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| — The Ferryman |
Ruth, more commonly known as Noone, is the main protagonist of the audio-fiction series, The Sounds of Nightmares. After suffering from a series of horrible nightmares, her parents refer her to The Counsellor in an effort to cure her.
Background
Noone lived a rather lonely and troubled life. With no friends and a timid nature, Noone had become the center of ridicule among her schoolmates, who would taunt her and nickname her "No one", a name they would additionally scribble in her books. After falling ill with the "Water Sickness," Noone had begun to visit a doctor for her treatment, however, this doctor would conduct various procedures in order to treat her and better understand the sickness she suffered from. While at some point she was recommended to go on a short vacation, she had also become the primary subject to undergo treatment for a newly developed cure for the water sickness. News of the cure inevitably became the center of attention in the Counties, throwing her into the spotlight, appearing on television regularly. Her new fame gradually began to change her life drastically. Her television appearances resulted in her life being controlled by others, to the point that she could no longer choose her own clothing as the television employees made the decision of what she should wear. Her television appearances had additionally changed her reputation in school. The children who would bully her everyday, had now made attempts to suck up to her, ignoring their past misdeeds towards her. Although the Counties had begun to administer the cure to others, and had no record of reinfection, Noone felt the cure did not work for her as she could still feel something inside her body, but with no one to trust, she kept things to herself. Some time after she got sick and was administered the cure, Noone began to have terrible nightmares which resulted in her being admitted to the Counties Psychiatric Institute, where she was assigned to be treated by a counsellor, named Otto.
Personality
Noone is described as being a timid young girl. While she hesitates to talk about her condition at the start of the session, she quickly becomes more willing the more she understands the Counsellors room is a space to speak truthfully, revealing that she is comfortable with speaking her mind about herself and her life if given the chance, such as when she described her feeling of sadness when recounting how aphids devoured one of her flowers or her excitement when spotting a moth in The Counsellor's office. Noone appears to have an aversion to her past, as she is reluctant to speak more about her old home and family when asked, specifically in regards to her mother, relenting that she would rather not speak on them.
Noone has been shown to be intelligent, as seen when she is able to draw parallels between her nightmares and the pain that she feels in her life in the Counties. This is also demonstrated by her sophisticated analogies of the monsters she encounters in her nightmares and her ability to remember very specific details, such as words she didn't understand. She is also very keen to her surroundings, making sure that the Counsellor was always listening to her stories at times when she felt he was too busy taking notes. She is also shown to be persistent, as seen in the first chapter when she did not give up on trying to determine the shape that she saw in a painting.
Noone has been shown to be somewhat paranoid, as she has stated several times that she believes the water sickness she suffered from is what is causing all of her recent nightmares. Regardless of being told the cure for the water sickness has wiped it out of her system, she knows the cure did not work as she can still feel something lingering within her body, crawling, pulling at her organs and giving her a terrible itch. Noone will occasionally fall into distress as she thinks about how her life has fallen into turmoil since falling ill with the water sickness. With no real answers as to why she is having such peculiar nightmares, Noone becomes desperate to find any logical reason that could help explain things, as the Counsellor continues to deny her seemingly illogical reasoning, such as her claims that the cure may be what is causing her nightmares, rather than the water sickness, as her life did not suffer a major change until she was chosen to be administered the cure and brought into the spotlight on television.
Noone is aware of the Counsellor's beloved Cici and how she experienced similar nightmares as her. Although she is surprised to learn another person has had her experiences, the Counsellor refrains from telling her more. However, the longer they interact, the more she is able to piece things about Cici on her own.
The Sounds of Nightmares
The Workers in the Walls
- Main article: The Workers in the Walls#Plot
Noone meets with the Counsellor for the first time. She is at first reluctant to talk about herself or her past, but expresses sadness due to aphids eating at the flower her parents had given her. The Counsellor asks her a couple questions about her sleep quality. She relents, after being encouraged to speak truthfully, that she wakes in the night sweating and with a racing heart. Upon understanding that she is free to speak her mind in the room, she opens up about her feelings and tells the Counsellor that she can still remember her nightmares. The Counsellor asks her if she would like to talk about her recent dream and she accepts, requesting some juice to help her lightheadedness. After finishing her juice, Noone notices the Counsellor's painting; The Zahir's Gaze, and asks why it appears so blurry. The Counsellor explains that it's a hidden image and encourages her to let her mind wander and recount her dream while looking at it.
