Aurora was running.
From what, she wasn't sure. As she raced through a labyrinth of decaying trees, her eyes desperately struggled to adjust to the endless black environment. Aurora searched for any landmarks that would give insight on where she was, but everything remained frustratingly out of focus. Twigs and branches scratched at her bare feet, tearing the flesh without remorse as she stumbled over fallen logs littering the forest floor. Despite the pain, she knew she had to keep running.
A menacing snarl came from the aphotic abyss, and Aurora realized with despair that she was not alone. Aurora dodged a whipping tentacle as it made a grab for one of her golden curls. Her unfocused eyes caught small glimpses of scaly claws and grotesque tentacles grappling at the tree trunks as she bounded down her unkempt path.
Suddenly, something pierced through the pitch darkness. A dim, blueish light gleamed off in the distance, floating just a few feet above the ground. The light was not alone, however. It illuminated the ground beneath it, revealing something even more unusual than macabre monsters and endless forests: a big, blue phone box hovering in mid-air!
Aurora was unsure why, but the sight of the distant object washed a sense of breathtaking hope over her body. Something inside her mind sparked, yelping screaming out with recognition. She knew this box! Her body screamed for her to remember, but Aurora had no idea where the sudden insight had come from. All she knew was that her bones ached with longing for the strange box. The little blur of light atop the contraption pulled at her heart, urging her to run faster. She ran and ran until the legs beneath her burned in protest and her bruised feet were bleeding freely. But, despite all her effort, neither the light nor box seemed to be getting any closer.
As Aurora dodged yet another thrashing spiked appendage, the light finally began to grow larger. Its blaze slowly approached the girl, warping the scene around her. The darkness was twisted and churned like smoke until the entire forest was engulfed in a white-hot flash. The jet of light destroyed everything in its path, including Aurora. She let out an agonizing wail as her body crumpled to the mossy ground, the smoldering inferno of light searing every inch of her body as it passed over her like a sonic boom.
All of Aurora's breath left in an excruciating rush as the world slowly became nothing but blinding white light. Everything was on fire. Worst of all; she could feel it all.
Each one of her nerve endings seemed to be firing at what felt like a billion times per second. She gasped in anguish as her still-coherent mind took everything in. Everything. Her skin bubbled, the frayed flesh rising along invisible currents before peeling off her arms and crumbling into a pile of insernated ash. The muscles beneath caught ablaze also. She watched in horror as her own meat healed and burned, healed and burned. One of her blood vessels fissured open to the air and the blood seeped out as if weightless, sizzling down to nothing but smoke. The furious flames devoured up her shoulders and her perfect golden locks, eating away at them like acid. Her eyelashes were singeing off also, making blinking odd and uncomfortable. The teen clenched her eyes shut and lay, paralyzed with pain, as her body slowly reduced itself to ash. This was it…this was the end.
Aurora bolted awake; the echo of her own screams still bouncing around her tiny bedroom's walls. Her throat was course and painful, the metallic taste of blood inside her mouth pulling her mind back to the dream. God, it had felt so real. The misery…the agony…watching her own flesh melt away. A shudder racked through her spine. She'd felt like an ant who'd been trapped in a microwave. She had truly believed she was going to die.
Only half relieved that she had not perished, Aurora's chocolate brown eyes shifted over to the alarm clock atop her old nightstand. Her groggy brain barely processed the 3:13 AM blinking back in bright green digital numbers.
"Great…" she grumbled, running a hand through the tangles in her hair.
The night terrors had become a regular occurrence; she would awaken at an ungodly hour, sweating and screaming, the haunting images still corroding away at her mind. The remnants of these nightmares would keep her from returning to sleep until the next night, when the whole ordeal would then repeat itself. Each night the dreams grew increasingly more disturbing, and this had been the worst they've ever gotten to. Deciding it wasn't even worth attempting to fall back asleep, Aurora slipped her feet into the warm wool slippers at the end of her bed and pulled herself back into the orphanage's musty upstairs corridor, her mind set solely on the raw state of her throat. She made her way to the kitchen, tiptoeing down the wright iron staircase to keep from waking Madame Sofie or any of the girls.
