He could feel his hands blazing.
NO
He would not. No more. He could not.
"I will not regenerate!" He screamed, plunging his burning hands into the snow.
But the whiteness just sizzled away as bright plumes of light twirled upwards to the grey sky.
I don't want to go. Please.
He could feel the burning trickle up his arms as his atoms were remade. As he was remade.
Soon there would be nothing left of him.
Why?
Each time he lost himself he wondered if there would be any left after the shooting light dimmed.
Did he not deserve peace? Did he not deserve rest?
Gone.
He was alone again.
In his pain he cried for a warm hand. But he was the protector. He, alone, remained.
Bill.
She was gone and he did not save her. She was good and pure and kind and gone.
Gone and all he was left with was a cold empty box and a fleeting song.
They would all leave, one way or another, no matter what he did. But he remained.
Help.
Sometimes, it took all he had to resist falling into the darkness and never returning.
He had worked and cared for lifetimes, yet there was still darkness, there was still hate. Hope, after millennia, tarnished and broken.
Please.
The burning travelled higher now. The snow, barely visible through the haze of light. His knees, screaming, sank into the white, but the cold did not reach him.
No.
Why must he suffer?
He had tried so hard to be a good man.
no
The man did not notice as he fell.
He heard little except the breath clawing up his throat and dancing into the air beyond.
help me
But he was alone in his plea.
Doctor.
The voice appeared with little more than a whisper.
Doctor.
Doctor.
Doctor.
Doctor.
Doctor.
More and more of them slowly began to build, layering and clambering over each other and they reached his ears.
Let me die in peace.
But the voices persisted, calling to the dying man.
Doctor.
Doctor.
Doctor.
Doctor.
Doctor.
Doctor.
He screamed as the light grew and grew around him, blinding him to the surroundings.
But the voices remained, calling, washing over him with faces and memories.
no
Pain and anger and loss. So much loss. He could not bear the past.
Doctor, they called again.
Pain and loss, he saw, but joy too. The love and smiles and embraces began as a trickle, then a wave, then a flood.
The happiness refused to burn away under the light.
Those faces and voices of his many lives whispered and called and comforted and as the inferno reached its peak, screaming out from him,
and he was no longer alone.