The Tower
Once upon a time, two brothers lived in a tower. The tower was a high, mighty fortress which served as a merciless prison for the worst and toughest of men. If the tower did not prove to be enough to keep its inhabitants within its rooms, the cold stones with metal was built on a snowy valley, where the temperatures never went above freezing, and was surrounded by giant walls.
In short, escape from this unnatural prison proved to be impossible.
The boys had lived there since they had been mere children. They knew not of the sun's wonders, nor of the comfort of clean bed sheets, or of the taste of warm, delicious foods.
The eldest though, remembered the sweet touch and caresses of their mother and knew the sound from the crackle of fire.
The youngest remembered nothing. His only connection to the outside world being that of his older brother's stories. As a result, the boy grew up knowing nothing except for the scratchy feeling of rags, the cold feeling of the stone surrounded air, and the company of his brother.
Neither one of the boys knew why they were there. Didn't know that their home was actually an elaborate prison and, therefore, did not wonder what they had done wrong.
The blonde though, questioned the location of his mother and father, asked if they were ever going to come get his brother and him back.
But as years passed, the older boy began to think that maybe he had imagined his mother's touch and his father's strong presence. And after the emergence of that particular thought, he stopped talking about them, even to his brother, and so the little child lost one of his only connection to the world outside the tower. Not that the child minded though. The stories his brother told him were nothing to him but entertaining tales to light up his imagination.
And so time passed, and the children grew into their early teenage years, with nothing but themselves to notice the changes of the other.
One would think that with the years, the boys would get used to the coldness the tower offered, but it was not within the brothers' nature to settle with what they currently held. Both wanted for more.
No one had told the boys that what their minds conjured was not true, so their dreams became their goals, even the impossible ones.
Dean, in particular, yearned for the freedom and adventure outside the wall. At night, he was visited dreams of flight, like the birds he saw at the sky outside their barred window, of speed, like the rats that lived in the hidden corners with him and his brother, and of agility, like the spiders that climbed the inside of his rooms.
All these attributes, the oldest credited with life outside the tower. And therefore, he yearned for them.
A day came that the tower's long age took a toll on itself.
The boys were playing, and in the moment of one particularly violent move, Dean ended up kicking the bars that went across the only window of the room.
The bars immediately cracked and fell to their doom. At this occurrence, the brothers remained eerily still, unsure of what this turn of events meant for them.
The oldest was the first one to move. He peered outside the window, going farther out than he ever had.
In that instant, he felt the wind on his face. The boy breathed deeply, letting the feeling of the cold air wash over him. And just like that, his mind was made.
He would find a way to climb the tower, find out what the snowy blanket that constantly covered the tower's surroundings felt like between his feet.
The boy looked at his brother, sharing his excitement and intent with a single look.
Instead of being met with an equal amount of wonder, his little brother dirty face was filled with concern and fear.
The eldest could only muster a small comforting smile, his mind having already been made up and not even his only companion could stop him.
The boy began his long trek down the wall of his home, thankful for the uneven stones that provided his hands and feet with a sufficient amount of support in his journey.
Even if he had already expected him to, he noticed how his younger brother watched with a clear uneasiness from the safety of the window.
After a few minutes, the boy noticed the biting quality of the wind that had previously enchanted him, as he also found the slippery feeling of ice covered stones.
As soon as he began wondering if this whole occurrence had been nothing but a big mistake from his part, the freezing temperature of the environment showed its trickiness. The child slipped, plummeting down to the snowy ground. In his surprise, he heard his brother produce a high pitch scream.
Thankfully, he had already been fairly close to his goal and the only damage done was the soreness that the boy would surely later feel.
He let out a soft groan, but made himself rise to his feet to show his brother his fortune at the fall.
He proceeded to look around, examining his surroundings, once again excited at the prospect of adventure, quickly forgetting the shock he had just felt in favor of fulfilling his childish wonder. He walked, circling his tower, only to find that the giant wall that surrounded the side the window looked at, was just as equally as impressive and inescapable on this side.
Since there wasn't a lot to examine, the boy's adventure ended quickly, plus the fact that he found himself feeling more tired and cold than he had ever felt helped quite a bit in his decision. The only thing he wanted was to go back to the comfort of his brother up high at the tower.
As soon as he began his climb back, he realized how impossible the task was. It was one thing to descend the tower and it was absolutely another to ascend it.
By the sixth time his attempts had resulted in him falling down on his sore, cold, and wet ass, he allowed his tears to freely fall from his eyes, opting to stare up at his awaiting brother, demonstrating to him his resignation.
Even with the howling wind, he could hear his baby brother whine at him, making noises and waiving his hands, attempting to give his older brother the strength to continue his journey up the tower.
Instead, the blonde opted to sit down on the cold, snowy ground, absolutely exhausted, frozen tear streaks covering his face.