Noone begins recounting her nightmare in which she ventures through a Stone Giant. She begins the dream in a room with a window, where she looked out upon a snowy field, detailing how she was able to almost feel the cold, even within the dream, though it felt different to being cold in the Counties. She describes a feeling that told her she was lost inside a huge giant made of stone and drove her to proceed deeper into the veins of the giant to escape. She describes sliding into a new place, then pauses her recounting to say she's seen the hidden image, describing it as a tiger and two moons. The Counsellor tells her she hasn't seen the image yet and gently encourages her to keep looking.
Noone continues recounting her dream and describes an encounter with a mysterious figure; a huge man with a dripping face wearing a long coat and a fishing hat. Noone describes with increasing distress the impossible nature of the man and states that he does not belong to their world. After Otto calms her down, she recounts the rest of her dream, seeing the figure of a child running by. She describes following them into a room containing many pulsing passages 'like living ant tunnels'. In this room, she met the Workers; small, child-sized, mindless entities that remained shrouded in shadow even in light, things not quite there. She followed some into another room filled with various spinning gears, the Workers maintained these gears. After accidentally knocking over a wrench and alerting the Workers, she hid in a small space in which her dress got snagged between two gears. She was carried to another platform below before her dress tore, giving her the chance to escape while the Workers were distracted by the malfunctions caused by the caught piece of her dress.
Driven by morbid curiosity, Noone followed the sounds of agonized cries into another room with a floor covered in chains. There she encountered the first of the Prisoners, describing to the Counsellor the rotten smell of the chained man. This interests the Counsellor, since being able to perceive smells in dreams is very unusual. After regaining the Counsellor's attention, Noone recounts discovering that she had been inside the walls of the giant, and that there was a wider space outside. As she ventured deeper into the dark, she became too tired to continue, sitting down to listen to the ticking of the giant. Noone then spotted the shape of a child climbing into the room she was in. Noone rushed down to meet them and noticed a black, gooey-smokey substance stuck in their hair.
Together, the two of them peered into the next room, a grotesque workshop full of hideous contraptions and masks. In this room, they encountered the monster responsible for the projects in the workshop; a Tall Woman with chains trailing out from under her dress, with a presence that suggested she was the keeper of the Stone Giant. Before Noone could find out anything further, a Worker tried to attack her before being deterred by a bright light shining on it. Because of this, her and the gooey-haired child were able to escape the Worker. Noone pauses her retelling to think, saying that the rest of her dream is hard to describe, only remembering it 'shifted'.
Noone and the gooey-haired child swung their way across a gap on a giant pendulum and came to a room with a spiral staircase and ceiling that resembled the face of a giant clock. Noone and her friend ascended the staircase and came to a giant courtyard. After staring up at the circular walls of the building, Noone came to the realization that she was inside of a sort of mass-prison, filled with prisoners desperately trying to get free. Just as she came to this realization, she was confronted by the Tall Woman, the keeper of the Stone Giant, who grabbed hold of Noone's friend with her chains and dragged them away. Just as the Tall Woman was about to capture Noone, she woke up. Noone ends her recollection and the Counsellor sympathetically says that the Tall Woman seems the most disturbing.
Noone admits that the Workers scared her the most, even more than the Tall Woman, because they were hidden, like microscopic organisms inside the Stone Giant, working to keep it alive. However, unlike the Workers in the Stone Giant, she feels that the organisms hidden within her own body are trying to kill her rather than help her, and only she knows they are there, like the aphids killing her flower. The Counsellor assures her that there is nothing inside her and asks her about a phenomenon known as mutual dreaming, telling her that her ability to feel and smell in dreams is unusual and can indicate this phenomenon. He tells her that somebody beloved to him, named Cici, experienced dreams strikingly similar to those that Noone described. Noone interrupts to announce that she has finally seen the image in The Zahir's Gaze; an astrolabe. After reassuring her and agreeing to walk with her to her room, the Counsellor allows her to choose a piece of candy to end the session.
