The Dark Tower - The Boy Who Saves the World Part 1

1

I looked at this man's face and realized he couldn't have killed his daughter.

He held a knife in his hand, tears dripping down onto it. His sweat-studded hair was plastered with pieces of plaster, slowly crumbling from the ceiling. He seemed incredibly strong, unyielding, yet intelligent and composed. Looking at this man for any length of time gave me a headache.

The very atmosphere of the house he lived in was incredible. Entering it evoked a sense of energy and peace. It made me want to take a deep breath and reflect on things that, in everyday life, recede into the basement of the mind. Clearly, the people living in such a room must have been extraordinary. The family member caught in such a bizarre pose convinced me even more.

I knew that a scene, strangely familiar from some American films, would soon follow, in which a man caught in the act of committing a cruel and terrifying mortal sin would raise his head to look at a police officer or another person who happened to be in the same place at the same time. Murder time. Well, looking into a murderer's eyes was a difficult experience for me, and I'd always been afraid of him. But now it was something different. It was as if his eyes, the color of an old fence—very beautiful and sharp—were speaking, practically screaming with grief. Two police officers had easily subdued a suspect caught red-handed. They handcuffed him, searched him, informed him of his rights, and briskly escorted him to the police car. As he left, the criminal turned and looked at me again. He must have felt I was his ally, and I guess I truly was. A tear rolled down his cheek and dripped onto the porch. I'd never felt sorry for a fucked-up psychopath who murdered his own children. I guess the world really does move on.

2

At first, I wasn't too bothered by this whole story. Some psycho simply decided to choke his child for fun while his wife and their second, younger daughter were visiting friends in the countryside for a few days. He owned a small online store selling guides for those buying or planning to buy a dog. An insignificant "little" man, shot in the knee by his drunken friend back in his youth, and stuck on painkillers for the rest of his life. How many people like that are there in the world?

After returning home, I immediately went to the toilet to throw up my hastily eaten dinner. I was suffering from severe stomach pain and indigestion. I threw up several times a week. On the cabinet next to me was a folder with information on the villain. Once I had dealt with my stomach problems, I looked in the mirror. Hehe, I don't look so bad after all. Not bad for a fifty-seven-year-old with a history of trauma. I put my head under the faucet to let the icy water give me a little boost before I drifted off into the world of dreams and fantasies. Since childhood, I've had a large head of hair, and I wasn't particularly concerned that I'd splash half the bathroom when I pulled the wet, furry part of my body out of the water. And so it happened. I wiped my head with a towel while pulling down my pants. I opened the door and screamed. The man I'd captured at noon today was standing in the hallway, petting my dog. What was I supposed to do? Pounce on him? I just stood there, staring at him like I was looking at some damn painting. I wouldn't be able to pull the gun out of

my pants. Surely the pseudo-acquaintance would jump me in the blink of an eye and cut me up like a pig with his huge knife. But he didn't seem to have any weapon. Only now did I notice he was completely naked. "Who? Who are you?" A strangled question escaped my lips. "What do you want from me? "

The stranger didn't move an inch, just stood there and stroked me. I couldn't see his eyes any more than I had back at his house. A damned rerun of the entertainment.

"You're not afraid of me, are you?" The man's voice was calm, yet rough and commanding. "Let me tell you something."

3

There once was a land called Anirak. It wasn't one of those supernatural, fantasy lands where fighting dragons and using magic was commonplace. It wasn't a land of magical creatures, divine figures, or adventures. They were all normal people searching for the Deep, though they didn't cry when they were born and didn't rejoice when they died. They had their own life purpose and did what suited them best. Some wrote books, others taught, and still others cleaned the streets. They were all one, and no one opposed the Higher One. There was a school there, which I attended. I loved the green lawn with its wooden benches in front of it, and I always enjoyed gazing at the tall trees, much older than the building itself, before classes. In the blue sky, I saw the meaning of my unbearable teachings, and in the rustle of the wind, the strength to endure them. I sang to the sparrows and pigeons, crumbling them a piece of wheat bread from the bakery on the corner. I lived through the carefree years of my youth.

