CHAPTER TWO
My eyes fluttered open, and then I realized, it was a bad idea. Instantly, a blinding white light washed over me, making my eyes water. I groaned and sat up, rubbing my eyes. There was a terrible pain in my neck and upper back, and it looked like I was sleeping on the carpeted floor of my bedroom. The white light was the afternoon sun's rays, streaming in through my blinds. I stretched my arms, yawned, and traipsed out of my pastel colored bedroom into the living room.
"Oh look, she's up!" called the man, whom I remembered to be known as the Doctor.
"Don't start anything," I replied, plopping down onto a couch. "And, what are you doing?"
The Doctor was holding a sleek tool, that looked like a screwdriver, and he was running it over my door. The screwdriver emitted a soft blue light, along with a slight humming noise.
"Don't worry, I'm just locking your door, and sending out a signal to my… ship. If you're with me, you're not safe," he said, looking up. The Doctor put away his screwdriver and sat across me.
"Um, I don't understand?" I said, feeling my eyelids go heavy.
"If you want me to explain, you know you've got to be awake, right?"
"Fine," I huffed.
"Well, I'm the Doctor. Just the Doctor, and nothing else," the Doctor began.
"So you mean everyone calls you the Doctor?" I interrupted.
"No interruptions! And yes, everyone who meets me calls me the Doctor. I can't tell you too much yet, you could be in danger. Anyway, as you probably would have remembered, I'm a Time Lord. I'm not a human, but a nine hundred and forty-five year old Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. Gallifrey was destroyed a long time ago in the Time War between my kind and Daleks, a type of…"
"Alien?" I asked.
"Exactly," he replied.
"Let me get this straight - you're the only one who survived, right?" The Doctor nodded, and I continued. "And, I still don't understand - why would you trust me? Are you sure you didn't know my mother?"
"I can see all of space and time, and I can name every star in the universe. Funny thing is, I never saw us meeting, and I never remembered a Teresa Ridley. Nope," he said, popping the 'p'. "You know how I mentioned a ship, right? It's a spaceship, and it's called the TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimension in Space is what it stands for. I can travel through time and through the universe with that thing. I trust you because for some reason, the TARDIS was drawn to this area. Or, more specifically, drawn to you." The Doctor got up and started to pace the room.
"Is the TARDIS, like, alive? By the way, what's that screwdriver thing?" My head swam with questions.
"Yes, it's alive. Don't ask. This screwdriver thing," he answered, holding it up, "is a sonic screwdriver." I nodded in awe.
"Now, we need to find out why my TARDIS was drawn to you. And, we need to see more into how you know me, et cetera, et cetera. It's my turn to ask you some questions. Ready?" The Doctor sat down again, facing me.
"Uh, sure. As long as you don't ask me any really personal questions, I'm fine."
"Has anyone in your family talked about me?" He asked.
"I can't remember, but I think I used to hear stories about you ever since I was five. I'm seventeen now, by the way. And for some strange reason, I keep hearing a woman's voice, telling me about weird things, like a blue police box and a man with two hearts. I only started hearing the voice seven years ago, after I stopped hearing the stories. I remember now! It's all so… familiar but still fuzzy."
"That blue police box would be my TARDIS!" The Doctor's brows furrowed. "Oh! By any chance, can I meet your mother? You mentioned her, right?"
Tears threatened to spill. "No… I'm afraid that she died… seven years ago."
The Doctor's eyes widened. "I'm sorry. But, that would mean… seven years… your mother was telling you the stories, which is why you didn't hear anymore after that! Your mother's voice whispers in your mind; that's why it's so familiar. Yes! But how?"
"I-I don't have anymore memories of her. That's it," I said, trying to let the information sink in. It was impossible.
"It's either that or someone's purposely hid those memories from you so you can be used," said the Doctor, calmly.
"Are you freaking kidding?!" What the heck? I thought. This was exasperating.
"Usually when I go into a human's mind, their energy levels stay the same. But you, you're special. Why is that? Why did you pass out?" The Doctor stared at the broken grandfather clock on the wall.
"Did you say usually?" We fell into a silence that I didn't notice the soft tick tock, tick tock of the grandfather clock. The Doctor was still staring at it. "Just listening to that makes me feel like I'm being hypnotized," I said.
The Doctor was up in a flash. "You genius! Hypnotism! You were heavily hypnotized to subdue those memories, and that is why you became unconscious! The resistance and force of it - incredible. Absolutely incredible. However, if that happened a while ago, it wouldn't make sense because this sort of hypnotism wasn't discovered until the last 25th century. A human couldn't have done that. Not only that - if that grandfather clock was broken, why is it still ticking?"
Oh my gods. I was scared, really scared. I didn't move a muscle as the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and zapped it in the direction of the noise. There was a 'pop!' and the ticking stopped. He picked it up, examining it.
"Strange. I'll have to have a look at it in the TARDIS. Anyway," he said, looking around, "we're being watched. Be careful." The Doctor looked at the item in his hands - a fob-watch - closely. He looked a bit shocked and angry, in fact, but as he turned it over his expression softened.
"Anything wrong, or anything I can do to help?"
The Doctor seemed distant when he answered. "I still need you. I need to find out why the TARDIS was drawn to you, what this thing is, and what's the deal with your hidden memories, which we've also got to draw out. We've got a mystery on our hands!"
I sighed. "Great."
"By the way, it's your turn. I don't normally ask this - usually I get asked this, but, who are you?" The Doctor spoke, gazing into my eyes. His gaze felt powerful, as if I were looking into the very heart and soul of space and time. It was like looking into the center of the life - I could see the cosmos, galaxies and nebulae of the universe. At the same time, I saw sorrow and despair. I saw sadness and death and darkness. I shuddered. The Doctor, the brilliant Doctor, was the darkness as well as the light.
"Well?" He asked.
I don't know whether what I told him next struck him or me.
"My name… my name is Rose."