A Penance at the Bathhouse
- Main article: A Penance at the Bathhouse#Plot
Noone begins her second session with the Counsellor in much higher spirits than she did the previous session, opening with a question about a joke to which she never learned the punchline: 'What happens to a stone that has overcome its greatest fear?'. Otto admits that he doesn't remember the punchline either, but Noone is unbothered by this, excitedly pointing out a moth in the room and describing a vacation she went on, during which she would collect moths in her mother's plastic jars, fascinated by them. Otto attempts to get her to talk about her mother, but Noone refuses, saying her mother didn't share her interest in bugs. Otto then suggests that perhaps moths are Noone's favorite because she sees herself in them, that they are both vulnerable and 'caught in the spotlight' since Noone received a lot of fame after being administered the cure for the Water Sickness. Noone interrupts, saying she doesn't feel she has been cured of the sickness at all, and that she feels she is still in darkness, but that she wants to fly towards the light. Otto offers to be her guiding light, to help her leave her darkness behind. This prompts Noone to recount her latest nightmare, saying that she feels calm enough to talk.
Noone describes waking up on a rooftop and seeing a vast ocean with fishlike contraptions crawling ashore and letting out giant, bloated figures very similar in description to the Guests of the Maw. She saw that the destination of the bloated people was a crooked bathhouse in the distance. Noone then met another child by the name of Jester, named this because of his love of telling jokes. He attempted to tell her one, but paused for a while before finishing it, seeming as though he was missing 'parts of him'. Noone also realized at the same time that her headache is gone. Otto interrupts her retelling to point out that Jester seemed much more 'normal' than the child in Noone's last dream. Noone agrees that he seemed similar to kids she went to school with, but kinder. She says that she could feel Jester's presence just as she feels Otto's in the room with her, and asks if this could be an example of mutual dreaming. Otto is doubtful and encourages her to continue her retelling. Noone describes traversing the rooftops with Jester and seeing the masked figures buying goods from merchants. She and Jester reached a ladder at the end of the rooftops and Noone prompted Jester to tell another joke to stir his courage. Jester responded with the joke Noone had asked about at the session's beginning: 'What happens to a stone that has overcome its greatest fear?' He paused once again, seeming to have forgotten, and told her he'd remember it by the time he reached the bottom of the ladder.
Before she could follow Jester down the ladder, Noone was distracted by the presence of the same mysterious figure from the previous dream, a being Noone now calls the Candleman. Otto insistently prompts her to describe him, but Noone is unable to, describing him as 'a broken mirror', impossible to recall. Otto then insists that she put on a piece of machinery so she may undergo hypnotherapy to help her think back on the moment more clearly to better note details of the Candleman's description. Under hypnosis, she is able to picture him more clearly and describe him in greater detail. She realizes that he had been watching her every night she has had these nightmares, wanting her to open herself to the warped world. Despite Otto's interest in the Candleman, Noone's narration moves away from her encounter with him as she noticed a voice yelling in her dream.
Noone investigated the source of the shout and spotted one of the Bathers carrying away something that struggled in his grasp. She descended the ladder to follow and noticed that Jester had disappeared. Noone followed the man to the bathhouse and made her way inside the building. She found her way into a room filled with shallow pools of water and noted the polluted taste in the air, comparing it to the polluted stream by her apartment. Noone is thrown into a distress by this, and begins to scratch at her skin and break away from her narration to say she feels something still living inside her, making her itchy. Otto promptly removes the hypnotherapy apparatus from her head, bringing her out of the hypnotic state and reassuring her that nothing is living on her. Able once again to continue reciting her dream, Noone describes the grotesque scene inside the bathhouse and how she spotted Jester being used as a bar of soap by the biggest one of the bathers. Unable to save him, she attempted to flee, but accidentally alerted the bathers to her presence. The bathers approached her, beginning a chant to 'cleanse her'. She managed to escape into the storage room and attempted to climb out the same window she entered from. The biggest bather, the same one who had been scrubbing himself with Jester, broke into the room and pursued Noone. As he pulled her from the shelf, she threw a jar of corrosive white liquid onto his body, which melted him down, very likely killing him.
