Inspired by the series by Stephen King. The universe. Size. When you look at a speck of sand, do you look at a speck of sand, or a small universe? Does this universe have smaller universes within it, and so ona nd so on? Do all of them have Hearts? Where does the final Heart lead? What if one tower composed all of this? The Dark Tower. --------------------- Chapter 1: The Gunslinger --------------------- The man in black fled across the worlds and the gunslinger followed in pursuit. They had played this game of there's for some time. Was it nearing the end? Did anything truely ever end? Time. The man in black had the answers Roland seeked. Knowledge sometimes had a price, what would this one be? His soul? Had he sold that in day's past? Soon it would be the end. The wind went across the darkness of the night sky, seeming to block out stars with a invisible blanket. Did a higher force cover up that blanket, and did it lead to The Dark Tower. A voice seeming to echo down from the passegways of his memories finally found its way to him. "Remember, there are a thousand stars in the night sky. All leaing to Hearts. Those Hearts leading to further ones, and at the last Heart, it leads to The Dark Tower. The Heart of everything and nothing itself." Those were the words of Cort, his old master. Was it wise that he had followed his advice? Should he have followed it more thouroughly, and waited until he was part of the flame that seemed to follow everywhere he went, consuming friend and foe alike. All spare one other. The man in black. Why was this? Roland would ask these questions and more from him, and they would be answerd. He had not come this far to be denyed. A small structure from a lost time stood still, as if a idol standing testement to the sins and dark magic that had conspired there. Not just old magic. newer. Fresher. The smell of a place where old people and old dreams alike go to die or rot away screaming for mercy though it would never be deliverd. Was he a old dream? The world has moved on, they said. Was he the final old dream, going here to die? Did dreams ever really die, or did they just fade away slowly, until they could not be seen. Perhaps he would be able to answer the question, soon enough. Inside he could hear crying. The sound a animal makes when all it loved and relied upon is stripped away. Leaving only its life, which it would just as soon be without. Not even Death excepts it, and when it does, the poor creature comes willingly. There was a boy inside. Roland came upon him, mixing the way a friend might come to a friend and a predator might come to its prey into one. "Who are you?" Roland asked. The boy seemed to stop crying for a moment. It was moment enough, then he quit crying. Though again, it was enough. Roland heard the words, "My name is Sora." The boy seemed to cry more at this, as if remembering a old frriend just to remember at the last second he was dead. "Why did you come here?" Roland asked. The boy looked up, and said, "I don't know, I just... don't know anymore." Roland took out a silver colored bullet, twirling it around like a child might a new toy. It was a technice of hypnonis he knew from the dead age. "Why did you come here?" Roland asked again. "I don't know," the child said again. "I don't remember much of my life. I remember being on a island. A key? A push into the water, and a man in black keeping me down." At the last words, the man in black, he gunslinger fealt a feeling of dread crawl into him. "Do you wish to remember what you saw?" the gunslinger asked. "No. I don't want to remember that feeling," Sora said this like he was quite sure, so Roland did as the child requested and broke the trance. "The child might be importent," the gunslinger thought. "He might be a key to the Dark Tower." After some moments of debate, Roland decided to keep the child with him. "Come," Roland said, and he did. "Where's the food?" Roland asked. "Shed out back," Sora replied. Sora was feeling good, he thought he had a friend again, and things were looking up for him.
