AN: Someday, when people actually read this chapter, I'm sure I'll get a flood of mad mail. Not hate, just pure mad.


The Gunslinger and The Boy – Tunnel

Tell me reader, what is the longest time you've gone without seeing daylight? Perhaps a day at most when Cataclysm came out, right?

Well you don't have shit on Roland Deschain and Link.

The tunnel was expansive, to say the least, and not a single ray of sunlight blessed it's massive stretch. The only light in the tunnel came from phosphorescent mold growing on the walls and on the ground.

The only thing to keep them on a steady path was the tracks. Tracks that a train of some sort once rain on, tracks that were old and beaten, tracks that showed them the way out of the darkness.

Not much happened in the many days it took for the two to walk to the shopping mall, so I won't waste your time.

When they finally did reach the mall, Link was overwhelmed with joy. To finally see anything besides tracks and dirt was enough to set the adventuring spirit in him ablaze.

"Look! Something other than mold and tracks!" the boy screamed down the tunnel. He secretly hoped whatever foul creator who crafted the tunnels was listening.

Link and Roland walked a little faster, now noticing how they were able to see the shopping area from so far away.

A few electric lights still burned, some flickered. Gotta love those fluorescent lights, eh?

They walked up the steps leading them away from the tracks and to what was once a subway-side shopping center. A few dusty corpses could be seen in the shops and on the ground. Their skin had long deteriorated, all that was left were scraps of clothes and skeletons. One skeleton sat on a bench reading a newspaper. The newspaper crumbled to dust upon Roland's touch.

"What happened here, Roland?" Link looked at the desolation with a look that was almost pity. Not the first time he'd seen long-dead bodies and areas of utter desolation. Afterall, he'd been through the Shadow Temple and the Ikana Kingdom. The boy had seen, and fought, enough corpses to last several lifetimes.

"My teacher, not Cort, told me that the Old People killed each other en masse with a virus of some sort. I think that's what we see here. These bodies are ancient, it wouldn't be any sort of stretch to say they are multiple centuries old."

They continued searching the mall, even finding a gunshop. The gunslinger got extremely excited when he saw the letters above the shop. It was some ancient root of the High Speech, but he could make out all the mattered: "GUNS".

They went into the shop and were welcomed with the cold arms of disappointment. Most of the guns have had lead put in their barrels, the others were trash and unusable. The gunslinger did, however, manage to find some ammunition that he hoped still worked. Some of the shells were stained with a sort of dark red hue, as if they'd been bathed in blood. He made mental notes to never fire these shells, and stored them deep within his purse.

They returned to the tracks after some time, mostly disappointed in the trip. Link gave one last look at the abundance of light with something akin to hunger showing on his face before turning around and walking with the gunslinger back into the darkness.

In less than an hour, they found the cart. Both of them were extremely confused by it, not understanding how it worked or what it was for. They both climbed aboard and looked at the odd lever-contraption before them. Link was the first to touch the handle, on his side, and drew his sword upon hearing the cart talk.

"HOWDY PARTNER! PULL THE HANDLE DOWN!"

Link replaced his weapons and stared at the handle. He pulled it down, with minor difficulty, and felt the cart move a little forward.

"GOOD! NOW YOU, ON THE OTHER SIDE, DO THE SAME! YOU CAN DO IT!"

Roland felt that the voice was far too cheerful, but he obeyed all the same. The cart moved forward again. The two of them put the pieces together at nearly the same time. They both began alternating pulling the handle down, and soon enough, the cart began to speed along the track. All the while the voice continued it's infernal blathering.

"GOOD! NOW PULL! GOOD! PULL! GOOD! SHOP AT MIGHTY MICKS! DELICIOUS TREATS FOR EVERYONE! PULL!"

"Can you shut your mouth, or whatever it is you use to talk?" sighed Roland.

"OF COURSE I CAN! JUST SAY 'HOWDY' WHEN YOU NEED ME AGAIN! REMEMBER, GO TO NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS FOR ALL YOUR TECHNOLOGICAL NEEDS!"