Noone admits that she felt a strange satisfaction from melting the man. She recounts her love of moths and realized she wasn't like the moth then, that she felt content in the darkness. After concluding her retelling, Otto observes her claims of actuality, and that the events taking place in her dream are really happening. Because of this, Otto makes the decision to conduct more research on her through experiments, starting with a nightly monitoring. Noone is upset by this and protests, but ultimately agrees to them if it means she can feel better and return to her home. Otto lightens the mood by telling her the punchline to Jester's joke; 'The stone becomes a little bolder/boulder'. After receiving another candy from Otto to mark the end of the session, Noone is sent back to her room.
The Theater of the Mind
- Main article: The Theater of the Mind#Plot
Before the recording of the next session begins, Otto is heard recounting the events of the previous night, explaining that Noone had vanished briefly from her bed while he monitored her sleeping. Otto goes on to discuss the similarities between Noone's dreams and Cici's as he works on a mysterious apparatus. He shocks himself on the apparatus, then Noone is heard entering the room, asking what he is doing.
After sitting down in the session room, Noone states that she now considers Otto a friend given all the time they have spent together talking. Otto informs her their session will focus on her conducting an interview with herself to better recall details from her recent dream. He prompts her to speak more about the Candleman, but she tells him she cannot tell him of her latest encounter with him without recounting the rest of the dream, and that the dream itself was much clearer this time. Noone asks to borrow a mirror in the room to speak to her own reflection in order to set the tone of interviewing herself. Otto tells her patients aren't allowed mirrors, but grants her it anyway. With the mirror in front of her, Noone begins to explain her latest nightmare.
She describes waking up in an empty car park so big it stretched to the horizon, so silent she could hear her own heartbeat loudly, and so lonely she couldn't bear it. She turned to see a shopping mall which opened its doors to her, enticing her to enter. She felt excited to explore and tells Otto that she felt she was in good hands inside the shopping mall. She was briefly disappointed by the emptiness until a voice on the speakers guided her to a toy shop. Upon entering, Noone was delighted to find that the shelves were stacked with all the toys she could ever want. She picked up a Lottie Potty doll from a shelf and played with it, but found herself becoming bored, saddened over the thought of growing up and losing interest in dolls. At this, the doll expelled a thick black liquid and Noone put it down. She looked for something else, noticing that most of the games were for two. A voice offered to play with her, though nobody was there. She eventually settled on a jewelry-making kit with a red pendant on the cover, but felt a weird feeling overcome her, prompting her not to use it and set the kit down. The toy store closed after she set the jewelry-kit down.
As Noone Makes her way up a flight of stairs, she encounters a bijouterie. Noone misread this word, prompting Otto to ask her about being able to read in her dream. She tells him that isn't a question she would ask herself, and continues her retelling. She describes being drawn to a jewelry case in the center of the room containing a necklace with a red pendant, the same as the one on the jewelry kit. Another voice on the speakers announced a free gift for all girls ten or under, and she eagerly took the red necklace. She then heard an argument on the PA between two voices, one arguing to not overdo the gifts, and the other claiming that one more wouldn't hurt. A rack of dresses rolled out in front of her, all her size, and Noone felt a sense of déjà vu, as the rack contained the same dress she wore when arriving at the CPI. She wonders aloud why her real life is mixing into her dreams when it hasn't before, and answers her own question by saying that 'they' can see inside her head. She is finally led to a movie theater on the third floor, where she was shown her favorite film. She noticed that there were details in the film that were wrong such as the unicorn's misshapen horn and the prince's face being different. She looked around, feeling out of place, only to find out that she was the only person in a theater full of mannequins. This was when she had her third encounter with the Candleman. For the first time, he spoke, telling her a riddle: 'The faraway drifts near. Tread long, then sink deep. Two flows from one, and here, is whole again'. Otto is greatly interested by this encounter and tries to get her to interact with the dream and ask the Candleman questions, despite her telling him it doesn't work that way. Otto continues to press, growing increasingly more frustrated as Noone's headache worsens. The argument comes to a peak as Otto storms from the room, leaving Noone alone.