Saint Mildred's girls were hardly ever allowed to step foot into the kitchen, and thus Aurora had never realized just how hideous the room was. It was vast and lonely looking, with dirty tiled floor and nauseating green wallpaper. Chipping white counters surrounded the room, an old wood stove centered in the middle of them. To the right of the ancient appliance sat an industrialized eyesore of a fridge, which Aurora knew was full of half-expired milk and stale leftovers. The famished girl's stomach growled at the thought of food, but pushed the desire out of her mind. The food in that fridge would do more harm than good. Instead, Aurora dragged herself over to the nearest cabinet and peeled open the door. The rusting joints groaned out in protest, sending a piercing squeak echoing throughout the hallowed kitchen.
"Shhh!" Aurora whispered, as if scolding the inanimate object would keep it from blowing her cover.
She reached for one of the crystal drink glass residing atop the bottom shelf, standing on her tip-toes for optimum reaching capabilities. Once the glass was obtained, Aurora held it beneath the rusted sink tap, filling it to the brim with icy cold water. Just as she brought the glass to the edge of lips, a crashing noise stopped Aurora dead in her tracks.
The girl stood motionless, waiting for any following sounds but all that lingered was silence. Aurora's curiosity getting the best of her, she decided to investigate the origin of the crash. With the glass still in hand, she snuck around the corner and back into the foyer at the end of the stairs.
As soon as she reached the center of the foyer, a new sound began, this time recognizable as footsteps. At first she feared that she'd awoken Madame Sofie, but as the footsteps drew closer Aurora realized they smacked against the hardwood flooring far too heavily to belong to any of St. Mildred's females. The only male that worked at the insufferable home was George, the ancient and wheezing landscaper. He lived in a nearby town and only visited St. Mildred when yard work was required, and Aurora highly doubted there were any bushes that needed trimming at 3 o'clock AM.
Still curious, Aurora inched closer into the dark corridor. Her heart thudded boisterously inside her chest. She only made it half way in before the footsteps ceased, stopping Aurora also. After another few minutes of silence, Aurora began to wonder if she'd imagined the man's footsteps. She tightly clutched the crystal glass in her increasingly clammy hands and called out into the lightless corridor.
"H-hello?"
Suddenly, the floor beneath her was gone. Aurora was grabbed by the back of her shirt and wrenched backwards, tumbling off her feet. Before she had the time to blink, her shocked body was shoved roughly against a wall, her face crashing hard against the dusty wallpaper. The glass of water she had been holding clamored to her feet, shattering to bits and allowing the icy liquid to run free across the floor. Water seeped into Aurora's slippers as she struggled against the deathly strong grip.
"Let-me-go!"
Aurora kicked backwards, her foot making contact on her attacker's kneecap with a satisfying CRUNCH! But the man faltered only for a second before regaining his grip on Aurora. He jammed an elbow into her side and slammed her back against the wall hard enough to send blotches of darkness speckling across Aurora's eyesight. Aurora's ribs took the brunt of the impact, groaning in protest at her visitor's assault.
"What the fuck!" she cursed loudly, wincing in pain. "HELP! I-"
"Shut up!"
"Let me go right now!"
"I once killed a man with a paperclip and his own mustache. You really do not want to mess with me, little girl."
The man's voice was deep and hostile, sending chills through Aurora's body. Resistance against her attacker seemed futile, and so she finally gave up the struggle. Her body went slack between the wall and the pair of hands' owner, a low whimper of defeat following the final shuffle of two bodies battling for dominance.
"Owen!"
A familiar voice called out from the darkness, followed by another storm of booted footsteps. The voice carried a slowly dying flashlight with it which gave off just enough light for Aurora to notice the small trickle of blood dripping onto her starched uniform shirt. Though she wasn't able to inspect exactly where the blood was coming from, Aurora sensed it had something to do with the throbbing aches tingling through her nose. As she reached to wipe the steam of crimson flowing from her face, the hands gripping her wrists tightened and tugged her to the side, trashing her back into the wall.
Now that Aurora was facing the proper way, she was able to get a good look at her assailant. As much as she hated to admit it, Aurora found the man to be fairly attractive. The faint light streaming from the side of her illuminated half his face, casting an eerie mystery across the other portion. Smooth skin stretched tightly over angular cheekbones and down to his thin lips which then morphed into a small scowl, bearing a bit of his teeth. A thick rim of black eyelashes covered his glossy black eyes. The large, coal coloured orbs bore into Aurora with a mix of hostility and curiosity as she struggled under their body's grip.
"Let her go, Owen," The familiar voice instructed.