With the voice finally silenced, the two of them pushed the cart along with ease and peace.


Time had no meaning in the darkness. Pull, pull, sleep, pull, eat meager scraps of dried meat, pull. Roland and Link almost wished for something to happen, even if it was dangerous.

And who am I to deny them?

They saw the first one crawling from the river which had begun to appear alongside the tracks. The source must be beneath the ground, because the river literally did appear out of nowhere alongside them.

The thing was perhaps once human, but years of gradual genetic malfunction and radiation morphed it into something hideous. Green eyes, rotten teeth, a mouth which drooled green phosphorescent fluid.

"Roland…" Link began, feeling slightly afraid despite his years of fighting far worse creatures.

"Slow mutants. They might leave us alone. All the same, I'd like for you to ready your bow."

Link blinked several times at Roland. "Do you honestly think I can hit anything in this darkness?"

Roland looked dead-on at the boy, his bombardier's eyes blazing. "Yes."

Roland was clearly a man of many words. Link shrugged, pulled his bow, and readied an arrow. They came across several more slow mutants, and it was not long before the mutants began to make a move.

The first one made the mistake of reaching for the gunslinger. Link's arrow took it right between the eyes, opening up a third. The wound bled glowing green blood, and the mutant fell in the dust. The next mutant grabbed Link's foot as he drew his arrow. Roland heard his scream and shot the mutant in the head before he could pull the boy off of the cart.

The cart was slowing now that neither of them were pulling. Roland knew this meant doom, even as he shot two more mutants in the face. "Link, I need you to pull. If you pull down and push up, you can move the cart on your own. I'll hold them off."

Link wasted no time hesitating. He put away his bow into his shrink-bag and grabbed the handle. Roland's guns continued to issue out death, bright explosions of light erupting with each shot. Both the gunslinger and the boy's eyes were stained with the flashes, but they both kept on with their duties. Rolands fingers danced back and forth between his belts and his guns, reloading, firing, reloading, the cycle continues.

They got out of the hive of slow mutants with tired arms and lighter ammunition bags, but at least they were alive.

They ran out of food as soon as they saw the first tendrils of light stretching into the cave. Good thing too, if not for the light they would have never seen the cliffs.

They stopped the cart a little ways before the edge, marveling at how easily they could have died. The tracks continued on toward the exit, but the supports had rusted heavily and they would have surely collapsed under the weight of the cart.

They both knew they had to do something dangerous. They had to walk on the tracks, the creaky cross-boards and rails, all the way to the exit. The light was stronger than it was before they reached the cliff, but any dance with this beast could be dangerous.

They simply nodded at each other and began to carefully walk on the tracks. Every here and there, there'd be an absence of cross-boards, forcing them to literally walk on the parallel strips of metal that made the outside of the rails. Once, Roland's foot slipped slightly, but he caught himself before this story could end prematurely.

They were within feet of the exit when the men in black appeared. The second man in black took off his hood, revealing long silvery hair and piercing green eyes. There was something extremely odd about the way the color in his eyes seemed to pulse with energy.

"You've gone far enough, little swordsman. Today you die."

The silvery-haired man snapped his fingers and the board Link was standing on snapped beneath him. Link managed to throw his arms out, grabbing the rails, but he lacked the strength to pull himself up. Days of light meals had taken it's toll on his endurance and stamina.

The silvery-haired man spoke one word before he laughed and disappeared into a cloud of darkness: "Choose."

Walter tittered and raised his hands to the sky in excitement. "This is it gunslinger! Do you sacrifice the boy in order to catch the man you've chased for so long, or do you save him and relinquish any chance you have of catching me!"

Walter abruptly turned and ran out of the tunnel. Roland looked back at Link, who was struggling over the abyss.

"I can't get up by myself! Help me Roland!"

The gunslinger looked at the exit, then back at Link. He couldn't move.

Link gave up his hope that someone would do more than advise him on where to go next, what to fight, and who to talk to next. He would never have anything more than a guide.

"Go then, there are other worlds than these."

Roland turned and ran to the exit as Link fell.