Hi again!
It's C.C. back with the second chapter of Forest-Eyed Girl
This chapter actually has the Doctor in it! Yay!
I don't have anything else to say, so I'll just start the chapter.
Chapter 2
The Planet
June woke up in a pile of smoking wreckage. The escape pod seemed to have exploded around her. Her skin was cut, bleeding, and bruised. Her hair was matted and ripped. Exhaustion weighed heavily on her body. Though, as tired as she felt, she forced herself to sit up.
Her memories hit all at once. The abduction, the aliens, the threat of dissection, the running and the dark, reaching arms, the dive into the escape pod, the feeling of losing all of her senses just before everything turned black and stopped. Her body heaved and she could feel herself crying yet was too tired to actually feel anything.
June went for the only things that felt familiar. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and immediately cut her finger. She winced as the cut spread and she began to bleed. She sucked on the new wound and looked at the screen. Her stomach dropped at the sight of it. It was completely shattered. Glass fell out everywhere into her lap. She could see some of the inner workings of the phone. And the stringy headphones were gone. They had snapped and left the end still plugged into the headphone jack, but the rest was gone. June sighed and wondered how expensive it would be to replace it. She cleaned the broken glass off the screen and put the phone back in her pocket.
Her wallet was still surprisingly still intact. It was a bit torn up, but she had had it for a long time anyway. Nothing else went missing in the crash. She would have to replace her driver's license, but that was all. It brought a bit of positivity to the situation after discovering her worse than useless phone.
Shoving her wallet back in her pocket, June focused on finding out where she was. The first thing she noticed about her surroundings, she couldn't not notice it, was the ground, or, the mud. The ground was just mud. It felt horrible and sticky between her fingers and against her legs. And although she hated mud and wanted to get off of it, she didn't feel ready to stand. She felt too defeated to stand. If she stood, she was afraid that she would crumble.
Straight ahead of where June sat was a sea of mud. It looked never ending. But, when she looked right, June gasped. There was a city off in the distance. It seemed to be made up of gleaming silver spires and oddly curved buildings. It stood only a short walk away. A longer walk than the one to the fast food restaurant her stomach reminded her of by grumbling, but still a manageable walk away.
When she looked to the sky, she saw a large, glass dome towering over her and by extent, the city in the distance. Three small suns, that looked more like large stars than suns, shone down on the planet. The light was a bit dimmer than the light on Earth. It looked like a cloudy day with no clouds.
June forced herself to stand up. She knew that she would have to go to the city to have a chance of getting home. She took one more glance back at the wreckage of the escape pod and then started through the mud. Her feet sunk through the ground as she walked, squishing and sticking. She hated it. She just wanted her bed. She just wanted all of this to be a nightmare. Wanting it to be a dream kept reminding her that it wasn't. It was all really happening. She wondered how this could have happened to her as tears rolled down her cheeks. She wondered if she would ever make it home.
The city didn't have any streets, but it didn't have any mud either. June stepped, mud flinging around her ruined shoes, onto a smooth stone ground. It looked like marble and shone like gem stones. It was so smooth she could have slipped, but her mud-covered shoes helped her stick. They helped her stick a little too much.
There were buildings that sat like buildings on Earth did. They all lined up next to each other on either side of a non-existent street. Every single building seemed to be curved instead of square. Most of them just looked like beans with legs. The occasional tower she would see would just be a long round tube. And every single building looked like it was made out of chrome. June's reflection against the buildings looked so distorted that she couldn't tell her normal appearance from mud. And everything was eerily empty. Not abandoned, just empty.
June knew that she would have been ecstatic to see an alien city on an alien planet if she hadn't just crash landed after being abducted by aliens. Another city, another sky, which seemed to be more violet colored than blue. Alien space mud had gotten all in her shoes and socks. But she wanted to be home. She missed her bed and her small California apartment. She missed her friends and family. She missed her sun and not the weird trio of smaller suns which surrounded the alien planet she found herself on.
