A/N: Hello y'all. I got this idea off a dream and couldn't settle until I put it down in words. This is rated T for some little angst but unless you're afraid of the dark, there isn't any trigger warning. Enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the major characters.
She didn't know where she was.
Everything was dark. She opened and closed her eyes several times, hoping they were only having a hard time adjusting to the light, or the lack of it, that surrounded her. Everything remained dark.
Everything was silent.
She could hear her own heavy breathing, as if her body was trying to warn her about the danger her eyes weren't aware of. Her pulse was unsteady, and she could feel the blood vividly running through her veins.
Her mind was screaming fear.
Her whole body was sore, but she knew she had to move. Slowly and letting cried whispers escape her lips, she managed to sit down, so she could check with her hands if her limps were still attached to her.
Luckily, they were.
She couldn't remember anything that had happened in the past few hours. Her last memories were of the Doctor picking her up on Earth and two seconds later them popping up at some random planet, one that she had never been to before.
The Doctor.
For the first time, she started to panic. The Doctor wasn't with her, and that made her even more scared. Not only because she feared being forgotten in that dark room, she feared for him, because if they had gotten to her, they could have gotten to him too. And for being the last of this kind and the savior of worlds, she could only imagine the kind of treatment a devious species would put him through.
And she knew he would willingly give up his life if it meant saving hers.
She had to get up. She needed to find a way out of there, wherever there was. She wondered where she was, what species habited that planet and especially, why they needed to little light, perhaps no light at all. Didn't they have a sun? Was the darkness a way to protect themselves? Were they blind? Were they such a primitive species that didn't know yet the concept of light?
Or maybe, just maybe, she was thrown in a deep dark pit in the ground.
Carefully, she dragged herself across the floor, until she found the nearest wall, so she could lean against it while trying to stand. Once up, she was afraid to take the first step, not knowing what obstacles laid ahead of her. For the first time in her life, she realized how much she actually relied on her sight.
But she couldn't give up, not just yet.
Always with a hand against the concrete wall, whilst another hung lose in front of her, just to make sure she wouldn't come across anything that threatened her way, she started to walk. Her steps were uncertain, a new adventure every step she took. For all she knew, the next one could easily lead her it an unending hole.
She couldn't die. She was barely thirty years old.
She wanted to call out for the Doctor, he always showed up when she called for him, but her voice was stuck in her throat. She kept biting her lower lip, as she had an habit of whenever she was anxious or nervous.
Or scared.
After walking for what seemed miles, her left hand touched some cold piece of metal. She wrapped her fingers around it and it didn't take her much to realize where she was. She was behind bars.
Then, she really started to panic.
She ran her hands by every pole, until she hit the wall at the other side of the room. Her heart was racing. She couldn't get out, she was stuck in a jail somewhere in some place in some planet in some galaxy and there was nothing she could do.
Except wait for him.
"Hello?" she cried out, in the hope anyone anywhere would be listening. And she waited for any kind of answer, but the lack of it couldn't mean anything good. She tried out again: "Is anybody there?"
She still got nothing.
"Doctor? Where's the Doctor? What have you done to him?" she kept trying, in the hope that something she said would make them come for her. Maybe there were deaf as well, and she was simply left to rot in that jail cell.
A lonely tear ran down her cheek.
She took a few steps back, without using anything for guidance, even if there were no guarantee of what was laying around her. She closed her fists tightly, taking long breaths to ease her down. Her eyes remained wild open.
Even if there were nothing but darkness before them.
"I'm Clara Oswald" her voice started as a whisper, but quickly took life of its own. "I'm Clara Oswald, I've traveled the stars and I've seen things not many people have the opportunity to see. I've seen planets die, I've seen civilizations come to an end, I've seen kingdoms fall and reigns be born. So trust me when I say thing: I am not afraid of you"
But she was afraid of what they might do to her.
"So if you want to try and break me? Go ahead. But there's a little warning, I may be small but I'm very tough, and I can take a high level of pain. But if you want to hurt me, break me, anyway? Well, then just be aware that when the Doctor fins me, finds you, he will end you. So if I were you, I'd think twice before laying a finger on me"
Everything remained silent.
She fell down on her knees, trying her best to stabilize her breathing. She hid her face in her hands, the stream of tears wetting her pals, only then giving her the knowledge that she was crying. Her mind was giving to fear, as much as she tried to remain strong.
Because, for her, crying was a sign of weakness.
And weakness was a sign of vulnerability.
And vulnerability was an open door for them to break her.
She hated feeling so scared. She was no more than a powerless girl stuck in a room with no way out and as clever as she had been previously to find her way out of dangerous situations, she couldn't bargain for her life if there was no one to bargain to.
She had been dumped like trash.
At least she appeared to have been. She didn't know what had happened to her, she couldn't remember, nonetheless there were no way of foreshadowing what were their plans for her, if they had any. Either way made her fear for her life. She could starve her way to death or she could die in the hands of her captors, whoever they were.
After all the aliens she had defeated, there was a long list of those seeking revenge.
Her hands trembled at the thought of the future that laid ahead of her. A desperate and loud sob escaped her lips, as if she didn't care anymore that her kidnappers saw the weakness on her. She had never been good on hiding her emotions, and it all came like a tsunami on her. She kept waiting and hoping for the TARDIS to magically materialize itself in front of her and save her from that nightmare.
A nightmare she was trapped in with no way out.
She let her body collapse to the hard cold floor, not having any encouragement to keep exploring the place. She didn't have any strength left inside of her, as much as it wasn't like her to give up that easily. A single tear slid from one of her eyes to the other, until it fell it the ground.
She just wanted to go home.
Clara closed her eyes, not that it made any difference, but it made her slightly better. She wrapped her arms around her body, her knees up to her chest and she allowed herself to lie still until some kind of hope would come to her again.