CHAPTER ONE
GRAVESTONE
A cool breeze drifted through the cemetery of Lancashire, as the sun rose slowly above the horizon. Not even the smallest animal made a sound as a distinct howling noise, like a machine in much need of mechanical servicing, echoed around the silent graveyard.
Vworrrp. Vworrrrrrp. Vworrrp.
Materialising next to a large oak tree, a 1960s, blue police-box slowly appeared, its blue lamp atop the roof pulsing brightly as the engine noise grew louder and louder until stopping with a soft thud.
The doors opened and a young girl with brunette hair stepped out, carrying a bundle of flamboyant-coloured flowers. A much older man stepped out behind her. He had grey hair and wore an old-fashioned dark grey suit. Placing his hands behind his back, he walked alongside the young girl, through the cemetery.
"She loved her soufflés, Mum did. I could never ever seem to get it right every time I tried to cook one. It would just burn to a crisp. I always remember her saying 'Clara, a soufflé isn't a soufflé, a soufflé is a recipe'," the young girl said, as she glanced down at the flowers and sniffled the petals, "where did you get these from, Doctor?"
"The annual Intergalactic Flower Show, from the planet Foog. The blue ones are my favourite, bubblegum-scented," the old man pointed at one of the large, bright-blue flowers, sitting the middle of the bouquet.
As they strolled through the cemetery, they passed the groundskeeper, who was changing the day's date on the noticeboard, situated near the fence line of the graveyard.
It read 5th March 2014.
Clara and the Doctor came to a halt in front of a large black headstone. There were flowers scattered around the base, slightly shrivelled and wet from the cold weather overnight. Clara's chin quivered slightly. Even though it had been nine years, visiting her mother's grave was something she could never get used to.
Every day that went by, Clara always wished she could have saved her, to say goodbye to her one last time. Gripping the stems of the flowers in her hands, she knelt on the soft soil and placed the exotic-coloured bunch on its side in front of the headstone. Clara pulled the sleeve of her jacket into her hand and rubbed the wet residue off the markings of the grave:
ELLIE OSWALD
BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER
BORN
11TH SEPTEMBER 1960
DIED
5TH MARCH 2005
Standing back to her feet, Clara wiped her watery eyes and cleared her throat. "Mum," she whispered, her voice shaky and muffled, "this – this is the Doctor. He's a friend of mine," she gave him a side glance with a small smile, "he may look a little … old, but he's my best friend."
The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the flower bunch. The tip lit green and suddenly, the flowers grew in and around the ground, layering the entire base of the headstone in large extravagant flowers.
Clara laughed softly, covering her lips with her fingers, "Thank you, Doctor." Smiling, the Doctor put the screwdriver back into the inside pocket of his jacket and put his hands behind his back once again.
Bzzzzzzzz.
"Ooh," Clara jumped slightly, pulling out from her pocket a small phone and placing it to her eye, "hello?"
Silence.
"Hello?" Clara repeated.
Suddenly, a series of long and short bleeps pierce through the speaker. "What the?" Clara pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at the screen. The phone number said Unknown. "Doctor, listen," Clara showed the phone to the Doctor who listened, "Odd."
"Must be a wrong number," shrugged Clara and clicked the 'End' button. With seconds, the phone buzzed to life with the Caller ID appearing as Unknown once again. Clicking 'Answer' and hitting 'Loudspeaker', Clara glanced at the Doctor worryingly as the same monotone bleeps chimed through.
"Wait a minute. Listen, it's on loop. The same beeps over and over again. It's a message. Let's go to the TARDIS," the Doctor took off in the opposite direction. Clara smiled and walked over to Ellie's headstone. She pressed her fingers to her lips and placed them on top of the gravestone, "Love you, Mum." With a broad smile, Clara jogged away to the TARDIS.
The Doctor was racing from one side to the other of the console when Clara entered the Control Room. "Odd way to send a message, don't you think? Why would anyone send an audial message of beeps to a mobile phone?" piped the Doctor, ushering Clara to join him by the console. "So it was a message?" Clara responded. "Well, I would have said probably not, until it rang again seconds late. May I borrow your phone?" said the Doctor, examining the monitor above the console buttons. Clara passed her phone over and the Doctor placed it into one of the device input channels installed in part of the console.
Clara walked around the room, "Why not send a text message, or actually speak the message in a phone call-"
"Of course!" The Doctor exclaimed, Clara jumping in fright, "the message was actually spoken in the phone call. How could I not have realised that?!"
Clara coughed, looking at the Doctor with her eyebrows raised, "Care to share?"
The Doctor laughed, "Morse code."
Clara folded her arms in front of her and stared at the Doctor, "Someone sent a message to my mobile phone, through Morse code? That's the equivalent of sending a text message through an email?"
"Obviously there was a reason why they could only send the message through in beeps. But the main question is," the Doctor turned to Clara with a wide smile, "What does the message say?"
"You're loving this, aren't you," laughed Clara.
"Every second of it. Whole new regeneration, whole new kind of fun!" The Doctor swung the monitor around to Clara's side of the console as he connected Clara's mobile to the TARDIS loudspeaker. Within seconds, the repeated beeps of Morse code echoed around the spacious room. "The TARDIS is translating the code as we speak," continued the Doctor, "should be on that monitor any second."
Clara watched as the lines and dots of the Morse code message appeared on screen. Below it, the code began being translated into English. "Okay, it's here. 'Urgent: priority message to TARDIS. Doctor, return to the Library," Clara read as the words appeared on the monitor. The Doctor looked up, staring at Clara, "What does it say?"
"It's on loop, just like you said. 'Urgent: priority message to TARDIS. Doctor-"
"'Return to the Library' …" The Doctor finished, his entire body frozen. "Is there something wrong?" asked Clara, stepping around the console. The Doctor remained completely still and after a few seconds, turned his head to Clara and asked, "Fancy a trip to the biggest library in the universe?"
As Clara nodded with a grin upon her face, the Doctor began clicking buttons all over the console and the TARDIS began to take off into the time vortex. "Doctor, I have a vague memory – I don't exactly know how, but it's just there. You've been to the Library before, haven't you?" Clara said, looking at the Doctor who had become rigid again.
"Y-Yes I have."
"I have no idea how but I can remember there were creatures in the Library, correct? Their name, ugh," Clara slapped her forehead, "it's right there staring me in the face. Vas-"
"Vashta Nerada," finished the Doctor, his head hanging low.
Clara watched as the Doctor slowly walked away from the Console and stopped at the railing surrounding the console platform. "Piranhas of the dark, the dust in sunbeams. They hatched in the thousands of books that were in the Library at the time. Took over the planet and nearly killed everyone that was on the surface before the Computer Core of the planet, the biggest hard-drive in the universe, saved everyone by putting them all in its virtual world whilst millions of Vashta Nerada hatched above."
Clara stepped forward, watching the Doctor carefully, "Did you – I mean, could you save them?"
"The population were all saved from the hard-drive, yes, but I wasn't the one who stopped the Vashta," said the Doctor softly, his voice trailing away.
"Who did?" asked Clara, as she stood by the Doctor at the railing.
"Someone," the Doctor's voice broke slightly and he clearly his throat, "someone very dear to me." All of a sudden, he straightened up and wiped his eyes, which were slightly watery, and walked back over to the TARDIS console.
"Since then, Galactic Species Control have removed the Vashta Nerada from the planet and rigorously cleaned the planet's extensive book collection of any that were remaining there unhatched.
"Perhaps, they missed some, and they've run amok," laughed the Doctor, as he watched the console monitor, showing the Time Vortex outside, "let's go take a peek."