fear, freeagency and the future

The doors have opened. 
The Grand Councilor takes you by the hand and leads you down the velvet red spiral of stairs, down from your home into a strange place, a strange land. 
It's not what you were expecting, despite the rumors, and you want to run, you want to return home. 
This place isn't like your home at all; assemblies of faces you don't remember look down at you, though you came from higher then the sky. 

The sky. All you can remember is sky; everything now is cloudy, fogs of fresh experience woven with mists of forgotten memories. 

The lights are bright here; not the brightest you've seen, but of course your eyes are different now: to them, the light is only pain. 

And voices. The air--so cold, who knew there existed such a cold?--is filled with voices you cannot name, names if you knew you could not speak.
Help! you want to cry, but all you utter is a helpless sound; a child's sob, a nervous, fearful disaster of emotion.
Where is your father? He would know what to do.