster, Rayden.”

One by one they said the names written there: Naya, Finn, Zephyr, Selene. They did not know each other, there was no bond of friendship, only suspicion of one another in the forest that was growing darker.

“We can’t stay here arguing about names,” Arlo said, his voice sounding more stable than the others, though his own hands were still trembling. “This forest... look at those trees.”

Arlo pointed toward the line of gray trees surrounding them. The trees had no green leaves the leaves were black and sharp like razors. And even more horrifying, the trees seemed to shift slowly whenever they weren’t paying attention.

Under the Sleeping Trees. The name suddenly flashed in Arlo’s head like a supernatural whisper.

“Why are you the one giving orders?” Zephyr asked in a low and cold voice. He was already holding a sharp piece of wood, staring at Arlo with a challenging gaze. “We all don’t know anything here.”

“Because if we stay here, we will die without knowing why we have these names!” Arlo replied firmly.

Suddenly, the ground beneath them trembled. Not an earthquake, but a rhythmic vibration. Thud... thud... thud... Like the heartbeat of a giant. The trees around them that had been still, now began to drop their black leaves. The leaves fell with a sharp stabbing sound into the moss.

“Run!” Naya shouted when she saw a leaf nearly split her shoulder.

Chaos erupted. The seven teenagers who had just learned their names ran scattered through thorny bushes. Rayden ran at the very back, screaming every time his foot got caught on a root.

“Help! Something is pulling my leg!” Rayden screamed. A black root wrapped around Rayden’s ankle, dragging him backward toward the darkness of the trees that were beginning to ‘wake up.’

Finn, who was running near him, stopped for a moment and laughed in shock. “Wow, looks like that tree likes you, Ray!” But when he saw Rayden’s truly terrified face, Finn quickly moved closer and kicked the root as hard as he could. “Get up, Garden Lamp! Don’t die now!”

Lira, who was several meters ahead, stopped abruptly. She felt intense fear radiating from Rayden’s direction. Her sensitive nature made it impossible for her to ignore the scream. With an annoyed growl, she turned back and grabbed Rayden’s hand when the boy finally broke free.

“Follow me, or I’ll leave you as fertilizer!” Lira barked.

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” Rayden replied while holding Lira’s hand as tightly as possible, forcing the girl to drag him while running.

They kept running until they reached a low cliff overlooking a silver colored meadow. At the far end of the field, a giant metal tower stood upright, emitting a red light blinking regularly into the dark sky.

Arlo stopped at the edge of the cliff, his breath rushing. He stared at the tower. Suddenly, his head throbbed violently. A shadow appeared: Seven people inside tubes, the sound of machines, and a man saying, ‘You will wake up soon.’

“Arlo? What’s wrong with you?” Selene asked, suddenly already standing beside him with a frightening calmness.

Arlo looked at Selene, then looked at his bracelet which was now beginning to glow faint red, in rhythm with the light from the tower.

“These names...” Arlo whispered while looking at his friends who were still panting and suspicious of one another. “These aren’t just names. They are subject codes. We aren’t lost in this forest, Selene. We were just released from that ‘factory.’”

Rayden, Finn, Naya, Lira, and Zephyr all fell silent. They stared at the metal tower with mixed feelings. Under the shade of the trees that had returned to “sleep” behind them, the seven souls finally realized that their names were the only thing they had to fight against a world that wanted to destroy them.