The room was quiet. But it was the kind of quiet you can hear. The soft cool cylinders of nothingness just palpating your eardrums.
Tommy stood in a dusty old storeroom about ten by ten feet. He realised it was a cellar, like the one at the cobblers' shop he used to work in. Yes, that's where he was. He took a few steps, his clogs breaking the pleasant silence. As he walked, he began to make out wooden boxes filled with bits of shoes, leather and laces. There would be a tongue here, a sole there, it looked like a shoe hospital. That's it, "shoe hospital". That's what he used to call it.
But it all felt so strange. He couldn't quite put his finger on it but something wasn't right. it was then that he remembered that the cellar was pitch dark, so he shouldn't have been able to see at all. Then he heard a soft padding. It wasn't like the clear clunking his clogs made on the stone floor. No, more of a muffled tapping.
"Hello, Tommy", the voice came behind him.
He whirled around to see a man in a long coat, a pair of funny shoes and a pin stripe suit, complete with badly tied tie and a youthful, slightly mischievous grin on his face. The Doctor. He was dreaming again.
"Doctor?" he said, "I thought this place was weird".
"Well", said the Doctor, in a sort of I told you so tone, "you made it. Straight out of your subconscious. And we're in a room. A dusty old cellar by the looks of things, a sort of – ", he glanced at the wooden boxes lying around, "- shoe hospital". He took a sharp breath of air through his nose.
"That's what I used to call it too", replied Tommy.
Nodding, the Doctor went on. "Yeah, 'shoe hospital', great minds", his voice raised a good octave.
"I may have made this room", said Tommy, "but I'm sure I didn't make you. I've never met anyone like you before. I've dreamt about Al-Mon so many times, but the other night was the first time I met you".
The Doctor frowned. "Yes, Al-Mon", his voice was now back to normal, and his grin snapped back to a pensive frown. "But why isn't he here now?"
"Should he be?"
The Doctor looked at him. It reminded Tommy of the time Mr Clarence, his teacher, had looked at him when he still didn't understand the multiplication of fractions, even though it was the third time he had explained it to him. Except that he didn't expect the cane from the Doctor.
"You don't know, do you?" said the Doctor.
"Know what?"
"Suppose I should start at the beginning", grumbled Tommy's companion, scratching the back of his right ear. "Are you ready?"
Tommy nodded, reluctantly.
The Doctor began. "Well, firstly you're right. Unlike anything else in this place I am real. Well, sort of. Well, I was. Well, hopefully I will be once again, and you can make that happen. I'm a Timelord. I come from a planet called Gallifrey, and I spend my life travelling around the universe in a blue box fighting, and occasionally running from all sorts of monsters".
Tommy's eyes betrayed his confusion. "No, really", countered the Doctor, "that's who I am and that's what I do. But recently one of those monsters trapped me".
"What in my nightmare?" asked Tommy.
"Oh you're really bright, aren't you", smiled the Doctor. "An Oneiric Wraith, that's what he is. Not actually too strong, but he does have one thing going for him. He's a master of the Membrane, that wibbly-wobbly line between what's real and what isn't. Reality and fantasy. Dreams and, well, the world you live in the other two-thirds of your life. I'd cornered him in a church tower when he used the sonic resonations from the church bell to power his transference and maroon me here. In your nightmare? Still with me?"
"But this isn't exactly a nightmare", replied Tommy, a little confused and looking around himself. "I mean it's weird, but there's no sign of Al-Mon and we're not being chased".
The wind suddenly driven from his sails, the Doctor seemed to screw up his face. "Oh, yeah. We're not are we?" He started to pivot around on the spot, glancing in bird-like movements now here, now there, as if the answer may be written on one of the walls. "Ah!" he suddenly exclaimed, as if the answer was indeed written in front of his face. "What did you eat before you went to sleep?"
"Roast beef followed by cheese and biscuits".
"That's it!" exclaimed the Doctor. "His reality transference does draw strongly on the agitation of the REM state sleep of the dreamer".
"What does that mean?" asked Tommy.
"That he's banished me to your nightmares", said the Doctor, pausing and scratching himself on the back of his left ear, "and your cheese dreams. Cheese dreams too. But cheese dreams are great, I love cheese dreams", he went on, grinning like a schoolboy, "you can have loads of meaningful conversations in a cheese dream. And we have a lot to talk about. Tommy, I'm trapped in your nightmares and I need your help to get out. That thing, that creature, whatever it it that's chasing you", Tommy interjected ,"Al-Mon".
"-that's it, 'Al-Mon'", the Doctor went on, the word no longer foreign to him, "you have to destroy it".
"But why me?"
"Because you created it. It came out of a dark corner of your mind. When the Oneiric Wraith created a door in the membrane, its transference mechanism centred on the person in its vicinity with the strongest nightmare: you. There were quite a lot of people in that church. What was going on?"
Pushing back the boundaries of reality, straining to remember exactly what he had been doing, Tommy finally recalled. "It was a funeral. My best friend Archie".
"I'm sorry, Tommy", said the Doctor, now genuinely sad, as if he understood exactly what Tommy was feeling. He continued, the usual sharp tone of cheekiness now totally gone from his voice. "The transference mechanism sought you out and trapped me in your nightmares. Now I get chased through your dreams with you. I'm so sorry".
"Why are you sorry, at least I have someone to protect me now".
"I'm sorry because I can protect you here, but not in the real world. As soon as the Oneiric Wraith finds out it's your dreams I'm in, he'll come for you. at the moment I only exist inside your head, so to kill me, it has to kill you".
"We were both wrong. This is a nightmare after all".
"A nightmare you need to beat", insisted the Doctor.
"But how?" demanded Tommy.
"You need to find out what it is. What inside you created Al-Mon. then, if you can get to the church tower where the hole in the Membrane was formed, if you can stop Al-Mon I should be able to get back into reality".
"But I have no idea how to defeat it", said Tommy.
"Then you'll have to find out how", countered the Doctor. "You'll also need a sonic amplifier".
"What's that?"
The Doctor put his hand inside his coat and pulled out his shiny wand. Tommy forced a smile. "The wand that sounds like a kettle?"
"That's right", smiled the Doctor. "You may need help. Take this to the church tower and press the button at the top".
"But how?" asked Tommy, "how can I take something from a dream?"
"Well, the quantum aperture is still fairly close to the source, so I can force some small objects through it, but nothing remotely the size of a man".
"What does that mean?"
"It means when you wake up look under your pillow".
"But I've fallen asleep in the lounge".
"Alright, look around yourself when you wake up. But you need to be quick. The Oneiric Wraith as probably found you already".
"What?" asked Tommy.
"Seven", came the reply.
"What do you mean 'seven'?"
"'Leotard'", answered a woman in a pink dress about fifty years old.
He had woken up. He was still sat in the lounge and Countdown was now on one of the gameshow channels. He realised he was sweating all over, just like when he wakes from a nightmare. He tried to relax, but there was something pushing into his back. It took a great deal of effort, but he managed to swivel around in his chair. He felt a metal object with his hand, and pulled it before his face. He couldn't believe what he was holding before his eyes.
"Just a four, I'm afraid", came the voice of a young man from the television.
"And what's your word?" asked the host.
"'Wand'".