Dystopia.
An imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad.
This was a spot on definition. Spot on.
Except, this was no imagined state. This was real life.
Earth.
Or what was left of it.
Barely a star in the sky, barely a glimpse of the sun before the darkness fell once again.
The grim skyline of what used to be a beautiful London, now a dismal reflection of what used to be, broken buildings destroyed by rogue Zeppelins, by creatures far beyond the stories you were told as child, by fellow humans that when confronted, turned against their own species.
This was the place you once called home, where you woke up in the morning with toast laid on the side by your mother.
Where you came home from school and your father helped you with your homework.
And where you laid back into bed dreaming of what the next day could bring, as your sister told you a bedtime story from her travels.
This, Tony Tyler lamented, was Hell personified.
A mother and father laid to rest in the dust.
Your sister long missing and her Doctor.
Well, he was one of the first to die.
And here he was stood, a leader to a small group of survivors, searching the earth for those left who had not been turned or destroyed by the Alien force.
Here he has knelt, repeating his morning prayer for a saving grace.
And here, a Blue Box has appeared, just as the stories his sister had told.