She turned a corner around a weirdly curved building, her shoes sticking to the ground because of the mud caked onto the soles. She stopped when she saw something familiar to Time's Square. Huge chrome spires and business buildings, all with screens or projections plastered onto them. But what shocked her the absolute most was the sight of her own face. The picture from her driver's license was plastered on every building in the square. Green symbols were written under each picture of her. Loud hissing filled the air.
The crowd assembled in the middle of the square was alien—like she had been expecting. But these aliens were completely identical to the aliens she had been abducted by. She quickly understood what had happened. June had crash landed on the aliens' home planet, whatever and wherever that was. And the projections of her own face were wanted posters.
June did the only thing she could do in that situation. She abandoned her shoes and socks so she wouldn't leave any muddy footprints or get stuck to the ground and ran in the opposite direction. She didn't turn back the way she came. If these aliens were looking for her, the best thing she could do was avoid the escape pod and leave no prints to where she had been. She ran down another empty street, thankful for the smooth ground as her feet didn't ache and hoped that she could find a place to hide.
Her face popped up on each building she ran by. The aliens were plastering her face everywhere. Find the escaped human science experiment. Her face would soon be everywhere. It would alarm one of those aliens to casually see a human walking around in their city, but if they recognized her as the human from the wanted posters, June would stand no chance. Running had been the thing that worked last time. She would just have to be smarter this time.
June ran out into a seemingly empty lot. There were no buildings, just the smooth stone ground. The stone ground stopped dead a few feet ahead and she thought about wandering through the mud. It would feel terrible, but it might be harder for the aliens to find her. And maybe there was another city or better yet, another alien close by that didn't know her. Maybe trekking through the mud was what she had to do to find some help.
And then June tripped. Her body slammed onto the ground. The wind was knocked out of her lungs, but she couldn't just stay down while she was on the run from aliens. She sat up and looked back near her bare foot. She had tripped over a handle that stuck out of the ground. She quickly scanned her surroundings. There were similar handles sticking out of the ground spread out around the empty lot.
June looked back at the city. The reflection of a crowd of those aliens headed her way curved against the wall of a chrome building. She looked back at the wilderness. The mud. There was nothing but mud. No trees, no water, no nothing, just mud and the edge of the large glass dome. She couldn't hide in the mud with the aliens just about to turn the corner.
She turned to the handle she had tripped over. Empty lot, back of the city, maybe the aliens didn't come back around here a lot. So, June pulled the handle up. It didn't budge. She hopped over to the other side of it and pulled. She pulled until she managed to fully open a small, square door in the ground. It was all completely dark inside, anything could be lurking and waiting but she knew that it was her best chance to hide. So, she slid into the small open door.
The fall wasn't far and she landed easily on her feet. She could only see a bit of the space around her. The walls and floor were grey. The door wasn't that far above her head. She could still reach it. And on the wall next to her, there were two buttons.
June felt for a handle on the inside of the door. She hooked her hands around it and shut the door again, plunging herself into darkness. She slammed her hand against the two buttons on the wall. There was a click from above her and the lights turned on. The lights seemed to be embedded into the ceiling and she couldn't tell where they were coming from.
June stood at the end of a hallway. Right across from her was a door with a giant metal wheel in the center of it. She rubbed her arms with her hands to warm them from the cold breeze that seemed to flow around the room. It was cold, but it wasn't anything she couldn't deal with.
She reached up to the trap door's handle again and lightly tugged on it, attempting to open the door so she could peek up and see if anyone or anything had managed to track her. The door jiggled but stayed put. Locked.
June made a quick, small plan in her head. She studied the two identical buttons for a moment. She couldn't tell which one was for the lock and which one was for the lights. She experimentally pressed one. The lights snapped off. June smiled at the small success. She very slowly began to make her way to the other side of the hallway.
She didn't know how much time had passed before her hands met the wheel knob of the door, but she only cared that she had made it across without any alarms going off. She turned the wheel and pulled the metal door open. She slipped into another dark room and pulled the door shut behind her. She felt around the wall on one side of the door and when she didn't find any buttons, she felt around on the other side of the door. The second her hand ran over two small buttons, she pressed both of them. There was a click from the door and the lights flickered on.
