Bring Me To Life
Prologue: And An Awful Lot of Running to Do
She felt...strange. Not the bad kind of strange, though, most definitely not; she was invigorated, full of energy, and her whole body was filled with a kind of warmth and luminescence, as though light were flowing through her veins instead of blood. Her hearts were pounding and she could feel them, both of them, the rhythmic pulsing starting in her chest and her throat and flowing outward so that her entire body was like one huge, solid heartbeat. She hadn't felt like this before.
Before. She'd been shot. The last thing she remembered was her father holding her, telling her that they'd travel together, anywhere she wanted to go. She'd known that it would never happen, that she was dying, but still she'd wanted to believe that maybe she would be all right - that she'd get to experience the joy and wonder of a life with him, just like Donna and Martha, and she saw it in their eyes; the Doctor changed you. It was all in his name, really. He made you better. And she wanted that so much that merely the thought of it made her feel like crying.
She'd died, she was certain of it, and yet she wasn't dead. The pain had gone, her eyes had opened...her father had left her. But she didn't blame him, because if she'd thought she was dead then he must have, too. And in a split second, filled with this new heat and energy and drive, she'd decided that she'd be like him. Travelling, saving people, running. If she couldn't have that life with him then she'd do it alone, and who knew? She might even find him one day. So she'd hijacked the shuttle and left that planet - that planet that was so alive now, because of him - behind, headed for the stars and a life of adventure.
And something had happened.
A blinding light engulfed her ship and she felt herself being pulled, yanked through space at an impossible speed, so fast that she didn't even get the chance to think what's happening? before it had happened already. The shuttle burst out of the light and into the open, and there was ground below, too close for her to pull up. She crashed. Not the best way to arrive on a brand new planet.
She'd been strapped in, so she was fine aside from a slight pain in her chest where the seatbelt clip had pressed into her. She couldn't say the same for the ship, though. Frantically pressing buttons and flicking switches, she realised that it was dead. Completely dead. She could probably fix it if she had the parts, but who knew if this planet was even inhabited, let alone that technologically advanced? She stared down at the controls blankly as despair washed over her. She could be stuck here. For the rest of her life, stuck here. No adventure, no excitement, no chance of finding her dad. Just this planet, for ever.
Suddenly, there was a banging sound that caused her to very nearly jump out of her skin; someone had found her shuttle, and was...knocking. Sentient life, then? Or just a curious monkey? She decided to find out. Unstrapping herself, pulling the switch that opened the exit hatch, she stepped outside and into the blinding sunshine of a brave new world.
A brave new world that had civilization. Breathing a sigh of relief, she took in the odd, tall sculpture and the huge sort of panel thing with strange words carved in it, a language she didn't understand. Looking down - her feet were on hard, paved ground. Then came a voice from behind her.
"Who are you?"
She whipped round quickly, to see a tall, handsome man in a long coat staring at her, his expression one of mixed bewilderment and curiosity. He didn't appear to be holding a weapon, so she let her muscles untense slightly. And gave him a friendly smile.
"I'm Jenny."
To be continued.