When the recording restarts, Otto notes that Noone is up to something with the mirror before apologizing for his prior outburst and encouraging her to continue recounting her dream. She reluctantly continues, describing getting up from her seat and breaking into the projector room, where she discovered a fleshy mass and a misshapen eye in place of the projector. The voice, once again pulling details from her life from inside her head, addressed her as 'No One', the nasty nickname given to her by her schoolmates which eventually became her alias, 'Noone'. She realized all the voices she heard around the mall were from this entity. She then came to the realization that the entire mall was alive, reading her mind to manifest various items from her life and the things she wanted in order to entice her to stay with it. Although it begged her to stay, she fled. She ran through the mall, which began to distort with distress and plead with her to stay. As the mall began to fall apart, she got one last glimpse of the Candleman pointing at the pendant on her necklace, which she quickly discarded. The Candleman reached a hand out to her before she finally woke up.
Otto attempts to ask her a question regarding the phrase 'warped by pain', but Noone doesn't respond, focused on the mirror in front of her, trying to see a sore she can feel behind her ear, the real reason she wanted the mirror all along. She asks herself one final question, which is why she has the dreams she does, and her answer to this question is that she is still infected with the Water Sickness. As she begins to reflect on how much her life has drastically changed for the worse, she falls into a panic. Otto comforts her and reveals that no one knows why she dreams, however, his old professor thought he did but believed they came from another world, his views were however, impossible to prove, hence unreliable and illogical. Otto reassures her that she will leave the CPI as soon as she is better before offering her her nightly candy and sending her back to her room, promising he'll come by later to check on her.
Two of a Kind
- Main article: Two of a Kind#Plot
At the beginning of the story, the Counsellor takes Noone to see the Reunion Room, where children that had been rehabilitated by the CPI reunite with their families. Noone is curious and asks if she can go inside. Otto gently denies, saying inpatients aren't meant to interact with outpatients, but agrees to get her a piece of cake from the room. As Noone eats her cake, Otto reveals to her that she vanished from her bed the night before. Noone is deeply horrified and in disbelief at this revelation, beginning to hyperventilate. Otto calms her down with a breathing exercise and she asks why he has brought her to the Reunion Room. Otto tells her that it is to show her that she will one day be in the room too, reuniting with her family and socializing with the other rehabilitated children. He tells her that she has to trust his treatment process if she wants to feel better and one day join the children in the reunion room to finally exit the ward. She begrudgingly agrees, but asks to stay longer, to which Otto agrees.
Later, the Counsellor and Noone prepare to begin their session. Otto attaches electrodes to her head and links them to the same E.E.G. machine that monitored her in her sleep, saying that it's to compare readings from her retelling with readings from her sleep. Noone is disturbed by the wires and machinery, comparing them to procedures and tests done on her by her old doctor who treated her Water Sickness. Wanting to get the test over with, she begins retelling her latest nightmare.
She starts by telling of her arrival at The Carnival where she met a group of teenagers who were circus performers at the carnival, including a boy named Rusty who did trapeze. As the performers chatted among each other, Noone looked around and found herself mesmerized by the lights. Rusty and the group then led her to a Ferris wheel that went so high, Noone was able to determine that the carnival seemed to be on a huge ship floating in the sky. She describes feeling happy and calm for the first time in a long time, but notices Rusty's demeanor shift, seeming suddenly to be very sad. Rusty points to the Big Top tent that he and his friends perform in, admitting that he hated performing, since a mysterious 'they' force him and his friends to perform there. Noone realized that they were on the Ferris wheel so he could discuss this with her without worrying about anybody hearing. As the wheel came down, Rusty explained that he wanted her to help him and his friends escape. Rusty instructed her to play lookout and to give him a signal if she spotted a man in a purple suit. During this, Noone reveals that the Nowhere is a physically real space, made up of interconnected places that work together but not as one. This revelation shocks Otto to a great extent and he tells her he must see it for himself, to understand the quiddity of consciousness and find Cici. Noone is upset by this, now knowing the true reason Otto is so interested in her case and is making her undergo all the experiments. She begins to hyperventilate again, disturbed by the electrodes on her head. Otto calms her down again and Noone asks to stop the session. Otto denies her this and demands she finish the retelling. Noone reluctantly continues, sounding shaken as she describes the rest.
