Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A rushed and pained gasped startled him awake as he jolted into a sitting position. His breathing was ragged and his lungs ached with a desperate stinging in his chest. He could feel the pounding of his heart as if it were trying to bust through his rib cage and escape him. His legs pulsed with fatigue as well and there was a definite stinging on his left arm.

Bringing his arms up to hug himself protectively he looked around for whatever threat might be there to have made him feel this way. That caused the cold sweat that clung to him and the terrified shivers that continued to rattle down his spine.

But there was nothing.

Around him was nothing.

He was in a room of some kind, open with no furniture of any sort in sight. The carpet on which he sat was an old grainy feeling thing, like one you might find in any old shoddy office building. Dulled with apparent age but without any foot markings to show it being run down at all. It was a generic brownish or…or orange sort of color. Something you see but don’t record in memory for its shear blandness.

The walls were a washed yellow color, like it was meant to be cheerful but fell sideways into drab and headache inducing. Or perhaps that was just the pattern on the wallpaper. At first it looked like a floral pattern, but as he turned his head it looked more like some sort of arrow design. Straightening his head back caused it to appear as simply stripes, or were those zigzags?

He couldn’t look at it for long and he found himself looking down at his hands just for the peace of it. These…these were his hands.

Were these his hands?

They had to be, he was looking at them from the body they were attached to. Of course they had to be his hands. Pale white and…shaking still. There were scrapes and cuts on them, some looking fresh and others a bit older. He had calluses on his fingers and as he wiggled them slowly he could almost remember why.

Looking down at himself further he found an old ratty set of pants that wrapped around a rather thin pair of legs. There was a gash in the knee of his jeans and his left knee it self was bleeding. It wasn’t bad and…he didn’t exactly know what to do about it anyway.

Tugging at his shirt he saw a dingy and stained sweater, torn in places with words he couldn’t read upside down. It looked like it might once have been black, but now had faded into a mottled off color instead. The words themselves were peeling in places as the center image looked almost rubbed off from time and touch. By best guess it appeared to be a band shirt but he wasn’t certain.

He had a jacket too, but it was in far worse condition. Far too large for him for starters and the warm inner lining was spilling out from various holes rendering it next to useless. The left sleeve was almost entirely detached even, but so far was still at least holding together enough to be part of the whole. Still, despite its condition he hugged it tight as a wash of sadness and longing swept over him.

He didn’t know why had felt that way, about the jacket or the shirt. What's more he couldn’t fathom why that alone seemed to fill his gut with a sickening guilt.

He curled over himself as his lungs stuttered a fresh painful breath. He was crying. He was crying and he didn’t know why but he knew it was right. He knew it was what he should be doing, but also didn’t have time for. He needed to pull himself together. He needed to, but every part of him also wanted to sob even harder. It wanted to burst out of him as if it had been caged for so long and was only now seeing its chance to escape him.

He couldn’t.

He needed to stop.

A very sharp part of his mind warned and threatened that he needed to stop. He needed to gather himself before it was too late.

Nodding to words he never spoke and with a gasp still shuddering off his lips he pushed down the welling of feelings that swelled in his chest choked him. He was still curled around himself, his fists bunched in the worn sweater with his fingers running over familiar patterns he didn’t know.

Breathe.

He could do this.

Whatever ‘this’ was, he was going to…he was going to be…okay.

After some time he began patting his pants pockets down for any sort of grounding information he might have on him. He found nothing but an old gum wrapper and a soggy pack of matches with only three left in it, and some scrap change. After that there was…nothing. His coats pockets were empty, most likely due from being so ripped up leaving him with…purely nothing.

There was nothing and he was in a place that was so empty.

He felt…empty.

He looked around him, at the walls, at the floors and he couldn’t for the life of him recall how he got there. Where ‘there’ or ‘here’ was.

He…he didn’t even know who he was in order to be anywhere any way.

That was a thing wasn’t it?

You couldn’t be in a place if you weren’t a something that could be at a where.

He’d read that. He was sure he read that. He wasn’t sure where but…if he had, then he was certainly a something at some point to have been there. So…he just needed to remember what or who he was.

He had to…with exactly nothing to go on.

He could feel the swelling of grief welling up in him again. Of loss and dread and a nipping despair that seemed to seep into every part of his emotions.

It was short lived as a sudden sound in the silence caught his attention and put his nerves on edge.

Or…no it….

It wasn’t a noise it was…the opposite of a noise.

He hadn’t been sitting in silence because…because he swore he had been hearing something. He wasn’t sure what, but it wasn’t there anymore.

It wasn’t there and that terrified him.

Standing shakily to his feet he looked around himself once more. The room he was in was open on all four sides. It was like, instead of a room it was…a hallway. Long and stretching on in all directions.

One way looked to have various openings in it all the way down, potentially being even more open and empty halls. Another looked to just be a very very long hall with only a gap or two before ending at distance with a forking path. Another was pattered with gaps with a singular door at some distance down. The last looked similar to the first, but with a door at the end and what barely looked to be a scratched mark in the wall paper.

Nothing of a threat could be seen, but the suffocating silence and stillness around him told him otherwise. It told him he needed to run. He needed to hide. He needed to be anyplace that wasn’t here.

A prickle on his skin had him facing the hallway with the dozen or so openings. He still couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t hear anything. That didn’t stop the hairs on his arms from rising or his mouth going dry. He stared intently waiting to see even the slightest shift of…of anything.

He stood still from one agonizing second to the next until his body seemed to thrum with an unease. As if it could feel this unknown…thing, closing in around him. Against his better judgement he opened his mouth, lips cracked and throat unbearably dry.

“h-hello?”

The sound of his voice startled him despite the low volume he spoke at. It was graveled and sounded so disused that, even if he remembered what his voice was like he doubted what met his ears would be welcomed.

He didn’t have time to dwell on it though.

He had barely spoken loud enough to break the silence, but he could feel it in the air. The subtle shift of something…looking towards him. The dreadful feeling of gaining somethings attention.

His breath caught in his throat and before he could register the severity of that feeling he was running. He didn’t know where, but that didn’t matter when no part of ‘where’ was known to him. He just knew he couldn’t be ‘there’ a second longer.

Somewhere else.

Anywhere else.

Away.

He had to get away-

It was so close to him now he could almost feel it at the back of his neck.

It was getting closer no matter how far or how fast he ran.

His lungs burned and his legs ached.

The smell of the alley with its trash and smoke did nothing to help his ragged breaths. It would have made him gag but the fear of the thing at his back was already choking him up with a desperate sob.

The light.

If he could reach the street light maybe-

With a broken cry he found himself sprawling onto the ground, landing hard and skidding on his hands in an attempt to catch himself. He lay as still as his heaving body would allow, gasping breaths wafting into the air as his pulse thundered in his ear.

He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, but the thing, whatever it was, hadn’t seemed to follow him. Or, at least it hadn’t caught up yet.

He needed to keep moving.

Pushing himself onto his knees he winced, staring down at the slightly torn skin of his palms where he’d landed on the carpet. His knee was bleeding fresh again as well, a stain growing where he was knelt. However, neither of those things seemed nearly as interesting or as important at lay at his feet.

He’d tripped over a bag.

It looked like it had been chewed on and then tossed away, but still, it was pulling at the familiar little knot in his mind. Something that told him it was his.

Carefully pulling the bag from his feet to rest in front of him he turned it over a few times in his hands. It was a backpack, but as with everything else about his person it looked beaten up, not just by whatever ‘chewed’ it, but by time. Like his clothing it smelt of dirt and grime and old smoke with a lingering smell of car exhaust.

Not well loved perhaps, but well used.

Opening up the main body of the bag he chanced to take a quick inventory. Inside is a partial bottle of water, scraps of paper, an even rattier looking set of clothing and what looks to be a leather bound journal. There were gauge marks in it and even as he carefully pulled it closer he could feel how light it was. Flipping the book open he felt his heart sink as the pages were jaggedly torn out with a bare few remaining.

A crackling noise gains his attention and he snaps his head up towards the ceiling. It was now that he notices it. What had gone missing before, when the thing had gotten closer.

There was a humming in the air. A pitched and constant hum that seemed to be emanating from the far too bright fluorescent lights above. Perfect squares that lined the ceiling in any given direction. They were oh so perfectly spaced that it almost brought attention that the walls….weren’t.

One of the bulbs crackled again, but this time from behind him. Snapping around to look he tried to find any source or reason. Again his nerves were rising, though not nearly as sharply as they had at the silence.

It was as he was turning his head that he thought he saw something.

There, against the wall.

Something was in front of it, but…also not in front of it. It bled into the ever shifting pattern of the wall paper and the longer he looked at it the more his head hurt. He dare not look away.

The bulb above him hissed and grew louder as he stared. Steadily it grew and grew until finally there was an ever so small ‘pop’ followed instantly by an echoing shatter and a shower of glass over his shoulders.

He let out a startled cry and stumbled back a few steps trying to brush the dangerous debris off himself. The dimness the single outage caused was negligible…at first. But then there was another bursting of glass to his left, and then his right, and above him again.

He was crying again now, holding the bag tightly to his front as he tried to escape the cascading of shards. The hall he was in grew darker and darker and before he knew it he was stuck with his back against the wall in a pool of shadows.

He shook and shivered and looked around himself, trying to find the thing that had been staring back. When he found it his heart fluttered as a heavy weight of dread and fear locked his legs in place.

There, on the wall, now visible in the dimmed lighting…was a smile.

It was impossibly wide and seemed to hover in the darkness as if it were the shadows that were smiling at him. Its eyes didn’t blink and its grin never faltered and his brain could do nothing but stammer at him to escape.

He blinked and the face was closer.

He couldn’t back any further into the wall, but he tried. He pushed and pressed and hoped for any inch to give. To provide an out.

He blinked and it was closer.

He felt his mouth open to let out a whimper of terror, but nothing seemed to fall passed his lips. He could feel his heart climbing up his throat and the idea of puking it out seemed to be growing very real.

He tried to keep his eyes open.

Tried to keep from blinking.

He didn’t want to know how many it would take before the freakish grin reached him.

That’s how he noticed it. With a fresh icing of dread in his veins he saw another light burst from behind the smile.

He saw it, but he didn’t hear it.

He couldn’t hear anything.

His throat constricted into another whimper, inaudible in the unnatural silence.

His eyes watered, his breath caught and then…the smile before him flickered.

He didn’t wait to see what was going to happen. His body thrummed with with a living terror as he hurled himself to the left, towards the nearest light source. He didn’t slow once reaching it, careening down the nearest hallway and pressing on as hard as he could.

There was a pulsing and snapping of…of something behind him but he spared no glance or thought to it. His only focus was getting as far away from ‘it’, ‘them’, as possible. He had to get somewhere else.

Anywhere else.

Not here.

But…in order to get to a where…he had to become a thing. He to ‘be’ again.

Just like he’d read.

As his legs were about to give out he tucked himself beside a wall. It had some sort of jutting edge to it that didn’t make sense, but he sat beside it anyway. Sat within the safety of the small space that didn’t make sense but was there.

He tore into the bag once more, flipping the pages of the journal open and scanning it. He didn’t read any of the words as he searched for something that screamed at him that it was him. The words in the book were not his own and there was no name scrawled in the left over mess for him to recall nor latch to. A part of him wanted to say he knew the writing, but even then it wasn’t his.

A shallow weeping of despair left him, causing him to jump at the noise. It turned into a gargled sob as he shook himself within a self hug. He stared at the bag with a dwindling sense of hope before something seemed to catch his eye.

A familiar scrawl, but not his along the strap of the bag.

Black ink long since leeched into the old fabric and faded in parts, but not enough to erase.

The letters curved and drew together, as if whoever had been the one to write it had taken special time to make it look…so nice.

So much care to form this part of….him.

Tommy.

His name was Tommy.

Chapter Text

He wasn’t sure how long he had been in this place, nor what the place even was. He still had no memory of how he got here or why or even who he was before getting stuck. However, Tommy knew exactly one thing at the very least.

He had to keep moving.

He’d counted it out on his fingers a few times when he absolutely needed to rest. He could get about five, maybe ten minutes if he was lucky, before the silence started to creep in on him. Five to ten minutes to sit and catch his breath.

It was odd, because although he’d barely had a real ‘rest’ in ages he…didn’t seem to be suffering for it. At least, not like how he thought he should be. His legs and feet ached of course, but the short bursts seemed to…be enough almost.

He had only needed a sip or two from his water bottle ages ago when the…smile thing, had happened. It had been the longest break he’d gotten, tucked into that corner out of sight. But, that was so long ago. Surely he should need more to drink by now but….he didn’t.

Or, at least he didn’t feel like he did.

He wasn’t going to look this gift horse in the mouth though as it meant he wouldn’t die of thirst or starvation in this place at least. He wouldn’t call it a ‘blessing’ but it wasn’t a curse…he hoped.

Still, being on the move for so long without much in the way of ‘self-care’ was concerning.

Which was certainly a light way to put it.

He came to a stop in a large open area. It looked like so many before it with its branching paths and endless hallways, occasional doors and walls and walls of patterns that mixed and rolled in his mind.

Sometimes there was only walls, standing alone and unattached to anything. They were more unnerving than the endless halls and Tommy had no idea why.

Perhaps it was the lack of potential hiding places.

Regardless Tommy learned to avoid areas that looked to have too many of them. Not that the eternal corridors were much better, but at least there were corners to tuck into once in a while. There was the rare blemish upon them too at times, but they were so few and far between Tommy stopped taking them as a sign of change.

Nothing here ever really changed.

For instance, the hum of the lights above. They droned ever on and served as his warning marker for danger just as much as it acted as a crushing weight of stress in its own right. It rolled in and out of focus from time to time, but it was always, always there, screaming at him from above.

Since the first incident Tommy hadn’t seen another of the smiling faces from the shadows. He’d kept himself solely in the light, avoiding anything that looked even remotely dim. It was the only time he had a direction in mind in a place that seemed to be directionless and eternal.

He hadn’t heard nor seen another thing in the place as he wandered and he wasn’t sure if that was a comfort or not. He knew he was scared, of course he was. But he wasn’t sure he was desperate enough yet in his loneliness to want to see anything this place had to offer.

Enough so that since the smiling thing, he hadn’t dared to utter a single word. He’d tried humming to himself a few times to try to battle against the lights, but, it was those times that the silence had crept in all the faster.

The quieter he was the harder it was for the Silence to find him.

A dreadful sort of irony he took no pride in noticing.

Clutching at his chest Tommy grimaced as a particularly achy feeling came over him. He was tired, but not ‘tired’. This place wouldn’t let him be ‘tired’.

Not really.

Not enough.

But he could still feel in his muscles, in his bones, that he should be absolutely alight with pain right now for all the walking and running since his arrival.

His fingers traced over familiar patterns, but they weren’t his. He knew them well, blindly even, but they weren’t his. A part of him, but not him.

Looking down he scanned over the letters, his mind putting them to right as best he could recall them fully.

Hello Sadness

The red lettering was faded terribly, as if it had been traced into oblivion. The words written in white below were less hazy, but still as worn as the words above. The center image almost entirely gone save for an idea of hands around a light.

It was something special, even if it wasn’t part of himself. As his finger brushed over the top lettering he felt a faint sense of familiar calm as well as a stabbing ache of grief. It always came hand in hand and he always had to cover his mouth before the whine that lingered in his throat came out.

He knew enough now, even without the memories attached to it, that he was mourning. A deep mourning that felt both fresh and long suffered.

It was the same feeling he got when he had looked over the damage to his jacket. Another item that was a part of him, but not him. Another stabbing loss paired with the despair of having tarnished it.

The large bulky coat was a worn down white and blue with a some kind of diamond shape on the left breast pocket. It was a faded patch, but looked like it might once have been green. It looked like some kind of sports team coat but Tommy wasn’t sure. All he knew was that seeing the rips and tears in it made his heart ache with guilt atop all else.

His fingers traced over the largest rip, the one that almost had the sleeve coming off as a tear rolled down his face. His chest heaved in a sharp hiccup as he wiped his face furiously trying to stop from crying fully.

The second hiccup was more painful as he tried to swallow it down, a whine crawling out of him against his will.

It should have crawled out of him.

He felt it but-

With a sharp choked gasp Tommy lurched to his feet. No sound was heard from him, nor from the lights, nor from his feet as he stumbled backwards.

It hadn’t even been three minutes yet, had it? How did it find him so quickly? He was being so careful. Had he been crying louder than he thought?

That didn’t matter now. The Silence was here and whatever came with it wasn’t far. That icy unease ebbed into his blood and made him shiver as he glanced around for a way to run.

Too many options.

Too many options and no idea which way was right.

If there was a right.

Something flickered in Tommy’s peripheral and before he could note what it was he was off again. He chose the hall with too many doors. He was fairly sure the Silence didn’t care about doors, but it had made him feel safer being able to close something behind him as he ran.

The Silence he left behind seemed to pull at him, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t chance a glance behind him. He just barreled on and lurched himself through the first door he came upon.

X-

The chase this time was longer than any other. Tommy waited and prayed and begged for it to fade off like usual. But it seemed like no matter what distance he traveled it was right on his heels. Just at his back and creeping ever closer-

Ghostly fingers seemed to brush over the nape of his neck as he dodge into a narrow crevice between the shops he was darting behind.

He wasn’t going to make it to the street lights ahead from the alley, but he could maybe make it from here.

The thing felt larger than him so surely he’d be able to escape it here.

Being underweight had its perks in cases like this, even if short lived.

He just needed to reach the street.

Reach people.

Reach anything that wasn’t just the two of them-

Bursting through another door Tommy wheezed harshly as he fell back against it. There was sound now, but it was so muted.

It wasn’t far behind.

His legs were going to give out soon though. He needed to hide or it was going to get him. Outrunning this time didn’t seem like an option.

With a feeble whine Tommy pushed himself from the door. The room opened into a fresh set of endless halls ahead and he needed to get a move on. He needed to find anywhere the thing might over look…however it was it ‘looked’.

Lungs aching for relief Tommy barely made it two rooms down before dropping to the floor in a heap just inside. Despite the calls from his brain to keep going, his body just couldn’t keep up. He was light headed from having pushed as hard as he did and he feared what would happen if he allowed himself to pass out.

He hadn’t slept in any sense after arriving in this place and he had no desire to change that. Certainly not now.

Pressing himself against the wall as much as he could manage Tommy tried to force his breathing to slow. He had both hands pressed to his mouth to help with this and, if he was honest, he was probably pressing hard enough to suffocate himself at this point.

Better to risk that than getting caught.

Once more Tommy waited second after second for a sign that the Silence was catching up to him. That it was going to find him. The sound of his breathing remained muted, but it didn’t seem to be getting closer.

Closing his eyes Tommy let out a long breath of relief. He could make use of ‘close’ far better than ‘on his ass’. He just…needed a second.

Once Tommy was at least sure he wasn’t going to burst a lung he opened his eyes to get a look at where he ended up. It was a room like all the others of course, but it…it seemed to lead into a place that…didn’t bend right.

There were shadows ahead that Tommy instantly wanted to get away from, but his body still wasn’t fully listening to him. That and something…something about the curving walls ahead and the tiles that weren’t fitting quiet right made Tommy feel…different about the space. Nothing seemed uniform, even the dead lights on the ceiling seemed off pattern and warped.

It was something new…but it was covered in shadows and Tommy didn’t think he’d ever be brave enough to step into one again.

Not in this place.

Pushing himself back up the wall Tommy adjusted his bag carefully on his back. He just…needed to step away slowly and hope one of those face things didn’t show up. If he ran he’d draw attention to himself, but…if he walked he might actually make it out of this spot. Away from the shadows and away from the Silence.

Taking a deep but silent breath Tommy nodded to himself slowly as he dipped out of the room walking backwards. He didn’t want to risk it showing up behind him after all.

Once fully out in the hallway he turned, breath held, and waited.

It was…clear. It was all clear.

Thank the stars, if they even still existed.

Now…a way out.

Or at least ‘away’.

Taking another breath Tommy started down the hallway in the opposite direction he’d come from. It was long and appeared lit well enough. It was…duller than he was used to for this place, but nothing considered a ‘shadow’ was fully formed so he supposed it was good enough.

Coming to another opening the hall Tommy poked his head around the corner. Surprisingly it didn’t open into a fresh set of halls. It was…it was a room. There was a door at the other side of it but…something told Tommy it was…different.

He had no idea why, but it felt…smaller than the other doors he’d run through since being here. It made him curious enough to exit the hall and approach.

What if this was a way out?

Nothing else in this place had a ‘feeling’ to it other than…empty. Open. Almost boundless in a sense despite the dizzying walls keeping him within its frame.

His hand hovered over the handle as he swallowed, unsure of what he would see.

But he had to know.

With a swift motion Tommy grabbed the handle and turned it, pushing the door open with care. On the other side was…yellowed wall paper and carpeted flooring in a singular square room. There was only one light working in said room. Dead center above a small standing cabinet.

It was an unremarkable thing. A simple brownish color of flat wood without tarnish or baring marks of any kind. It had a single drawer with a small knob handle. There was nothing about it that was either enticing or threatening and yet…

It was the first piece of furniture Tommy had seen in this place.

For all that it lacked it still made Tommy’s heart beat fast in his chest. Something like hope or relief prickled through him as he approached the thing. He bushed his fingers over the top as if he feared it would vanish at his touch.

When it remained Tommy let out a breath and knelt before it. Resting his head against the edge of the furnishing Tommy carefully ran his fingers down to the drawer handle. He pulled softly, trying to keep quiet as well as savoring the moment of something…different. Something that wasn’t just him wondering the endless yellow abyss.

His eyes were closed as he took in the sound of the smooth rubbing of wood against wood as the drawer came further out. Even when it was fully opened he took an extra moment before turning and peering into the revealed space itself.

Inside was a bottle of milkish looking liquid with a label too torn to read. Pushing it slightly he could hear the distinct sound of sloshing against the glass.

He opted not to pick it up.

Aside from that there was an old pencil and a scrap of paper as well. Picking them up Tommy was hit with a small pinch of recognition. The handwriting as well as the jagged edge the page seemed to be torn at. It was just a bare flick of paper really, partial page at best. Still as Tommy ran his eyes over it he felt the fringes of his barely formed calm start to fray once more

EYES UP

The words were written fast and large and almost etched into the paper enough to tear it. Just like that Tommy was alert again, eyes wide as he pulled away from the cabinet. Looking up and around himself a familiar dreaded terror shuddered through him.

The room was dark.

All around him was cast in shadow, the only light source being above him.

He’d been so caught up in having found the damn thing he’d just….walked right into the room. The dark room. The room where he couldn’t see the walls but could feel were there.

He jumped as a ceiling light to the right flickered. He had to slap a hand over his mouth to keep from calling out his alarm as he stared directly ahead.

The light blinked in a pattern almost, struggling to come on. The longer flashes were just barely enough for Tommy to see the wall beneath it, the yellowed surface marred with a scrawling black smear of panicked writing. He couldn’t tell what it was written in, but the nearly deranged looking words still jumped out at him.

DON’T LET IT SEE YOU

Tommy swallowed hard as he backed up a step. The crooked and rushed words were paired with an equally haphazard ‘drawing’ of something. It looked like jumbled mass aside from a singular defined eye among the tangle and exaggerated limbs. What he assumed to be limbs.

What was more unnerving though, was that the eye itself, unlike the rest of the inky image, was etched down in a stain of off red.

Tommy backed away from the image as his breath stuttered in his chest. He felt the back of his leg hit the cabinet releasing a short creaked scraping barely dulled by the carpeted surface it moved over. He froze at the sound, straining his ears for any alteration to the humming from the lights above.

The flickering light blinked, its humming the only intermittent sound around him. It blinked again and almost fizzled out. On the third stammer Tommy’s breath stilled in its entirety.

It was red.

The off tinged haze of light seemed to be trying to bleed as it grew a darker and more vibrant red. The light over Tommy’s head shifted as well into the unsettling shade and he shuddered, mentally screaming at his legs to move. To get out of the room, back into the hall.

He needed to run.

It was the light above him startling to flicker itself that finally got Tommy moving again. He lurched for the door as if it were going to disappear. Who was to say it wouldn’t have?

He didn’t bother closing it as he burst through with enough force to slam himself into the opposing wall. A panicked grunt escaped him at the impact which swiftly melted into a whimper as he realized the hall lights above him were all tinted red and painting the hall a dingy and threatening scarlet.

Within a breath of a second his eyes were snapped down as a bone chilling screeched echoed from down the hall ahead of him. The lights ahead were either blown out or casting off the ruddish haze that cast over the hall like a bad horror flick.

Only this was very real.

It was real and from the end of the hall came a lumbering mass of howling terror. Its limbs were unnaturally long and bent and moved so wrong it hurt to look at.

With a pounding in his skull and a painful cry of fear tearing from his lips Tommy burst into a fresh sprint in the opposite direction. His pulse deafened him but he could still hear the warped shrieking from the form behind him.

The sound was so inhuman it crawled through every part of him as if by sound alone it was trying to break him down. His lungs shuddered as they burned, his bone practically vibrated as he forced himself to keep moving.

There was a second screeching that echoed in the halls around him and only by the pain in his throat did he realize it was coming from him. Lit with fear and with death all but breathing down his back he let out every once of terror he felt as he fled down the unnatural passageway.

He wasn’t taking into account what was a shadow and what light anymore. He ran and twisted and turned, stumbling into walls bursting though doors without hesitation. The sound of the thing would fade out from time to time but Tommy didn’t dare to slow.

He didn’t want to know if it was from gaining distance or from the Silence catching up to him in turn.

With a wheezed cry Tommy hurled himself down yet another hallway, this one covered in shadows so thick he almost had nothing to see with in order to continue. But he did. He pushed on towards the thin sliver of light at the end of that dark passage, limping as his legs once more cried out in fatigue and pain.

Just a little further.

Just a bit.

He could almost reach it.

Tommy pushed himself through the gap of the buildings and into the mustard like light of the street lamp.

A cry of relief only just starting to pass through his lips as he felt his foot snag on something.

He felt himself begin to fall and tried to catch himself, his knee slamming into the unforgiving pavement as-

The next set of rooms Tommy fled into had him almost stumbling to at stop. It was so painfully bright compared to the corridor before it that it startled him. With a whimper of pain he tried to keep going, keep forwards.

He couldn’t hear the thing behind him anymore, but his heart was pounding and his hair was on end as ice seemed to fill his veins. As tired and achy as his body was no part of him even so much as whispered to stop, so he didn’t.

He pressed on through the rooms, which now were nothing more than a series of directly identical rooms, as if someone pressed them against a mirror and made it real.

Tommy was’t processing this though. He was to busy bobbing and weaving between walls, looking for an out. For an exit.

There was a shaking of the floor behind him and before he could stop himself Tommy instinctively glanced backwards.

The creature was almost on top of him. A long disjointed tendril like thing was stretched out towards him, over him. He couldn’t hear it, but his head was thick with both sound and silence at once that he swore mix of it was going to cause his skull to crack.

He opened his mouth to scream.

The room seemed to flicker, the creature lurching sharply in another direction and then...he was falling.

Tommy only just barely registered his foot coming down upon nothing, his momentum carrying him forwards until he slammed painfully into some kind of wall, and then he was falling.

He opened his mouth to scream once more, and then there was darkness.

Chapter Text

It was an aching that drew Tommy back into awareness.

His ribs and torso rolled with a dull wave of pain that ebbed and surged in turn, pulling at his mind like needling fingers. He was only vaguely aware that his legs also hurt, as well as his head where it was pressed against the hard floor. It was hard to consider if it was because they hurt less or if he was just used to them hurting by now. All he really knew was that it was his ribs that screamed a bolt of pain through him when he finally tried to move.

That was when he truly woke up.

Despite the abruptness of his waking there was limited clarity as he held himself still, waiting for that jolting pain to lessen from his abdomen. There was a foggy fear of having broken something but he pushed it off. Mostly in the hope that if he didn’t think it too hard then it wouldn’t be the case.

Shuddering out a breath Tommy eventually tried to open his eyes. Squinting at first to potentially counter any unwanted brightness. Small as it was Tommy felt a glint of relief when he found the space around him more comfortably lit. As he opened his eyes more he found himself actually in a slightly dimmer space than he’d grown accustomed too.

Not dark enough to be threatening but it still gave a small sting of anxiety that told Tommy not to trust it.

He didn’t of course but the reinforcement from his instincts at least told him they were still working.

Another point to that being the case was that in his bones he felt that he needed to get up. He needed to get off the floor. He needed to move.

It wasn’t urgent but sense of it was pressing and persistent. Persistent enough that Tommy sucked in a deep breath and tried to get himself into a sitting position. It definitely was an unpleasant experience as another shock of pain burst from his ribs, though, it wasn’t as bad as before. Like stretching a stiff muscle that had been at rest for too long.

He’d felt worse before.

Tommy paused in that thought as he carefully brought a hand up to rest over where the pain was sharpest.

When had he felt worse?

Not since being here.

This was the most pain held felt since arriving in this place.

Tommy pressed down with a wince as the pain bloomed fresh and caused his body to tense. It hurt like hell of course but...he was right. Even without the memory of it the...the understanding was there. He’d felt worse before. He...he knew what the pain of a broken bone should be and...this wasn’t it.

There were two senses of relief that this realization.

One, that he hadn’t, in fact, broken something while lost and alone in this place away from all help. And two, this place hadn’t taken all the bits of himself. Sure, there was no memory to speak of, but memory was the surface of it. He had the understanding. A proof of himself having existed outside of this place.

He had no idea what it meant in the slightest, but it was something.

With that small victory Tommy moved to pull his shirt collar away from himself to try to peek at the achy area. He winced at the sight of the mottled bruising. Even in shadow the large spanning bar of eggplant purple over his upper stomach looked about as painful as if felt.

It looked...well developed.

That was when Tommy realized something that caused his anxiety to rise uncomfortably. He had no idea how long he had been laying there.

He had been out cold. Unaware. Unprotected. And that thing-

Tommy’s head snapped up and he ignored the pain and dizziness that moved caused him.

There was a hole above him. A perfect square that looked almost a full floor thick from its top at the floor above and the bottom, his new ceiling. Honestly the more he stared the more he wondered how he hadn’t broken anything.

Not that he was going to complain about it.

In fact he opted not to think of it further in case it somehow brought back reality enough to...change that.

Shifting his gaze to the room around him Tommy found his surroundings to be both familiar and different. The walls were still yellow but it seemed paler normal. Though, that could have been because he was so far from the wall itself. The space he was in now was almost cartoonishly large and he was easily a few feet from the nearest wall. Far enough away that he couldn’t even tell if there was a pattern on it or not.

The floor was carpeted still but somehow more...tan than normal as well. But again, that could have been because of the dimmer lighting. It was really hard to tell.

Though, that was another point entirely. The room he was in, though not considered ‘dark’ was still fairly dim. The light fixtures were further apart then the floor above, though thankfully all that were present still seemed be working. There were enough there to still cast a humming noise, though it was softer with the added space between them it seemed.

Part of Tommy wanted to trust that meant things were fine at the moment. That he was safe. His prickling anxiety however told him he needed to be sure.

Against his better judgment Tommy opened his mouth, glanced at the hole above him and muttered a singular word.