One year, our city was rocked by a strange series of gruesome crimes. The bodies of little boys were found mutilated, missing arms and legs, torn apart, and with guts spilling out. Some had sticks stuck in their eyes or pieces of their own fingers pushed so deeply into their noses that several were surely lodged in their brains. All these murders were committed on Sundays. By May, there were 94 victims. As a child, I didn't quite understand what was happening, but I sensed the tension among all the adults and the pervasive agitation. One pleasant June evening, I took my dog ​​for a walk in the nearby forest. Apparently, a UFO had landed in that area. Who believes in such nonsense? As I passed a large stone, which, legend had it, came from a giant's shoe, I felt thoughts that weren't mine. As if someone had invaded my brain. "I probably ate too much cheese for breakfast, and it was probably stale," I thought. I was wrong. I felt a wave of hatred for the entire world, unable to contain it at all. I wanted to destroy, kill, spit. I grabbed a stick and started hitting my Labrador with it. Blood gushed from his muzzle. I continued to beat him until he lost consciousness. As he fainted, I gouged out his eyes and tore open his stomach with a rock. I became a monster, and everything human within me evaporated.

After this barbaric act of brutal murder, I sat under a tree. My strength drained, and I didn't notice the sun slowly beginning to set. I craved blood. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed movement in the nearby bushes. I immediately stood up and grabbed the sharpest stone near me. A boy was walking with his bicycle on his back. "The bastard is about to taste pain." I lunged at him. It seemed strange, but I savagely craved his death. I no longer had thoughts of anyone else. THESE were simply MY thoughts. I took a powerful swing to crush the boy's skull. Luckily for him, he dodged in time and, with a stupid, surprised expression on his face, escaped death. The rock grazed his cheek, cutting it open. Warm blood gushed out. I couldn't control my reflexes; I simply wanted to smash his head in! After several deft dodges, the boy realized he wasn't dealing with an ordinary thug. I saw it in his eyes. I saw the terror. My strength was also supernatural, I noticed it. All my senses sharpened. That's why the boy had no chance.

After a short struggle, I finally managed to kill my opponent. His face, after a few blows from the rock, was a bloody pulp. I had no strength left for further massacre, but I was still killing him. Finally, I stopped.

I dragged the body to the spot where the dog's remains lay. I felt good despite my exhaustion. I wanted to hide the bodies in the leaves, and just as I was about to do so, my body arched, accompanied by a terrible scream that tore through the forest. I fell to the ground and began writhing. Sweat covered my body. For a moment, the hatred and darkness that had gripped my mind vanished. I became myself. I opened my right eye and noticed the rustling of leaves. The corpse began to move. Perhaps, probably, certainly—as my history teacher would say—it wasn't friendly. The Horrodog, its guts spilling out and its eyes gouged out, bared its fangs, which were preternaturally large. CRUSHED PEOPLE! That was the thought that flashed through my mind. CRUSHED PEOPLE! I didn't know what that meant. The monster was approaching me, and I felt as if I'd sprinted 30 kilometers. CRUSHED PEOPLE! Louder and louder. CRUSHED PEOPLE! LOOK FOR A TOOTH! What kind of damn forest is this? "I must have stepped in a lot of shit," I thought. I had no strength to fight. I closed my eyes, waiting for the first bites to my flesh... and found myself 5,000 meters above the ground.

I was floating in the air... just like that. Looking down, I thought I was tiny. I burst into tears. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a brown shape soaring like a bird. "It's a man!" I was surprised by the clarity of my perception. Within moments, I had a clear vision of the figure. An old, bearded Arab in a faded brown suit. "Excuse me, what time is it?" I asked, practically shouting it in English to be sure, because I wasn't sure if he understood the Ydob language spoken in Anirak. The Arab looked at me, looked deep into my eyes, and then started laughing. He practically roared with laughter until tears streamed down his face. "Guess," he replied, struggling to catch his breath. Suddenly I realized where I was. There was no time. We were outside the space-time continuum. I wasn't gripped by terror. I wasn't even afraid. In my country, created by Superiority—that is, special agents of the president of some real, larger country, to satisfy their sick desires—she was performing various experiments on people far less powerful than us. I assumed it was their doing. But deep down, I knew it wasn't them. It was the work of a MONSTER killing children. I closed my eyes. Who, or what are you, monster? The last thing I saw before falling into a coma was the whiteness...

4

The whiteness of the toilet, containing my young, fourteen-year-old face.

5

When I woke up, I was completely cold and wet. I couldn't feel my legs, and it was a shame I couldn't feel my head. It felt like a terrible time bomb, about to do what was expected of it at any moment—a supergiga boom.

The room I was in (huddled on the ground and stinking) resembled an ancient chamber. Candles burned on the walls. I could make out a bed covered in rags and primitive pine cabinets. There were no windows, which made it terribly stuffy. The temperature must have reached a billion degrees—it was incredibly hot. Like hell.