Rusty and his friends got dressed up in their circus costumes and Rusty placed her in the front seat to look out for the man in the purple suit. The monstrous circus attendees then took their places in the audience, eating grotesque snacks that repulsed Noone. The show began, almost distracting Noone from her job as lookout. She found herself cheering for the amazing acts with the crowd. At the final act, Rusty's tightrope walk, the man in the purple suit appeared next to her. She also noticed a dummy sitting in his lap and was alarmed to discover that she could feel both of them breathing, and could feel the man look at her despite having no eyes. At this point, Noone begins to sound panicked again. Through shaky breaths, she describes seeing Rusty climb towards a rip in the tent to escape. Noone called out the signal, but he was unable to hear her and the Dummy disappeared from the man's lap, only for Noone to spot it creeping after Rusty. Her hyperventilating worsens and she becomes too panicked to fully finish her retelling. Before falling into incoherence, she describes seeing the Dummy lunge at Rusty. As Otto asks her questions about Rusty's fate, she falls further into a state of intense shock and panic, leaving her unresponsive to his questions and attempts to calm her down. Despite Otto's attempts to deescalate the situation, Noone passes out, bringing the session to an abrupt end.
A Deluge of the Inevitable
- Main article: A Deluge of the Inevitable#Plot
At the beginning of the recording, it is revealed that Noone had been right about something being off about her body. Noone's E.E.G. reading seemed unusual, so she was sent to radiology to get a brain scan, where it is discovered that she has a tumor in her brain.
At the beginning of the session, Otto gifts her a flower the same as the one her parents left her to remind her of his dedication to her wellbeing. Noone decides she wants to talk about her parents, since she feels she is losing a part of her to the Nowhere. Otto reassures her that she isn't the one changing, but the space around her. Noone becomes frustrated at this, protesting talking about the Nowhere, as she wants to talk about her parents and feels he does not care for her and only wants to use her to find Cici. After a minute of arguing and disagreement, she reluctantly agrees to proceed with the session on the condition that Otto doesn't use any machines on her tonight. Otto promises her this and assures her that she will enjoy the session he has planned.
Otto moves them to his room to begin a new role reversal therapy, where he attempts to enter a self-induced hypnagogia and she attempts to project her dream into his mind as she recounts her latest visit to the Nowhere. Noone admits that she doesn't believe it will work, before pointing out a photo of Cici in the room. Once Otto is settled in his bed, Noone begins reciting her latest nightmare.
She describes floating through a darkness with nothing under her feet before finding herself in a sewer, describing the sounds and smells, asking Otto if he, too, can sense them. Otto tells her he can't, and to keep trying. Noone continues her retelling, describing how she was taunted by a group of mean children from above the sewers. The sewer began to rumble and shake, and Noone noticed that the mean children seemed excited by this event, as though waiting for a yearly holiday. She fled down a tunnel and came to a junction where she caught a glimpse of a man carrying a sack over his shoulder. She ventured further into the tunnels and noticed a pipe blocked by something that seemed alive. It escaped the pipe and revealed itself to be a little cone-headed creature that she calls a “Little Mushroom Fairy”. Otto notes that it is the first friendly non-human being Noone has encountered, and Noone agrees, saying it belonged to the Nowhere, unlike her.
Noone noticed one of the naughty children reaching through the grate with a net to catch the mushroom fairy. Noone threw a brick at her and escaped with the creature, surprised when it walked away after she put it down. The fairy prompted Noone to follow it and led her to the sack-carrying man's maintenance room, showing her that he collected trinkets dropped down into the sewers by the people above. The fairy showed her a child's propeller cap on a chair, out of place, and the man entered the room, prompting Noone and the mushroom fairy to hide among the man's collections. While hiding, Noone watched the man reveal that the sack he carried over his shoulder was really the fluid-filled, balloon like back of his head. Noone states that she could tell he had not always been distorted like that, and Otto asks her to clarify, prompting her to scold him for still being awake.
