Time to die. Time to live.
Adam awoke, and jerked bolt upright in bed. The noise had eased its way into his dreams and torn them apart from the inside out, before shattering them into a thousand tiny fragments. That noise... like somebody shaking keys in a lock, combined with the whirr of a kitchen blender. He couldn't think of a single sound that paralleled it in the world. He listened to it for a few minutes – the constant throbbing sound, like something going back and forth and back round again. Swinging his feet out of bed, he reached to the floor for yesterday's t-shirt, and pulled it over his head, not quite sure what he intended to do. At first he had instinctively got up to ask his housemates if they knew what it was – before remembering that he was the only one at the student house, since the others had already returned to their families for Christmas. The noise simply wouldn't stop. It couldn't be the neighbours – they didn't have any. The concept of neighbours had become a casualty of the crashing property market.
Eventually, Adam decided that enough was enough, and, even if he couldn't stop the noise, he might as well try. There was no hope of getting to sleep with this racket going on, and certainly not at four AM. Tugging a pair of jeans over his legs, he stumbled downstairs, groping for the bannister as he went. In the kitchen, he waited for the kettle to boil, while finding the single clean cup he knew still lurked somewhere in the empty crockery cupboard. Still, the whirring did not stop. Sat in the kitchen at the back of the house, he sipped his coffee – scalding himself for not waiting for it to cool. Great. His burnt tongue would be tasting fizzy for days to come. Suddenly, through the window, he thought he saw something in his garden – a light blink. There it was again!
It's probably nothing, he told himself, as he opened the door, and pressed the button on his torch to illuminate the darkness. No, nothing. Nothing at all.
He blinked- and then, suddenly, there it was.
A blue box, between one and a half and twice his own height was suddendly stood there, bold as brass, in his garden. He could even hear the noise coming from it; back and forth, and back round again. His confusion pushed his fear and caution out the way, as he walked into the garden straight up to it, and studied it. It had faux white windows, and across the top, it read 'Police Public Call Box'. What the...? Suddenly, he started, as a light on top of the box flashed once, and again. That must be what he'd seen in the kitchen. Just then, he noticed that the front of the box had doors. Biting his lip, Adam found the handle, and pushed-
The noise hadn't woken him up, because he couldn't still be awake. He was still dreaming.
He had walked into an enormous room, with about the same floor space as his entire house, filled with that whirring sound. A half-lit room, he could just about make out the wooden pillars and wicker floorings, with what looked like spurts of wires and metal girders shooting out of the ground and walls like undergrowth. The biggest of these growths was in the very centre of the room, sticking up entirely vertically like some monstrous tree. Due to the darkness, it took Adam a moment to make out the shapes, but a man sat with his back against the tree-trunk, his head in his hands.
"Time to die. Time to live."
All Adam could muster was a pathetic "What?", before the world began to spin from beneath him, and his head hit the floor. As the impossible half-lit world disappeared into darkness, he could see the sideways man notice him, and begin to stand up. His eyes closed.
Adam woke up in bed, the world still an agonizing haze, eve though the noise had stopped. The man blurred into view, wearing clothes entirely too big for him. He was carrying a glass of water in one hand, and a short, thick metal stick in the other. One end of the metal stick lit up for a moment, with a sound like a synthesized electric screwdriver.
"Lucky escape. Minor timepulse exposure," said the man to himself. Seemingly unaware that Adam had woken up, he placed the water on the bedside table, "Lucky for some."
"... who are you?" said Adam, slowly, every syllable a new agony, "What's happening?"
"You're a little bit ill," said the man, with a breezy half-attempt at sounding concerned, "Nothing serious, though. Your friend called The Doctor, and here I am."
"That box... impossible."
"That? Oh, you must be delirious," he said, pushing Adam back into the bed when he tried to get up, "It is a symptom. All you need is bedrest," he tipped the glass of water into Adam's mouth, "You'll probably find in the morning that you dreamt all of this."