The tower was tall and sheer, one big cylindrical column, rising up into the greasy sky. Glassy surfaces shone in the dim light, flashing when the sun made a rare appearance, but mostly the shadows sent oily swirls spinning across its glossy walls. The girl lived at the top of this tower, on the very highest floor, and the only way to reach her was the shining glass elevator that swung smoothly up and down the core of the building. Her stepmother lived at the bottom of the seamless structure with the elevator key on a heavy silver chain about her neck. Nobody went up, and the girl never came down, her stepmother made sure of that. From her window the girl saw a glittering city, vibrant and alive. She watched the antlike people scurrying through a maze of concrete, little coloured dots rushing across the monochrome medium.
She was neither happy nor sad and her indifference to her confinement irked her stepmother; the less the girl cared, the more bitter the older woman became, until she vowed that the girl would never leave. The girl watched the people disinterestedly day after day, memories of freedom a vague haze at the furthest reaches of her mind. She passed her time in empty thoughts that drifted dreamily through her mind like clouds, morphed into unlikely shapes by the wind of her imagination. In the glass panelled walls her own face was reflected back many times and gradually her attention turned to dwell more and more upon this image. She was thin and pale, with a pinched, anaemic look, and though she had no comparisons to contrast herself against she was charmed by the slight figure in the glass, her only company. She liked the long, awkward limbs and large black eyes; however, it was her hair that pleased her most. Cascades of liquid gold fell in rippling waves down her back, the burnished locks twisting in long ropes to the floor, snaking behind her in thick coils and collecting in glimmering heaps in the spherical room. She was forever falling over the acres of tresses, which were so weighty that she was never entirely balanced, and was forced to move with a slow, stately grace. The ends of her hair were dirty and bedraggled, frayed; unravelling, and fell limply, one dusty pile under another as the surging strands continued to lengthen.
When the girl was sixteen another great tower was erected beside her own. Its piercing tip reached intrusively up into the sky, much like her own, and its slick crystal shaft brought the world of ants much closer, enlarging them before her curious gaze. For days she watched the little figures rushing around within the glass needle with alien clothes encasing their flat bodies and heads, unencumbered by their short hair. She couldn't understand what the continuous train of hurrying bodies were doing, they seemed to her to be involved in an incessant circuit that raced through long glass tunnels, ceasing long after dark only to resume before dawn had even ushered in the first rays of light.
The girl slept little, in small snatches at any hour; time had little meaning in her circular prison, and the endless moments were punctuated by meals that appeared at irregular intervals. At night her tower shone like a beacon, illuminating the girl in golden splendour within a giant curved jar, framed by the yellow mass that glimmered in the relentless lights. Her glistering halo caught the attention of a man in the twin tower, his glance drawn to the shimmering molten tip of the adjacent building. He was young, nondescript in a grey suit, which suited his grey skin, and the lifeless corporate walls of his office, sharp slanting eyes gave him the appearance of constant contempt, and there was a cruel femininity in his rich fleshy lips. Working late, his wandering gaze was momentarily blinded by the glare from the girl's shimmering locks. Behind the brilliant glow he glimpsed the girl in all her fresh adolescence and was fascinated. She had no idea she was being watched, or that another being passed the time absorbed entirely in thoughts of her. She was too busy watching others herself. The ants in their bright steel offices amused her at first, but as she watched them they took on more tangible shapes in her mind. She watched them intently, noticing their routines, their interaction, their busy purpose, and she began to remember a time when she had all of these things; a time when there had been a mother who was beautiful and smiling, a noticeable absence of fluted walls. Her mind turned to green fields, crowded streets, bubbling voices and a distinct lack of silence. A room with pale pink curtains; painted shelves loaded with picture books; a porcelain unicorn that had stood on one spinning hoof at her bedside in a perpetual pirouette; paper stars that hung from the ceiling above her and danced in the lamplight. She was surprised to surface from these thoughts with tears clouding her sight, and she let out a hesitant squeak, attempting to articulate feelings that she lacked the words for. Her voice, when it came, was an incoherent, husky babble. Words formed in her mind but she lacked the skills necessary to translate them into recognisable language.
Very suddenly she wanted to be out of her glass cage.
