Russel sat down at his desk, staring blankly at the paper. He was in the mood to write a story, but didn't know what to write. He stared blankly at the sheet, in vain hope that an idea would just float into his head, as they often did. Nothing came. Sighing, he put some shoes on, and went for a walk.

The cool autumn breeze floated around him as he stepped outside. His house was a while out of town, a good 40 minutes drive. It was annoying, to be so far away, but the location was worth it. He was surrounded by a beautiful forest, not very dense, with an even coating of grass. He always thought the forest was a setting out of a fairy tale, with it's tall, straight trees and tiny flowers. The afternoon sunlight shone through the golden leaves of the trees. He had often gone walking, though he always stuck to the small path that followed through to a pretty little clearing. Today, however, he decided to walk a different way. His parents were out, and wouldn't be back until late, so he decided to not go too far. He picked his way through the trees, stepping over twisted roots and tiny mushrooms. As he walked further and further, the trees became barer and barer, until he was standing amongst skeleton trees. Their trunks were charred and blackened on one side, like a fiery explosion had seared off the leaves and damaged the sides of the trunks. There had been no fires here, not for years, so he wondered why the trees were so burnt. Grass no longer covered the ground. Instead there was a dull grey dirt beneath his feet. He was reminded of haunted forests from fairy tales, and the cool breeze, now borderline cold, made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Still, he walked on. As he got closer and closer to what he had decided had caused this damage, things got stranger. The trees were broken hiere - obviously, the other ones had been caught in just the outer waves of the blast. Russel had assumed there had been an explosion; his eyes were telling his that there should've been, but he felt like he was missing some kind of obvious fact. Walking past the broken trees, stepping over fallen branches, he reached what he thought must have been very close to the cause. The trees here had been reduced to stumps, smouldering quietly. Russel gasped, shrinking away from the small fires, panic gripping him. He was not worried about the fire. It wouldn't spread. But the fire was burning in slow motion, the smoke twisting away so slowly, like a snake lazily moving through the sky. He had seen some amazing smoke patterns, but nothing like this. This was unnatural. Unnerved, he noticed for the first time the silence. There were no bird calls, no scurrying animals; this wasn't so unusual, in a burnt out place, but the fire was making no sound, not a crackle, and even his feet against the grey dirt did not crunch. He gasped again, this time the noise of his breath echoing around the area. He looked up to the sky in wonder; here, the sun was in the exact spot as when he saw the very first charred trees, despite the fact it should've been close to dark now. He looked at his watch, and was annoyed to find it not working. After staring numbly at it for a moment, he noticed the second hand move, just one second forward. He watched again, and about a minute later, it moved again. Time in slow motion. Impossible. He thought. Carefully, Russel picked up a stone, and threw it forward. The second it left his hand, it essentially stopped in mid-air. Watching it closely, however, Russel saw that it was still moving, so slow that he could only just make out the motion. A chill ran up his spine. He knew he should turn around, right now. But his curiosity outweighed his fear, but only by the tiniest of fractions. Common sense, and logic, had been thrown out the window. If the world is no longer being logical, he thought, why should I?

Partly the reason why he continued was the state of shock he was in. The impossible had just happened, before his eyes. It shook the grounds that he had based his entire existence on. Part of him also chose to firmly reject what his eyes were seeing, dismissing it as a dream. Just a dream. The part of him making the decisions, while heavily influenced by these parts, was still completely separate. He believed, wanted to believe his eyes.

The crater was so huge, at first Russel didn't even notice it. The ground began to slope downhill, until it hit a spot where it steepened dramatically, almost like a cliff face. Russel stopped, and fear began to overtake curiosity. His eyes moved from the edge toward the middle of the crater, where he saw it. He had no words to describe what it was. His mind just went blank. After a few moments, his brain organised itself to think one thing: alien. It wasn't from here, or anywhere. It was huge, about the size of a small single story house, only it was pitch black. If it wasn't for the strange, green markings that occasionally moved across it's surface, he would've thought he was looking at some kind of physical form of nothing. The green markings looked like nothing he had ever seen before, simple lines put together in new, impossible ways. They moved fluidly across the surface of the thing. He swallowed, then backed up slowly. His foot came down on a twig. He felt it snap beneath his weight, and wasn't entirely surprised when it made no noise. His mind, one step ahead, imagined the noise for him; the clean crack would've reverberated around the crater, a single noise to break the silence. Suddenly, he was overcome with a desire to hear something. Any noise, anything at all. He wanted to say something aloud, but what to say?

