Chapter 55

it will be difficult…

Jack sat up with a gasp. The room around him swirled. Slowly, it settled enough for Jack to make out details. He had no memory of the place he was in. Was it a cathedral? Perhaps. Perhaps not. The architecture certainly suggested it, what with the tall, finely sculpted pillars arching towards the barely visable ceiling, the stained glass window at the end of the hallway he seemed to be in, and the periodic chandeliers providing a thin, bluish light. But… it did not feel religious. He could not say how he could be so certain, but Jack knew without question this was no church.

Gingerly, he clambered to his feet and took stock. By the feel of a thick carpet between his toes, he knew he was barefoot, but looking down at himself, he found he could not really tell. His feet were there, yet they were not there. Was he even dressed? The answer eluded him, but as he was not uncomfortable, he truly did not care. Part of him marveled at how calm he was. The fact that he had no memory of coming here, that he could not tell if he was attached to his body, that this place scared him just as much as it comforted him… it should have terrified him. And yet, a larger part of his mind shrugged at it. It is, after all, what I was expecting, or close enough anyway.

Wait. He had been expecting this? He could not remember. That unnerved him more than anything else: since when did he accept losing his memory for a mission? He clenched his (possibly non-existant) fists and started to explore. The hallway he was in seemed to be a main route through the rest of the structure. There were many rooms branching off. Several of the rooms were libraries, filled with thick, leatherbound volumes. Most of the books were embossed with gold-leaf titles stamped into them, though what language the titles were written in, Jack could not even fathom. He tried reading one of the books, but gave up when he saw it, too, was written in the illegible language. He slid it back on the shelf and stiffened as the rasp of leather against stone echoed through the room. Until then, he had not heard a single thing, though he had made no attempt to be quiet. He left the room much more cautiously than he entered. The echoing scratching sound followed him into the hallway and seemed to bounce off the looming pillars.

He continued searching. He was not entirely sure what he was looking for, but the longer he explored, the more he was convinced he had been sent to find something. He found another library and paused in the doorway. Unlike all the other books he had come across, the spines of the books were bare. Instead each book's cover was richly dyed a different color, such that the room resembled a rainbow. There was something eerily familiar about the shelf of blue dyed books, and Jack shuddered. He avoided the library rooms after that. The echo, which should have died out long ago, continued to follow him.

Some of the doors in the main hallway led to small suites, and Jack carefully checked through each one before moving on. As he exited one of these suites (it was naught but an antechamber with a small office with a spartan desk in the connecting room), he felt a sudden chill. It started at the base of his spine and ran up, making his neck hairs stand on end. A breath of wind riffled through his hair and around his face, making him gasp for breath. Someone was watching! He spun around to check behind him but was met with nothing but what he had already seen. Swallowing and taking a deep breath, he dismissed the sudden feeling of impending doom as nerves and approached the next door.

None of the previous doors had been difficult to open, but this one swung open at the lightest touch. It was a large, empty room. One wall had a heavy, dark tapestry hanging on it. If the tapestry had a design, the colors chosen for it were too dark for Jack to make out. He was about to back out of the room and close the door when he saw the tapestry ripple slightly. Was there something behind it? He peered across the room. Aside from the folds forming as it rippled, it was flush against the wall. He cautiously inched forward until he was in arm's reach. With one finger extended, he poked at the fabric. He had expected to feel the wall behind the hanging. Instead, he met with no resistance. Peeling the tapestry away from the wall, Jack was met with a great gaping hole. There was no room behind it. There was… nothing. Nothing at all, just a dark void. To call it black was to assign it a color, and there was no color there. To call it empty was to assume there was a shape that could have been filled, but there was no space past the tapestry.

Tosh once told him it felt like there was nothing when she tried to read his mind, like he was dead. Was this what she meant by nothing? This infinite darkness? But no, there was something out in the dark. As Jack stood before the expanse, willing himself to retreat, he started to hear voices.

Deep breaths, [self]; you are a conduit, a channel so [they] can communicate. Almost done with this waste of time. [Companion] and [self] can go back in, and [self] can write [annoyance] about the ley lines. Swish then flick. There was homework? [Self] do not like [professor]. [Student] truly is an odius [vermin].