I looked at my hand. I held a knife in it. I stared at its blade, mesmerized. "I'm drifting away." A quiet, muffled whisper escaped my lips. "I'm drifting away." And at that very moment, I felt a strong hand on my shoulder. I immediately put the dagger in my pocket. I screamed. The hand—covered in numerous scars, ulcers, and even green pimples (of course!)—clenched my arm like a claw. The pain was unbearable. I screamed. I screamed like hell for them to let me out of this hell and for them to stop crushing my bones, whoever they were. I screamed, asking who gave them the right to torment me! I screamed that I wanted my mother (my mother had been dead for eight years). I screamed for them to give me a FUCKING PEACE OF MIND.

When the creature finally released me, I felt immense relief. I grabbed my arm with my left hand and pulled my legs up to my chin. I was just feeling this sense of relief when the creature grabbed my head by the hair and yanked me up with unimaginable speed. It threw me several meters above the ground. My limp body hit the stone wall. I heard the dull crack of bones breaking. My entire right arm was shattered, that's for sure. I lay on the ground, squealing like a slaughtered animal.

I looked up. The hooded creature was walking towards me. I couldn't see his face, but I knew his filthy mouth was twisted into a grimace. He was coming closer and closer. I lowered my head, waiting for death to come... until a voice suddenly broke the silence, waiting for the worst:

"Do not fear," he said. "I am the King. "

A pleasant greeting, I thought.

"Forgive my servant, friend. He hasn't seen a human being in centuries. And besides, he's been through a lot," the supposed king continued. He wasn't in that room. He wasn't anywhere near a million miles away either. I don't know how I knew. I just knew..."

Where I was, the air was filled with a terrifying stench. It was as if trillions of scents had converged into one. Strange, incomprehensible images flashed before my eyes, and a monotonous chorus of a billion different sounds echoed in my ears. It felt cold, yet simultaneously hot. My senses danced to a salsa. I felt the sweet spring breeze in my hair, felt the leaves on my hands, heard the roar of a lion, the cries of children, the sounds of battle, a shout, the boom of a revolver, the whirring of sewing machines, the sound of printing. I was lost in wild awe of it all. In an instant, I forgot about the monster and the voice of the king. In my mind, I saw a large theater simultaneously staging a multitude of intersecting plays. I smiled without realizing it. How beautiful it was, I whispered to myself, squinting and straining to fully experience the spiritual ecstasy. I felt the filth and evil seeping through this layer of perfection, but I didn't care.

"F...ck off..."

I kept whispering about the beauty of everything.

"FOCUS!" The king's scream tore me from my utter enchantment

. Simply wonderful... "I'm an old fool. A fool... yes, it seems real. All my life I've been trying to destroy everything my father created. Why? I don't know. It's just been like this since I was born. I emerged from the womb of nothingness with my brother God, and no one needed to tell me what to do. I felt ka, or destiny, with every inch of my physical body and with my entire soul. Evil was me, and I was Evil. I took on a color. Crimson. I dwelt in it, and it dwelt in me. And there was something else. Together with God, we set out on a never-ending journey. Towards the Dark Tower. The

Crimson

King told me how he and God crossed the threshold of the Dark Tower. How God created the world and he was trapped at the top. He spoke of suffering and hope. At first, I didn't want to hear it; it didn't sink in, but after a few moments, I simply fell into a trance. Everything the King was saying to me resonated in my skull, rumbling painfully, somehow strangely. I felt like I was floating.

I closed my eyes, but I still saw everything very clearly. The torch flames, the stone walls, and the toilet, which didn't quite fit with the rest of the scenery. It was beautiful, yet terrifying. If I were to imagine death, it would be this way. I opened my eyes slightly.