“ow”

It was small so that only his own ears should be able to catch it and when they did he gave a sigh of relief. Not only was he able to hear it but...it sounded right. Quiet as he had been too nervous to go above a whisper, but the voice was familiar to him. Still a bit off from disuse, but recognizably him.

A brief urge rose up to shout suddenly. Either at the thing that failed to get him or in triumph at obtaining this other sense of himself. He wanted to hear more of it. To remember more of what he used to sound like. What he still did if given the space to speak.

However, the more cautious part of himself pushed it back before he could think to listen to it. Luck, or something like it, had favored him with an escape, limited injury and even a brief…. ‘rest’. He didn’t know if it would exactly cover him if he blatantly broke the one rule that seemed to be keeping him alive right now.

Be quiet.

Something that, even when he was trying to he struggled with. It was one thing to accidentally create a noise and another to shout obnoxiously just for want of sound.

Taking a deep breath Tommy swallowed a hiss of pain as he got fully to his feet. He was a little unsteady at first but overall kept his balance. His legs didn’t hurt at much as he thought they should either considering how much running he’d been doing prior. Though, he also had to remind himself he didn’t know how long he had been unconscious for. It could well be that by now they were simply...well rested.

Either way that would work for him. That just meant that if he needed to take off again he was ready to. Though, that would be a bit hard to do without a direction.

Above there were hallways and doors to pick from, rooms to consider exploring. This space though, we different.

The ‘room’ he was in now, as noted before, was ridiculously spacious. He wasn’t even dead center of the room and yet the nearest wall was easily a house width away from him. He couldn’t see any doors from where he stood and the dim lighting made it hard to see if there were breaks in the walls either.

It almost felt far too open if not for the ceiling being so low. In fact, Tommy was almost sure he could touch it if he wanted to.

Honestly it reminded Tommy of a basement. Not the cold and damp ones where the walls were stone to remind you it was underground. But the poorly converted ones where it tried to look like a normal living space but the dimensions were off and some part of your mind knew it was buried.

Tommy wished it felt buried and perhaps some part of him did.

But far more was resting dread that knew behind any given wall, should he reach it, there was just another space. Another room probably as large and as empty as the one he was in now. Maybe dimmer, maybe brighter. Just as empty though. Just as lifeless and quiet and meaningless as the one he stood in.

Odd how that sense of endlessness seemed to trigger a growing sense of claustrophobia.

Was he claustrophobic? Or was this space just that unsettling?

Both could easily be true honestly and differentiating between either wouldn’t change his situation or feeling. The best he could manage was to try to swallow it back enough to focus on other things. Like finding a way forward and away from this particular place.

With no distinct options he chose to close the gap between him and the nearest wall for starters. Just to be near something even if it didn’t really take him from out in the open much.

He didn’t like that the light wasn’t closer to the wall leaving him to walk in partial shadow of sorts. It wouldn’t have changed the actual brightness of the room, but the illusion of light on the wall itself would have been comforting. Not that he assumed a place like this was built to be comforting.

If it was even really ‘built’ in the first place.

As Tommy walked along the span of the wall he made sure to keep closer to the light than to the wall itself. He didn’t know if it truly helped or not, but it gave him courage enough to keep moving at all so he’d go with that.

Despite the anxiety he felt from the shadows Tommy didn’t think he had a fear of the dark exactly. It was hard to really describe but it wasn’t as...stabbing as the claustrophobia seemed to be. Not that he knew if that really was true or made a difference. Honestly, it didn’t. That grinning….thing brought the darkness with it somehow and so long as that was the case then he would keep treating all shadows like instant death.

For all he knew they were.

Assuming, of course, that they weren’t worse.

He was assuming the smiling thing would kill him. In a twisted place like this, though, that spanned on into eternity for no other reason than ‘because it could’ who was to say anything inside of it would offer anything quick or freeing? There were plenty of stories of cryptid monsters or creatures with far crueler intentions he’d read about before. If even one of those beings were real then he could see them calling this place here a ‘home’.

Tripping a step Tommy paused as a small gasp escaped him. He was quick to cover his mouth out of habit despite not seeing or hearing anything since the hole. He could feel how rapidly he was sucking in breathes from behind his fingers and realized he had worked himself up with his spiraling thoughts. The tightness in his chest wasn’t just pain from the bruising but from the panic attack he had literally just walked himself into.

There was nothing chasing him now to steal his focus and all he could do was try to carefully lower himself to the floor to ride it out.

He dropped hard to his knees but the pain from his wounded one wasn’t enough to deter what was happening. He doubted anything really could now. It had been building for some time and if it stayed within him another moment he- he...he wasn’t sure what would happen. So, it was probably a good thing he wasn’t really being given a choice.

Squeezing his eyes tight Tommy curled over himself, keeping his hand firmly over his mouth to muffle what he could. His hearing was overtaken by the sound of his own heartbeat and further fogged by the pulsing of pain from his body. Every stifled breath stuttered in his lungs and shuddered his body until he swore he could feel each injury melt into one thrumming ache.

At least, that is what it what felt like until his spiral seem to reach its peak. It was...odd after that. The sort of, backslide into calmness felt...weird to him. It was another one of those things he wasn’t sure how to place but he just...felt was wrong.

Though given his frazzled state of mind he couldn’t even trust if that feeling was accurate.

How could he know it was wrong if he didn’t know himself enough to know what was right?

