I haven't updated for a long time, so please bear with me if the story is a little off to start with! I don't own Torchwood or its characters; if I did, it would be on my TV all day, all night, every day :)
Set after 'Adam' but before 'Reset'.
Comments are very much appreciated; it's been a long while since I last wrote a fanfic! =D
~ Dragon
The Stuff of Nightmares
Chapter 1 – No calm after the storm
Rain poured from the sky as if some entity in the clouds was emptying buckets onto the earth below. No patch of earth was safe from the torrents that lashed through Cardiff. The waters of Cardiff Bay churned uneasily, as if trying to rid itself of the extra liquid that pounded the surface of the sea incessantly. No life stirred on the streets lit by dim street lights; no one dared brave the weather, especially as the first strikes of lightning were just beginning to reach their electric fingers across the sky.
No one but a young woman, the hood of her anorak pulled high on her head, her small frame hunched against the howling winds that tore through her. She was Elisa Morgan, and she knew she shouldn't have gone round to Jess' house, what with the storm brewing, but the call of a bottle of wine and a shoulder to cry on was all too tempting. It was Eric's fault, Elisa thought angrily, turning down an alleyway which was a shortcut to her flat, he was the one who'd all but disappeared, leaving Elisa confused and wondering where she stood.
Elisa hurried through the storm, unable to see much more than a metre in front of her. It didn't help that she was so very tired; she'd been struggling to sleep for several nights now, and although she felt as though she was functioning normally, her judgement was certainly impaired. Ordinarily she was a highly sensible girl, and would have seen the storm brewing. Ordinarily she would have stayed at home.
Home, where it was safe.
This thought lingered in her mind as a sound cut through the howling storm; it was the sound of footsteps, close behind her. Elisa wheeled around sharply, her eyes darting to and fro, but there was so much rain and haze that she simply could not see where the noise had come from. Uneasily, she continued her journey home, occasionally throwing a glance over her shoulder. Her hand tightened on her handbag, ready to hit whoever dared follow her and make a break for it. She stopped suddenly as she heard the footsteps again, accompanied by a hissed whisper.
"Elisa…"
Her resolve broke, and Elisa began to run, without thought of where she was going. She sprinted blindly, and all the while the voice grew louder, until it was positively shouting her name. She stopped, gasping for breath, tears mingling with raindrops on her cheeks.
"What do you want?" The exhausted woman cried out. In front of her, a shadowy figure materialised. She squinted, her heart hammering; she knew she should run, but she found that her feet were rooted in place. Her primal instinct to escape was forced back inside her; the figure drew closer.
What she saw sent dread into the very pits of her stomach. It was her father.
Her father, the man who had beaten Elisa and her mother every night of their lives for eleven years, until her mother had taken Elisa and ran. Her father, who had drank himself to death four years later. Her father, who was the very person Elisa had feared the most.
"No…" Elisa said, as the apparition that was her father drew closer, "no!"
Before the world went black, Elisa saw a mouth ringed with razor sharp teeth, a horrifying, pointed face, and a clawed hand reaching for her. As Elisa Morgan died, the storm evaporated, and the first stirrings of daybreak began to lazily break through the clouds, taking with it the ghost of her father and the echo of her last scream.
-x-
"That rain," Owen snarled as he stalked through the Hub's cogwheel door, "is bloody ridiculous." He threw his sodden coat onto his desk; from across the Hub, Ianto winced over the coffee machine as the coat made a distinctive squelching noise across Owen's keyboard. "I feel like a drowned Weevil."
"You look like one too," Ianto muttered darkly as he began to hand out coffee, although whether Owen heard or not was another matter, for at that moment the doctor chose to let out an extremely loud yawn. Actually, maybe he was yawning at the joke. Still didn't stop Owen resembling a Weevil, Ianto thought, smirking.
"It's been going on all night," Gwen said, stifling a yawn as she accepted her mug, "kept me and Rhys up till the early hours."
"Sure it was just the rain keeping you up?" Jack breezed out of his office, winking at Gwen; he dived out of the way as a notepad sailed through the air, narrowly missing his forehead. Jack pouted at her, about to begin a retort.
"Funny that. I haven't been able to sleep much recently, either," Owen cut in, running a hand through his dripping wet hair.
"Same here," Ianto replied. Jack waggled his eyebrows at Owen and Gwen suggestively; it was common knowledge that a lot of the time that Ianto was tired, insomnia had nothing to do with it. Rather more often, a 51st Century conman by the name of Jack caused this lack of sleep. Ianto flushed red as Jack winked at him.
"I've got a peak in Rift activity!" Tosh called from across the Hub, distracting Jack. Her nimble fingers tapped away furiously on her keyboard as she began to cross-check the spike. "Ten minutes ago…right on the…Plass?" Tosh leant back in her seat and called across to Owen, exasperated. "Didn't you see anything on your way in?"
"I was a bit busy trying not to drown in any puddles, Tosh," Owen shrugged as he joined Jack, Gwen and Ianto behind Tosh.
"There's been a death. Elisa Morgan…the police are heading there now."
"Right," Jack said, "Tosh, stay here and keep an eye out for anything else – let me know if you see any more spikes. Gwen, Owen, Ianto, let's go." Jack looked around, confused. "Where is Ianto?"
"Over here, sir," called a Welsh voice from across the Hub. "Just getting Owen's equipment. You know, for the puddles." In his hand, Ianto held a pair of children's armbands.
For the second time that morning, Gwen's notebook sailed through the air, and with a chuckle Ianto dodged it, running after the retreating team and a scowling Owen.
-x-
"Well," Owen said, standing up and snapping the cuff of his rubber glove against his wrist, "she is most definitely dead."
"Thank you for that valuable observation," Ianto remarked dryly. The police had just began to arrive by the time Torchwood Three had jogged over to the Plass, having chosen not to use the invisible lift, and Ianto stood along with them and Gwen at the edge of the scene.
In the middle of the Plass, a young woman, soaked to her skin, her anorak hood pulled tight around her face, lay sprawled in a pool of water and blood. What looked like claw marks had gouged deep grooves in her skin, and something that looked awfully like tooth marks curved around the slim whiteness of her neck. The hole in the centre of her forehead made it seem as though something had been pulled hastily out of it.
"We need to get her out of her," Jack muttered to Ianto, who nodded and gingerly picked up the girl's feet; Owen held her under the shoulders.
"Well, we'll just be off, then," Gwen grinned toothily at the police officer she stood next to, who rolled his eyes but waved them on.
At the team's retreating backs, the police officer sighed, robbed yet again of what could have been a murder investigation. "Bloody Torchwood."
-x-
What the Torchwood team hadn't noticed, hidden away beside the Millennium Centre, was a tall, gangly figure dressed entirely in black. The figure watched them as keenly as a hawk watches its prey.
In the plastic bag the figure clutched in its hand, the remnants of a piece of Elisa Morgan's skull lay, barely covering the black metal object that had, until moments ago, been a resident in Elisa Morgan's brain.