Subconsciously, I understood everything he said without considering the meaning of the story. The meaning emerged on its own. My thoughts began to drift, and my vision began to blur. I noticed someone's hands typing rapidly on a computer keyboard. I saw it as if I were writing, but these hands were larger, darker, and stronger than mine. They struck the buttons with grace and a comical nonchalance, but it was clear they belonged to someone skilled, perhaps even aggressive. At the wrists, the unbuttoned sleeve of a light green checked shirt was visible. A button was missing on the left, while on the right it was poorly sewn on. The hands paused for a moment, only to resume a few seconds later. I desperately tried to see what the person was typing. I focused and saw the first markings on the keyboard buttons: Enter, Delete, and the letter K. Immediately after, I recognized the letter on the left: A. Ka – destiny. One by one, more buttons and letters appeared, and finally, I saw everything with razor-sharp clarity. I focused harder to understand what the figure was writing. CRUSHED PEOPLE. The figure wrote this sentence down several times, paused, and wrote down the next words. GUNSMEN, DARK TOWER, SUFFERING, ROLAND, ROLAND, ROLAND, DEATH, KILL THE KING, RUN, RUN, RUN, ROLANDROLANDROLAND. KILL THE KING, ROLAND, SEARCH FOR THE TOOTH. For a moment, the image completely blurred, and in my mind I was left alone, abandoned by the vision, the meaning of the story. Seeing the word Roland, I began to recall something from the past, something that had happened long ago and had been completely relegated to the abyss of my mind by disbelief and the desire to destroy the memory... and the Crimson One continued.

"Everyone after us died on the way to the Tower. The world was moving forward, and those who had awakened the world in one World were the Great Old Ones in the other World." Nothing was permanent, and the only escape for these living fools should be sleep, not existence. I persisted, trying to escape—the king hadn't told anyone anything in a very long time. Perhaps he'd never even told anyone anything. I tried to return to that strange state of vision. A kind of hypnagogia. I no longer saw the hands, swiftly moving from one side of the keyboard to the other, but another image appeared in my mind. A bat. A long, thick, solidly made baseball bat. Just like that, hanging somewhere in space, a normal baseball bat. Its handle beckoned me to grasp it. To squeeze my fingers tightly and use it. To use it. In the background, streaks of light filtered through small cracks in the wall. A pile of broken wood lay aimlessly, and several ancient, cracked crates. The gray floor was stained with dark red stains. Blood, perhaps.

I stared at the image, focusing my attention on the stick. Something told me I would need it. It was meant for me, and in truth, it was me. It seemed strange, but for a brief moment, gazing at this object inside my head, I realized how insignificant and insignificant I was in this world. I felt like a wind rushing through the desert; my eyes became an ocean, blue as the sky. I floated without moving or even breathing. I was happier than I had ever been in my life, but I hadn't forgotten. I could still hear the king and understood what he was telling me. I also knew he knew I was having profound visions, and I was absolutely certain he was pleased with them.

The Crimson King's tale was coming to an end. I lay curled up on the ground, my eyes closed. I tried to understand my visions. Perhaps every person experiences something similar before they die? I waited for the end of this nightmare. I was about to open my eyes and rise when I saw the man. A quite handsome, quiet man, forty years old. He laughed joyfully, right in my face. He was dressed like a character from a Western movie… Cold but beautiful eyes the color of an iceberg peered at me from behind a leather hat. He seemed amused, without a care or a problem. He seemed to float in an ecstasy of peace. I looked closer at his face and saw something glowing in his mouth. A tooth! It was a tooth of pure gold, gleaming with a flawless brilliance. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. Suddenly, the tooth began to enlarge, as if swelling. I was slightly frightened. As it grew, the strange tooth also began to increase its radiation intensity. It became a burning ball, a sun, energy. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the tooth.

Suddenly, the figure stopped smiling. The calm vanished so quickly it was almost impossible. As if a dwarf had swung his great axe and crushed it. A figure with a mouth preternaturally contorted due to a large tooth was staring at something behind me in this vision. I didn't know what it was. His brows were furrowed, and sweat beads were clearly visible on his forehead. Only now did I realize he was a gunslinger. The sandal handles of two large revolvers hung from his belt. This didn't stir much emotion in me. I wanted to shout to the man, ask if he could help me, but I couldn't. My mouth was sewn shut. Sewn shut, swollen, and bleeding profusely. I couldn't utter a sound... and the vision faded

.

I was staring straight at the large, massive wooden door, some six hundred meters away. Everything hurt; my head felt like a bomb slowly exploding, driving me mad. My broken arm throbbed with raw pain. I had become a mere scrap of a human being. Hiding in the shadow of the huge pillars was the mysterious, hooded figure who had inflicted the physical damage on me. I thought I heard its soft laughter.

The Crimson King, having finished his oh-so-interesting tale, had apparently gone to take out the trash, smoke a cigarette, or perhaps the good Lord (if he exists, of course) knew what to do. One thing was certain: He had wandered far away, and not in a good mood. Something had interrupted him.

I thought I was in some kind of above-ground building, but not a low one. It was enormous, since the doors were so far away. I was certain that upon my first glance at the surrounding reality, I hadn't noticed the sheer size of the hall. If it were possible, I would have sworn on my last dollar that this vast hall had expanded itself.

