'ello 'ello! How are you all doing? Glad you found your way to my story. Here's a pretty short prologue chapter to get things rolling. The first chapter should be quick to follow though, so no worries! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Put your lawyers back in the briefcase. I, unfortunately, do not own anything relating to the Doctor Who series besides my own sick fantasies.
The night was alive with the sound of gunfire. Bullets ripped the air like paper mache, leaving streaks of hot air and death in their wake. Shots were fired in about hundred different directions, but the guards would have had better luck firing blindfolded. Despite the blazing brightness of the compound, thanks to the industrial lights burning a white hole on the surface of the earth, not a single one of them could see exactly who or what they were firing at.
The man ran past rows of rectangular cement buildings, trying to ignore the shouts coming from inside. The inhabitants were scared and confused, expressing their fear vocally while pounding on the windowless walls. This was nothing new for the innocent victims caught in Stoneguard's web. Since the day they were shuffled and pushed off that eighteen wheeler, terror and confusion was all they knew. But the terror was what had held them down, kept them from screaming out at the darkness – until they heard the gunshots and that one name echoed throughout the compound.
Something inside the man's chest burned as he heard the screams of the prisoners, asking for his help, and chose to ignore them. The gig was up. Any minute now, the full force of the Stoneguard army would be bearing down on him, and he could only be shot so many times. He ran awkwardly with his head low through the shadows cast by the barracks towards the razor-wire fence. And in his arms, he carried two terrified looking children, neither of which could be any older then four. They were sickly thin and seemed to weigh almost nothing, and were covered in mud and a stomach churning redish-brown crust. The man tried with difficulty not to focus too much on it. He was old – impossibly old for his looks – and had seen many acts of violence, cruelty, and injustice over the years. But this one took the cake. To see a child treated so harshly – to see anyone treated so harshly – made the man shiver with disgust.
What had the human race come to?
The guards were still clearly confused, unable to decipher just where the jailbreak was occurring through the chaos of their own fire. The razor-wire fence loomed threateningly in front of the man and the two children in his arms. The man froze, looking around wildly. Where was it? Had he made a wrong turn? Had he gone a row of barracks too far?
Then he saw the gnarled mess of wire at the base of the fence where a small hole had been punctured. It was small and short, and he would be forced to drop down into the freezing mud and roll under the fence. The man shrugged. So much for dignity.
The searchlight passed over the place the man and the children were hiding, and he withdrew quickly back into the shadows. They're catching on, he thought worriedly. The sooner he made it to the fence, the better.
The light suddenly moved on, scouring the compound for any sign of the escapees and their rescuer, and the man took his chance. He dashed across the open no-man's land between the barracks and the fence and fell to his knees. He dropped the two children as gently as he could and plastered a smile to his face that, in the current situation, did not meet his eyes.
"Okay, we're almost there!" He said in a whisper, his voice raising a couple octaves in hopes of making the two kids more comfortable. "Let's just need to play one more game. This one's called 'roll-over'. We're each going to get down on our bellies and roll as quickly and carefully as we can under the fence."
"Who one the silent game?" One of the children, the older girl, asked with large, terrified brown eyes. The man quickly put a finger to his lips.
"Shh. We're still playing the silent game. We're just adding this one in." The girl nodded and pinched her lips together with determination while her friend simply stared blankly off into the distance, not able to understand what was going on.
"Alright, ready?" The man asked with that false smile he had mastered so many years ago. "After you, on three. One. Two. Three."
The older girl dropped to the ground and rolled over three times, clearing the twisted tendrils of razor-wire with a foot to spare. She made it to the other side and gave a silent cheer, still determined to win the game. Thankfully, the younger child saw what she had done and imitated it perfectly, leaving even more room between the fence and her frail body. The man, however, was not so lucky. He dropped into the mud and rolled, feeling the sharp edges of the cut fence line tearing cleanly through the sleeves of his long coat. He cursed under his breath as they pricked his skin.
Once on the other side, he grabbed the two girls by the hands and half led, half dragged them towards a wall of dark trees. They disappeared behind its curtain, the lights of the compound shinning through slits between the tree trunks, and the man came to a stop. He was breathing hard, and so were the two children, the smaller one with tears glistening in her eyes. The man checked his watch and cursed. For someone who had all the time in the universe, time never seemed to be on his side.
