Trial and Error
Prologue
A boy sat alone in the sewer, his dirty jacket barely keeping him warm while the moonlight showed his frosty breath bursting forth from chattering teeth. He held himself closer, begging himself not to cry, not to make those tears that froze on his cheeks appear and be wiped away. They were so painful when wiped away; he could barely stand it.
He felt the wind begin to pick up, strangely sounding in the night air. This was no normal wind…..he knew the frozen winds quite well. This one had an odd feeling about it…a sort of whirring noise, becoming louder and louder with each beat. In the distance he saw a light, pulsating slowly as a large blue box formed beneath it.
The boy walked towards it, his frozen surroundings temporarily forgotten. This massive blue box, with its strange light on top, had appeared from absolutely nowhere, in the middle of a sewer, without wheels or masts to support it. He saw the outline of a door, and began to reach for the handle.
Suddenly the door burst open and a figure covered in shadow fell onto the ground with a very loud thud.
"Ah!" The boy screamed, falling onto his behind.
"Ah! Ah! Ah!" the figure yelled back, what appeared to be pale spindly hands covering its head. The head looked upwards, revealing a human face, dark eyes and hair that looked like the person had just put their finger in an electrical socket like in the cartoons. He jumped up very quickly, hands balled into fists on his hips. He wore a dark brown trench coat, that almost looked like something Sherlock Holmes would wear, and it looked very much too big for him.
"You are a child." He declared, looking down at the boy. He stretched his jaw a bit, tongue flicking in and out, seemingly counting all of his teeth. He pushed his hands through his hair, looking slightly confused. "Hair's a bit thinner this time. Almost kind of a wavy feel to it. That's different." He looked towards the boy again, who only sat on the ground, mouth wide open in absolute terror. A look of concern crossed the tall man's face. Then his eyebrows leapt towards his hairline, as if in a sudden realization, and he leaned down on one knee towards the boy.
"I'm sorry for having startled you, is this your home?" He did a quick spin on one knee, taking in the total space of the area. "A little bleak for a twelve-year-old human, don't you think? I'd suggest a quaint little piece of suburbia for you." He looked at the boy again, still as a statue with his eyes wide in fear. "Oh no no no! I'm sorry, I'm just awful. Please, allow me." He offered one hand out towards the boy. "I'm the Doctor. I'm not here to hurt you." A warm smile broke out across his face.
The boy's mouth closed, finally, and he slowly reached out his hand as well, eyes still wary and on the edge of terror. Once his small hand was inside the taller man's, the taller man leapt back onto his feet, which the boy screamed at again for the sudden change in position.
"Ah!" He backed away again.
"Ah!" The Doctor yelled once more, his back slamming into the blue wood of the police box. He clutched the back of his head. "Ooo, I hope the regeneration will take care of that bruise quickly…." He leaned over, interrupted by a hacking fit that ended with a single puff of golden light escaping from his mouth. He grinned again. "I always love that part," he said, "bit like my own personal internal combustion organ fireworks show." His attention snapped back to the boy again. "Right, still a bit lost. May I ask your name, frightened boy?"
The boy took one step forward, sensing that this man would not be as cruel as the others. "Jake," he said. "My name's Jake."
"Any last name?" the man asked, leaning down again so as to be at eye level with the boy.
"No."
"Ah, well, who needs them. I've never found a need for more then one name at a time anyway. Right! So!" He said, grinning foolishly, then clapping his hands together, and looking at them strangely, as if seeing them for the first time. "Time to examine the environment!" He began to shove his hands in his pockets excitedly, like a boy looking for candy on Halloween. At one point his hand went in so far his entire arm was swallowed up to his shoulder, and the look on his face was one of struggle, as if he were pushing a very large object. "Dumb cabinets always get in the way….ah, there we are!" And he pulled out two objects that had very opposite levels of strange.
One was an old pair of spectacles, with ear pieces that wrapped around the back part of an ear and made of very thin metal. The other was an oblong silver object, with a dark green orb at the end of it. He pushed one of the buttons and it gave off a green light, a small, steady beep following in the process. He wrapped the glasses on, his eyes turning huge and almost bug like afterwards. He strode into the one spot of moonlight very quickly, as if he were in a constant hurry.
