Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Life After Death
Though to many, it seemed a lifetime since the appearance of the Focus Tower, it had only been a decade. A decade since the great shining monolith had first appeared. It had descended from the heavens and emerged from the crust of the Earth and one of the greatest cities of men deep in the heart of the city, destroying homes and shops and schools and hospitals as it displaced almost a square mile.
The Focus Tower extended far into the sky. Though it was not the tallest building that many had seen. All knew it was anything but ordinary and far more than just another building. It shone majestically against the light of both the sun and in the reflection of the moon. Majestic and sleek with its walls of silver alone in the nearby skyline as even birds avoided coming close. The adjacent ground was cracked and fallow the base of the tower extending up from within a scar of disturbed Earth and broken rock.
For miles around the structure, a shimmer in the air could be seen a faint hint that something was there just beyond the ability of the eye to perceive. The answer obvious the closer to the tower one looked as the incorporeal forms of people became more and more apparent until near the entrance they appeared as flesh and blood.
From anywhere within the city, the tower could be seen as nervous passerby drove onwards over lifted roads. As anxious families closed the blinds of their apartments and lofts to avoid seeing the otherworldly structure. Reckless eighties could I was something they had to learn to live with. It was something that would always be part of their lives.
Wages couldn't remember how long he had been waiting in line for his time to enter the oversized and shimmering doorway into the tower. The door that called to him even now across time and space beckoning him to come. A call he could not resist, nor did he want to. Wages thought for a moment, struggling to recall swirling thoughts at the edge of his mind. He actually couldn't remember much of anything about anything from before the line; only a vague sensation of a life lived well that ended abruptly and prematurely. But there was little else he could remember, not of his mother, his father, his friends and colleagues. None. He wasn't even sure of his name; at least he wouldn't have been if not for the bracelet around his wrist. Not that it mattered. But it did help to give him some sense of self.
The little metallic bracelet that read "Wages, Male, 17, #2A786306." Even now, as he looked at it, the bracelet gave him no indicators of memories now faint stirrings all reminders of who he was.
Everyone near him in line had the same dazed and confused look on their face that he did. Overhead the reapers floated about, beneath their robes, their features obscured. Wages didn't need to know what they looked like under the gowns; the way they moved about already implied they weren't living things, like him, something among the dead. The reapers were shouting out commands as they kept the lines neat and orderly moving every forward. Occasionally Wages could see the reapers stop and take people away who asked to be removed from the front. He didn't see them again, but for whatever reason, Wages didn't think anything untoward happened to them, only that they missed out on something they would never get the chance again.
The passage of time meant nothing to him. He waited not in hours but by days and weeks if not more, but his consciousness lingered in a perpetually dazed state like so many others until he reached the near the front. An oversized billboard above the entrance to the tower giving some indicator of how much longer he would be waiting. The sign was rapidly changing as the message went from "Now Serving #2A761302 to Now Serviving #2A779032." Wages knew it would be his turn soon.
Closer to the tower, Wage's mind started to come to more of an awareness, higher cognitive thought returning. With the return of thought, so did his senses as he began to hear the reapers around him, giving their briefing. Addressing the aimless souls like himself, whose only goal was to reach the doorway.
The nearest reaper to him stopped floating for a moment and addressed him, and those closest as their number was fast approaching.
"Greetings Honored Dead," The reaper said through the cloth facemask it wore.
"My brothers and I have guarded over your souls as you've made your way to the Tower of Rebirth, wherein you will gain the chance to live again, to feel the sun on your face, and the warm touch of another person. But it is not without risk, and it is not without danger. For those who wish to quit, you may do so without harm done to you and proceed to whatever afterlife awaits you. Just raise a hand and ask to be done, and one of my brothers will collect you shortly."
"But for those of you who wish to live again, you must traverse through the tower, facing its dangers and its monsters, and on the top floor you will find the waters of life, ingest this and you will be reborn, or take a feather from the phoenix that drinks from those waters if you wish to go back to the life you once had, but be warned, the greater the reward, the greater the danger."
"As you approach the doorway, many of you will be taken at once, I cannot tell you how the journey for you will start, only that it will be difficult, listen to the instructions you received carefully, and you may progress forward."
"But remember this always, should you fall within the tower, there will be no rebirth, and no afterlife, only oblivion. You have been warned. You have my best wishes, honored souls. Welcome to the Focus Tower."
Above head, a loud alert clicked as the numbers on the board changed. "Now Serving #2A779033 to #2A787705"
Wages, along with thousands of other people, stepped forward into the opening of the tower and pressed their bodies to the glimmering portal and disappeared.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone