Chapter 16: Entering the Past

The Tower of Memory...I don't know how else to describe it as...kind of underwhelming. Maybe I had read too many fantasy novels but I was expecting a gigantic tower that pierced the clouds and reached the heavens. Instead, the tower before us was maybe the size of a mini leaning Tower of Pisa from Italy. Literally this tower couldn't have been more than 4 floors in length but I did notice that it only had one entrance and nothing else. It was perfectly round all the way to the top, no windows and/or balconies...just a straight tower. 

"I was expecting more." Mateo said what I was thinking out loud. He wasn't wrong though, for a place that had alleged treasure and riches...this building was truly underwhelming. 

"Should we step inside?" Thalia asked. We turned to one another, nodded in agreement and opened the door.

Part of me was expecting something akin to The Forest of Illusion, we'd enter together but end up separated by supernatural forces. This time however, when we entered what greeted us was...another door.

"Are you kidding?" Mateo asked looking behind us then back to the singular door. 

"Try opening it Mizuki." I did as Alna suggested and opened the second door to find...another door.

"This has got to be either a joke or a test like that damned forest." Mateo opened the next door and sure enough, another wooden door. 

After opening what felt like fifty wooden doors, we finally opened another and this one led us into a rather odd off-putting room. Matching the design of the tower, this room was all white, no windows, no furniture and just a white tiled flooring. I did notice in the very corner though a singular seat stood, facing the wall as if the person who sat in it was in trouble.

"This place is cursed..." I said to myself.

"I for once agree with our hero...where else do we go?" 

"Why not sit in the chair? It could be part of a trial like the forest?" Thalia said. 

"I'm not sitting in that chair." Mateo folded his arms and looked at me with a face that seemed almost disturbingly childish. 

"I'll do it." I proclaimed. I wasn't really afraid of this place. Yes, it was a bit creepy and odd but unlike the forest, there's was a calmness that overflooded here. Alna reached out to me as I walked towards the chair but just gave her a wink and thumbs up. A hero occasionally needs to put themselves in harms way for their party right? Saber Arts Offline showed the protagonist doing so quite often. Throwing themselves into the trouble with no regards to their own safety. What mattered was keeping the party alive and solving the puzzle. 

I reached the chair and observed it more closely. Despite picking it up and looking at it as if an anomaly, the chair seemed normal. It was well constructed so I figured it could hold any weight easily and it didn't feel like a trap or setup. There was no hidden switches or strange apparatuses...it was just a normal looking chair.

"Well...is it safe Mizuki?" Alna called out.

"Seems so. I'll sit in it see what happens." I put the chair back facing the wall, sat down and found out that indeed this chair was anything but normal.

As if I had fallen asleep for hours, I woke up once more in the white room but none of my party was there. I stood up and noticed that the door from before, which we had left open, was now shut. 

"Mizuki...are you awake yet? Breakfast is ready. Come on you know your dad hates waiting." 

"Yeah, I'll steal your natto if you don't move your behind." 

Despite not seeing those two voices...I knew who they belonged to. My mom and dad...

I opened the door and was alarmed to discover there was not another door behind it but the familiar hallway leading out of my room at home. This couldn't be real right? Was I dreaming that entire time? I looked over at my clothes and noticed my armor was gone, replaced with an all too usual school uniform I wore daily during my days of high school. I turned back to see if that room was still there but this time, there was no wooden door or strange white room. When I walked back down the hall, my room's door was there and it led back into my childhood room. 

"This can't be real..." It had to be the work of the Tower of Memory...I was in a memory!

I decided to just follow the route of the memory. I didn't remember this particular moment...not until I went downstairs and saw both of my parents at the dinning room table. Dad was reading a daily newspaper and mom had her arms folded, cross that it took me so long to wake from my slumber. Like any kid, I wasn't a morning person and this was a daily issue for me. I was late to school quite more than my parents would ever know. 

"Look darling, Mizuki finally graced us with his presence. Morning sleepy." my mom smiled despite a tone of annoyance in her voice. 

