Eternity in a Heartbeat.

I once told Martha Jones and Captain Jack Harkness that The Master went mad when he looked into the Untempered Schism. The children of Gallifrey who look into the Untempered schism typically fall under three categories, Some are inspired, some run away, and some go mad. When asked which category I fell under, I said I ran. The memory of that day has never left me and in the quiet of my TARDIS it sought to resurface.

At eight years old I was taken, like all children of Gallifrey, from my family and brought to the Time Lord academy to be initiated and to stand before the Untempered Schism, a Gap in the fabric of time and space where one could see the Time Vortex that contains the universe.

Looking upon this I could see the whole of eternity and in that heartbeat I felt it, the agony and love and misery and hope and destruction and compassion and chaos and indifference and all things hidden and all things that are, were, and ever would be, the black and white and the gray that we so often use to describe our surroundings, how ignorant we are to even believe anything could be so simple.

How blind we are.

The Heart of Creation froze my thoughts and burned my mind, thrumming with my two heartbeats and whispering through my memory.

Etched forever within me.

At that moment I lost all innocence that I may have contained, I stood there with each breath coming in quick gasps and my hands and arms shaking.

I had looked into Eternity and Eternity had looked into me, I was nothing but a speck of dust before raw power and yet I wanted it. I wanted to control such power and I did, for it resonated within me, yet in that moment of greed I felt my own fear, to try and control such power was to shatter my soul and to lose myself. I chose my fear over my greed and unable to stand that great eye of truth I turned and ran, my echoing footsteps laughing back at me.

I stumbled once, and looked back only to have the weight of it all hit me, settle in my bones, in my mind, and in my heart.

Making me turn forward once more to keep running.

I just kept running.

To this day I've never stopped.