Didn't We Run
The Gamma Forests were beautiful, rich and vibrant and full of life. Everyone was always content with the beauty; with the way the trees swayed in the dust capped wind and how everyone in the forests seemed to be peaceful; viewing everyone as one large family. Lorna Bucket was never content.
She was viewed by adults and her peers as restless, which to them always led to trouble. Nobody in the Gamma Forests, not even Lorna's best friend Kaley, could understand in the slightest why anybody would want to ever leave the Forests, or grow tired of it's vastness. But Lorna yearned more than just endless green stretching out to dusky gold horizons. Nothing exciting ever happened; and she wanted her pulse to quicken and to vibrate with adrenaline, excitement. Lorna would often lie awake at night, staring at the dark sky and dreaming of the stars, and the legend of the 'Doctor.'
His name sent shivers down her spine, as everyone knew 'Doctor' meant mighty warrior. Her mother had spun extraordinary tales about how many had formed an alliance to build the Pandorica, an unbreakable prison to hold this trickster. But even so, he had broken out of it easily, and Lorna would listen with wide stretched eyes. She often pondered over his name and dark, shadowed legend. Not once had she heard a story where he had killed or fought, so why was he called the Doctor? Nothing made sense, and Lorna liked that.
Kaley had once told her that the doctor took the bravest of the brave with him to see planets and stars, and that many of these people died in the process. But he would always move on, keep running, further and further into the darkness. Lorna Bucket almost wished she could go along with him, but she immediately banned such silliness from her head. The Doctor was just a legend; a fairy tale to make children shiver. She thought.
Lorna was nine years old when she first saw him. She had been moping around in her favorite spot, wishing something, anything, would happen. The next thing she knew she was gazing at a man in a tweed jacket, sporting a bright red bowtie, a crazy haircut and a mad gleam in his blue-green eyes and his smile. He shouted then, rather cheerfully, "RUN!" It seemed to be well broken in, a word he used quite a lot, and Lorna followed him, running swiftly from the large, almost clumsy looking, monster that pursued them.
He repeated 'run' a lot; and by the look of his confident smirk he thought it made him sound quite cool. Lorna didn't comprehend a lot of what he was saying and she caught things like "Pesky slitheen," and "I came here for a vacation!"
She obviously wasn't complaining, as the blood was roaring in her ears and the excitement she'd been wishing for her whole life was finally exploding in her face. She was running for her life. Lorna only realized who this madcap was when the Slitheen had been turned into green goop (Unfortunately, right over her). He had leaned casually against a foreign blue box and smiled warmly at her, his old eyes sparkling. "What's your name, Gamma Girl?" He asked quietly. Lorna watched him for a few minutes, and then replied in a small voice. "Lorna Bucket."
"Good name, that!" He said heartily, ruffling her hair. "I'm the Doctor."
He had said his name as if he didn't expect her to know it, as if it wasn't important. Lorna gaped at air, not noticing he had disappeared into his bright blue box. When she finally regained her senses, and opened her mouth to fire off questions, the blue box began to fade, ruffling her hair and after a few seconds, Lorna Bucket was alone once more.
She told others naturally, but not a soul believed her. It didn't matter.
Lorna had ran with the Doctor for thirty seconds, and until the day she died she still claimed it was the best time she had ever had in her life.
