i_seekthetower Stretched By Insanity [Narrative]
[backdated to before Desire's 'Gift']
George of the City had left, and she didn't return.
She had allowed him free range of her abode and taught him the ways of the noodles of ramen, a food he couldn't quite wrap his mind around yet still appreciated, but it was much too confining for his tastes. So on the first day after she didn't return, he'd gone outside, immediately forced back in again after experiencing a violent mental strike to his brain.
It was the boy again.
He remembered having to make a choice.
A choice between the boy -- his new son -- and the Tower. The Tower that loomed over every aspect of his existence and threatened to destroy him before he ever came within a few miles distance of it. It was at the center of all things and of all things center and central and with it there were the answers to everything. Everything that had changed.
The world had moved on.
But if he could reach the Tower everything would change again. Or could change. Or might change. Or hell, he didn't know what would happen when he reached it. Only that all of his questions would be answered, and hopefully the universe would revert back to its previous construction. The old world. The world of his childhood friends, of Gilead, of David. Everything.
He had to make a choice.
The Boy or the Tower. His son or his quest. His salvation or the future of the world as he knew it.
He chose the Tower.
But no. That wasn't exactly correct.
There was no boy. There was a way station, but there was no boy. He'd taken a break to refresh himself, a rest. Discovered the jaw, the skull on his own. And then he moved on. Like the world, he moved on. On after the man in black. The sorceror. The enemy of his past and the confrontation of his future.
There was no boy.
There was no choice.
There was only the Tower.
It made Roland sick. And he vomited all over the sidewalk. Then he crawled back into the apartment and collapsed in the doorway. Skin pasty and sweating as though he'd come down with a violent sickness. His memories were fighting each other. Fighting back and forth. Which was right? Which was wrong?
Neither! They're both right! There was a boy! There was no boy!
His mind was choking him. He was delusional. He couldn't do this on his own. He needed his ka-tet. He needed Eddie. He needed Susannah. He needed the boy.
The man in black was laughing at him.
He was dying. Dying before he came in sight of the Tower. And dying alone.