The man jerked his head up at the sound of heavily booted footsteps running towards him through the trees. He tensed, eyes straining for any sign of an attacker. His hands held the two girls' wrists in a vice. He would not be losing them. Not after all of this.
Out of nowhere a man, dressed in all black, appeared as if he had materialized from the shadows. The man holding onto the two girls released a lungful of air he had not known he had been holding. He recognized the newcomer. His name was Robert James Goldring. He was young, probably about twenty two, but had only lived about three quarters of them free. The last year was one of them.
"You're cutting it close." Goldring hissed as he slid to a stop on the muddy path. "We thought they'd gotten you again. Come on, we need to hurry!"
"Get these two to the chopper." The man instructed urgently as he handed off the two girls. "There's another barrack close to the fence line I think I can get to in time."
He turned back towards the brightly lit compound and broke into a run. "Are you crazy?" Goldring called after him. "The chopper's leaving any minute!"
"Then make sure they're on it!"
The man missed Goldring's look of disbelief as he watched his superior run towards his own death. For that was all that awaited on the other side of the electric, razor-wire enclosure. But it was for that reason the man doubled his speed as he hurdled down the slight hill back towards the prison, the shadows of the trees flying passed and grabbing at his shoulders to hold him back. There was an entire barrack of children left, terrified, in the darkness, and he was for damn sure not going to leave them there to suffer for a minute longer if he had anything to say about it. When you reach a certain age, the value and idea of childhood is too precious not to protect.
The trees finally broke apart and threw him into the blinding light. By some huge miracle, no one had discovered the hole in the razor-wire fencing. He silently thanked the commander for his decision to use "decoy explosives". AKA commercial firecrackers. Absolutely insane, but somehow it worked. The guards were all focusing their gunfire on the eastern side of the compound while he and the others snuck in through the west. But then again, these creatures were not exactly what you would call "intellectually advanced".
He braced himself as he neared the fence and stopped, dropped, and rolled. His beloved coat took another beating as bits of stray wire ripped through the fabric. Damn! He hadn't rolled through carefully enough and one of the ragged pieces caught on his cheek, pulling forth a stinging streak of red blood.
The boarding cells that held the children were in the next row over. There had to be at least twenty of them at this one camp, occupied by fifteen slaves each. It killed him that two hundred and seventy would not make it out, but he told himself not to focus on that number, only on the thirty he would be saving.
The four children's barracks loomed in front of him like a cement monster with no eyes and one unyielding steel mouth. He could hear them shouting from within, crying. The search light cross right in front of his path but miraculously missed him by an inch. His time was running short.
The door was locked. He had not expected anything else, but you can't stop a guy from hoping. He jiggled the handle a few times just to make sure. Yep, it was locked. He pushed up the sleeve of his long overcoat and pointed the device around his wrist at the door. There was a soft hum and it worked its magic on the lock, but I was taking longer then he had hoped. What he would do for a sonic screwdriver right about n –
"OWW!"
Pain erupted between his shoulder blades, instantly paralyzing him and cutting off his strangled shout of surprise. His back arched away from the pain, but he could not move. What felt like a million volts coursed through his body and set his very blood on fire. This would surely kill him. It was only a matter of seconds.
And then the pain was gone. He fell to his knees before his body could register that it was back in control. His limps still twitched slightly as the last bits of electricity wore themselves out. His vision was blurred, the door to the barracks swimming mockingly in front of him.
What felt like a boot made contract with his back and he was kicked forward, head striking the metal door painfully before he collapsed on the ground. He groaned and rolled over, trying to take in his captors through the blurry bright lights affecting his vision. All he could see was the familiar barrel of a blaster gun.
"No." He groaned, making his hands visible beside his head. "Don't shoot. I'm unarmed." He let his sleeve fall back over his wrist.
The guard said something above him, but he couldn't make it out. His shin erupted in pain as it was kicked. Once. Twice. Three times. Then finally he recognized English words.
"Your identification, Human." It growled with a deep, unfamiliar accent.
It took a few breaths before he was able to speak clearly. It was over. He was caught. And there was no point in them not knowing who he was.
"I'm Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood Three."
Then with a swift movement from the creature above him, the blurry lights flashing and dancing in the Captain's eyes finally died out.
Thumbs up? Thumbs down? Couldn't even make it through the first paragraph? Lemme know if I should continue this journey or feed it to the recycling bin. The Doctor will be making his grand appearance shortly, so in the mean time, wanna leave a review? Thank you!