She reached out a tentative hand to the clear panel that divided her from reality and the glass rippled out from her fingertips as though the whole tower was made of water. She pushed experimentally and the material stretched out from the structure; thin elastic membrane moulded itself around her fist like a layer of skin. With a furious scream she tore through the barrier and it dissolved, as though it had been merely a figment of her imagination, leaving her standing bemused upon the flat, decapitated tower top. The wind whipped her hair and the heavy weight surged in a frothing flaxen waterfall over the side of the tower dragging the girl to the edge and threatening to pull her into the abyss. She clung to the ledge that separated her from the unknown and gazed wonderingly down the steep liquid surfaces that held her in the sky. Abruptly there was a painful tug on her hair and she was almost catapulted into space, clasping her tower tightly she peered cautiously down once more. Crawling greedily up the sunny twine was a small dark figure, grasping hungry handfuls of hair in its steady upward climb. She shook her head sharply, trying to rid herself of the clambering burden that weighed down her head. The figure hung on with grim determination and eventually she froze, waiting for the brave stranger to reach her roots. As it climbed it took distinct form, a gray oval detaching itself from the indefinite figure; thick arms floated out of the shadow, followed by broad shoulders and a dark haired upturned face, until gradually the girl could make out the man that dragged himself parasitically up the abundance of her hair.
When he reached her he scrambled gracefully up onto her ledge and lay panting for a while, regarding her appraisingly with cold, narrow eyes. She stared back unashamedly, head cocked to one side and her own dark eyes absorbing every detail of the stranger as he lounged beside her at the flattened summit of imprisonment. When he had recovered he stood with a fluid motion and took from his backpack, which hung heavily from his bullish shoulders, a large knife, sharp and dangerous, glinting murderously in the flashing sunlight. The girl backed away hastily as he advanced but he seized her by her hair and pulled her swiftly back towards him, then, placing the blade to her throat he made one swift slashing motion. The girl dropped instantly and the man was left with an armful of hair, the miles of which exploded from between his fingers and plummeted down towards the earth. He ignored the trembling girl who lay prostrate on the floor and pulled the hair tightly around the elevator support, which was the only remaining solid protrusion on the new roof space, wrapping it firmly in great rigid hoops until it was secure. Once this was complete, he turned sinuously back to the girl and pulled to her feet with an ironic chivalry. As his hand wrapped itself around her waist there was a ragged screeching, the scream of metal on metal, and the building shuddered menacingly; the rusty old elevator, so long disused, was ascending with slow agony through the bowels of the glass building. They both froze in intersecting poses and stared aghast at the deep well that opened up at their feet, from which issued the ghastly clanking of old cables. It rose, inch by inch, from out of the maw of the tower, grandly lifting itself into the clear air, dustily unaccustomed to sunlight. Barely discernable through the grit encrusted glass was a figure, distorted as through seen in a carnival mirror.
The warped doors smashed open in a shower of glass as large woman, whose face was contorted with unbridled fury, launched herself through them. Her wild black mane shed pins as she leapt, screeching wordlessly, at the stunned pair. A snarling, black-clad body connected audibly with the grey man, and the two rolled wildly amidst the jagged shards that now littered the ground. The three figures on the roof were soon spattered with dark crimson blood that soaked through black, grey and white material. As they wrestled closer and closer to the edge a slim tentacle of saffron braid snaked out and tangled itself around their shifting feet, binding them together. There was a silent moment, endless seconds where the flailing bodies teetered and hung suspended in the air before they fell, blindly plummeting into the void that materialised beneath them. A single thin scream snapped through the strained silence and blew away on the wind.
The girl stood frozen for a long while, until that same breeze blew soft strands of hair gently across her face and she came to her senses. Her supple fingers caught handfuls of hair and she slid confidently over the side of the building without a backward glance. As she abseiled down the smooth cliff she plaited the silky strips into a neat plait, slithering her slow way down the rope of gold. When she reached the bottom she stepped lightly over the smashed bodies on the ground and, lifting her buoyant head, she skipped away up the busy main road leaving the sparkling turret far behind her.
A/N Please please review! If you loved it/hated it tell me why! Your opinions are invaluable to me!