Items were going missing. Old things were showing up, and then disappearing again. Wherever something showed up, people would remember stories about that thing, which they had forgotten until just then. World-altering remembrances were being retold in a storm of strange occurrences.

Amid all the chaos of the mysterious windows – whose displayed images were starting to stir apprehensive confessions from retired professionals – a lot of people were deciding to seek these lost things that were very precious to them. Objects of cultural and ancestral significance, each rediscovery was itself worth finding a way around house arrest, by the reasoning of those who fully understood the value.

Given the motivation, a stranglehold can be broken. They found ways through their own guards, uncovering the weaknesses of martial authority. By and by, people did find their lost things, which can have a way of calling for reunion. Inevitably, they were with everyone else’s lost things, in piles so tall that they formed towers. People found what they were looking for, but they couldn’t retrieve it, because nothing would come unstuck. The towers couldn’t be damaged, because people would not harm these objects. They couldn’t bear to do that. The towers grew, and confounded seekers continued to be drawn to this mystery.