Is this real life?

Tens of thousands witnessed the towers appear in numerous locations all around the world. Many basked in awe at the sight of these monstrosities, others, feared their purpose. They were a complete mystery. No warning. No explanation, suddenly they were just there, now a part of the world.

Ellis dropped his bike and traversed the field in the direction of the mysterious structure. As Ellis walked toward the tower the world seemed to shrink. The closer he got the more he felt drawn to it. He couldn't walk away even if he wanted to now.

"What the hell. Marin must have drugged my coffee. There's no way this is real. Am I actually so tired that I'm hallucinating?"

Ellis looked down at the cup of coffee in his hands.

As he was looking down at his coffee he's shoved to the side and his half drank cup of coffee fell to the ground splattering everywhere. Ellis looks up bitterly to see the man who just shoulder checked him is heading straight for the tower.

Huh? Wait, is he seeing the same thing I'm seeing right now? Is this actually REAL?

Ellis rubbed his eyes in disbelief before he looked around and noticed that there were now hundreds of people all over the field heading toward the tower.

"Hey, wait up!"

Ellis shouted at the man as he jogged after him.

The man was a tall, well built, tanned skin man with amber eyes.

"Errg, what is it? Can't you see I'm trying to check out this tower? I can feel it calling to me."

The man snarled impatiently at Ellis as he kept rushing toward the tower.

"Did you say... tower? You can see it too?"

Ellis said in a confused voice trying to keep up with the man.

"Of course I can, I'm not blind. Can't you see how huge the thing is?"

The man replied, glaring at Ellis.

"Uh, yeah, no I can see it. I just figured no one else was seeing it."

Ellis murmured back.

"Ahh, so you think you're special or something? It doesn't matter. I'll be the first to enter the tower and discover whatever it's hiding behind its mysterious walls. There has to be something incredible in it."

The man hissed before he rushed off.

"Uh no, I just-..."

Ellis stammered as he watched the man sprinting toward the tower.

Am I missing something? This has to be some sort of elaborate prank, right? You can come out now, Ashton Kutcher. Wait, never mind, I'm not famous.

In front of him stood a tower more than a thousand meters in height. On the ground floor, there was a pair of enormous black doors, each about 10 meters in height, which swung open as he walked toward them. Inside, all he could see was pitch-black nothingness. Curious of what was further inside and wondering if what that man had said was true, he ventured forward unaware the tower was drawing him in.

What is this thing? How did it get here? Better yet, why was it here?

Ellis had hundreds of questions going through his mind all at the same time.

Ellis began to feel the tower pulling him in, but he couldn't resist his curiosity. He entered the wall of pitch-black between the open doors. A few steps through the door and the entire scenery changed. Everything was bright and warm. He was in a very large circular room that could probably hold more than a few thousand people at once with room to spare. Oddly enough there were no doors anywhere to be seen in the room. When he first entered the room, it was only him and the man from earlier standing a few meters in front of him, but slowly people began to emerge from nothingness into the light-filled room. Person after person, the room began to fill up until there were thousands of people standing around looking just as confused as Ellis was. Then people stopped appearing. There was a momentary silence. Then, all at once, the silence was broken and everyone was talking at the same trying to figure out where they were.

What the fuck is going on?! Who are all these people?

At that moment Ellis saw a familiar face. It was his childhood friend, Arya.

She was standing alone near a large crowd of people to the left of him. She didn't seem to notice him and looked very flustered. He immediately started pushing and shoving his way towards her. She turned and saw him as he was almost to her. Her face lit up with familiarity as she noticed him. She jumped toward him frightened and buried her face in his chest. Ellis's face turned bright red as he held her for a moment.

"Where are we?!"

Arya looked up at Ellis like a terrified kitten.

"I have no idea... did you go into the massive black tower and end up here also?"

Ellis questioned.

"Yes! I just felt drawn to it. Like I couldn't resist going in."

Before Ellis could reply a thundering voice rung out and everyone was silenced by some magical force. Ellis swung his head to where the sound was coming from. A giant empty flowing black cloak with shadowy mist surrounding it spoke.

"Welcome! This is Zenith's Tower. You all came through the Tower gates and have been selected to fight to the top of the Tower. What all of you don't know is that there are Towers all over, just like the one you entered through. You all have chosen to begin Zenith's Tower, but first I will explain to all of you what the Tower is. The Tower has one thousand floors. After you complete a floor you have the choice to leave the Tower and receive rewards based on what you've accomplished in the Tower. You may re-enter the Tower later and continue up if you so choose. Completing a floor is getting from the entrance of the floor to the exit of the floor. The exit is a teleportation circle that is found somewhere after the main boss on each floor. The teleportation circle will take you to the next floor or out of the Tower based on where you choose to go. Each floor gets progressively larger and more difficult as you go on. When you exit the Tower, you will be sent to your local Tower where you can receive your rewards for clearing floors. Your rewards are based on the creatures in the Tower that you take on or the feats you accomplish. Everything you do will be recorded on your TowerCards. The monsters you've killed, the last floor you visited, titles, affiliations, and your stats.

Suddenly a tablet of stone appeared in front of everyone. Ellis reached out and plucked the tablet from the air. It was incredibly light, almost weightless. On the front of the card, it had Ellis's full name, his age, race, level, HP, and AP.

