Explosion

Bang!

From the end of the long corridor of grey, metallic walls, an explosion abruptly ends the eerie silence of the abandoned spaceship hanging in the sky. Every surface rattles as the shock wave tares through the bulkhead like an earthquake. It is followed by a couple of seconds of sinister silence, except for the soft creaking of joints as they strain against the torrential force that is pushing them to their limits. Another bang, closer this time – too close for comfort. The ship is dying. I poke my head from around the corner of the corridor, watching the dark shadows that loom there, trying to see the source of the detonations.

Without warning, a shrill scream rings through the air like a siren; I stand dumbfounded as the long piercing sound becomes louder, coming closer to me with each passing second. Then, as though he materialized from the shadows, a man comes running out, wild eyes dancing as his curious 0 shaped mouth hangs open in shock, his manner brimming surprise and genuine excitement. His sticky out chin wobbles as he pelts full speed down the corridor. He's a serious screamer, I subconsciously think. A step behind him is a girl with chocolate brown hair tucked behind her ears, which flows in a wave behind her, and eyes the same creamy brown. She's wearing a pretty, retro dress with printed flowers that stands out against the stark, straight lines that make up the interior of the ship. What was her name? Clara – yes, that's it. All this I register in the instant before they slam full force into me.

'What?' It's the man who said that, the one with the strange name that I can't seem to remember. He didn't actually bother to talk to me, except for the odd comment that my name was 'interesting'.

'You're the one who was in the bridge, right - Amelia,' Clara states, slightly hurried. Her eyes are wide with a glint of barely subdued panic fluttering in the background but her demeanour is calm.

'I prefer Emily,' I manage to reply, just before another blast erupts even closer this time, close enough to make my teeth ache with the vibrations.

'What, you're called Amelia?' the man yells at me. Another explosion. I look back nervously at the creaking bend of the corridor which is blowing flames like an angry dragon. I have just enough time to open my mouth to reply before the man screams a frantic instruction.

'Ruuuuun!'

I don't argue.

My lungs are burning from the exertion and smoke, and my heart thumps so hard that my chest feels like it will burst but I grit my teeth, carrying on at full speed, not even bothering to look back. As we tare blindly through the desolate corridors of what was once my temporary home, Clara shouts at the brown haired man sprinting a little in front of us.

'What are we going to do, Doctor. Please tell me you know what you're doing.'

'Err, no,' the man, the Doctor replies. I remember now; that was his name. Not, Doctor something, or Doctor of something, just Doctor, which is unusual on a ship full of scientists like this.

'We're going to die,' Clara shouts but the Doctor replies with comforting confidence.

'No we're not. My TARDIS is that way.' I have no idea what TARDIS means but by the way Clara's face relaxes ever so slightly from absolutely terrified to very, very scared I can tell that's a good thing. The Doctor points to one of the side corridors leading off to the right, breathing heavily as we run for our lives. From behind us the explosions continue, getting more frequent as time passes. I frown ever so slightly. That corridor goes to a store cupboard; I know, I have used it before but I say nothing. I don't have the breath to say anything. I can only trust. We curve sharply to our right and keep on running. And then suddenly I'm falling, not knowing why; listening to the screams that resonate all around me until I realise that they're mine. I can't breathe. My arms rotate in desperate windmills as I fall. Then I realise; we just ran out a hole in the ship. We're in to space. We're going to die. Then it all goes dark.

I open my eyes staring at a daisy, watching the pearly white petals with ingido bases wave from side to side in the slight salty wind on my face and I can hear what sounds like the regular breaking of waves on a beach, the soft swoosh as the backwash drags back sediment. I sweep my crimson hair, streaked with clingy, black ash, to one side and realise – I'm not dead; not floating through space exploded because of pressure difference, not suffocated by the lack of oxygen and not burnt to a crisp from the blearing heat of the sun. I suck a deep breath of sweet air and sigh. For the first time in my life, I appreciate how great it feels to be alive.

When I sit up the Doctor and Clara are speaking in hushed tones to one side, examining a smoking object that I can't quite see properly because of the way they are bending over it and blocking my view. I listen to the distant blabber of conversation – not intending to, but curious all the same.

I wonder what they are looking at when a voice asks the same question. High pitched, feminine; it is Clara.

'A piece of the ship, part of the outer hull probably; must have been torn off in the explosion, though most of its burned away on re-entering the atmosphere.'

'What's wrong with it?'

'Nothing, I never said anything was wrong with it.'

'Well, you wouldn't be staring at it if there was nothing wrong with it.'

'Be quiet, you'll wake the girl.'

