Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.
A/N: This is the first in a series. I'm going to write one of these for the Doctor's mental representation of Clara, the Gallifreyan boy at the end, and, yes, the Doctor himself. Please read and review-many thanks.
Sometimes, I really hate my job.
I can't remember who I used to be. I think I was a woman once; I'm not sure. I think I had a real life once; I'm not even sure of that. Now there are only three things of which I am sure.
What am I? An abomination. What is my life? Pain. What do I do about it? Walk. And walk. And walk. And never stop.
I know I am dead. I know that my flesh is rotting away, that my skin is shriveling and slipping, that my innards are liquefying, that my muscles are turning to mush. I know that this process has been somehow permanently arrested, leaving me for all time a half-rotted wreck, covered in my hooded veil and surrounded by my entourage of flies.
And I know that if I stop walking, even for a second, I feel it all. Every violated cell in my tattered husk of a body screams out its fury at being so treated. I feel every dissolving organ, every vitiated muscle; each fly that lands to consume my fluid skin leaves a pinprick of acidic pain to top off the grinding symphony of agony. The only way to stop it is to walk. While I walk, I feel none of it.
It's not so simple as walking, though. It only works if I walk in a specific direction-towards the only other creature in my prison. The Magician. I have to walk towards him, try to touch him. If I succeed, he dies in agony, probably as terrible as mine.
He says I'm his nightmare. I'm not surprised.
I've been watching him. There's little else to do around here, especially since I can't stop walking for anything. He's very clever. He lost someone recently. He's a time traveler. I think I knew about time travelers. He talks nonstop to distract his enemies from the fact that he's got a brilliant plan and himself from the fact that he's frightened half out of his mind. He's an expert at sleight of hand; even the smallest action is part of a master plan. It's why I call him the Magician. And it's what's going to get him out of this place.
The Magician is always experimenting. He's figured out how to buy himself time, drawing me to one end of our prison, staying still until the last possible moment, and then running (yes, run you clever man) to the other. He knows exactly how much safety he can gain that way (eighty-two minutes, I heard him say it). If, despite his best efforts, I catch up to him, he can teleport away and rearrange the prison by confessing something he's never confessed to before-he says this prison is his own personal torture chamber, designed to get a confession.
Anyone who thinks they can torture a confession out of this man has obviously never met him.
The Magician has a plan. He arrived by teleport. Eventually, I catch him and he dies. Here's the brilliant part-before he does, he drags himself back to the teleport room and burns up his body to provide the energy for a new Magician, from the old pattern.
And here's the really brilliant part-in Room 12, there's a wall made of azbantium. Four hundred times harder than diamond, twenty feet thick. The Magician is convinced that the way out is through it. Once he found it (took him about fifty years), he got an incredible idea-he punches it a few times before I get to him, then create a new Magician to carry on the task. He makes no observable impact each time, but it's been twelve millennia and I'm starting to notice a difference. A slight difference, mind, but a difference all the same. And, partly on purpose, partly by chance, each version leaves clues to tell his predecessors what to do. And, after working out a few hitches in the beginning, they always do, without having the faintest idea why.
The most incredible thing, though, happens later. Kneeling in front of the wall, with me close behind him, the Magician remembers. Every time. He remembers that he has a choice-go through a day and a half of unbearable pain followed by death, over and over, for what must be close to eternity, or turn around and simply tell me whatever it is he won't share.
Every single time, he elects to punch that stupid wall until I kill him.
I wonder what it would be like to be that strong.
He reminds me that I have a choice, too. I could stop. I could accept the pain, turn and walk away, whatever it takes. Bring him a shovel, the idiot, so we can both get out of here faster.
I have tried. If he starts confessing, but it's not enough to take him away from me, I stop until he says enough to work whatever magic our prison runs on. If he's working to find an important clue, I'll do my best to give him time. But ultimately, there is an unbridgeable gap between us.
He's a hero. I'm not. It's that simple.
Of course, I'm still actively rooting for him. I wish I could help him, but I can't even speak (vocal cords rot rather quickly, alas). I trust him to get us out. But, as I mentioned, it's going to be a very long haul.
We've mostly settled in. Well, I've mostly settled in. The cycle is a well-worn routine for me, every week is a new and terrifying experience for him, until the last agonized day and a half.
I'm honestly not sure who has it worse.
Sometimes I wonder why I haven't gone insane yet. Maybe the same magic that preserves my body also acts on my mind, keeping it in its half-rotten state.
All that means is that I can't hope to crumble, in any sense.
Despite all I've said, there are moments when my job's really not so bad. Moments when the Magician is far away, and I'm walking along, pondering ways I could help him, ways I could try to communicate. Moments when, to some small degree, I succeed. Moments when I could almost believe he knows I don't want to hurt him, that we're in this together.
Which is ridiculous, of course. I'm a deadly enemy, a faceless nightmare creature, nothing more. He's quite right to believe that; it wouldn't do to have him get careless.
I only wish he were a little less afraid.
And there he is, pounding on the wall again, metacarpals shattering the way his mind never will. I am in awe. It does not stop me.
Here we go again...