I lay back on the beach, looking up at the sky; it was late. It was very late. Mum was in the hotel lobby, a paper open on her knees. She was unaware of my lack of presence, and seemed perfectly content in reading. She would have killed me for wandering off, if circumstances had not changed dramatically. I continued to watch the beautiful silver lights of the sky, twinkling away. Things may have been mostly different in America- the place we were holidaying, but the stars were still just as beautiful. I smiled, taking a deep breath of sea air. It was so different to the scent back in England, but I couldn't pinpoint as to why. Although, this was to become a very small and insignificant thought in the back of my mind. As I allowed my head to sink, slightly, into the sand, my eyes picked out something yellow in the sky. "Hmm.." I thought aloud to myself. This was not unusual. Talking to myself, I mean, not the round object in the sky which was slowly becoming more orange, then red. No, something from space, hurtling itself towards the Earth, was not something I could honestly say I was used to.

Hurried footsteps grabbed the attention of my ears, but my eyes remained focussed on the strange red 'star'. "Beth!" my mother's voice shrieked, "what the hell do you think you're doing- running off like that?" I sighed internally. It was always the same. But I was seventeen, nearing eighteen. She couldn't wrap me up in cotton wool forever. Or, at least, I hoped not. "I didn't run away, mother," I corrected her, purposely using my most annoyingly calm tone. "I walked. And besides, you were too busy reading your paper- I bet you wouldn't have noticed someone ripping off my head and waving it in your face." My opinion of mum, had never been exactly award-winning. She always disagreed, just to spite me. A bit of a 'bite your nose off to spite your face' sort of character. Her reply was well rehearsed and I already knew my response. "Don't you dare! You make me out as some self-absorbed.. idiot!" The pause had been almost comical, but I just shook my head, still watching the red thing grow larger. "Well," I decided to play a slightly different card in the hope that she would leave me alone. "aren't you?"

I had listened to mum's lecture, several times over, until she was finally satisfied that I had gotten the point. By that time, the red thing had expanded to extraordinary lengths, and I was beginning to get truly worried. People had slowly emerged onto the streets as the night stretched on. Some of them looked up, but they all continued to chatter. That was, until a strange, grumbling echo enveloped us all. Enveloped the world. Silence fell and all eyes were on the skies, watching as the red thing approached. It was even bigger than I had thought. Was it a planet? Was this some strange, one-off viewing? My heart gave only a few dull thuds at my chest, my lungs seemed to stop working and my stomach ached; I knew what it was, what it meant. Deep down, I knew. And that's why I didn't run.

Screams filled my ears as the thing got much closer, so close that its full outline was now visible. Time was running out. People ran to their cars, hoping to drive away to some safe place, hoping to escape it all. There was no hope. If we did run, then, where would we all go? This thing was enormous. Its thunderous drones spelt the end of the world and even if it didn't quite take out all of humanity, the least it would do was take out the entire population of America. Still, people ran. Mum grabbed my arm, yanking me up, looking around to see my grandparents and my brother, all hurrying out to us. We were met with the typical, 'British' attitude my grandfather had adopted, and the worried one of my grandmother. "Not much point in running." Granddad said, looking up at the sky and squinting slightly through the dim light, "We're going to die, anyway." Grandma thumped him, hissing at him to shut up, before bursting into floods of tears. "They're so young," she weeped, gesturing to my brother and I, "To young for all.. all this." Granddad shrugged and my brother moved in to comfort the poor old woman. I had no idea what to do in such a situation, so I stood up. "Right," I said, mustering every last ounce of strength in my body in an attempt to stop all the talk of the inevitable. "If we want a chance at survival, we ought to get going now." My words did nothing to motivate me, but grandma looked up with her tearful eyes and blotchy red face, dabbing at it with a handkerchief. It seemed to have given her some slight strength and she smiled at me in a hysterical fashion. Still, it was a smile, one containing some form of hope. And that was all we had.

We had gone on the move, sweeping in amongst the crowds of people, sticking together as best as possible, but moving swiftly, at the same time. Unfortunately, granddad decided to play the hero.. "You all go on," he said, his arthritis a burden to him, "I'll catch you up." I took one of his hands to try and make him walk with us- but he was slow, aching and resisting my attempts. I wished I could carry him, but he was tall and skinny and there was very little in our heights. His feet would still touch the ground. I grabbed at the hair on my head, pulling at it as I tried to think. "Mum, 'thanael, stay together- keep holding hands and go on." Mum then went to begin her heroic speech. I silenced her with a threat. "Go, or I will not go at all." Normally she would have called me foolish, a silly little girl, but I think that this time, she knew just how serious I was. After several glances and a quick family hug, she and Nathanael began running, disappearing among the other people. I turned back to my grandparents, but an old boy in a car, had already bundled them in. Everything was so surreal and I was becoming cut off from my family. Yet, I did not cry. It was my own fault for becoming a leader, my own silly fault for being a hero.

I walked into the sudden bursts of light from the helicopters above. Nothing made sense, to me, nothing worked, anymore. I continued walking with the crowd, but fell into a more sparse patch, passing an alleyway. I turned my head to look and I saw the silhouette of a man, tall and proud, yet curious and.. Was that worry? It was only to be expected that someone should fear the end of the world/all of America. Especially when one was involved in such matters. But this man.. He seemed to buzz with excitement. His whole aura was gleaming at me. I looked back over the heads of the crowd, then up to the red monster which hung in the sky; the craters on its surface were visible, now. My head was chock-a-block with thoughts and I stared into the alleyway, again. But he was gone.
I guess I must have lost my concentration on walking, as I found myself meeting the ground, face-first. Nobody seemed to see me and I went to stand up. Out of hundreds of legs, came a hand, reaching out to me. Without thinking, I took it and stood up. "Thank you." I nodded, my hair falling over my face, my vision wrecked by the sudden bright lights. And then, I was moving. I was running blindly through the crowd, led by a stranger's hand. Darkness swamped my vision and I opened my eyes, struggling to adjust. It was quieter here, that was for sure. A moment later, I realized where I was and who the stranger was. He didn't leave me to feel my way along the walls of the alleyway, but led me deeper within it, to a wooden door. There was a click and another burst of light. Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea, after all? But no, we stepped inside and he locked the door. I was shaking. My eyes were barely open. "W.. Where are we?" I asked him, dazed. The man smiled. I could feel it and his eyes upon me. I felt so tired. When the man said nothing, I pursued. "Who are you? Where are you taking me?" He had wandered over to something in the middle of the room and had pulled a lever, hit something and, with a loud whirr, the room began to rumble. "Ah, yes," he said pleasantly, "I've been meaning to fix that.. Noisy old thing." He smiled again, beaming at me as I began to go weak. "I'm The Doctor, and you're going to help me save the planet."