A corridor: plain, grey and normal. Nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing at all really. Just white-washed walls, metal floor and a dull ceiling. Backing into it he knows, deep down, what's going to happen next. It's not hard to figure out. In fact it's simple, but he doesn't want to admit it, not even to himself. Not that there's anyone else. Everyone's dead. He might be the only one left.
No, he can't believe that. He must believe that they are still there. He must. Otherwise, what's the point of it all? What's the point of all those people dying, being murdered, getting executed? Not much if he's the only one. No, he's not alone. He's never alone.
The gun. He feels the cold metal in his hand and tightens his grip. He will go down fighting. That much is sure. They turn the corner and follow him. He keeps firing. He must give him time. The time he asked for. He knows the bullets are running out and they're not having any effect.
And then they run out. He drops the gun and pulls out his reserve. If a full-blown rifle didn't kill them he knows a pistol won't, but he keeps firing, fighter to the end. They stop, as if surveying him.
Metal casing, clean and fresh. It's smooth enough to touch but he doubts if anyone has got close enough, even if the thing has ever been touched. Its swivelling eye always following him. But there's nowhere to move anymore. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. No way of cheating death. The eye freezes, the blue zooming in on his face, identifying him as the enemy. The bullets run out, the firing ceases and he throws the gun aside, the spell broken.
Bolts of blue light. Rays shooting out at him in the darkness. They connect with him and every pain receptor in his body flares. It's like a thousand burning needles have all been shoved into him at once. His head feels like it's going to explode, his muscles contracting and convulsing as he is thrown backwards onto the floor. He sees his own bones in a bright blue shock wave and knows that his time has come.
The darkness is all around him, sucking him in, swallowing him whole. Leaving nothing, tearing at him, pulling him apart. So this is what death feels like. So much for all the writers that say you don't feel anything after death. He can feel everything and none of it is good. None of it at all.
But something is forcing its way in, something that's not black but is golden and good and pure. It makes him think of him. Maybe he's helping. The first thought was joy. The second: joy and the third: joy. There was no other way to describe it. He had cheated death so often that he knew he must be nearing his time and he never considered the fact that he might be snatched from the jaws of death quite so late. But then again, he wasn't complaining.
The light suddenly goes. The blackness returns and he just has time to form one thought: "NO!" before black becomes white and white becomes colour and he is back in the corridor, This bland, bleak bit of corridor, his fighting, dying and resurrecting ground. The best bit of corridor in the universe.
He's gasping for breathe, having not breathed for a minute. But all thoughts of that and anything else are pushed to the back of his mind as he hears the familiar grating of the tardis leaving. He has a second of pure panic and sheer terror before his instincts kick in and he races into the room where the tardis should be. All he can see is the fading of the blue police box he once called his home.
Years later he thinks back to that corridor, the endless hours he spent pacing there.
That corridor was bleak, gun casing ridden and the place where he looked the creature in the eye.
But most of all it was where he died, was resurrected, abandoned and condemned.
He never thought that this man would do any of these things to him, but he was always getting betrayed and abandoned so why should this have been any different.
He didn't really blame him or her; he blamed the creature, who looked him in the eye. For it was that creature who captured him 20 years before, who tortured his friend and then sent him on his way and finally killed him. That was the creature that he hated and feared.
All Time Lords did.