A blast of sound that went right through bone and flesh until the difference between being and sound was meaningless. Until there was only the sound. Then...nothing. No sound. No feeling. No sense of self. As if there was no existence, now or ever. No memory.
But I am aware of that ... the absence. So I must exist. On some level I must exist.
A long slow groan as feeling came back, starting with eyes but with feeling, an intense burning that forced eyes shut.
"Awwww. It's not supposed to hurt to see."
Then hearing and touch together slammed back on line and with them a desire to roll into a ball and hide away from them all. Somewhere.
From the left...or above...a noise that ripped into his mind and tore at him, worse than the pain from seeing.
"What is that?! Make it stop!!! Please, stop it!"
A voice, soft and whispered. "Don't worry. Turn it all down and it will be better. It will be easier very soon. There, you see, the sound has stopped. Just try to relax."
A smoothing touch accompanied the voice, startling and then, as the caress continued gently, soothing the distress. The aching receded and calm returned. Slowly, hesitantly, eyes opened, ready to close at the first sensation of pain. But no pain.
He glanced from where he lay on the rough ground. Not much light but it seemed he was alone. Who had spoken? Touched him? Not there now. Given that the ground was covered in some sort of rough, loose shale, he would have heard whoever it was leaving. That put his nerves on alert. Who could have touched him and then slipped away unheard?
He stood up slowly and peered into the gloom of the place. Odd. No, beyond odd all the way to impossible. Swirling greyness and shadows. He could not focus on anything. It all seemed to be a dark fog moving in front of his eyes. Now he could not even see the shale he could still feel below his feet.
His breathing got faster and his heart pumped hard. He was starting to panic. His rationale self grabbed at his thoughts and he spoke to himself.
"No calm down, just something that will be explained. What had Dr. Kristoferson called it? A ganzfeld? That was it. I'm in a ganzfeld."
He nodded, satisfied now that he had a name to put to it. He took a couple of steps, hearing the scrabbling of his shoes on the loose bits of shale, reassured by the sound.
Then it hit him. "How can I be INSIDE a ganzfeld? They don't occur in nature and man-made ones are small! Oh, gods, where am I?" He dropped down to hug his knees to his chest, staring around and trying to see detail through the fog before his eyes.
The voice again. "Stand up, friend. Don't be afraid. Join us."
"Where are you? I don't see you!"
A soft laugh. "You called this a ganzfeld. It is, in fact, the opposite. That is why you can not see me. But don't worry, you will. Come, you will see all of us."
"All? Who are you? I am not going anywhere until I know who you are and what this place is." His tone was firm, an effort to regain control over self and situation.
A chuckle. "Come on. You won't find out there."
"No." He waited but the voice did not reply. "Damn." He knew he had three choices. Stay here. Go back. Go forward. The first was useless. He was not sure how he had got to wherever he was, how could he determine which way was going back. It was impossible. "So, forward to whatever there is."
He rose and stepped forward. What he thought was forward. The ground was fairly even, in spite of its shaley covering and so he walked on with growing confidence.
As he moved, he peered around, squinting his eyes in an effort to make out details. There was an echo when he spoke so there must be walls nearby but he could not see them. Needing to be reassured, he moved at what he hoped was an angle to bring him to a wall. After a few moments, he thought he saw /sensed something and extended a hand but he could not touch whatever was there. As he reached farther, whatever it was seemed to be just that much farther away.
A shiver passed down his back and he could feel that desire to be someplace else fill him again. Then he saw it.
He cried out and began to run. Fear filled his stomach, his heart was jackhammering and he ran. Until...
"Hmmmpt!!!"
... Until his left foot caught on an unseen edge and he was down hard. Knees throbbing, stunned and winded, he sprawled unmoving but the noise began again. A terrible wheezing and groaning.
"NO!" He scrabbled to his feet, struggling to find purchase in the loose shale. Another headlong flight and he stumbled, managing this time to stay upright but staggering for several steps until his palms ended up against a large rock. Head bent, he caught his breath and stood still, wanting to get to wherever he was going. Wanting to get away from this place but afraid to move.
"Where is the end of this? There must be an end! How much longer?"
He jumped when the disembodied voice whispered, "No, only a beginning. It's never over."
"Ah!! Don't do that! Who ...?"
A soft laugh. "Not I. Not exactly. Come, close your eyes and carry on."
"I can't close my eyes. I'll trip again."
"No, you won't because I will guide you."
A few tentative steps, hands spread out in front of him and his right foot bumped into a rough-edged something. He stopped. "I can't do it this way! I need to see where I am going."
"You tried that. Be calm. Trust me."
"But the rocks! This whole tunnel or whatever is full of rocks." He was becoming irritated with the situation. "You might not have any problems but I can't see where I am going!!!"
