Roland stares, openmouthed, wide eyed. This must be a dream. A dream before he wakes in whatever escape was on the other side of that door. A more imaginative man might tell himself that the door itself, and the nightmare before it, was a product of his mind, too. Roland is not made up that way. He is too shocked to think of it, besides. But not so shocked that he doesn't know how this goes. There is one way that this goes.

Roland knows the look of his old friend now, knows from that alone what he will see if he looks around him. He can feel the weight of the soldiers watching the two of them, the weight of their desperation and their belief. He does not look around him.

"There is no way out, old friend. There is only through. Only through. For one of us."

"Odd," he murmurs to himself, after a second to reflect on that. "Odd that I should know that. Usually I'd think... Some relief. But it doesn't matter."

He looks up, reminding the memory in front of him. "There is no out. You only stand. Over there. That's the spot. I will always remember it. You make your stand there now."