The set of steps spiralled upward further than any of the previous had. It had been just as the top became visible ahead, a gargantuan hum became perceptible through the air, the growl of a beast, or perhaps a giant machine gently idling. Step by step he could see the light at the top seemed to be, by his perception, being reflected or manipulated in someway. Patches of light and shadow shimmered through the air ahead almost as if the light was travelling through water, it direction unreadable, its origin unknown.
Reaching the top, the stairs gave way to the unreal, the unknown, a thing of unknowable quality. A single massive orb, probably around 40 metres high sat levitated in the air about 2 metres above the ground. There was no ceiling here, no walls, only infinite space to contain this giant mystery and the unearthly hum it seemed to emanate so strongly. Its surface appeared to be a shimmering silver as if made from a liquid, yet the thing held its shape of a sphere perfectly well as if it were a solid. Stepping closer, the hum grew in his ears as he gained a closer look at the sphere unknown. It appeared to be ensconced in a thin blueish field that shimmered around it in a relaxed state and very close to the surface. He’d stepped up again and again, the thing unresponsive, seemingly unaware of his presence, if it had any awareness at all. He’d eventually stood directly at the sphere’s fore, its surface just an arms length away, its interminable hum permeating every atom of his being. Sure the thing posed no apparent threat, The Prisoner reached out to let his finger tips make contact with the surface. It was completely solid, betraying its illusion of having some kind of liquid surface, it was completely solid. But right in that moment, all too quickly to react, it was as if he was pulled inside the mercury object by a force invisible.
By some impossible means, he was flung into what seemed like several realities at once. An eyeball staring up at an infinite vista of stars, he’d fallen down through a blank void possibly above or below the star maker. The tiled cubicle, water from the shower head running over him, suddenly the space had instantaneously been filled with water, the liquid momentum sweeping him away under its waves. The white dog and the vulture, blue eyes, she’d emerged from the pale water, her eyes blank and lifeless, a delicate hand pulling her free. The king had screamed, turning the handle, the pale glitter of his opulent outfit catching the light, that had been when the world had watched from below, the vulture from above. The Prisoner floated in the water, a glass front, then he realised he was stood on the other side as well, the observed and the observer simultaneously. He’d never realised just how black his eyes had been, the water didn’t allow a reflection of light, yet his eyes had done just that.
This series of altering images, realities continued to play out, each one becoming faster and faster until they became a single blur in time. The images, experiences as real as life, yet as abstract as a dream. The Prisoner had realised he wasn’t dreaming, but that he was the dream, a thought existing in the mind of some incomprehensibly larger being. He’d got the sense this whole place, the prison existed inside this being, inhuman, alien, its intentions inextricable. It was with that thought that the bizarre sequence abruptly ended and brought him back outside the sphere again.
Mere seconds after coming to, the giant sphere had expanded, then suddenly shrunk immeasurably. First to half its original size, then to about the hight of The Prisoner, then the size of a golf ball before shrinking altogether out of sight. The vanishing of the sphere hadn’t phased him after the visions he’d witnessed and their lucidity, but instead he’d been left wondering if any of this, if any of what was happening was what it had first seemed to be. In fact it’d left him questioning his own existence, and where it stood with what was going on around him. He’d felt the interference of another, completely alien entity at work that had effects he couldn’t understand. It was as if the experience with the sphere had somehow awoken him to some larger reality, or that it had enabled him to perceive things he’d hitherto been unable to detect.
He knew Ukko’s Ladder had only one more floor until he reached the top, yet somehow he doubted the same thing was at the top as what it was when he first started out. But he followed the path to what ever oddity waited for him ahead.

CONCLUDES IN EPISODE 7