The sewer shook again, disturbing the Balloon-Headed Man's piles, startling him into a rage and causing him to pursue Noone and the mushroom fairy until they reached a dead end. The naughty children continued to taunt them as the man approached. The mushroom fairy fled from Noone and she followed through the same passage the fairy escaped through. Just as she had nearly escaped the Balloon-Headed Man, the final, strongest tremor shook the sewer. She notices Otto is still awake, and he relents that he lacks the gift she did. This upsets Noone, who tells him she wishes she could trade places with him if only to be rid of her mental struggles and nightmares.
She continues her retelling, narrating how a wave tore through the tunnels, scaring off the Balloon-Headed Man and sweeping her away. She was swept up to the surface of the water, where she met the Candleman again. For the first time, she was able to speak to him, and asked why he brought her to the Nowhere. The Candleman responded with more riddles, frustrating Otto. Noone interrupts him to say she has solved this riddle already, and that he was telling her to give herself to the Nowhere to save herself from her tormented life in the Counties, from her sickness, and from Otto, who protests this, frustrating Noone further. In her anger, she tells him that perhaps Cici felt the same way she did, wanting to get away from Otto and feeling relieved when she vanished. This greatly upsets Otto and he storms out of the room.
After Otto is out of the room, Noone rummages through his things and finds her test results, finding out in the process that she has a tumor. She is horrified by the news and devastated that Otto hadn't revealed this to her despite the many times she had expressed sensing something was wrong. Tearfully, she finished her retelling, saying that the Balloon-Headed Man was opposite to the naughty children, since he feared the wave and the children looked forward to it, and left to her room after helping herself to two sweets instead of her usual one.
That night, Otto attempts to use the Apparatus to look into the Nowhere by attaching it to Noone's head, breaking his previous promise for fear that this night's vanishing will be her last. Noone wakes up briefly and protests. The audio cuts out and once it cuts back in, Otto says she fought to sleep until past midnight. As the apparatus functions, she is heard struggling in her sleep. Although Otto is successful in obtaining an image, the apparatus malfunctions upon revealing the presence of an eye radiating an intense light through the screen. Noone presumably disappears into the Nowhere not long after the apparatus malfunctions. Otto cries out her name before the recording ends.
The Lonely Way
- Main article: The Lonely Way#Plot
It is revealed by Otto that after the machine malfunctioned, Noone had disappeared for much longer than she ever had before, and that he feared her lost to the Nowhere for good. However, she reappeared in the ward's south-wing courtyard, but has now been confined to her room under constant surveillance.
Otto enters her room once more to negotiate with her about using the apparatus on her once again. She shows some clear mistrust and resentment towards Otto, telling him she doesn't want to talk to him and that he never really listens to her. He attempts to reassure her, telling her that he shouldn't have informed her of her tumor and that it's likely benign. She doesn't accept this, fed up with his constant using her to understand the Nowhere rather than treating the problems she was admitted to the CPI to treat. She is upset even more upon discovering that he hid the fact that Cici had also encountered the Ferryman, shouting at him and telling him what she has been through because of him; that she has undergone test after test and that her nurse doesn't let her sleep. Otto protests that his apparatus requires her to sleep deeply to facilitate mutual dreaming, and she reluctantly agrees to use the apparatus again if it means she can sleep in peace.
Back in the session room, the Counsellor links the Apparatus to both of their heads. The equipment alarms her and she requests to leave. Otto doesn't allow her to and offers her three of the sweets to 'put herself at ease'. She tries to deny them, but Otto sternly insists she take them. As she reluctantly eats the candies he made her take, she began to recount her latest nightmare at his request.
She describes drifting through a darkness for what she felt was a long time before waking in a cluttered room filled with clothing and fabric. Rummaging through a chest filled with smaller clothing, she discovered a yellow raincoat. A discovery which surprises Otto, prompting him to ask if anyone else was around. Noone says that only a puppet was around. The puppet attacked her, grabbing her leg as she approached it, but was quickly neutralized when Noone smashed a glass bottle over its head. Noticing that the music has stopped, Noone jumped into the clothes chest to hide. Looking through the keyhole, she spotted a mannequin-like woman, who noticed the state the puppet was left in, reopened the chest and began sewing torn clothing from it. Just before the woman was about to find her, she closed the chest and held the lid tight. As she describes this dream, she grows sleepier and sleepier, her voice growing flatter and her words sounding less coherent.
