In a world called Mid-World, Roland Deschain, also known as the gunslinger, awakens washed up on the slope of a vast gray beach. He has been dreaming about the tarot-like cards that the man in black (the antagonist of The Gunslinger, the first book of The Dark Tower series) drew to tell Roland his future. According to the cards, Roland will find companions in his quest for the Dark Tower, the center of the universe. After drawing Roland’s cards at the end of the first book, the man in black, also known as Walter, put Roland in a sleep for 10 years. Roland awoke on a beach with a skeleton next to him, which he assumed was Walter’s. The action begins immediately after Roland wakes up.

Realizing that the seawater might be wetting his guns and the shells (bullets) in his belt, Roland scrambles up the shore. He sees a strange, hideous creature—a four-foot-long lobster with a segmented beak—crawling a few yards to his right. He labels the crustacean-like creature a “lobstrosity” (25). The gunslinger watches it warily and notes that the creature puts up its front claws up in a boxer’s defensive stance every time waves break on the shore.