Days turned into weeks and then weeks turned into months and his older brother was still stuck outside the protection of their tower.
The youngest had thrown down all his rags to help his companion cope with the freezing cold that he knew constantly plagued him. As a result, he spent his days buck naked, peering out the window at his brother as the other did the exact same thing.
The small child knew, though, that his brother was suffering. He saw how he cowered from the physical pain caused by the cold as well as the mental pain produced by loneliness and guilt. Loneliness from the lack of contact the boys usually shared and guilt from leaving the youngest by himself.
The youngest felt his protector weakening, causing him to feel emotions he had never felt before, and as a result, he could not fully describe to himself his own feelings of fear and despair.
One particularly cold morning, after the boy had woken up and looked down his stony refuge. In an instant, he spotted his brother leaning down by the stones of the tower, his mouth and eyes shut tightly closed. Even if he had awoken several times to this particular sight, something in it shook him to the core of his being.
Ignoring his first instinct, he convinced himself that the older boy was simply sleeping and would open his eyes as soon as he heard his voice. But even the child began making noises and howling out to the wind, his brother remained eerily still.
The youngest's noises soon became desperate and after several minutes, his screams turned into sobs and wails as the reality of the situation settled in. He knew what death was, his brother had told him several stories in which characters died from horrid deaths or sometimes peaceful ones.
This death, the boy decided, was the most horrible of them all.
So he stayed by the window, like he had been doing every day to keep his brother company, and cried without relief.
Day turned into night, and night turned once again into morning, and the poor being still clung to the window, his red and puffy eyes never leaving his brother's silhouette, occasional hiccups shaking his little chest.
He was so focused and exhausted, he never heard the man suddenly materialize behind him.
"Child." The accented, rough voice called him. Even if he wasn't expecting the sound and even if he'd never heard or seen another human being in his life other than his brother, the young boy didn't even flinch, much less turn, at the man's voice. He could not find it in himself to care anymore.
"Child." The voice repeated "I will give you a choice."
Still no response from the boy, but the man simply continued, undisturbed by the lack of an attentive audience.
"You have to choose between yourself and your brother." At the mention of the now dead boy, the young child turned to look at the older man, demonstrating that the mysterious figure had caught his attention.
"If you choose yourself, I will get you out of this prison, provide you with a life of warmth, riches, and love. You will have everything you have heard through your brother's stories. You will have a home, a family. You will be surrounded by people who love you and who you love back. There will not be a moment in which you will lack anything you desire. Cities, countries, even the world will be at the palm of your hand." At these words, the blue-hazel eyed boy simply scoffed and once again began his quiet mourning over his silent companion. The man watched the uninterested response with a sort of expected fascination. Even the wisest and best men would have taken at least a small moment to take the offer into consideration before they refused it, but it seemed like the temptation did not even register with the wild-looking thing.
"If you choose your brother though, I will bring him back to the land of the living. I will personally take him outside of the walls, and make sure that he is provided with all the adventure he has ever dreamed of as well as the comforts he remembers from his youth." At the mention of his brother's possible and living future, the boy made, what seemed to the man, an unintelligible, but urgent noise.
"However." The robed man ignored the child's desperate sound and preceded with his speech "You will take your brother's place at the outside of this tower and slowly freeze to death, just as your brother did."
To the man's surprise, there was not even a slight moment of hesitance as the boy responded, his voice small and shaky with the unusual strain of speaking.
"Dean. Save Dean."
The older boy woke up to the heat of the sun on his face, the feel of clean comfortable sheets on his skin, the smell of a warm delicious meal, and with no brother next to him.
Hi guys! So I don't know if this story was all great after I reread it, but while I was writing it and living through it, I almost ended up crying.
I don't know if any of you recognize this story. I'm not sure if I once had a dream about a similar tale or if I read it somewhere. Of course the original story was different. It involved twins or something. I really really wish I could remember where all of this came from, so if any of you know about the story I'm talking about, please tell me. If not, I'm just gonna assume I just dreamed it.
The other thing that I wanted to mention was what you guys thought about Sam doing the ultimate sacrifice for Dean. When I began writing the story, I thought Dean would be the one to try and try to save his brother, while Sam would be the adventurous one and try to leave the tower, but as I kept writing I realized that Dean was the one with the memories from outside the prison, the one who would have any idea and desire to go back to something. Sam, on the other hand, only knew life in the tower, and therefore, grew up without any knowledge of anything outside of it. And as Descartes once said, imagination is not powerful enough (that, in this case, involved a whole desirable world outside of his big brother.)
Also, I wanted to hear the ideas that you guys came up with on:
1) What was the reason the boys ended up in the prison?
2) Who was the man who gave Sam the ultimatum?
Anyways, I really hope you enjoyed this little one-shot. See you next time!
