The Tower of Emnu

The last thing Aaron saw was the kid and how much he looked like his sister. Mary had the same curly dark locks and the same wide mouth, as well as the same dark eyes. They had met in a bar and had hooked up. The woman had been eager and Aaron, done with his stakeout for his next hit was only too happy to oblige.

She was one of those girls you did not say no to. Funny, intelligent, god damn gorgeous and she had only eyes for Aaron. A fact that should have tipped him off to begin with. But he had been horny and she had a hotel room nearby.

She had literally dragged him kissing, feeling him up, to her room.

Mary had been amazing in bed, had given Aaron a show and when he had least expected it, she attacked.

A knife from who knew where while she was kissing him, aimed for his heart.

A poetic way to kill and stupid. Aaron had caught her hand mid stab and fought with her for only a moment, before he flipped her around, pressed her down with his knees. The knife pushed away, his other hand around her throat.

She had stared up at him in disbelief while he squeezed the life out of her. He knew how to, even with one hand and Aaron was far stronger than he looked. Afterwards he had sat there panting, looking at the cut in his ribs.

He had been pretty shocked by the events and had taken her in a princess hold and brought her to his rental car. She had joined others in a nearby pit. Only later he had found out she had been an assassin like him, just far more insidious.

She killed only men during sex and she did it to pay off her family's debt.

Aaron had not known her brother had been in her room, hiding in the wardrobe, spying through the keyhole on it all and he guessed Mary had not known either.

All of this and more went through his head while he died, or was dead? He did not know. Everything was just black.

He was drifting through darkness, not moving and yet endlessly falling.

Darkest oblivion surrounded him and he had no eyes, no body, nothing but his thoughts and memories.

His thoughts got more and more erratic with the passage of time, his memories jumbled and got more and more incoherent and he knew this was the end. He would join the void. Would just become nothing, an eternal darkness embracing him until he was nothing himself.

But then he saw the light, it scooped him up and dragged him out of the endless void, it felt warm and wrong at the same time.

This was not right. Or was this heaven?

When he woke up he found himself in a giant room made out of dark stone. It looked like the ancient walls of a castle. Ethereal light came from above and almost blinded him as he awoke blinking, disoriented.

Was he in the hospital? He had been shot just now right? Or not? His memory was hazy.

But he felt fine, a bit woozy, but that was it. No pain at all.

He sat up without problems and looked around.

Aaron was lying in the center of a giant mosaic, illuminated by strange light coming from the ceiling. The stone he was sitting on now was white and intricate lines of dark stone formed a dazzlingly complex pattern together.

Overall the white stone formed a circle and it seemed almost like writing was interwoven into the dark stone. But it was in no language he had ever seen.

He was alone in the room and it was the biggest room he had even been in. More lights shone in the distance, forming another circle around him. Aaron soon noticed he was in the center of it all and there was no obvious exit.

"What the fuck?" he asked into the deafening silence.

Was this heaven? Or hell?

Or what? A strange hospital? Alien abduction? Enhanced Interrogation?

He stood up and noticed he was naked and not cuffed anymore, but even though he was entirely naked he was not cold.

Okay, strange, more points to Alien abduction?

He strained his eyes and looked up to the light, but it was no electrical light or anything he had ever seen before, it was like 3 glowing balls of liquid light that slowly rotated above his head.

The room was warm, the stone underneath his feet was as well. When he stepped out of the circle, the dark stone felt cool to his bare feet and he noticed that the light...globes? were floating above the stone mosaic.

"Magic?" he asked himself, but that was nonsense. Maybe he was dreaming? Or he was high?

Aaron never used any kind of drugs. He liked to be in control and he was not stupid enough to think he would not become an addict. He had seen the empty husks of the junkies and he never wanted to end up like them, not even in his darkest hours.

Not even when his mother had died.

Aimlessly he wandered through the giant room. There were dozens more similar round mosaics in a rough circle around the one he had woken up in. Over every white stone circle were these glowing lights illuminating what was underneath them.

It was the strangest thing he had ever seen in his life.

When he reached the walls, they were solid to his touch and the room was quite dark besides the floating light globes. Maybe he had not seen the exit because it was too dark to see anything anywhere but underneath the floating lights?

