The Unnamed Feeling, 9.

[Fitz Kreiner]

9
The Unforgiven.

It was black, a black void in which no light could penetrate, but it felt different this time. There was a smooth black floor; at least it felt like a smooth black floor. Tom was lying on his back, staring up at a vast black expanse. At least he thought he was lying on his back staring up at a vast black expanse. It was difficult to tell. He didn’t know which way was up and which way was down. Disorientating wasn’t the word.

Carefully, Tom climbed to his feet. It wasn’t an easy task as the environment felt like it was rolling. Where he was, he couldn’t be sure. The last thing he remembered was entering the Gravitron control room with Jess looking for the Doctor. All he knew was he could feel a deep sense of fear distilled deep down within him like a knot in his stomach.

“Hello?”

His shout echoed around whatever it was he was in. It sounded both claustrophobic and cavernous at the same time. The contradiction was confusing. Tentatively he took a step forwards, his feet finding firm ground.

“Hello?” he called again. “Is there anyone there? Can anyone hear me?”

The last word of his shout echoed around and seemed to follow him for what felt like hours as he walked through the void. It had to be the same void from his dreams, only this felt very real. Were his dreams premonitions or was he dreaming again? Had he fallen asleep in the small room assigned to Jess and himself? The only consolation he had here was that he couldn’t feel any Cybermen lurking in the darkness.

There was something new this time. Something else he could only perceptibly sense. It sounded like whispers in the distance. Whispers only half whispered, and whispers he could only half hear.
“Hello?” he called again.

With an almost audible hush, the whispers stopped before they started up again. This time there sounded to be more voices; dozens of them. No, not dozens; more than dozens, hundreds. They seemed to be all around. Turning round on the spot, and almost losing his balance in the process, Tom tried to locate the source of the voices.

“Hello? If you can hear me, let me know.” He yelled out into the darkness.

How something could be this dark he didn’t know. He’d been in a sensory deprivation chamber a few weeks ago but even that was light compared to this place. Again, in the darkness, his eyes useless, his hearing was more acute. Not that he would have bragged about the fact, it was part of being a Time Lord. He noticed it remarkably when the whispering stopped and then started up again. The voices seemed clearer this time. Quickening his pace, Tom almost jogged to where he thought the voices were coming from. They had to be coming from somewhere. Everything had to start somewhere.

Pausing and this time falling from the disorientation, a thought flashed through Tom’s mind; was he dead? Was this the Gallifreyan afterlife? Was he nothing but a whisper now? Looking down at himself, he certainly couldn’t see anything, but he could feel; two arms, two legs, body, neck, head.

Stopping again, Tom felt at his face again. He no longer had his beard, and his hair was much shorter. From touch alone he was able to determine that his outward appearance was that of when he was back on EST3 before he had even met the Doctor.

Not even bothering to get back to his feet this time Tom sat on the floor, or whatever it was he was sat on, and tried to rationally think about where he was and why. It was certainly like the void he had found himself in many times in his dreams. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed the most likely thing. Only this time, he felt more lucid and there was a distinct lack of Cybermen, just the voices.

Getting to his feet again, Tom tried to listen carefully for the voices to determine a source. After some excruciatingly long minutes, he finally decided that it was futile. There were too many voices and they were definitely coming from all around him. How other people had gotten trapped in his dreamscape he didn’t know.

“Hello, can anybody hear me?” he yelled again before trying a new tactic. “This is Security Commander Tom Rowan of the Earth Forces.”

This time, he got a different response from the whispers. He heard his words whispered back to him by the voices. This time it struck him; there weren’t just hundreds of them, there were millions. Millions of millions; billions, and they were all disembodied in this black void. With him.

“One at a time, please,” he shouted back at the voices, but to no avail. This time they kept whispering through his shouts. “I’ll do all I can to help, but I need some direction. What happened to you all?”

The responses were all whispered at a different time, but each was the same, and Tom could easily distinguish it from the babble of voices; ‘they came for me, took me. Help me.’

Tom swallowed hard at the responses; he could feel the knot of terror tightening in his stomach. If this really was the dreamscape that he’d found himself in before then there was no question as to who ‘they’ were; Cybermen.

Seeing a movement in the dark made Tom jump; something black against the black, only this thing was blacker than the background. A solitary whispering voice was getting louder than all the others; a presence getting closer in the dark.