"Um," said Russel, so quietly that he could barely hear it himself. The glowing green markings flowing across the surface of the thing suddenly froze. Then, thousands began to come from all parts of it, gathering together like a group ants. The shook gently, as if nervous, all clustered on the side closest to Russel. It was like they were alive, and had heard him.
"Uhhh," he said, just as quietly before. The marks bustled around again, but still stayed close together. A noise began to come from the ship; it sounded like a thousand identical, slightly computerised voices speaking in absolute union.
"'Euh' c'est pas un mot de la langue spécifique. S'il vous plaît indiquer votre langue. 'Uhh' non è una parola linguaggio specifico. Si prega di indicare la vostra lingua. 'Uhh' no wa, gengo koyū no tango de wa arimasen. Gengo o o noberu. 'Uhh', no es una palabra del lenguaje. Por favor, indique su idioma. 'Uhh' is not a language specific word. Please state your language. 'Uhh' is nie 'n taal spesifieke woord. Meld asseblief u taal." Russel realised that they were saying the same thing, but in different languages. In all the languages.
"Uhh, English." Said Russel, uncertainly. The babble stopped instantly.
"Thank you. Language: English. Location: Earth. Please Explain."
"Uhm, what do you want me to explain?" Russel stuttered.
"Please Explain."
"What? Explain what?"
"Please Explain."
"I don't know what you want me to explain!"
"Please Explain." Russel finally decided that that was all he was going to get out of it, and turned to leave.
"You will not leave. Please Explain." Russel turned and looked at it.
"I'm sorry, I don't understand. I have to go." Fear bubbled up inside him.
"You will not leave. Please Explain." It repeated. Ignoring it, Russel turned to leave. He got about 3 meters away before he smashed into something. It was hard, completely invisible, and Russel knew instinctively he would not be able to get past it, whatever it was.
"You will not leave. Please Explain."
Russel was panicking now. But, being slightly sensible, he panicked quietly, sitting down on the ground, head in hands. The thing continued it's request constantly.
"Please Explain."
"I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO EXPLAIN!" He cried, snapping suddenly. His broken sobs echoed throughout the quiet landscape. Still, it continued to speak.
"Please Explain." There was a longer than normal pause after the statement, and Russel looked up, hoping they had decided to let his go.
"Please Explain, or you will be incinerated." It said. It took everything he had for Russel to not loose himself completely.
"Please Explain, or you will be incinerated." It repeated.
"I- I don't… Please explain!" He cried. Maybe they would explain what they wanted his to explain, if he asked them the right way.
"Please, explain." He said, his voice breaking slightly.
"Please Explain, or you will be incinerated." It didn't seem to make a difference. Russel tried explaining anything he thought could be relevant to it. Different things concerning the location of the Earth in the universe, that he was human, that it may have crashed, even things like gravity strength on this planet, and what was in the air. Every time, his explanation was answered with,
"Please Explain, or you will be incinerated."

"Otarats'nel-Vestium!" Cried a voice from far over to Russel's right. He looked up, staring at the new man, walking toward his. The marks flowed over to 'face' the speaker. He was tall and skinny, wearing a brown pinstriped suit and a long light brown overcoat. His brown hair stuck up at all angles, and his red trainers made no noise on the grey ground. His hands were in his suit pockets, the overcoat trailing out behind him in a way that reminded Russel of a cape. There was something strangely casual about him, like he had seen this kind of thing too many times. Russel was too shocked and confused to do anything but stare.
"Yes, that's who you are," The man said, nodding.
"Please Explain, or you will be incinerated." Repeated the thing. The stranger barely concealed a smile.
"Right then. You are on Sol-3, a level-five nondefero planet." He began. "The complexity and massiveness of your lifeship-hybrid and it's defences, coupled with the fragility of this particular moment in time has disrupted the chronoline and thus has ruptured the second, causing time to come to almost an absolute halt." He said, in the most serious and authoritative voice Russel had ever heard. "Which, in all seriousness, is a very bad thing." He said in a know it all way, the authority dropping from his voice in an instant. "Ahem," he said clearing his throat, "to revert the temporal-clash to its original flow, all you need to do is deactivate your defences temporarily. The chronoline will snap instantaneously back in place, causing this area jump three hours forward in time." He finished. The authority had returned to his voice, but was gone when his bent down and whispered in Russel's ear, "Sorry about the technobabble, but you have to be ridiculously technical and specific when dealing with Otarats'nel-Vestuim." He told him. "Though really, it's easier just to call them marks. Well, here we go, this could be a bit unpleasant. Sorry. Allons-y!"

Suddenly, the whole world ripped apart. To Russel, it felt like he had been thrown several hundred kilometers forward, though his eyes and and ears and every other sense told him he was still sitting in the exact same spot as before. Even his inner ear, which dealt with balance, told him he had not moved. It felt like he was moving at the same time as being still; it felt like the landscape around his had been pulled away, though he could still see and feel it; it felt like his soul had been ripped out through his mouth, then shoved back in and still wasn't quite sitting properly; it felt like his head was exploding; it felt like he was blind, but could see everything; it felt like three hours and half a millisecond, all at once.

When Russel next opened his eyes, he was sitting where he was before. He hadn't even noticed that he had closed them. The thing was gone. His memories were faded, but he clearly remembered the thing, and the odd man who had saved his life. The details were fuzzy, though he thought he remembered the important parts. Getting up, he walked straight back home, not stopping, trying not to think too hard, lest he forget.

The second he got home, he sat down at his desk, and started writing. For some reason, all the memories seemed to escape him; apart from the man. He wrote down every detail.

Many years later, Russel needed an idea for his new character. The character needed to be big, and over confident, but funny and new and old and brilliant. He came across an old piece of paper he remembered writing on as a child; it was a description of the perfect man to become his new character. The 10th Doctor.


Disclaimer: Normally I don't bother, but after reading this you may realise that this hints that the main character is a certain real life person. This is, obviously, all fiction. The person in question has no idea I'm doing this, and this is not meant to offend him in any way (not that I think it would). The characteristics I have given him bear no resemblance to the real man. All fiction, all for a bit of fun.
I don't own Doctor Who either. Just thought I'd put that in here.

Please do review. :D