In the heart of this strange world stood an ancient tower, spiraling endlessly upward. It was said to be built from the remnants of forgotten times—eras that had faded into obscurity and fused together, creating walls of shimmering, distorted reality. The tower's bells did not ring; they resonated with the echoes of melted time, sending ripples through the air with every silent chime.
One night, a traveler arrived. They had wandered for years, through countless realms, searching for the source of a dream they could not remember but knew was important. As they stood before the tower, they heard it: the soft hum of their forgotten memories swirling in the melted time.
Drawn inside, the traveler ascended the spiral, each step sinking them deeper into the echoes. Their past unfolded in fragments—old loves, moments of regret, fleeting joys—all of them blurring and reshaping with each stride. The higher they climbed, the more the echoes grew louder, until time itself was nothing but a dense fog around them.
At the top of the tower, there was no summit. Only a mirror. The traveler looked into it and saw not their reflection, but a thousand faces—who they had been, who they could have become, who they still might be. In the end, there was no answer to their quest, no final revelation.
Only the understanding that time, like everything else, can only melt and reform, and the echoes would never fade—they would just grow quieter, until they became part of the hum of eternity.
- A short story related to the artwork