The Tower

    Crystalline waters flowed from within the chambers, and the
slight trickle of water could be heard bouncing from one wall to the
next, making the room seem much larger than it actually was. Moonlight
from a window high upon the eastern wall danced upon the waters in a
dark prism. A small fountain at one end of the waters created the
sound. Other than the high window there were no other entrances.
      This is the place where time was recycled. I suppose one could say
that as the same water was recycled endlessly through the fountain,
time was also re-made within this enclosure. It did not literally go
through the fountain as the water, the metaphor is not quite that
literal, but if one were to somehow make their way into the room they
would immediately sense the difference within the place. Were they to
somehow make it out of the chamber they would also not recognize the
world as it was when they entered. The recycling process within the
chamber is much faster than without, and the world would therefore be
at a much different stage in its endless cycle.
      There was an entity that had been around for almost as long as the
recycling process. Millions upon millions of rotations, the exact
number would probably be too long to successfully write on any type of
parchment. The method in which it was able to maintain its existence
had to this point in time never been discovered. It never aged. Large
black eyes, like the pool itself, peered out from a powerful cat-like
body. The movements, when it did move, made the simple feline of the
world seem as though they were created to be the most clumsy of
animals. Fluidity and power oozed through its body, eyes constantly on
the surrounding area.
      The pool and the tower it resided in stood to the creatures back, at
the end of a very tall ravine. The creature, with no known name, had
never moved from the ravines edge except to move a foot or two and
then resume its statue-like stance, looking out upon the plains
beyond. Every few cycles would another creature come, standing on two
legs and walking with an incredibly clumsy gait which made the
creature cringe inwardly every time it experienced it. Without fail
the two legged creature would approach the ravine, subsequently seeing
the tower. Eyes opening with surprise they would retreat slightly,
only to return shortly after with a few more of their strange species.
      It was normally at this point in time that they would point and shout
something in a strange guttural language, and begin to approach the
tower itself. The creature never dwelled on many details past this.
After a few moments it would move smoother than water and red stains
would dot the green blades beneath its feet, and the ravine would be
still again for countless centuries.
      This is the way things continued for longer than the creature could
remember. Just as time was recycled, so too were the events within the
universe recycled. The creature did not really know how things
changed, or what happened to create the change, but at some point in
time strange rolling beasts began to dot the land, and large towers of
flowing smoke started to stick out across the horizons. The beast did
nothing, just continued to observe as the world changed around it, and
more and more of the strange creatures populated the lands.
      Just because of their enormous numbers, many more of the two legs
made their way to the mouth of canyon. The creature did its duty, as
always, and redness began to cover the grounds as the years passed on.
Soon, however, the air grew heavy and hot, the creature could not
breath the freshness of the air as it once had, the purity which
allowed it to survive. Its shining black eyes every so slowly began to
cloud. The two legs came on relentlessly, their curiosity driven by
what they could only imagine lay within the tower. Their numbers
endless, and with every rising of the sun the air growing thicker and
darker, the creature slowly began to tire. No longer did its movements
make that of a normal cat look clumsy. No longer did its eyes see
across the vast plain of the world. It began to need to rely on clever
strategies to protect that which it was charged. And as the air grew
thicker, and its eyes ever worse, those strategies too began to fail.
      Until one day, the two legged creatures succeeded making it into the
ravine. What they had devised for weapons, long sticks with stinging
metal balls coming from the ends, could not ultimately kill the
creature, but their sheer numbers were simply too many for it to
successfully keep them from the entrance.
      They charged in, their guttural tongues filled with elation and
excitement at finally reaching their long sought goal. They brought
with them large hunks of metal attached to wooden sticks, and
proceeded to smash them into the sides of the tower, slowly cracking
and chipping the rocks around the pool. They died at an alarming rate
as the creature moved among them, drenching its body in redness as it
went from one to the next. But they never stopped. Their drive to know
the unknown, and reach out and take anything they could see never let
them stop.
      For days and days the metal slammed into the stone, until it cracked
and crumbled completely, allowing the first two leg into the chamber
of the pool. Immediately it felt the difference in the air, although
at first it was not able to perceive what it actually signified. It
never really got the chance to figure it out either.
      The balance had been disrupted. Time was supposed to flow out the
window, and the window allowed a very specific amount of old time to
come in, and new time to come out. The process was very precise, and
the slightest change was able to throw it completely off balance.
Thus, with a hole large enough for a two leg to get through, old time
assaulted the chamber. It stormed through the opening, ripping two
legs to pieces as though they never existed. All the time in the
universe was vacuumed into the tower until there was nothing left.
Trees lost their leaves and turned to dust, rivers and lakes slowly
dried into deserts, and the mountains were ground to nothing.
      Only the creature remained, ever watchful, until even it disappeared
into nothing.