I had no escape plan. I knelt on the ground, staring straight ahead, trying not to panic.

I remembered my mother: Elisabeth Coffin. Always smiling, wearing thin glasses and carrying an interesting novel in her purse. I didn't remember her very well, but at that moment, she came to mind clearly. Her lips, her tiny nose, her beautiful gray eyes. It all created one, seamless, colorful image.

At the age of five, I became seriously ill. I had pneumonia. The doctors were helpless, and no one could help me. I was doomed. Everyone had accepted that I was dying, even my immediate family. But there was an exception: my mother. For weeks, she sat by my bedside. Other mothers would surely have shed liters of tears, blaming fate for such bad luck. Elisabeth Coffin, not so much. She sat with me for days, seeming calm and composed. She read me adventure stories, told me fairy tales, sang. When I regained consciousness after a very high fever, she smiled at me and hugged me. She was everything to me. I recovered within two weeks. Everyone was overjoyed, practically glowing with joy. It may have been sincere, but I haven't forgotten. To some extent, they also condemned me, hoping for a miracle. I could only share true love with my mother. A year after that incident, she was hit by a truck while walking on the side of the road. She died instantly. It's sad, but oh so true. Reflecting on this, I dozed off

...

Drip, drip. Drops of sweat collided with the ground one after another. A psychedelic rhythm that would drive even the Pope mad at night. Drip, drip. Staring out the window, a boy with childish features stared into the distance, at a dark gray rock at the edge of a road leading somewhere deep into the dark forest. He wore slippers. Apart from that, he was completely naked. Drip, drip, reciting its monosyllabic tale ad nauseam. He glanced at the clock that had hung on the wall of his small room for about two years. Ten minutes to midnight. He tucked his legs closer and closed his eyes. He kept thinking about the field of roses he had just dreamed of. When he woke up, he wanted to talk to his mother, or worse, his father. They were all dead, along with his two sisters. That wasn't the most important thing at the moment. He remembered seeing it all from every angle of his sleepy body. He saw various images.

Amidst endless fields, with a tower slowly engulfed by fire towering into the clouds, stood three enormous crosses, most likely made of sandalwood. At each kneel a woman, pensive and sad. Each had her eyes cast low to the ground, giving the impression of about to cry, but not a tear rested on any of her thin cheeks. Ravens and Egyptian vultures stayed away from the crosses, occasionally uttering an inarticulate sound. They were on alert. The sky was pitch black, the wind blew unwaveringly, and the entire area was permeated with a dry, suffocating air. The smoke, spreading rapidly, was choking and made the eyes water.

The first woman—dressed in a gray dress that fluttered in the wind and pistachio sandals that were almost completely worn away—had long, gray, worn hair tied with a worn leather bow. Beside her lay a book without a cover, and the pages looked strange. As if they were made of skin... human skin. The raging wind mocked the woman, humiliated her, and mocked her with its howling, but the woman remained on her knees, not moving an inch.

The second woman wore a green, checked shirt, too large for her, and a large fur vest. She wore faded black jeans. She was barefoot. She seemed much younger than the first woman. The difference might not have been significant, but it was there nonetheless. From this distance, he couldn't see her face, and with women, a face best expresses age. Beside her lay several charred dolls. Nothing more. She clutched her hands tightly to her chest as if experiencing violent heart palpitations and trying to avoid death. If she did so, it was very delicate and almost imperceptible.

The third woman was dressed in what seemed like the most normal outfit. An ordinary, inexpensive dress, bright red shoes, and a work apron. He looked at her a little closer... and yes. He could tell by her hands that the mysterious woman had brown skin. She was Black. Next to her lay a boxing glove, probably stolen from the early 1930s. A very hard boxing glove made of pigskin.

The disoriented boy walked a few meters to the right, pushing through thickets of dying roses. He had never had such a realistic dream in his life. He moved forward nimbly, avoiding protruding stones that threatened to cut his delicate skin, analyzing the ratio of dead flowers to those still alive. So far, there had been ten rows against four, and... before his eyes, the plants were wilting as if by magic! An eerie impression, as if straight out of a nature documentary.

He fell several times, but he didn't give up and continued, slowly starting to run. The feeling of fear grew stronger and stronger on its own, and on top of that, he heard rustling behind him. He slowed his pace and turned around.