In the session room, Noone inevitably falls fast asleep and finds herself in a dimension between the Nowhere and her world, a place she has been to before with the Ferryman. Here, she floated through a darkness and realizes she is in a state where she is both awake and asleep. She understands suddenly that the darkness she is floating in is more of a dark mist. Looking around, she can see millions of bright, shining stars twinkling either above or below her. While Otto makes preparations to join her in the Threshold, she notices a door in the distance of the darkness, inching closer and closer to her, alarming Otto as she is seeing the door to cross into Nowhere. Noone hears a knock on the door, she answers the knock but is confused as to why she is answering the door. As the door opens, she sees the Ferryman standing on the other side of the door, welcoming her. The Ferryman speaks, still in riddles, puzzling Noone. Despite Otto's warnings, she takes the Ferryman's hand and steps inside the door, amazed to see winding stairs going in every direction and a giant red moon with stars in rings circling around it. However, upon closer inspection, she realizes the moon is a giant eye, while the stars are also eyes of every shape and size imaginable. Noone notices the eyes are looking at her and knows they are pleased by what they see. Otto protests, begging the Ferryman to let him cross over with her. The Ferryman responds with more riddles, and Noone realizes that he has been speaking to Otto all along.
She watches the image of the door change to show her an image of other children with blurry faces. She apologizes to Otto as the door drifts away from her and the Ferryman. The Ferryman welcomes her once again, referring to her by her real name, Ruth, and she ultimately accepts the invitation to enter the door and to stay in the Nowhere. As she watches the moon open, she sees smoky fingers inch closer to her.
After her body disappears from the session room, she realizes she has not entered a new location in the Nowhere and is still in the darkness, but does not seem to feel any sense of panic or need to resist. After a moment of contemplation, she realizes her body knew all along that 'it' hides in the darkness and had attempted to warn her. The door is heard closing.
Trivia
- Parallels that Noone drew from her retellings revealed details about her life.
- She was bullied at school and nicknamed "No-one" by her tormentors, who would often scribble her nickname into her books.
- Amidst the fame she received from appearing on television, the same children who bullied her had attempted to win her favor, disregarding their former treatment towards her.
- She appeared on television often as a result of being administered the newly developed cure to treat the water sickness. She would later hate appearing on television and disliked being controlled by the employees as she was not even allowed to select her own clothing.
- She wore a plaid dress upon arriving to the Counties Psychiatric Institute.
- She used to want a Lottie Potty doll, a doll designed to release a liquid to make it seem like it was using the toilet.
- Her favorite movie was "The Healing Horn"
- She loves bugs, nicknaming them "crawlies".
- She loves moths in particular as she is fascinated by their existence and way of life, such as how they are so easily drawn towards the light as if under a spell.
- While on vacation, she would collect moths in her mothers jars.
- Though she loves her mother, they do not share similar interests.
- She dislikes any experiments done on her, particularly any that involve inserting things into her body. This dislike stemmed from the experiments she experienced from her former doctor, who would insert tubes into her stomach.
- Noone used to live in an apartment with her mother and father that was next to a polluted stream. They have since moved into a fancier house.
- She started having nightmares some time after falling ill with the water sickness.
- Noone specifies a "Feeling" that tells her things and tells her what to do and where to go.
- In the third chapter, The Theater of the Mind, it was heavily implied that Noone was no more than ten as she was eligible for a gift that was offered to children ten years or younger.
- Noone's name in the French version is "Modie", a modified version of the French word Maudit/Maudite, which means "Cursed" in English.[1]
- In all other languages, her name is always a variant of "No one" or "Nobody."
- The artist for The Sounds of Nightmares cover art posted four pieces of concept art for the cover, each with a different interpretation of Noone's appearance. These concepts have since been deleted, as she "was not allowed to show them."[2]
- In celebration of 1 million listens of The Sounds of Nightmares, the Little Nightmares Twitter account posted an image of Otto's desk, which reveals Noone's patient number is #1229.[3]
