Prologue
He was going to regenerate and he knew it.
He had been through this before. So much that he knew the process off by heart. It would always start with his hands, they would glow bright gold, casting strange rays of the yellow light everywhere. Then his face would follow, his entire face would erupt into a plume of the peculiar energy, he would be temporarily blinded from the brilliant light, then it would start to burn. And it hurt. Real bad.
He pulled himself to his feet, wincing as he felt cramp in his abdomen and back, he staggered around the huge mechanical room, his vision in a spin, he groaned and gasped for air as he tried to steady himself.
There was a loud thud.
"Where have you taken me now?" he groaned in protest.
He limped over to the door of the room and attempted to push it open. It wouldn't budge, so he gritted his teeth and shoved it with his shoulder. There was a soft scraping sound as the door reluctantly oozed open. He stepped outside and was immediately hit with the shock of cold air. Now he knew why the door wouldn't open.
There was knee deep snow as far as the eye could see.
He shook his head in disbelief.
"No…no!" he muttered to himself.
A warmth began to creep through his hand, he thought it was just the cold, but then he looked at his hand.
It was glowing.
He panicked, his breath starting to steam out more frequently in the harsh cold, he was slowly but surely losing his mind, both the trauma and the cold were having a severe effect on him.
His other hand started to glow.
"No…no, this can't be happening! This CAN'T happen!" he yelled to nobody but himself in the howling wind and the snow falling.
His face started to feel warm.
With one last angry cry, he plunged his hands deep into the snow and buried his face in it soon after. The snow was a shock to his skin and the regeneration process was temporarily neutralized.
He threw his head out of the snow and gasped for breath.
The warmth came back. This time faster than ever.
"No! NOO!" he screamed, as his vision started to blur until all he could see was a seething white mass. In desperation, he flopped down onto the snow and frantically rubbed his hands and face in the snow, not caring if it was going to cause frostbite, just wanting to stop it from happening.
He scrubbed his face and hands with snow until everything was numb and his face was dripping with water.
He laid back against the walls of the blue box that brought him here and tried to catch his breath.
He was safe.
He had stopped it.
"Not today." He muttered breathlessly. "Not ever."
He had delayed his regeneration by at least another year.