The silence would have been unbearable if there was anyone to hear it. The darkness would have fooled the mind into thinking the eyes were blind, unable to see what terrors reside within the pitch black. There was someone in that darkness, but they couldn't hear and they couldn't see, all they could do was dream. All they had been doing was dreaming, constant, unaware of reality. Their reality was the dream, the ever changing, constant dream.

He could hear and he could see. He stood atop the grassy knoll gazing down across his fields of wheat and the grazing grox. He could see the huge diesel harvester crawling through his land, bringing in the years crops to provide for the family. He felt on top of the world, as though he was above the law and decrees of the Governor himself. He felt unique for that moment, he felt as though he could reach out and remould the mountains in the distance with his hand.

His skin tingled as he felt familiar hands snake around his waist and play under his shirt, trailing their fingertips along his stomach. He took a deep breath and knew it to be his wife; he smiled widely and turned in her arms to return the intimacy. She was beautiful; he had thanked the Emperor every day for delivering her to him, fifteen harvests past. Her ocean blue eyes set into her heart shaped face, framed by her curled golden locks; he wanted nothing more than just her.

As she began to speak, her words trailed into strange manifestations, numbers began to materialize upon her soft red lips and crack and shiver into the air, jumping and surrounded in static. Confusion and repulsion coursed through his veins and he tried to pull away from her, but she gripped him tight crushing into his sides. He screamed in pain as the numbers flowed freely from her mouth, an eerie, howling wail followed each flickering code piece. Then he lost consciousness.

'Ardakas, is he functional?'

The words thundered into his ears, ripping his soul apart and he screamed, silently. He was becoming aware. There were no numbers, no grass, no mountains. His wife had gone, swirled into smoke and forced to the back of his memory. The voice sounded like it could have been the God-Emperor himself, it was like thunder, boiling seas and cracking the earth with each word. The earth and seas that did not exist in the blackness he was encased within.

'He is operating at seventy four percent, his primary systems are all passing minimal parameters and the rest of his functional systems shall come online once he is booted into full sentiency, the Omnissiah permitting. '

The second voice brought numbers flashing violently through the darkness. Lines of ones and zeroes, green and black, slashing into his consciousness like a hot knife. He screamed again. This time the numbers became angry and red and a buzzing filled his head, so loud it was almost unrecognisable as noise. It pounded his skull into mush and reformed it, he felt his body become warm and he felt shocks of electricity force their way into his vital areas. It was the most uncomfortable experience in his life. His life? He wasn't aware he had one, yet he knew he existed before this darkness. He was aware.

'Is he able to sense me? Hear what I say?'

The darkness glowed, light seemed to come from everywhere until he was blinded by the radiance of truth, of awareness. He came to full consciousness and began to thrash, his mind reworking itself, power and numbers forcing their way into his mind, his eyesight, his hearing. Changing everything with their horrible buzzing movements. Then it was over, he could see but it was blurred, vague shapes, some square, some circular were pressed right into his face. He could hear beeps and clicks, whirring and strange noises like hissing and gargling. He blinked and was relieved, he wasn't aware, he was alive.

'He is now operating at ninety-four percent and maintaining spacial awareness. Secondary systems are operating at above level grades and his primary functions have reached optimal efficiency. He is now aware.'

Flashes of anger and pain blared into his mind as he tried to focus on the voices, the whirring became louder and more hurried and then his vision began to focus. He was inside something, something small and he was floating. He was only now realising he was suspended in thick viscous liquid, clear and sticky. He tired to flounder but he could not feel his arms or legs. He moved his eyes down but was awarded a sight not of his own body. His vision crackled and fizzed like a data recording, static lines hazarded through his vision and he could make out two figures, giants of men.

The first was a daemon from his ever shifting dreams, a steel golem with spiders arms coming from his back, cutting and prodding, tearing and twisting. His face was hidden by a series of flashing lenses, shutters reacting to every movement of his helmeted head. There was something wrong about him, the way his body was hidden beneath a robe of steel links, coloured red.

The second was even more imposing, a black giant, encased in massive plates of rounded ceramite thicker than a man's chest. He towered over the red one, his black armour adorned with stamps and scrolls, reels of parchment as long as a man's arm. What drew the fear from him was the giants head, no helmet, no face, just a skull with burning red eyes that seemed to pierce his soul.

Then the giant strode forward, his bulk stomping along the permacrete floor beneath him and it was then that he realised. He tried to laugh at this man who came towards him, this skull faced giant, he, who had been shut in darkness and silence for so long was in fact the giant. He towered above them, rising up to stare down, the sound of cogs and chains, pumps and pistons roaring through his mind as he became fully aware of just how much control he had over himself. He was free from the darkness and he was a god.

'Brother Typhot. Welcome back to the brotherhood. May you serve Him, forever.'