"Rose, hold on!" She heard his voice as through a long tunnel as wind rushed deafeningly past her ears.
She trembled in panic as she felt her feet get pulled roughly off the ground, her whole body in mid-air perpendicular to the lever to which she was so desperately clinging. I mustn't let go, I mustn't—because she knew what would happen if she did. The portal between the universes could only open once, the Doctor had told her. If she let go, they would be parted forever.
Terror gripped her as she realized that her fingers were slipping. The pull from the portal was too strong. Her eyes flickered to the Doctor, who was holding fast to a stone pillar, his face contorted in horror. "Don't you dare let go, Rose!" he begged her, but there was nothing he could do, she realized with a pang. Not without having to let go himself.
Another finger slipped and tears sprung to her eyes. No, not like this! Please!
"Rose…!"
She knew it a split second before she felt it. In that instant, in that one impossible instant, she looked at the Doctor and their eyes locked. Tears closed her throat as she tried to call to him. "I'm sorry—"
As if in slow motion, her final finger slipped and she was violently pulled backward into the void, into the darkness. The last thing she saw before losing consciousness were his lips forming her name.