Aaron should have panicked, should have tried to make sense of it all, but he did not. The silence was somehow calming, or maybe he was just happy to be alive instead of dead. Not that death had scared him when he had been alive. But after experiencing the void he was not so sure anymore.

He could still feel the bullets impacting him, the pain, the sudden death when Walter ended him.

And then the Void, losing himself in slow insanity.

Quickly he pushed those thoughts away.

Maybe he was dead after all? He did not know, but if this was the afterlife, then it wasn't so bad, was it?

Slowly he walked around the room, the wall always to his right. He hoped he would find something, anything.

Suddenly he noticed a bump in the never changing wall. It was in the darkest part of the room and the closer he came, the more it looked like what? A statue maybe? It was made out of the same smooth gray rock as the entire room besides the mosaics.

Curiously he stepped closer and jumped back almost immediately.

Did the Statues head just move?

"Welcome to the Tower of Emnu." a deep, mechanical voice said.

Aaron raised his hands, ready to fight, he scanned the giant room once before he entirely focused on the statue. There was nobody here but him and that statue. Slowly he stepped closer, or rather he stepped around the statue trying to see if someone was hiding behind it. But no, it was just a giant gray stone statue. But its head moved and two giant red eyes followed his every step.

"Step through into the Hall of Illusions and be tested Aspirant."

The same metallic voice said after a while and with a deep rumble a door opened in between the statues legs. Dim light streamed out of the new opening and Aaron stared at it.

Hall of Illusions? Aspirant?

What the fuck was going on?

"Who are you, why am I here?" he asked, not really expecting an answer.

"I am Golem, guardian of the Summoning chamber." the deep rumble answered.

"You are in the Tower of Emnu."

Surprised Aaron stopped and looked up to the red eyes staring down at him.

"You can understand me and answer?"

Silence.

"Is this all some kind of joke? Like a secret game show for rich folks? With hidden cameras?"

No Reply.

"Aliens?" Aaron asked weakly, but Golem did not answer whatsoever, but when Aaron moved, the head followed him still.

"Who is Emnu?" he asked probing.

"Emnu is the grand master of magic, the lord of Treyon, one of the 1000 Lords of the Multiverse."

'Okay' Aaron thought. 'This thing is either a robot or it does not want to answer my questions.' He took a minute to take stock. So he was in the Summoning chamber, in the Tower of Emnu, who was some sort of wizard living in the 'Multiverse'. Yeah this was the strangest thing he had ever heard of in his life.

"Am I dead?" he asked.

No reply came.

"What do I need to do, to get out of here?" he asked, slowly figuring out that the Golem only answered specific questions.

"Step through into the Hall of Illusions and be tested Aspirant." the metallic rumble said once more.

Which was probably the door leading into another room in between the statues legs. It was not a comforting thought to step through a robots legs to be tested. Especially if it was in a Hall of Illusions, but well it sounded better than Hallway of Death or something.

For long Minutes he tried asking questions without gaining any new results. He was still a bit hesitant but eventually sighed and walked into the opening.

He could not stay here, whatever was going on, he was alive and he needed food and water and clothes. His current theory was that he had indeed died, but had been summoned here with apparently a new body, because he had noticed he had no scars anymore.

Aaron had a scar or two from knives and a gunshot wound on the shoulder. But the scars were entirely gone here.

So there was apparently magic here, if the glowing light balls floating in the air were not indicator enough the magical healing of scars made a compelling point. Or maybe it was some sci-fi technology, not that it would make any difference to him.

It seemed like he was Isekaied here like in some anime he had watched before.

It just seemed much more ominous than in the cartoons. No princesses to save, no Demon Lord to please. No, if he understood it right he was tested to serve a wizard. He was no hero of ages, had no powers he could find, but he could not complain.

He was alive at least.

A lot of people would have frozen, would have despaired. But Aaron was a killer, was a soldier for himself.

Whatever this new life or afterlife was, he was ready for it.

He had a goal once, to save his mother. But he had never achieved his goal.

Now his only goal was to survive, to not feel the sensation of madness again as the void dissolved his self.

His confident steps led him through a dimly lit tunnel into another room. He did not know what tests lay ahead, but he doubted it would involve much algebra.