'That's you changing the subject.'

My muscles complain and tell me to go back to sleep, to collapse back on to the grainy sand and coarse grass underneath me, but I'm fascinated so, defiantly, I force my muscle to move. For a moment I am unstable on my feet; my head feels light and the world pixelates then goes dark but slowly my vision returns along with my clarity of thought.

We're at the seaside with a paper white, sandy beach and turquoise water, just as I imagine an expensive holiday resort (the ones you find on colourful broachers) would be like. The wind is strong and they sweep the blue sapphire water into moderately tall waves. High up in the bright blue sky, sea gull like creatures screech in their annoying, piercing cries as they swoop and dive in search of food. It is incredible how similar to earth it is. If I close my eyes I can almost believe I am home. The sun is warm on my face, but not too much, bringing me back to my senses and warming my body, right down to the tip of my toes that were unnaturally freezing before. We're on the top of what looks like a sand dune, some three hundred away from the lapping waves that crash in to the white, sun baked sand. Here, grass and other vegetation have found leverage on the small granules, forming a bright patch of green instead of pure white. Behind me, away from the sea, I can see miles of emerald meadows and bright flowers and then behind it, a grey shadowy outline of mountains far in the distance. I turn and face the Doctor, watching his back as he bends down.

'What happened?' I ask. The Doctor spins round, surprised, and stares at me before answering.

'Well, the corridor which leads to the TARDIS snapped off. A weakened joint probably. We fell through space for about a second, in which time I managed to get a big button that fixed it all. Well actually it was a teleport-y thingy that teleported us to the nearest habitable location which was here.' The Doctor held up a big brass button with curved edges and a printed barcode on the bottom. I stand in silence for a second trying to process it all – the Doctor talked so fast I could barely keep up.

'What's a TARDIS?' I asked slowly after a while.

'It's my spacey, timey thing. She's what I use to travel through time and space,' the Doctor explains carefully as though talking to a child but I am no closer to understanding. I raise my eyebrows, quizzed.

'You're a time traveller?' I ask.

The tall man nods irritably like he has been asked this question a million times before and then turns his attention to the fields of colour that almost seemed to float as they moved in the strong sea wind that swept across the field. I brush my hair back again with agitation as the wind threatens to sweep it in front of my face.

It is now that I realise the harsh truth. We are not safe (not dead or in the danger of dying) but we are lost somewhere on an uninhabited planet that my ship, a proud explorer with all the latest gadgets, had been exploring, someplace in the corner of the universe. It is the only 'goldilocks planet' that humans can go to reasonably easily in a matter of months and I, as one of the youngest crew members had been excited to be part of the crew; my first space voyage just after training. I wasn't really doing anything. My job consisted mainly of delivering messages but I am, was, still part of it, part of everything. I laugh bitterly. Space mission one for Amelia – a complete disaster, I think miserably. I don't want to be stuck here; I want to go home. To Earth, familiar Earth, I want to smell the smog of my hometown, and make jokes with my social friends that I haven't seen for almost half a year.

'Could the TARDIS have taken us back to Earth,' I question the Doctor; my voice is calm but inside I am wilting.

'Of course it could. It still can, if I can find it, that is,' he replies.

'It's out there somewhere? Wouldn't it have been destroyed by the explosion?' I ask, surprised.

'Of course it hasn't,' the Doctor declares adamantly. 'Like us, it would have locked on to a safe place and landed somewhere. I should get a signal soon…' Just on cue a small beeping noise comes from inside his dark brown, almost purple jacket and he brings out a long cylindrical object that has a flashing emerald light on the top that pulsed as a high pitched beeping sound came out of it in a regular rhythm.

'What's that?' I whisper curiously.

'It's his screwdriver,' a kind, feminine voice says from behind me. I turn to face Clara; I had almost forgotten she was there. The whining object in the Doctor's hand, with bits and pieces oddly attached to it, doesn't look like a screwdriver but I keep quite because I can see he is concentrating.

After what felt like hours but was probably only about a minute the Doctor starts jumping up and down in excitement. I stare, slightly shocked as I had never seen an adult do that.

'The TARDIS, it's somewhere close,' he exclaims like a child and points towards the waving grass opposite the sea. 'That direction,' he adds.

'Great, let's go,' Clara says. She takes the lead and bounds off a step in front of both of us, climbing in to the long tangle of grasses that suddenly thicken as we walked away from the shimmering sea. I note that the Doctor takes a last glance at the smoking piece of rubble that he had been studying minutes before, and then follows Clara in to the tangle of vegetation. I follow, vaguely thinking of how it all started.