The Screaming Tower

The Wooden Girl is a bitch.
And that’s all I have to say on the matter.

***

It was only moments after writing how suspicious the open gate was that I-330 decided to enter the castle. Without hesitation, she strode forward. When her foot crossed the threshold, instead of entering the gardens which she had seen from outside the walls, she was indoors. It was a circular tower, with red and black checkered floors and a gilded spiral staircase stretching up higher than I-330 could see. When she looked back, there was no sign of any doorway or gate that she had come through. The walls of the tower were perfectly smooth stone, without any openings. Yet even without any windows or sources of light, the interior was completely illuminated.

Cautiously, I-330 went to the stairs and began to walk up them. After some time, she started to wish that she had counted steps, because there was no way to tell how far she had traveled. When she looked down, she couldn’t see the floor anymore, but when looking up there still didn’t seem to be any end.

As she came up one step, a pathway made of gilded metal extended from the stairs, reaching towards an ivory door. Once again, the invitation seemed suspicious, but I-330’s curiosity overrode any doubts. She went through the door, and found herself in the back of a grand theater. The rows were filled with audience members, all focused on the stage with grins fixed on their faces. The play being performed was a domestic comedy, featuring slapstick quarrels between the bumbling husband and his wife. I-330 watched with more than a little confusion at the performance. The acting was stiff, more like a puppet show than a theater. But in spite of the show’s poor quality, the audience laughed mechanically at each joke.

At one point in the play, the wife responded to her husband’s blunder by hitting him over the head with a rolling pin, causing the pin to snap in two. The audience burst into laughter, and continued laughing as she kept hitting him. Even as his skull started to cave in, and blood splattered across the stage, the laughter didn’t stop.

I-330 ran out of the theater, back onto the staircase. She had come to the conclusion that this was “a seriously fucked up place,” and leaving should be her first priority.

But when she tried running down the stairs, instead of descending through the tower, she continued to go higher. When she tried running the opposite direction it had the same result. No matter where she went on the stairs, she kept getting closer to the top. Until, without any indication that it was coming, the stairs stopped. At the end was another door, made of black wood. After her experience with the last door, I-330 quickly came to the decision to not go through this one. She turned to leave, only to find that the stairs had disappeared, leaving instead a massive drop that stretched all the way down to the bottom of the tower. The only path open was through that door.

Before going through, I-330 turned her shadow arm into a blade. At the very least, she could be prepared to fight. With painfully slow caution, she cracked the door open, and peeked inside. The room beyond had the same red and black checker tile as the bottom of the tower. The walls were covered in shelves of porcelain dolls, and in the center was a table, set for tea. Seeing no one inside, I-330 entered the room, and walked to the table. It had a distinctly Victorian appearance, with a lace trimmed tablecloth and elegantly crafted china.

I-330 reached for a cup, and the moment her hand touched it, deafening laughter came from the dolls on the shelves. I-330 turned to run for the door, but standing between her and the exit was the Wooden Girl. Before I-330 could fight, strings fell from above, wrapping around her limbs.

The dolls stopped laughing, and the Wooden Girl raised its arms up. “Yes! I did it!” It started skipping around I-330, giggling as it spoke. “All this time I’ve been trying so hard to get you, when I just needed to open the front door and let you walk in!” It skipped up to I-330 and grabbed her jaw. “Now, you belong to me.” The Wooden Girl forced I-330’s mouth open, then stuck a hand inside. I-330 felt strings flowing down her throat, into the rest of her body.

“This is… the heart. Let’s try stopping that.” The Wooden Girl said, and I-330 felt like her chest was about to burst. “Aaaaand start it again.” The pain vanished. “And here’s the lungs….” I-330 started choking, unable to draw in breath. “Alright, enough of that.” The Wooden Girl pulled its hand out, and I-330 could breathe again. “Oh, don’t glare at me like that.” It said. “You’re my pet now. Put on a smile.” Against her will, I-330 felt her lips turning up into a grin. “Muuuuch better.”

The Girl clapped its hands and giggled again. “I’m going to have so much fun with you! Ever since we met, I’ve been saving a special place in my plays for you! And I’ve set up a room just for you to stay in and have all kinds of games for us to play and it will be so fun! Won’t that be fun? Say ‘Yes, Mistress.’”

I-330 struggled against the command, but was unable to control her mouth. “Yes… Mistress.”

The Wooden Girl squealed with excitement and jumped up and down. “Say it again! Say it again!”

“Yes, Mistress.”

With another squeal, the Girl started to run circles around the room. “I can’t wait I’m going to tear your skin off then sow it back on and we’ll dance together and I’ll break all of your fingers and I’ll rip out your throat and then kiss it to make it better and we’ll watch the sunset and I’ll make you gouge out people’s eyeballs and eat them whole and-” The Girl stopped running, and stood straight up. “It’s tea time!”

With a twirl, the Girl sat itself down at the table. “Oh Pet, would you be a dear and pour me a cup?”

I-330 walked to the table and picked up the teapot. She began to pour it, but her grasp started to loosen on its own, until she dropped the pot on the floor, causing it to shatter. The Wooden Girl shook its head. “Oh dear. You’ll need to clean that up.”

“Yes, Mistress.” I-330 went on her hands and knees, and started licking up the tea, while the Wooden Girl laughed.

“You missed a bit.” The Wooden Girl put its foot in front of I-330. “Such a bad pet, spilling tea on its master’s foot. Clean it up as well.”

I-330 struggled for a moment, but then leaned forward and licked the wooden foot. Splinters stabbed through her tongue, and when she stopped her mouth was filled with blood.

“That will do, Pet. Now go and get me another teapot.” A cart with a new tea set had appeared in the room. I-330 began to walk toward it, but suddenly came to a stop. Her shadow arm had grabbed the edge of the table, and was refusing to let go. I-330 tugged on the arm, but it kept its hold. The Wooden Girl flicked a finger, and a string sliced the arm off.

“Get the teapot. Now.”

Unhindered by the arm, I-330 walked to the tray, and picked up the teapot with her remaining hand. But as she lifted it up, her shadow arm regrew, and smashed the pot. Before the Wooden Girl could react, the arm extended in a spike that went through the Girl’s forehead. The Girl fell, and the strings that had been controlling I-330 vanished. Her arm’s sudden attack had surprised I-330 as much as the Girl, but once she took in what had happened, she started running for the exit.

The Wooden Girl rose up, it’s face now painted in an image of rage. “No no NO!” The voice screamed through I-330’s head. “You’re ruining everything!” The dolls rose off the shelves, and flew towards I-330, who smashed them with her shadow arm.

“Stop breaking my things!” The Girl screamed as the roof was torn off, and hundreds of strings came from above. I-330 threw open the door to leave, but there was nothing on the other side but the screaming void.

“You’re going to stay….” The Girl said, slowly advancing forward as the strings followed behind it. “And we’re going to play forever.”

It didn’t take long for I-330 to decide that the screaming void was the preferable alternative there. She jumped, and fell into the darkness. For hours she fell, until space began to distort again. The next I-330 knew, she was lying in sand. And all around her was a massive, unending desert.