Hearing the man again finally made the link click in Aurora's flustered mind. Beneath her assailant, Aurora turned her head in the direction of the voice. A tall and handsome man donning a navy blue military jacket stood before her, his slowly dying flashing illuminating the perfectly chiseled features of his face.
"Uncle Jack?" Aurora gasped.
"Hello, Aurora!" Jack replied with a charming smile before turning his attention to his niece's captor. "Owen, listen to me. She's harmless. Let her go."
Uncle Jack seemed to be some sort of authority figure to this Owen stranger; no sooner than the sentence left Jack's lips, Aurora's arms were released. Rubbing her sore limbs, she turned her attention back to her uncle and the confusing situation that lay before her.
Jack looked exactly as he had since the first time he'd appeared at the orphanage, claiming to be the long-lost sibling of a then-6-year-old Aurora's mother. Since then he had popped in every few months. The visits were always the same; Jack came bearing strange gifts and asking the same, routine questions in an attempt to catch up on the boring details of Aurora's life he'd missed in the time between visits. Despite their unenventfulness, Aurora had grown fond of the short meetings. Jack was the closest thing she would ever have to a father. The one thing that did bother Aurora, however, was how distant he seemed to be.
Jack always pretended to take interest in the mundane aspects of Aurora's daily life, but he never mentioned a word about himself or the family Aurora never knew, specifically her mother. Whenever Aurora brought the woman up in conversation, Jack would gracefully graze over the topic and move on to the next query on his list. The only information she'd gathered in the 9 years of his visits was that her mother's name was Rose, and Jack was her brother. Anything beyond that was off limits and slyly dodged.
It was always like a slap in the face when Jack avoided one of Aurora's questions. Jack knew every little thing about her; her favourite colour, the details of her first kiss, even the debilitating nightmares that haunted her at night, yet Aurora knew little to nothing about his life. She was painfully reminded of this as two strange women jogged up to join at either side of Jack.
"Jack, we-oh, who's this?" one of the women, a pretty Asian, questioned as her eyes skimmed over to the disheveled teenage girl.
Aurora suddenly felt self-conscious as the four pairs of eyes bore her down, examining every inch of her shaking body.
"Team, I would like you to meet Aurora." Jack said with a reassuring smile. His team looked surprised, as if they were familiar with her name but not the face that went along with it. "Owen was too quick to react and pinned her. She's not the one causing this."
"How do you know, Jack?" asked the other woman, a brunette, before turning to Aurora. "What are you doing down here?"
"I had a nightmare and came down for a drink of water!"
"Play nice," Jack warned. "I'll call Ianto to bring the car around. We're done here."
"Wait a minute, not so fast! I could ask you the same thing! What the hell are you doing, snooping around random buildings at night?" Aurora turned her attention to Jack. "I demand an explanation right now, starting with who the hell these people are!"
All friendliness and familiarity slipped from Jack's face at the question. Aurora backed back against the wall, intimidated by the group of shadowy strangers surrounding her. She looked up into Jack's eyes, desperate for reassurance that they meant no harm, but Jack's body language was all business.
"We are Torchwood." Jack replied.
"…Torchwood? I'm sorry…what?"
"We are the division of Torchwood known as Torchwood Three. Basically, we are a trained team of alien hunters." Jack's voice was proud and boisterous.
"Ali-"
"Let me finish. In the middle of Cardiff there is a rift. A rift in time and space, and it has been acting strange lately. About an hour ago, we got a sky-rocketing reading of rift activity from this exact location, and so we set off in hopes of finding the culprit. You see, something is coming through. But whatever it is has found a way to somehow mask it's identity from our radars, leaving us completely clueless as to what's escaping into our world. And as defenders against this exact thing, I'm sure you can imagine just how dangerous this could be for us…and all of human kind."
Aurora thought back to her nightmare and the hideous, deformed creatures stalking through the darkness. A shudder racked down her spine and she nodded with all too much knowledge of the danger Cardiff citizens now faced.
"But…I still don't understand, Uncle Jack. What's this got to do with me? Why do these people know my name?"
Ignoring the raised eyebrows the title "Uncle" had stirred from his Torchwood teammates, Jack placed a comforting hand upon Aurora's shoulder. That spark of trustworthiness was back in his eyes: eyes that spoke of years and places far beyond his youthful appearance. He was once again the Jack Aurora had come to love.
"It's time you learned the truth."