“Security Commander Tom Rowan of the Earth forces,” the hushed tone of the voice was almost in Tom’s ear. “You have to help us.”
“Who are you?” Tom said, whirling round to try to find the source of the voice. “Show yourself, come on. You want my help, I can’t talk to disembodied voices; it’s a tad unsettling.”

When the apparition appeared, Tom instantly wished that he hadn’t said anything. From out of the darkness, it slowly appeared, almost transparent; it was a gaunt and pale looking man. Cold, dead grey eyes stared from beneath a metal skull cap, the cheeks sunk in and the lips seemingly removed giving the apparition a ghastly smiling appearance. The metal handle-like antennae of the skull cap gave the unmistakeable appearance of a Cyberman; or at least a man in mid-conversion.

“They came for us, took us against our will and turned us into themselves,” the apparition whispered.

“Who are you?” Tom asked looking at the figure. It was gaining more solidarity, allowing him to see that the lower half of him was missing, entrails, wires, tubes and cybernetic implants dangled from the ripped waist. “They never completed it, did they? The conversion, I mean.” He asked.

“Their ship was ripped apart by an Ion storm that passed through the Orion system. I was on a merchant ship heading from the Garazone Bazaar when they attacked my ship.”

The apparition had virtually solidified. Tom could make out the pock marks on the man’s face, the scarring where the Cyberman’s conversion process had been working. Keeping his mouth in a line, he tried to not look at the man’s waist, the sight turned his stomach. To his surprise, the man reached out to him and grabbed hold of his hand.

“Please, Security Commander, you must help us. You have to escape them,” he begged.

“They haven’t caught me, I’m a free man. They tried once but I escaped.” Tom explained. “They haunt my nightmares, but I promise you this; I will make every single one of them pay for what they’ve done to the universe and every innocent person they’ve caught and mutilated.”

Tom watched as the half figure disappeared, fading away quicker than he’d appeared, his whispering voice still hanging in the air begging for help. The words faded but still brought a lump to Tom’s throat, he could understand the pain and trauma that Cyber conversion caused. Things seemed to be falling into place for him. He was asleep somewhere and was mentally in this realm, a realm that other people who had been kidnapped by the Cybermen mentally inhabited. At least, that’s what he surmised as he continued to explore the darkness.

Hours seemed to pass as Tom tried to explore the black void, but as far as he knew he could be going round in circles. It was impossible to tell in the void. It didn’t feel as though there was any up or down and left and right seemed abstract as well. Then a thought struck him; if direction wasn’t set wherever he was, then maybe time was the same. He didn’t know how long he had been in the dark void, it felt like hours or it could have been mere minutes.

The voices hadn’t relented either. They were still whispering in the darkness, somewhere out there. There was one voice, however, just one that bugged him. He’d recently started hearing it; a soft voice, full of fear and confusion. It felt like he should know the voice, but something wasn’t clicking in his mind.

“Hello,” he called out again. “Is there anybody out there?”

“Tom?”

The use of his name sent a chill through him that felt colder than the airless vacuum of space. Someone in this realm, or void, or whatever it was knew him, knew his name, and recognised his voice even.

“Hello,” he called again, a small glimmer of hope now evident in his voice. “Say something else. Where are you?”

“Tom, is that you? Hello?” the voice called again. Tom could now hear there was a definite female edge to it.

“Hello, I’m here,” he called again. He knew that he recognised the voice from somewhere.

“Tom, help me,” this time the voice was one of definite fear.

Looking round, Tom couldn’t see anything or anyone. Or either get a direction the voice was coming from. One thing he was sure of was that the voice was getting louder. It was no longer a whisper. He could hear the woman’s breathing; it was heavy and laboured, definitely fearful. It was then Tom saw a ghostly shape forming, feminine, longish hair, pale skin. His eyes widened as he slowly came to recognise her. She wasn’t the horrific sight that the previous apparition had been, but the fact that she was here was horrific enough for him.

“Jess,” he breathed softly as she started to take form.

“Tom,” the apparition of Jess almost cried. “Help me. Please. Where are you? Where are we?”

Tom looked at the figure. She was very pale, her eyes wide in fear. There was no sign of any Cyber conversion attempts, her clothes and hair looked wild and ruffled though.

“Jess, what the hell?” he started.

“Tom, help me please. They’ve got me. Please help me.”

Tom could only stare in horror as the apparition of Jess faded as suddenly as she appeared, leaving Tom alone in the now silent blackness.