Name: Ellis Ryne

Level: 1

Age: 17

Race: Human

Class: None

HP:130/130

AP:25/25

How does this card know all of this? My level? My HP and AP? Is this like the video games that my classmates always used to talk about?

Underneath all that information it had a list of stats.

STR:5 AGL:6

DEF:5 CON:3

INT:4 LUC:5

Skills:

"A TowerCard is a record of your stats. Once you kill your first monster a new page of your TowerCard will be available to access, which has all monsters you've killed along with some information on them. The same goes for when you perform your first feat. A new page will show you all the feats you've accomplished, along with the titles granted with them. The TowerCard is a part of you. When not in use the TowerCard is etched into the skin on your chest. If you want to take it out, touch your chest and call it out. If it leaves your hands it will dematerialize and return to the center of your chest, with the exception of you handing it to someone willingly."

Ellis dropped his tablet, but before it could even touch the ground it exploded into a flash white light and vanished. He looked to his chest and saw that there were strange symbols tattooed onto him, but he couldn't make out what language it was, although somehow, he understood what it meant.

"TowerCard"

He put his left hand to his chest and spoke.

The tattoo on his chest began to glow white and the tablet appeared where his hand was near his chest.

"Weird..."

Ayra's voice startled him as she copied what Ellis had just done.

The booming voice spoke again.

"The first five floors of the Tower are all to be done by yourselves. All of you will experience different challenges as you progress through these floors. All the floors from the sixth floor up will be the same for everyone, meaning you can work together in guilds or parties which you can set up through your TowerCard and fight together. You will struggle to survive, and it will take everything you have to make it to the exit of the floor. Everything in the Tower is built to kill you. You will encounter terrifying monsters you couldn't even dream of. Many of you will die, but the few who make it out will be rewarded based on what you've accomplished in the Tower. You will keep all your stat upgrades, items, weapons, and armor if you make it out alive. Keep in mind that only things originating in the Tower can be brought into the Tower. Those who survive may return to your world extremely powerful as the power of the TowerCard will always be with you from now on. You will now all be transported to transfer rooms. In the rooms, you will put on the clothes laid out for you. You will place all your belongings on the table in the room. Once that is done you will be transported to the first floor. Fortune awaits."

His last words echoed throughout the room for a few moments before everyone realized he was gone.

"What do we do, Ellis?"

Arya asked almost in tears.

"It's okay, Arya. We'll figure something out."

Ellis held her in his arms comforting her as his mind twisted and turned trying to comprehend the situation.

Suddenly, people around them began disappearing in bursts of light.

"I'm scared! I don't wanna do this. I don't wanna die, Ellis! I just wanna go ho-"

Arya's voice was cut short as she vanished in a flash of light.

A few seconds later, light consumed Ellis's vision and he found himself in a small, well lit, chilly stone room. There were no doors just four solid, grey, stone walls. In the center of the room, there was a table with a set of clothes on it.

Is this all real?

Everything was happening felt like a dream to him. Ellis walked up to one of the grey walls and let his hands touch the wall in front of him to ascertain whether they were real or not. It was hard and cold.

This is definitely real. Shit. I gotta get out of here.

Ellis looked around the room for anything else of significance, but there was nothing except the stone table in the center of the room. Not knowing what else to do Ellis walked up to the table cautiously and looked at the clothes neatly folded on the table. There was a thin form-fitting black shirt and thin form-fitting black shorts.

I guess these are the clothes that thing was talking about.

Knowing he had no other options he decided to do what the being had said and put on the clothes laid out in front of him. Ellis stripped naked and laid his old clothes and belongings on the table. As he put on the new clothes, they comfortably morphed to his body and produced a faint blue glow that spread past the clothes, coating his entire body. They emitted a subtle warmth and the coldness of the room began to fade.

Woah. What is this?

Ellis reached out and poked the luminescent substance covering him. It was hard. He applied a little more pressure and the part he was poking began to crack. Ellis then drew his hand back and made a fist. When his fist hit the blue light covering his arm the substance shattered into pieces that dissolved into nothingness as they fell. As Ellis looked at the hole in the glasslike substance it soon began to repair itself at a rate that was visible to the naked eye. Thirty seconds later and the hole Ellis's hand punched in the substance was gone and completely repaired.

So, this is like some sort of force field? I guess it's meant to provide a little protection for whatever I'm supposed to face in this thing.

Ellis looked around wondering what was next when the table in front of him opened up and all of his belongings fell into a black abyss. Then, as quickly as the hole had opened up and devoured his stuff, it closed, leaving a glowing circle of the same strange symbols that he had on his chest in its place.

Dammit. That phone cost a lot of money. How am I gonna replace it?

Annoyed, Ellis began looking around the room not knowing what to do next. He studied the walls of the room, but they were just plain stone. Same with the ceiling and floor. The now empty table sat in the middle of the room with the circle of symbols still illuminating a dim white light. He inspected the symbols but none of them made any sense to him and he didn't have any feeling of understanding like he did with the symbols on his chest.

What the hell do I do now?

Ellis flung is hands down on the table in anger. As soon as they touched the circle on the table his vision exploded in white and he couldn't see anything.