It appeared overnight.
No construction. No warning.
Just a black tower, 13 stories high, in the center of a dead forest where no one dared to tread.
Locals called it "The Tower of Hollow Eyes."
Because the windows weren't glass—
They were watching.
---
Every year, exactly one person vanished without a trace.
No signs. No screams. No scent.
Until one day, a group of urban explorers decided to livestream their journey inside.
Six of them entered.
Only one made it out.
And she couldn't speak.
Her tongue had been sewn into a spiral.
---
The footage recovered was... corrupt.
But the audio remained.
It began with laughter—nervous, cocky.
Then silence.
Then... the sound of something wet moving through walls.
And then a voice:
> "One floor. One truth.
One sin. One sacrifice."
---
The First Floor was empty.
But the doors wouldn't open unless one of them cut themselves.
Their blood vanished into the doorknob.
The walls whispered: "Now the Tower knows you."
---
The Second Floor had mirrors—but none of them reflected the explorers.
Only the versions of them they could've become if they were killers.
One mirror shattered on its own.
The explorer nearest it began coughing up glass.
He died on Floor Three.
His body cracked open like a dropped vase—
Filled with mirrors.
---
Each floor had a new rule.
Floor 5: No blinking, or your skin would shift.
Floor 8: No silence, or your heartbeat would be replaced by someone else's.
Floor 10: One must confess their darkest secret aloud—or be fed to the "Eye Room."
By Floor 12, only two remained.
But only one elevator appeared.
The last man begged. Screamed.
But the elevator wouldn't open...
Until he tore out his own eyes and offered them to the door.
It whispered, "A hollow offering… is pure."
---
The 13th Floor was the peak.
The survivor entered a room made entirely of mouths—
Floor, walls, ceiling.
All moaning, sobbing, chewing in the dark.
A throne of bones stood in the center.
A child sat there. Skinless. Smiling.
> "You climbed," it said.
"So now... you stay."
---
They found her outside days later.
Naked. Bloodless. Tongue spiraled. Eyes missing.
But every night since, her shadow stretches taller.
Growing.
And whispering in voices that don't belong to her.
---
Ritual etched into the Tower's stone base:
> *"To climb is to confess.
To see is to suffer.
When your sins fill the 13th floor…
The Tower will walk again."*