The voice lowered in tone and volume. "I won't let you fall. Trust me. Now, start walking again. Just in front of you, spreading to your right, is a big rock. Step slightly to the left and you will miss it." When he stood still, the voice encouraged "Come, you won't get to your goal stuck there. We are waiting for you."
He followed the instructions and knew from the brush of the rock against his fingers that he was passing it by. That success was calming and he relaxed a bit. For the next ten minutes the voice led him around various obstacles. Then,
"Your way is clear now. But keep your eyes closed."
"Why?" When there was no answer, "Wait, don't go. Tell me where I am."
"Nearing your goal."
"Yes but what is my goal?"
"If I told you that, it would not be a surprize."
"I don't like surprizes. Not about places as strange as this."
"Oh you are young! Those are the best surprizes."
"But..."
A chuckle. "Patience. You will see."
Firmly, "No, I need to know now. If you don't mind." No answer. Softer, "Please" and his voice sounded so needy in the darkness. "Don't go. Come back." Still deep silence after the echoing return wave of his own words died away. A long noisy sigh. "All right. Choices again. Trust or retreat. Back to wherever I came from or forward. 'Us' he said. Well 'us' has to be better than being alone. Can't just stand here. Right." He started off, feet crunching on the shattered bits of shale. Cautiously and then with more confidence.
Another fifteen minutes and he became aware of a noise ahead. He paused. "Sounds like voices. Voices mean other people. People can explain to me where I am and how I get back."
Several steps and he knew there was something he was overlooking. He puzzled at it and then, "But back where? I don't know where I am from! How can they help me to get back if I can't explain where I came from. Blast! Why can't I remember?
"Ah! What? Who is there?" That was not the voice that had spoken with him before. He swirled around, eyes open now but he could see no one there. "Please, talk to me. Who are you?" Suddenly the voice came again but much louder and he covered his ears with his hands.
"Stop it! Stop it!"
"It's all right. He's rather theatrical, always testing the limits of eccentric behaviour. Bark much worse than bite." The voice he knew had returned, somewhat calming in its familiarity.
"Where did you go?"
"I've been here all the time...and not here at all."
"What? What nonsense is that?"
A disappointed sigh. "I forget that things have changed. Everyone less believing. Why is that, do you wonder? Too much science, not enough magic and fantasy? Or too many advances in theatrical tricks...what do they call it, oh, special effects. Too many things done by technology. They expect such incredible, fantastical things now, but knowing its all a trick. Not like the old days. Some smoke, a bit of sparking electricity and they oo'd and aw'd." Another sigh. " I suppose I should just accept the inevitability of change. If we stood for nothing else, it was that. The changes from one to the next." A bracing cough. "So, shall we get on.?"
He stood staring around for a moment, puzzling over who or what this voice was. What had been said did find an echo in his own feelings. He regretted the loss of the innocent wonder he had felt as a child. "Wait! I have remembered something. When I was a child. Now where was that?"
The voice was amused. "Very good. Shall we go?"
He had been daydreaming around the sudden memory. "Hmmm? What? Oh yes. Coming." He marched along in silence for several minutes, trying to expand on the small bit of memory he had found. Then he noticed it was becoming lighter and that random sounds and images that he had tried to ignore before were more frequent. Now they did not frighten him and he paid some attention to them.
There was something familiar about that image. A nagging familiarity that he could not pin down. Something about seeing it from a hidden position with someone else near. Afraid and not afraid. A peer around the end of...the end of...
"Damn it! I can almost ...just there...out of reach."
He shook his head and strode on. It was getting lighter all the time and he could see where he was walking. Voices were becoming clearer, closer.
"Making progress now."
He felt a breeze and in its breath he realized how stuffy and damp the air had been. It drew him forward, that breeze, toward the light and he began to run. His whole body felt lighter. All of him, especially his heart.
"Why do I want to say 'hearts'?"
A giggle burst from his lips. "Hearts, plural. Yes."
Ahead there was a curve to the left and much more light. Voices and easy laughter. In the joy of the moment, he threw his arms wide and shouted out, "YESSSSS!" as he raced around the arc.
Around the arc and yelling wildly but with laughter, "YESSSS!", he roared into a great bright space. "Yikes!" and he skidded across a polished floor and banged into several people. "Oh, opps, so sorry."
Everyone was staring at him and he felt himself blush and another mumbled, "Sorry."
A voice chirped from across the wide space, "Hello! Hello! Come here. Over here!" It was the voice he heard in the dark tunnel but a lot less pontifical. Lighter, more real somehow.
He tilted his head back and forth, trying to see who had called. As he hurried around the other people in the space, feeling their eyes on him, judging him, the voice called again.