"He's a growing boy. I use to barely wake up for school every morning." My dad never once put the paper down but I knew he was reading it with his giant glasses absorbing every story within. I looked at the paper, the date was...the day before I got isekai'd? That wasn't possible. I left my parent's home way before this and was living on my own. The date didn't make any sense.

"You okay son?" My mom finally got up noticing I hadn't moved the minute I entered the room. She rushed over to me and did the usual mom maneuvers, checking my temperature and looking over at me with inquisitive doctor eyes. 

"I'm sorry mom...zoned out." I said.

"I didn't eat your natto if you worried about that. I'd know your mom would kill me and you'd help bury the body." My dad laughed as he flipped the page. 

"You don't have a fever..." mom looked at me puzzled but I just smiled.

"I'm fine really...sorry long night. Can I eat?" 

"Certainly! Eat before its get cold and then head out. Don't want to miss the train!" 

What was this memory? I thought to myself as I grabbed my shoulder bag and headed out into the warm spring day. The birds above were singing a happy tune and there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. People were walking around doing daily activities, one I recognized. He was our neighbor, I forgot his name but he was always out at this time doing yoga. 

"Morning Mizuki!" he said while lifting his body upwards on a mat sprawled out on his lawn.

"Morning sir." I returned his greeting but kept walking towards the station.

As I got closer to the familiar train I took daily to school I realized this really wasn't right. Parts of my memory were clearly correct such as how my parents reacted, my school attire and my neighborhood. But where it went askew was the path I was taking to school didn't seem correct, more like a fusion between me going to work and school. The date too, just didn't sit well with me. As I got closer to the now oncoming train, I stood and watched the doors open, crowds entered and then the doors closed with me still outside. 

"No...I can't go this way." I turned about and headed somewhere that I knew would bring this "memory" to an end.

Despite going there once before almost hypnotized into doing so, I still remember the route I took to that all too strange alleyway. I walked and walked, my feet already growing a bit sore from the distance but I didn't dare take the train or bus to this place. Part of me thought, if I kept too close to the memory...I'd stay in it. Stay in the happy days I had long ago.

Finally, I reached the alleyway this time though, the sun was in the sky and the alley seemed less...strange. I walked about halfway in when a sudden voice appeared from behind me.

"You are a strange hero." it said to me. I turned to face the source and before me stood an old man, long grey beard and even longer white/grey hair. He could almost come straight from a fictional story I read long ago about dwarves and elves.

"Who are you?" 

"Me? I'm the hero of memory...the reason you are in memories from long ago." He responded. 

"Hero of memory? Another hero in this world?"

"Correct, another one who should be dead but am still alive somehow. Trapped in a tower of literal memories." The old man walked over slowly to me and sized me up. 

"You are a hero. Peculiar your power makes no sense."

"Do you know my power?!" I yelled out louder than I meant to.

"No...sadly I don't but I do know it is a strange one. No form, no obvious skill behind it...layered behind the SOUL."

"SOUL..." again with the concept of souls...why did everyone emphasize this as an absurdity in this world?

"Anyways, time marches onward and you have a decision to make. You can stay in this memory. Leave this alley and go to school. I promise, the memories will change and you will live a life so happy and fulfilled it will be never ending bliss."

"What's the other option?" 

"Continue forward, break the memory and return to the present. Become another hero lost to Slain and that damn foolish being that act's like a God." I tilted my head. Was he talking about Mr. Voice?

"Can I ask you something?" I knew I should be asking more about Slain and why he said what he did about Mr. Voice but I was here for a reason.

"Yes?"

"Where's the child who entered this tower? I want to bring him home." the old man pondered for a minute then smiled.

"He's within his own memory but if you need be, I can break him from his reality." 

"Even though it would be bringing him back to a darker life?" I asked. 

"Yes...sometimes the darkness is the path we need to take to find the light. Doesn't that sound reminiscent of how you got here?" 

"Thank you...part of me wants to stay here but...I need to leave and learn the truth." I started walking further into the alley.

"Do not trust him strange hero...many heroes have died on his mission...many..." those were the last words I heard before I woke up once more in the white room.