The voices started coming faster and faster, each one laden with personalities. As each one reached Jack, it fought to take over, and it was a struggle to maintain himself in the midst of it all. But they came faster, several at a time, and they blended together and almost overwhelmed him. With a desperate snarl, Jack withdrew the hand that had been holding the tapestry off the wall. It was the hardest thing he had ever done. With a dizzying wave of clarity, he was suddenly master of his own mind again. The voices did not vanish though. As he was now attuned to them, Jack could feel them echo about the room, each one talking to itself and completely ignoring the others. Jack scrambled out of the room and shoved the door closed. It was harder than it should have been.

Jack leaned against the door and felt himself slide to the floor. He took several deep breaths and once again, took stock of himself. He was whole physically (as far as he could tell, being that he still could not quite see himself). Mentally… he was still Jack Harkness (a battered, shaken Jack Harkness, but he still owned his own mind and soul). Only after checking over himself did he realize he had left the book echo in the tapestry room. He shuddered at the thought of the room. Now, in the true silence of the main hallway, the source of the voices was obvious: they were the thoughts and minds of the other residents of… where? Jack struggled, grasping at memories. A castle… a lake… a four post bed… a hog? How strange. He found that he was not worried. Part of him still knew where he had come from, and even if that part chose not to share, it was a comfort.

He struggled to his feet. Another draft passed over him, and he quaked. It felt like cold, probing fingers. Again, he looked down the hall. Was it darker than before? More forboding? Were those eyes glowing in the shadow? The end of the hall suddenly telescoped away from him, and the pillars were plunged into impenetrable darkness. For the first time since awakening here, Jack felt uncomfortably chilled. On exhale, a faint mist exited his mouth before fading into the air. The sudden image of a strip of grey cloth fluttering, trapped in a bear trap flashed through his mind, and he knew, without a doubt: he was not alone. It was coming. Whatever was down the hall was coming. Jack found himself overcome with terror. He ran.

He's shielding himself. I can get you in, but…

Jack had no way of knowing if he was putting space between him and it, but his legs stretched to their fullest, and his breath came in desperate gasps, because running, even futily, was better than waiting for it. The echo had reappeared, louder than an echo had any right to be. And it had morphed. No longer was it the rasp of reshelving a book: it had become a cruel, mirthless chuckle. It encompassed the hallway following Jack, led Jack, shielded Jack from it, but just as surely pointed him out to it.

The hallway made an unexpected turn, and Jack slammed into the wall. He thrust himself away from the wall and continued his sprint, not once questioning that a right angle turn could come upon him so suddenly or even that the wide, wide hallway could become so narrow. There was something in the middle of the hall coming up. Glittering, sharp, dangerous. Jack tried to hurtle over it, but whether he misjudged the leap or if more ominous forces were at play, he tripped over himself, and his foot landed squarely in the middle of it. It was a bear trap, and it snapped closed over his leg.

There was agony, so painful it was blinding. And it still came. With a snarl more animal than man, Jack threw himself at the trap, yanking at his leg in one instance, desperately prying at the trap in the next. Pain muddled his logic, and the need to survive overtook him, allowing no time to think of a true solution. A howl broke out from his throat, more fear than pain. He jerked against the trap.

"Stop! You'll tear yourself to shreads," a voice shouted out. A hand grabbed Jack's shoulder, steadying him. Another hand brushed against the trap, and it sprung open. "Come on, Jack, on your feet. Run. Run, Jack, run!" One of the hands gripped Jack's, and he felt himself pulled up, and then they were running. Or at least, the owner of the hands was running, towing Jack along faster than he could ever have hoped to go.

A door ahead of them snapped open, and the hands pulled him through. The moment they were in the room, the door slammed closed, and a heavy beam of wood fell across, barring the door from opening again. "We're safe. It can't get in here, and soon it will realize that its prey has escaped and will go back to lurking in the corners."

