Traversing the Truth

[Haste]

When they dream, the Nomads - much like humans - cannot create original places or faces. The conscious or subconscious mind, respectively, can only recycle what has already been seen and draw from memories. A melding of two minds meant that twice the source material was available to pull from, but like a tailor who was blind they stitched a scene together with little context or regard for the end result. The irony was that there was a combination of elements that the targeted human mind would find soothing, and those that proved unnerving. Warm light glinted from behind soot-coated windows, set to the backdrop of a dead world mired in folly. A message conveyed through a scene rather than words, showing instead of telling. It was sound logic conveyed poorly, like a child mumbling their way through a language they had only ever heard but never spoken.

It was here that Vincent found himself, his consciousness whisked away from his Rebel. The air around him was freezing, and filled with the foul smell of sulfur. Although his surroundings were devoid of life, he could hear distant murmurs. A never-ending stream of undecipherable whispers.

[Caliban]

It was a puddle of presumed mud Vincent had "woken up" in. His eyes were fixated at the sky for a brief few seconds before getting up. The air around him had a foul smell, made stronger by the freezing winds. He straightened his back to gaze at his surroundings, yet despite them being "dead", the murmurs made them slightly more alive. Whether that was good or not was up for debate.

All he could see was a remote building - a house - that seemed to be inhabited. There was no other direction he could take. The feeling of being watched intensified by the minute, even more so than what he felt every single day after he tangled himself in the whole mess that was Kepler. With his heart beating madly and heavy breaths, he walked towards the house.

The closer he got, the more his vision began to blur, darken at its edges. The fear was overwhelming. Yet as always, there was no other path he could take. No other option. Pushed by the circumstances, he was a pawn in a bigger game. And he knew that it would get worse over time if he play his role.

[Haste]

As Vincent approached the building, the lights inside shifted slowly in hue. The warm, yellowish-white light made way for a colder light blue. The intensity was no longer constant, instead pulsating slowly. A subtle, humming noise could be heard emanating from inside the structure's walls.

The outside world, instead, grew quieter. The hundreds, thousands of voices - ranging from calm whispers to agitated screams - slowly faded away into the distance as Vincent got closer and closer to the building.

[Caliban]

It was at the door when Vincent noticed his surroundings truly go quiet and the light coming through the windows change their hue. He didn't know why he was doing what he was doing, and that included him walking up to an unmovable door that closed shut by an unknown force every time he opened it. And then he remembered a voice. The ominous voice that barged into his head. It came from a Nomad Warform, presumably. "We must unite our minds" he understood, yet cut off by the realization that he wasn't facing a Nomad anymore. That Locke wasn't next to him anymore. That he was alone in some sort of swamp.

And now that he was in front of a door. A metal door with etchings on the middle of it, incomprehensible at first glance.