"Right, so, sewer, moonlight" he looked upwards "Grate, that's good, must be Earth at some point, but something is off…." He spun in three circles very fast, clutching his head afterwards. "Shouldn't be so quick just after the regeneration, could cause a bit of cubobbling…hm." He stared at his feet, the bug eyes poised curiously. He then looked over at the boy named Jake again. "There's no water in this sewer." He leaned down, slapping his hand against the concrete four times, putting his ear to it. "No sound of water either. At what point on Earth was there a sewer that didn't have water or any water nearby? Even the Romans had sewers to some extent, not very good ones, they were awfully rank…."
The boy stepped forward once more, absolutely confused by every thing this odd man kept spurting out like a river of knowledge. "Wait, what was your name again?"
"I'm the Doctor. Second time I've said it now, some people, just don't seem to lis…Oh!" He said, slapping himself in the temple. "How could I not even think!" He jumped towards the boy, who was wary again. "Jake! Wonderful, cautious Jake, tell me, where are we?"
"Um….we're in the tunnels, sir. Where I've always been."
"Tunnels? Tunnels of where, exactly? Do you know the planet name?"
"Planet...? Sir, I'm very confused." He sat down, face all scrunched up with trying to understand what exactly this man who fell out of a blue box was.
"Come now, you must know something about planets, it can't be THAT far back, can it?" He took a closer look at the wall, putting his ear to it, then taking the silver object and flashing its green light once again. "Something's strange about this wall. How long have you lived in these tunnels, Jake?"
"My whole life, sir. I've not known anything else."
"Well that's an awfully curious predicament there, Jake. Y'see these tunnels are built like sewers, but sewers that don't run water or drip all creepy like. There just HAS to be something I'm missing…." He twisted a little spoke on the silver object once more and pointed it more definitely at the wall, allowing the long beep to last for several seconds. Two intersecting white lines began to appear, forming an X.
"Curiouser and curiouser…X marks the spot, they say. But a spot for what? And who would put it right here, right after another one of my many deaths?" A bright flash blinded the boy and the man for a moment. Once their eyesight adjusted once more to the awkward change, a red, shining, massive X was burned into the wall at the opposite end of the tunnel, still steaming from whatever force had put it there. "Isn't that just confusing as always!" The Doctor ecstatically shouted, beginning to step towards the X.
A whisper was heard in the darkness, then a deep growl began to rumble. The Doctor took one step back, his hands up, staying in the moonlight. Slowly he backed up, allowing the head of a massive hound to be revealed, its paws the size of sewer lids, its teeth dripping with saliva and slime. "Okay, big scary monster with huge, gnashing teeth." The Doctor spun around to the boy. "And a young child for said monster to possibly consume. Not a very favorable scenario. RUN!" he said, snapping his fingers.
Instantly the door of the blue box opened, bursting with a bright light that blinded the hound temporarily. The boy still lay on the floor, his eyes fixed on the beast, when the Doctor ran past, picking him up in one swoop, with surprisingly strong arms. He leapt into the blue box, the door closing behind him and a simultaneous crash being heard on the other side of it, as well as the sharp scratching of wood. The boy was panting, so much adrenaline pumping through his bloodstream he didn't know what to do when he finally looked around.
He was in the middle of a cavernous room, much too big to possibly be contained by the box he had seen this man fall out of, that had a massive glass pillar in the middle reaching the ceiling. All the light seemed slightly bronze, and so many different bits and bobs creaked out from every corner of it that the boy couldn't possibly process it. He had never seen so many things in one place in his life.
The last thing he saw was the kind man's face, panting as well but also laughing, as he looked down at the boy and his expression turned to concern. "Jake? Jake?" he heard, his vision slowly fading. "Jake, can you hear….." He fell into a cushiony pillow of black, unconsciousness being sweet release from the most important and confusing day of his young life.