"RUN!" The Doctor shouted, and grabbed Anne's hand. They left the control room the second the engine exploded, and the impact threw them on the floor. He quickly got up and helped her stand, but the moment she took the first step her face twitched in pain and she fell on her knees.
"My legs" She said, almost crying. "I can't walk." Her brown hair was falling on her watery eyes and her young beautiful face was covered in black dust. Anne was only eight years old, an orphan victim of an omegahnian invasion over a human colony on the fortieth second century. She had just lost her family, and at that moment, The Doctor was all she had.
"Well, I'm not leaving you!" The Doctor said, as he picked her up and carried her out on his arms. He pressed the button to open the door to the next aisle and closed it behind him just in time to see a whole part of the omegahnian spaceship disintegrate.
"Don't worry, I got you." The Doctor whispered, and started running towards the TARDIS. It was only a few feet away, but suddenly he felt an excruciating pain, an electric charge running through his spine, and he fell, Anne still on his arms. His vision was blurred and he couldn't move. He just lied there, powerless, and saw a pair of big white claws drag Anne away as she screamed for help. As she screamed for him. So his eyes closed.
He woke up tied to a chair, on a white room with no windows and no apparent doors. His head was dizzy and for a moment he couldn't remember what had happened. Then Anne's scream echoed inside his mind. "No" he mumbled. "Let me out! Anyone!" he screamed, struggling to get out of the chains. If only he could reach the sonic screwdriver…
"Perhaps I can help." Said a familiar voice coming from behind him. "Who's there?" The Doctor asked, trying to look back. Suddenly a short old man wearing a red bow tie materialized in front of him, with a smile on his face. "Missed me?" he asked. Standing right in front of The Doctor was a dark apparition from his past, the so called Dream Lord, who was actually nothing but a psychic manifestation of the darkest parts of his mind.
"You. But how? I got rid of all the psychic pollen that day!"
"Yes you did. This has nothing to do with it. My guess is that the omegahnians want you alive for some reason, so they decided to drug you and now you are hallucinating." The Dream Lord disappeared and reappeared next to The Doctor. "Your guess? Oh wait; it's the same of mine, because you are me. It seems that you have thought a lot about our last encounter, and it only took a few drugs for you to realize it."
"If you are only in my head, I can make you go away."
"Oh, but did you forget? The omegahnians are well-known for their hallucination potion. They make their prisoners go mad until they can get any information from those who survive the process. Although I thought that a time lord with such an old, powerful mind wouldn't be affected by it. Perhaps it was because of that little girl. The simplest deaths always affect you, don't they?"
"Shut up." The Doctor snarled, sweat running down his face. "Don't you dear saying a word about Anne."
"You should be used to this kind of situations by now. She wasn't the first to die on your hands, Doctor." The Dream Lord said, now sitting on the floor, leaning his back on the wall. "No, she was just one more in a crowd. You never forget their names, their faces. You couldn't; they still haunt you in your sleep. And there'll be more. You know there will. That's why you left your precious Amelia Pond on Earth with her beloved Rory. Keeping yourself away from her, just because you are afraid she'll be next."
"Stop."
"I still remember the look on your face when she told you she would rather be with him. That brief moment after you told her it was okay, those few seconds when you were alone and she had already got in the van. Ooh, I swear I could hear your both hearts breaking."
"Just stop." The Doctor begged, as he began to feel a lack of oxygen. Maybe the room was running out of air? Possibly, there were no visible gaps on the walls or on the ceiling.
"Just admit it already!" the Dream Lord continued, amused. "You love her. You love her with all your soul and you can't ever tell her. You know, I really approve this form of torture. The hallucination, I mean. It's really efficient. If you were an ordinary human, you would be begging for the omegahnians to interrogate you by now."
"But I'm not human. And this potion isn't strong enough to drive me mad."
The Dream Lord laughed, loud and cruel. "Are you really that blind, Doctor?" He materialized closer to The Doctor, and whispered: "You are already mad."
A second later, The Dream Lord was gone and The Doctor realized he wasn't tied to the chair. He never had been. He got his sonic screwdriver and aimed to the walls, one by one, until he found the hidden door. An alarm set off and he ran to the TARDIS, that wasn't far from there. He ran through white cold hallways that looked all the same, feeling so weak he was afraid of passing out any moment. He started hearing heavy steps coming closer and closer to him. But then he finally saw the TARDIS, and walked into it before any guard could catch him. He closed the door behind him and his knees weakened. He passed out right there, and dreamed of the faces of the ones that had died on his hands.