He shook his head, ignoring the pain it caused, before the thought could take off on him again. It was hard to keep his thoughts in order with the constant quiet and not being able to voice anything. To make any of it real like he was real.

And he was real.

He wasn’t just some silent thought in this endless labyrinth. He had a name, he could make sound provided it was safe to do so and he had a ‘before’ even if he couldn’t recall it himself. What’s more, if those things were hunting him then it was because he was real. If he wasn’t then...then they couldn’t hunt him could they?

Looking around himself now Tommy almost wished to see one of those horrible things. To see they were, in fact, still hunting him. It was certainly an odd thing to wish for, but if it made him real then…

0..0...0….0…..

Tommy didn’t know how long he traveled in that wide but enclosed space. Once he had gotten back to his feet and forced himself to move again it had been slow moving. He couldn’t shake the feeling of wrongness that had settled over him since his attack and walking too fast caused his vision to blur and his head to spin. At first he thought it was because of all the thoughts still trying to run themselves through his head, but it happened even when he forced himself to count steps as a distraction.

For all the time he was taking, slowly trudging forwards, nothing had approached him like it had on the floor above. The dimness remained steady and the light hum from the lights never seemed to waver. The rooms he passed through remained large and empty and entirely unremarkable in any way. To the point where he couldn’t really say how many he’d gone through.

Something he should have been keeping track of to mark his progress. Though, he didn’t think ‘progress’ could even be used in this case.

At first, not accounting his thoughts after his attack, Tommy had thought it was a nice break. Nothing coming after him or hounding him. But now, well, now it only made him nervous the more time passed seeing nothing. Part of him wondered if they were waiting for him somewhere. Waiting for him to relax. To grow used to the peace enough that he forgot how to notice them.

He had only barely been getting a pattern down as it was. He couldn’t afford to forget it so quickly.

Even logically knowing that Tommy could already feel how lax his pace was. Like he was just going for a stroll somewhere completely normal and not potentially lethal. He caught himself checking the lights less or breaking into humming to try to cover up the sound from the lights.

Even now he felt his mouth open to let out a long and rather loud yawn. Which, fair enough given how tired he felt-

Tommy stumbled suddenly, his right leg refusing to lift from the ground. It wasn’t stuck or anything it just...he couldn’t lift it. It was far too heavy, too achy, too….too tired.

As the word passed through Tommy’s head again his whole body seemed to sag under it. For all his time here and now the feeling of tiredness, of exhaustion, returned to him. Piled on his shoulders until he had no choice but to lean on the wall for support.

With a gasp Tommy tried to regain control of his body, at least enough to keep off the floor. His vision wavered and watered and had to close his eyes to keep the dizziness in check.

When he opened his eyes again he looked around as if he would be able to spot some sort of reason for this onset of fatigue. It was a bit hard to see anything at first that wasn’t a blur but when his vision came back into focus he did, in fact, catch sight of something.

The wall he had ended up leaning on was an opening into a new room it seemed. And in this new room, on the wall diagonal to him, was an arrow.

Even as far from it as he was an how unreliable his eyes were at the moment Tommy could clearly see it was, in fact, an arrow. Scrawled on the wall, messy and in a familiar black substance he could only assume was ink. It instantly raised his anxiety as he recalled what happened the last time he saw writing, or rather a drawing, on a wall in this place.

The tiredness didn’t fade from him any, but the return of his anxiety did at least seem to bring his ability to stand back. To walk even. It was inch by painful inch but he made his way to the arrow until he was directly in front of it. It was chest level to him and pointed down the wall further into the new room and directly away from the entrance he had come from.

He knew, of course, that he shouldn’t trust it.

He did.

But.

….

Where else was he supposed to go?

Not giving himself to consider further Tommy turned to follow the arrow.

The air around him almost seem to shift in some way as he began on this new path. The difference it seemed to make to have a distinct direction and not just an endless march through nothing.

The next arrow he came across was rather close and looked, if possible, messier then the last.

Tommy wasn’t sure if this bode ill or not and he did at least allow himself pause to consider it. Though, once again without any other real options Tommy chose to keep following.

The next arrow was a bit further away and looked neater while the two that came after almost looked...decorative. The way they curved was almost...stylized like one might do to make it more appealing.

Were Tommy not already so tired and fully committed to this path he might have questioned them.

But he didn’t.

Just like he didn’t question when he finally came upon a door with about half a dozen arrows pointing to it. Each one a bit different from the last but all of them in that same dark inky substance that looked neither wet nor dry.

With his legs nearly ready to give out on him Tommy barely looked at the door before pushing through it. Or rather, stumbling through it, hanging on the handle a bit as he swayed unsteady on his feet.

The sight that greeted Tommy was strange and even his current state gave him pause.

It...was a living room.

It looked like something out of an old sitcom or something. A sofa and arm chair sat to one side against a the wall facing outwards, the chair itself at an angle to face the coffee table before them. There was a longer couch as well that sat further from the wall and stretched into the room like a partition. It faced the coffee table as well as, technically, Tommy and the door he’d come from.

The only other thing Tommy noticed was that there were three large pillows on this couch as well as a blanket draped over its back like a shawl. At the sight of it Tommy could feel himself whimper as his feet started moving of their own accord. Dragging but determined until he reached the couch itself and, instead of stopping, tripped himself onto it and flopping face first into the woven cotton fabric.

He was out cold before his body had time to settle.