"Who's there?" At first, he thought his voice would fail him, but he managed to summon a little strength to forcefully voice the question. With youthful curiosity, he shouted forcefully a second time, "Come out, coward. I'm not afraid of you!" He was answered by deafening silence. He stood there for a moment, searching the thicket of blood-red petals and fiery green stems for the monster, but there was nothing there. He coughed slightly and, on trembling legs, resumed his run.

Bang! He stretched out, face first, hitting the hard ground. At first, the sound of the mass of crimson petals withering and falling gracefully filled his ears, but after a few moments, he heard nothing. A cluster of many shades of the most diverse colors loomed before his eyes. Blackness dominated.

He awoke after a dozen or so minutes, brushing off the dust and dirt. His head throbbed rhythmically, bang, bang, in an undefined rhythm. He had a small scratch on his left wrist, but otherwise he was unharmed. Curious about what had caused him to fall in such an unpleasant manner, he twisted his head... and screamed. On a trampled patch of ground lay a mangled woman's leg, dripping blood and superhumanly deformed. That it had once belonged to a woman could be deduced from the beige-painted nails. In a dozen places, snow-white bone protruded from the flesh, revealing its monstrosity to someone such as a tiny boy. In the previous version of the scarlet meadow, the dark blood would have seemed unnoticeable: now, where all around there was only grey emptiness, the blood gave an almost surreal impression of brightness or radiance.

"Wake up," the boy slowly muttered to himself, "Wake up! Damn it!" He fell to the ground a few steps away from the scrap of his leg, right into a large pool of blood. At first, he didn't want to look where he had fallen; the whole situation was slowly becoming too much for him.

Directly ahead, a path, bare and bare, was marked with blood. To the left and right of the path, two large, massive oak trees rose up, perfectly masking the distant reality. He wasn't sure, but they hadn't been there before. He crawled toward the trees and touched the bark. He quickly withdrew his hand because it was hot. He stared at it silently, observing tiny spheres, smaller than a pinhead, moving in compression like atoms. From a distance, the trees looked completely normal, maybe a little too large, but up close, all that normality vanished. The trees were definitely not normal.

He followed the blood trail deep into the mini-forest. His trouser legs were torn from the protruding undergrowth, and his shirt was terribly dirty.

"A damn dream! This forest wasn't even there! Wake up!" he cursed to himself, hoping it might at least help. It certainly wouldn't hurt, though:

Wake up, you idiot! It's just your stupid imagination! Wake up..." He burst into a large, neatly trimmed clearing. Human remains were scattered everywhere. Piles of crushed women, men, and children were haphazardly arranged into one large heap and a dozen smaller ones. The boy turned his head and vomited hastily. The genocide that had recently taken place here (recently, because the vast pool of blood was still steaming) was sickening. The severed heads numbered in the hundreds, even thousands. A terrible army of thousands of CRUSHED PEOPLE! Moreover, he saw his friends among them, even his mother, father, and sisters.

"People being crushed..." the boy stammered, staggering like a drunk after an evening brawl in a bar. "Suffering... people being crushed, people being crushed..."

A stream of vomit gushed from his gaping mouth, but its stench was nothing like anything he would feel in a dozen or so hours in this field, when the bodies began their slow decomposition... Besides, it already smelled unpleasant.

The boy fell, clutching his chest, and in quick, spasmodic contractions, the sound of an explosion reached his ears. On the horizon, a huge cloud of gray smoke rose into the air, blowing like a mad geyser of hot water. The crosses had fallen, just as the Dark Tower had fallen. With the smoke came nothingness—the multiverse was collapsing, the end of the world.

The boy's wide, wide eyes held terror... and also joy at the end of the nightmare. A piece of paper fell from his hand. “To Kayode Coffin, my sincerest greetings – The Crimson King.”

And now he sat worriedly on the cold windowsill of the room, listening to the silence and clutching his school ID. To be sure, he checked his name: Kayode Coffin.

9

"YET MY NAME IS KAODE COFFIN! THAT WAS ME AND IT WAS MY DREAM! WHEN WAS THAT... AND... WHERE?

" "In a parallel world."

The creature in the corner walked with the unsteady gait of an old cripple towards me, who was carefully observing every slight movement of the expanding walls. But that was a fact—the chamber was somehow expanding.

"I am the executioner," the hooded creature growled. "My name was lost centuries ago, but I will introduce myself. They called me Roland of Gilead until I betrayed God in the fight for the throne. I was blinded by the desire for glory in all the worlds that exist." From behind the hood, a faint shadow of a bluish glow could be seen. Were they eyes? – Zap... I forgot my father's face.