Tom breathed hard, taking in his surroundings.
Everything was white, too white, so white it actually hurt to look at. A huge canvas stretched towards infinity, blank and silent. He spun around, expecting walls or a floor or an edge, but found nothing. Just endless colourless space.
His throat tightened.
"Where… Where am I?" He muttered to himself. His own voice sounded thin, as if it had been dragged through static.
He took a step. The ground didn't feel solid.
He took another, and a ripple trembled beneath his feet; it was like walking on water.
Something in his stomach flipped, a cold and nauseating familiarity.
'Why do I know this place? Why can't I remember it?'
Movement flickered at the edge of his vision.
Tom snapped toward it and saw himself.
The blank white expanse rippled, like stretched skin shifting.
Something passed beyond the whiteness.
Something enormous.
The air vibrated.
"Ah..." A looming, pleasured sounding voice came from it.
"You..." The voice was slow and felt reversed.
"You're finally here."
'Finally where?' Tom found himself thinking, staring at his own eyes.
"Mark should have listened to me. I told him you were a liar." The imposter said in a ridiculing tone.
"What. Who are you, why are you me?" Tom said, stumbling back. "You know what's going on don't you?" Tom asked, knowing full well the answer.
"Of course I know, I am the only person in the world who possibly can." The imposter took a step toward him and Tom stumbled back again. "Come here Tom. You know have to." A much more stern tone now in the imposter's voice.
"No.. Step... Step away from me NOW!!" Tom charged forward at the copy who just smiled and passed right through him. 'What-'
Suddenly, the memories of everything rushed back to him. His brain contorted and convulsed, sending him to the floor with a splash.
He remembered now. He remembered why he could never tell Mark what judgement was. It was because of them.
The Architects.
He never lost his memory. Tom always knew about his torture and those beings. He just couldn't tell Mark, though, because whenever he went to say something about it his words dissociated themselves from his mind. He would always get so close to revealing the truth, just to be suppressed by their invisible chokehold. This chokehold blocks critical understanding; erases memories, suppresses explanations mid-sentence; makes investigators overlook or misidentify bodies; warps official reports, DNA readings, and visual perception, makes impossible things 'acceptable' to the mind, and makes you forget what 'they' are.
The imposter was him, just the other half. He was whole again. Tears streamed down his face.
If only he could see Martha again. If only he hadn't had to bear the sigil: the mark, the mark of the Sleepwalker.
They floated around the expanse, swimming through the air like whales. The Architects have impossible anatomy: arms in the wrong place, heads swinging off them like lanterns, tentacles sprouting from random orifices, and other features that make them different from anyone or anything else.
"Tom.. You should be ready to tell Mark now, the same way that woman told you all those years ago." It spoke.. Except it didn't. It sounded as if it was speaking through a scrambler, one that only Tom could understand. Their immense size was; at first off-putting but it gave a feeling of pleasure the more you stare.
"Your cycle nears its end... Judgement is nigh." Somehow it spoke high and low pitched. Making Tom's ears feel like they were bleeding.
The Architects neared him, their forms adjusting and contorting as if searching for a configuration that would do the least damage to Tom's mind. The tallest Architect bowed, though the gesture felt more like a mockery than respect.
"Tell him Tom.." It spoke through one of it's many mouths.
"No.. No not Mark, he's finally enjoying his life. I have told him about judgement but I didn't know this was what judgement meant.. Please, he's a good person." Tom said scrambling back to his feet. "I already fucked up one person's life. Please don't make me fuck up another."
"Hmm.." The Architects moved and transfigured, constantly causing Tom's brain to adapt to whatever new form they take. "I didn't know that you were unsure on who we are? I thought we made that clear when we spent out time together."
"No.. I know exactly who- what you things are... Architects, ancient beings who have existed for as long as consciousness itself."
"Ahh.. So you do know." The area around Tom suddenly switched to black. Nothing was visible anymore. He couldn't even see himself. All he could do was hear the sound of his breathing and feel the liquid sloshing around his ankles.
"Then why do you not kneel?"
Tom hated the dark, they would do this when he refused to do what they wanted. It made him feel distant with his body and as if he was no longer human.
While strained by PTSD he mustered up the strength to speak once more, "I'm not afraid anymore!"
"Yes you are.." The voice distorted and Tom felt himself falling.
He covered his ears as memories of his decade long pain reawakened within him. He could hear slashes and blood dripping he could hear crunches and bones snapping.
That's when he stopped falling, at least that's what he thought. He was still falling but upwards.
He felt lightheaded. Suddenly the shrieks and screams of infants clogged his senses, driving him closer to the brink of madness.
"We are gods you fool.." The voice was now a whisper in his ear. "We made everything you cherish and enjoy.. Who are you to speak back to a god.."
"You are nobodies god." Tom said, spitting into the void before him.
"HERETIC!!" That was the loudest one yet, it was like a screech but from within his own ear.
"You will tell the marked, you will tell him everything... That is the treaty of our agreement."
"And what exactly would you do if I don't-" Tom felt a zipper form over his mouth. "Mmgh hmmgh!"
Tom noticed as something moved in the blackness ahead of him.
"There we go.. Silence."
A faint glow pulsed in the darkness.
Not light, but the outline of a door.
A door suspended like a tapestry in a black void like gallery.
"Remember Tom. Your fear sustains us. Your silence nourishes us. Your despair guides the Marked."
The door opened. Through it was a field. The sun beat down on the grass which was so green and the sky which was perfectly blue. There were clouds.
'Weird.'
Tom was now suspended in the void. He began to swim. Closer and closer. He had almost reached the door.
"You can go, Tom.." The voice sounded, silencing the baby's screams. "On one condition..."
Tom kept swimming.
"You expose the Sleepwalker to his inevitable fate..."
Tom kept swimming.
"You will do this Tom.. Understand us? Tom?"
He didn't care, all he wanted to do was reach the door.
Ten feet now.. No five...
He entered through the door and fell onto the grass.
He lay there for a long time, with no thoughts of getting up anytime soon.
The Far Field was a nice place. He felt calm here. It's almost as if it sated his worries.
'I'll stay here for a bit. It's calm and I'm sure that 'they' can't get to me here.'
'Sorry Mark but I just can't tell you.'