"You have arrived at last. A long wait but you made it through. We weren't certain how long...you know, some of these negotiations and then the funding and getting the team together...but it's done and here we all are!"
By this time he had reached the owner of the voice. A short man with wild fluffy hair and a wonderfully silly grin. The eyes, so wise and warm, like all the nice people he had ever met. I suppose that means I have met people...somewhere. He stood staring, still uncertain where he was and just a bit shy.
A broad, warm hand took hold of his shoulder. "Now tell us, how do you feel?"
"Feel? About what?"
A chuckle. "About being here ... one of us. About the celebration. About everything." The short man's other hand spread wide encompassing all those in the space, "Don't we want to know, my friends?" The fingers waggled, gesturing at them to reply.
Nothing for a second and then, from behind a tall, scowling hard-blond fellow in an impossible coat, who looked offended by the noise and glared back over his shoulder at the speaker, someone rumbled, "Where's his proper attire? Got to dress appropriately for the celebration. Got to make clear who he is. Everyone knows that!"
He stuttered, "B-b-but what celebration? How should I ... I don't even know ...?"
"Not know? Not know? Where have you been ..." A white-haired old man in rusty black appeared from behind the scowling man and moving to his side, tapped one finger on his shoulder. "Oh ... I forgot. You haven't. Beg pardon, my dear fellow. Lost myself too much in the part. Happens, hmm, after all these years. I'm the First Ones. He's," gesturing to the short man beside him, "he's Three of Sevens."
"He's a Borg!" He stepped back.
"What? A Borg ... no, no. What's a Borg?" The old man's face was interested, gently questioning.
Before he could reply, there was a commotion from the rear. "Oh, for Rassilon's sake, explain his role to the new boy! Then we can get started properly to celebrate." A very tall man in a broad-brimmed fedora elbowed his way past a gentle-faced man with soft blond hair falling on his temples. "Look, we're all the years, you see. The creation of time and imagination and affection."
"Not real." He sighed, disappointed.
"As real as anything you could find. You are simply the latest. See over there."
The tall man pointed to a group of less substantial figures that hid behind some of the other people more colourfully dressed, their pale hands reaching out to clutch at the edge of their protectors' coats. They reminded him of poor cousins at a Victorian family gathering.
"The Shadow years when there were only words, no sounds or images, being produced. Kept us going but thank the Moons of Pelador we've gotten back to where we should be." With a thump on his back, nearly knowing him down, "And here you are, responsible to get us through the next bit. Up to it, eh?"
He stepped back and stared around, somewhat startled by this turn. "What do you mean?" a pause and a searching of faces, his voice cracking at the end, "Who am I?"
The crowd erupted in noisy laughter that assaulted his ears. They all guffawed, mouths wide open, eyes closed.
The tall man staggered in his laughing. "Oh good one! You'll do! You'll do. All right, let's get to it. Where's that champagne?"
He started, eyes blinking at this sudden redirection. A warm hand patted the back of his neck and the voice he knew from the tunnel whispered softly in his ear, "I did tell you they were loud. Theatrical. Never mind, you'll get used to them in time. Now, come, better get some champagne before it's all guzzled down. You never know with this crowd."
He grabbed the kind man's arm. "But please, what are we celebrating? And where are we? And who are you all?"
"You mean who are WE," gesturing to include him too. "Why, we are The 35. And this is the ...
"I beg your pardon? The 35th?"
"Yes. The 35th and the 35." An arm around his shoulder as he led him toward a long table set against one side. "We are the 35 years of Doctor Who. Each of us represents a part of that period. And you, my friend, are the most recent period. The McGann years. Look behind you, you will see your Shadows, the time of no new films or shows but time when there are stories being written with your man in mind. Been two such years so far. Lots of stories, some published officially and lots on the Internet. So many new fans out there. We hope that will make a difference, all those new fans. We want there to be more films or a series but only time will tell.
"In the meantime, we are going to celebrate the 35 years since it all began." A glance at his attire. "You do need to find some new clothes to properly represent him. Especially for the celebration. You could go the whole way, the velvet coat and vest and cravat, the grey trousers and the shoes that fit perfectly or... if I were you, I would forget the coat and cravat ... be comfortable."
"Oh." A pause. "Then this is where I am supposed to be?"
A broad smile. "Yes. Now, let's join the party. There are several people I want to introduce you to. Going to be lots fun. Here," tapping on the shoulder of another short man with a brown pudding-bowl hair cut, "excuse me, 'Two, have you met 'Eight?"
In a moment, the space around them filled with many more people who appeared out of nowhere, chattering happily and greeting each other warmly. There was bright music and multicoloured streamers and lots and lots of champagne. Balloons, red, white and pink, floated everywhere. He smiled. It was going to be all right.
