#72

Mark wakes up. He doesn't even have to open his eyes to be aware that there's shattered rubble all around. It's all familiar, all tired, and all cliché. Déjà vu, quite literally all over again. Once more, there is a mess around him. He's just glad that it's not a mess of trees. But why would that be an issue for him...?

When he opens his eyes, he turns around. He is sitting at the base of a White Tower, which is smashed to bits; or at least, a huge hole has been blown in the side. Rising from the hole are some ghastly fuel-fumes, which have blackened the sky. There must have been a shock-wave emerging from that hole as well; because everything around this burst Tower is also in ruins. Ashes, and chunks of rubble, keep falling out of the sky.

Mark feels as if this Tower is important for some reason—he can't stop capitalizing it in his head. It's as if his mind is attempting to make Towers seem really significant. He dismisses this as Freudian garbage almost instantly, however. The mere thought of it makes him feel gay, and that makes someone of his disposition (i.e. irritatingly sheltered and small-minded) sick to his stomach. He tries to ignore that idea.

Still, the compulsion is still there; the urge to enter the Tower. There is a tiny “staircase” made of ruins leading up to the breach. Without any control over himself, which is somehow even less than what he ordinarily has, he grabs onto a nearby ledge and starts his ascent.