As the TARDIS doors opened a shaft of early morning sunlight flittered through. Along with a brisk early-morning breeze. It was pretty cold…..
"Are you SURE we're in Australia?" Donna said, grappling for her jacket.
"Sure I'm sure!" The Doctor replied cheerfully. "The monitor says 'Sydney, St Ives, 2010'!"
"I think the monitor's wrong, then!" Donna complained. "Australia is all desert! And deserts are HOT!"
"Not if you're in Antarctica."
"You know what I mean!"
"And besides, only the centre of Oz' is desert. St Ives is mostly covered in bush land."
"Hmm? Oh yeah… Sorry. Not thinking straight. Think I'm getting Africa mixed up with Australia again."
"Again?"
"Don't ask or I'll eat you." Donna's eyes were full of laughter as she talked.
"Well…"
"Well what?"
"What don't we take a peek….?" The Doctor cocked his head towards the door, which Donna had closed to a slit because of the wind. Donna nodded and opened the doors again. After their eyes had adjusted and they had stepped outside, the pair saw a very tall and white tree in front of them. As Donna looked up, she saw strips of dark brown bark peeling off a few of its lower limbs. Despite the cold it still had all its olive green, dry leaves and looked rather ghostly…
"That is the weirdest tree I've ever seen," Donna commented. The Doctor smiled sheepishly; Donna knew she was about to get a lecture on Aussie trees.
"It's a ghost gum," he started. "There are heaps of different kinds of gum trees – or eucalyptus as they're sometimes called. They tend to loose their outer layer of bark as the elements get hold of them, which is what makes them look light grey in colour—." The Doctor stopped and cocked his head.
"What are—."
"Shh!" He seemed to be listening to something. Donna strained her ears. A faint flapping sound was all she heard. Which could have been just a bird. Or could have been something else. And then—
"AHHH!" Screamed both the Doctor and Donna, and anyone near by. They all covered their ears and bent over in agony. The roar was deafeningly loud; it sounded like the howl of a wolf – or maybe a dingo – mixed with the roar of the largest lion, and the laugh of the cruellest hyena. At least, that was how she would have described it. Donna felt as if her ears had to either go deaf or explode.
Yet to the Doctor it was a sad sound.
Through the pain he could almost identify the story of lost young ones….. of having to hide away or die….. a fight for survival…. which was almost lost….. or maybe already so….
And then the sound died.
And the land was quiet. Abnormally so. Not even the birds sang. The wind didn't stir, either. It was as if EVERYTHING was paralysed. Except the house in front of them.
Someone near-by let out a choking cry as it crumpled into a heap of bricks and wood.
The Doctor just watched with a submissive and traumatized face.
And that spooked Donna. Severely.
Everyone sat there for a few moments, confused and sore in the ear. Then the man who Donna supposed had let out the cry walked over to the house, shoulders sagging. He might have been the owner. The man knelt to his knees and looked pitifully at the rubble. Then a woman came up to him and together they both started searching for valuables.
By then the Doctor had recovered and had found his legs again. Donna succeeded in doing the same and they walked over to the couple.
"This was you house…?" The Doctor asked.
"Yes." The man was short but skinny, and (Donna guessed)his wife was the same. He wore a blue top and jeans, whilst his wife wore a pair of black slacks and a white shirt with the lettering 'Surf Girl' spilled vertically down one side.
"Any idea what happened?" the Doctor pressed.
"No." He wife spoke now. "We got out of the car and all-of-a-sudden the roar sounded. And then the house came down."
"Hmm," the Doctor hummed. "Mind if we have a sniff around?" They shook their heads. As the Doctor and Donna left them, some more people, probably neighbours, came over to the owners and started talking to them.
"So what are we looking for?" Donna asked.
"Anything – anything at all that might tell us how the house fell down by itself. It could have been the roar, I guess, but then, who or what made that sound? And how did they make it so loud?" Even the Doctor seemed confused about what had happened.
Donna shrugged and started searching.
After a time which felt like an hour but probably wasn't, the Doctor seemed to have found something.
"Donna! Looky what I found!" The Doctor what pointing at a wall that was still half standing. He seemed to be on the outside of where the house used to be. A series of long, thick and serrated looking scratch marks were all over it.
"There are similar marks all over the place. It's as if they were to weaken the building somehow… and that roar finished it off…".
"So you think the same thing that made that roar made the scratches as well?"
"Yeah….. and judging by the width and… uhh….. serratedness…. I'd say it was a very large thing, as you put it, which is VERY dangerous."
Two days later…
They looked out across the oval. It looked like someone had grabbed multiple lights and had planted them all over the place.
"What…. What happened here?" Donna stammered. The Doctor didn't answer. Instead he jumped over the mesh fence and walked up to one of the 'lights'.
Both looked down.
"What is that?" Donna asked. It looked light a light, but a lot paler, and had a sort of… warm glow about it. And there was no light that she could see; only a hole with this strange pale light coming out of it.
"I….. I think it's sunlight." Even the Doctor looked confused. But then the moment passed and his eyes were clear again; he had an idea, obviously.
"I think I know what did this…"
"Well?"
"I'll tell you later; right now I think we should have another look-see at that first house."