Jack looked up at his savior: a blond man in a cricket suit. He looked young, but his eyes belied his physical appearance. This man had the age of the universe. He wore knowledge of eternity about his person as Jack would wear a cloak. "Doctor?" Jack hesitated a guess.

The man nodded. "I am not the Doctor you know. Not even close. I am far too young. But here, in my mind, I have access to all the memories of my past, present, and future alike. It is good to meet you in this form."

And Jack finally remembered: he had gone to the hospital wing after flight class. Madam Pomfrey had finally decided to send Jack into the Doctor's mind to wake him up, but there had been complications. The Doctor was shielding himself. Madam Pomfrey insisted she could get through the shields, but it would be a difficult experience for Jack.

The Doctor snorted. "If I had been truly shielding myself, there is no way Pomfrey could have forced through," he told Jack. Jack wondered if he had spoken outloud, or if the Doctor was just able to read his thoughts. "Those so called shields are merely an attempt to block out some of the more invasive thoughts. And in regards to if I am reading your thoughts… sort of. You are projecting them rather loudly at the moment. An after effect of your fright, I think."

Jack focused and tried to solidify his own shields. The Doctor nodded, and Jack relaxed, knowing that only he was privy to his thoughts once again. Strange that as he repaired his shields, he felt the pain in his leg fade. He felt more whole than before and did not doubt that, if he were to look down at his body now, it would be solid and well defined. "What was that?" he asked.

"A dementor," the Doctor replied. "Or, at least, the shadow of a dementor. I've managed to get most of them out, but there's a few still drifting around in here. It's been making things difficult."

Dementors were wandering around in the Doctor's mind? Jack did not like the sound of that. "Is that why you haven't woken up yet?" he asked.

"Rasilon, no. I've been ready to wake up for about a day now."

"Then why haven't you?"

The Doctor frowned. "I've decided I like it in here more."

"But you've got to wake up, Doctor! You can't stay locked in your mind!" Jack protested.

"Oh, I agree completely."

It was Jack's turn to frown. "But you just said…"

"I said I don't want to wake up. I," he pointed at himself, "think I should wake up immediately. So do most of the other versions of me. But the current version of myself, the dominent personality, has apparently decided I don't want to deal with things right now and instead sits in my room, reliving various memories. It's severely slowed down repairs of this place, considering that personality is the most dominant force in here. I bet if I had my help, I could throw a few more dementors out too. But I never listen to me, so all versions of myself have been stuck wandering around these halls, dodging dementors, waiting for you to appear." He grinned at Jack.

"Uh…" Jack said, trying to coalece thoughts into words. Before he could say anything, the plank across the door swung up, and the door opened. A tall, grey haired man dressed in a green velvet suit entered the room.

"Ah, there you are," he said. "One of the dementors has been slightly more active. It's quieted down again, and everyone came out of wherever they were hiding, but when you didn't reappear, I thought the worst. I've been looking for you. So have the rest."

"As you can see, I'm fine." The Doctor held out his arms and presented himself to the man. "I've been filling Jack in on what's been going on." He gestured.

The man turned his attention to Jack. "Good, you've finally appeared. Maybe you can persuade me to wake up finally."

Jack stared a moment. "Doctor?"

The man arched an eyebrow. "You were expecting the Brigadier, perhaps?"

The cricket outfit clad Doctor turned away from the steel haired Doctor to Jack. "Assume everyone here that is not a dementor or yourself is another version of me."

"Yes. I would have thought that obvious," the other Doctor said. "Come, now that you're here, we need to get to the Doctor. That one is the closest to the Doctor and will be able to bring you to me."

Jack blinked in confusion, but, as the two Doctor's were leaving, he had no choice but to shelve his confusion and follow.

A/N: A few things: One, sorry it's a bit late; I'm on spring break, so a combo of time zone changes and being surrounded by family has left me a bit distracted. Two, I want you to know, I totally could have made this a cliff hanger. But I didn't, because making you wait a month for that second half would have been mean. You're welcome :P. Three, I don't read much horror, and I've never written it before, so I'd really appreciate any critique on this attempt. Thanks! And thanks for reading, following, and favoriting! The next guaranteed update is May 7th.