Prologue...
The group of four shushed each other as they walked up the dirty driveway towards the ancient abandoned mansion estate.
JJ, the youngest of the group, looked up at the building. It was almost like a mansion, really, she considered, large pillars and status of overgrown and mutated eagles lined the front wall, windows were broken, and the huge front doors were hanging off their hinges, it was almost funny, and she would have laughed, had she not been completely terrified at the appearance of the manor bathed in moonlight.
She turned to look at her friends, two of them were the oldest, a boy named Mason, a 25 year old who'd parked his truck by the road, and Rosie, a 23 year old that held on tightly to Mason's hand. She looked at the other member of their group, Damon, Rosie's younger brother, who was 20 going on 21. JJ was just 19.
Once more she looked up at the manor and swallowed.
"How did I let you guys talk me into doing this?" she asked them, in a whisper, but even that was enough to make Rosie yelp, "Sorry..." she added.
"You bet us that we wouldn't last a night in this place," Damon hissed, "Besides, what are ya?" he smirked, "Chicken?"
"Screw you, jerk," JJ snapped at him, still whispering.
"Shut up!" Mason hissed, "I've heard this place is haunted," he nudged Damon and smirked, "Demons lurking in the shadows, feeding off the fear of girls-"
JJ stopped abruptly and elbowed him in the stomach, causing him to grunt out and lose his breath.
"I hope you're wrong," She muttered, but then thought about it, "But maybe it wouldn't be so bad if one of them got you!" she hissed to him, resisting the urge to stamp on his foot as well.
"Can we just do this?" Rosie asked, "Then you'll have won," she said to Mason.
JJ frowned.
"Yeah, all right," he said and took the lead.
JJ found her hand in Damon's and she looked down at it as she walked with him. She looked up to find him looking at her and she withdrew her hand.
"Sorry," she said quickly and sped up to walk beside Rosie, folding her arms.
"Don't worry..." Damon mumbled, to himself, and slipped his hands into his hooded jacket pockets and followed his friends and sister as they passed the dirty, rusting sign with the words "Sanderson Institute" engraved and painted black onto the bronze-gold surface.
The Institute was dark, and damp. And scary. The moonlight almost threw itself through the windows, illuminating the dirty wooden floors in places, but it seemed to do more than that, it almost seemed to follow them, bend around the corners. Maybe she was hallucinating. JJ closed her eyes for a second, and opened them again.
Mason used his phone as a torch, occasionally pressing a button to keep the screen on bright. He said he wasn't scared, but the way he moved proved otherwise. Slow steps, cautious glances over his shoulder; just making sure he wasn't suddenly on his own.
Meanwhile, in another part of the...galaxy, well...another part of time, really. The Doctor stood at the controls of his TARDIS. He smiled warmly at the most magnificent machine in the universe as she hummed and sighed.
He thought back over his recent adventures and his smile increased. "We've had some good times, right ol' girl?" he asked, stroking the console lovingly.
"Are you talking to the TARDIS?" Clara Oswald's voice asked as she stepped over from the staircase.
They found the basement door, set into the wall under the stairs, and an old rickety staircase beyond.
"Shouldn't we check what was upstairs first?" Damon asked.
"Are you crazy!?" his older sister hissed at him, slapping him with the back of her hand across the arm.
Damon grimaced.
"Come on, we've made it this far," Mason said and pushed the door open further, with a squeak, which made JJ shiver.
At the bottom of the stairs they were confronted with a long, empty corridor. Complete shadow. JJ took a deep breath and both the girls (And Mason, again) yelped when Damon grunted and hit the floor.
Rosie squinted into the semi-darkness, and swallowed, "It's a door..." she said, "There's a door, down there," she pointed.
"That's what's down here? A room?" Mason asked suddenly, "Such an anti-climax," he muttered.
"Should we see what's inside?" Damon asked, right beside JJ.
JJ just remained silent. She wanted to say that they shouldn't be here, the scraping sounds above them got louder. Rats, just rats, she told herself but somehow she doubted it. This place was creepy beyond relief.
"Yeah," Mason said.
The Doctor sighed again and fiddled with random parts of the controls as an act of frustration, or exasperation.
"The TARDIS isn't just a ship, Clara, she's a living, breathing being," he said and pulled a lever experimentally, "Hold this lever right here," he said and Amy stepped forward to hold it.
The Doctor bounded around to the far side of the console and Clara attempted to crane her neck to see what he was doing.
The door silently unlocked and clicked open before Damon's hand touched it.
Both the Doctor and Amy cried out as the TARDIS lurched to the side, bouncing off the walls of the vortex outside. The console sparked and burst and sparks rained down on the Doctor as he tried to pick himself up as the TARDIS gave a shriek.
"Calm down!" the Doctor shouted to his TARDIS, then laughed maniacally, "GERONIMO!" he roared with delight as the TARDIS responded by forcing the engines into overdrive and throwing the Doctor back against the captain's chair. His eyes were wide as the TARDIS hurtled through the fires of time and space, and he swallowed, catching eyes with a terrified Amy.
Damon led the group into the room, which was actually quite spacious, or would be, if it wasn't full of mirrors. JJ's eyes boggled, this room was literally filled with mirrors.
Mason cleared his throat, "Again, I say, so anti-climactic," he sighed as he broke away from the group to look into a mirror.
"Mirrors? You guys are seeing what I'm seeing, right?" Rosie asked, breaking away as well and moving further into the room.
Damon and JJ both remained in the doorway, staring into the room.
"Do you feel that?" JJ asked him, whispering under her breath.
"Like we shouldn't be here?" Damon asked, finally looking down at her, "Yeah." He breathed.
JJ swallowed, still not looking up at him, but her gaze finally drew to him as he moved from her side, into the room, and reluctantly moved after him.
"I think this mirror is the one that hung in my grandparent's bedroom," Rosie's voice said, coming from behind a stack of mirrors leaning against the wall.
The door swung shut, plunging the room into almost-darkness.
"What the…" Mason's voice came, not far from JJ's left, and the smaller teen struggled to get her phone from her pocket, using the screen's brightness to illuminate the surrounding area.
"H-HEY!" Rosie screamed out, and fell silent.
"ROSIE!" Mason cried and ran towards her voice, then screamed out as well and was silenced.
"D-Damon…?" JJ gasped in fear, feeling around for him.
"JJ…I'm here," He said, then cried out, and JJ was surrounded with silence.
JJ whirled on the spot, searching for her friends, "O-Okay guys, this was really funny," she said, her voice echoing off the reflective glass, "Good joke! You can come out now…" she continued, "Like, right now, g-guys," she said. Then she felt it, an ice cold grip on her ankle, and she gasped out, but before she could scream, she was pulled, backwards.
She dropped the phone, and silence filled the room.