Boxes. The room was filled with boxes. Boxes, more specifically wooden crates, lined up like aisles though the seemingly endless room. Boxes hovered on top of boxes without any shelves to hold them. They were just levitating. It reminded June of one of those basements in a furniture store, just without the shelves. She was in a storage room.
June knew that it was the best she was going to get. She had nowhere else to go especially with aliens coming after her. She could hide behind the boxes if anyone came searching and maybe she could break a few of them open and find some useful things inside. So, she decided to camp out near the door. She decided to leave the lights on just so she could see everything around her, but if she sat close enough to the door, she could see the hallway light come on from under the crack of the door. Then, she could run to turn the lights off and hide. Simple enough.
June settled on a spot next to the nearest wooden crate. She sunk down to the floor and let her head rest against the crate for a moment. God, she felt tired. Exhaustion weighed on her, but she doubted that she could ever go to sleep. So, she began the process of fixing herself up. She had a large series of cuts on her stomach, probably from the crash. Her arms and legs were all cut up and were mostly covered in dry blood. She pressed her shirt against any cuts that still bled.
She combed her fingers through her hair. Her bushy hair was caked with mud and escape pod debris. She had to keep reminding herself that she would be able to find a way off of the alien planet, she just had to think of a way how. Maybe she could hijack a spaceship. Maybe she could befriend an alien who could take her home. Although she could feel tears rising, she forced herself to keep thinking optimistic.
After she had wrestled her hair into some kind of normal state, June tried to open one of the wooden crates. She pried at the wooden lid of the box she sat next to, but it didn't budge. She pulled and pushed and tried everything she could to get it open. It seemed completely stuck. She tried to look between the cracks in the wood but she couldn't see anything.
June slumped against the ground again and just sat there for a while, thinking and letting herself cry silently. Her stomach felt like it had been carved out and her hunger had quickly turned into nausea. She had a small headache and no medicine. But mostly, she felt exhausted. Completely exhausted but how could she try to sleep?
She just sat there, looking at the door, letting her mind wander. She hummed Hey Jude to herself and kept trying to think about what she could do next. She knew that she couldn't go back to the escape pod and she didn't know where or how she would find another one. And if she went outside, she would surely be captured.
She ended up thinking about home. She missed her apartment and her roommate, Grace. She would always come home with a story to tell June about work or about something. She missed her other friend, Logan. He was always joking around, poking and teasing. She missed her parents and her sister. Her parents were as sweet as sugar and her sister was like spice. She never had to miss them before, she had always been close to home.
Her parents' house was a tri-level and the third and lowest floor still had the dark curtain hung up near the staircase. That curtain had sort of acted like a door because June had taken over the whole floor after her noisy sister had been born. She missed the days of sitting next to the pool and playing with her sister. One time, a time that felt so long ago, her biggest worry was being caught in the pool in the middle of the night. Her biggest worry couldn't be as simple as that anymore.
And they lived close to Disneyland. She had worked there for a few years during college. She knew the place like the back of her hand and found herself missing it just as much as everything else. Going there felt like stepping into a dream, especially while she was growing up. And if going to Disneyland felt like stepping into a very vivid dream, then being on an alien planet felt like insanity.
The crack under the metal door lit up. June jumped when she saw it. Someone had gone down into the hallway, way too close for comfort. June quickly shot up, turned off the store room lights, and ran blindly down an aisle of boxes.
The door creaked open a moment later. June winced and ducked down behind one of the wooden crates. Suddenly, the lights flickered on. Then, a voice broke through the tense silence. "Hello?"
The voice did not belong to one of those aliens. It was a man's voice. A British man's voice. "I know you're down here," the voice said. June tensed and tried to sink down lower. "You can come out. I'm not going to hurt you."
June took a deep breath and decided to take a peek over the top of the box. Just on the other side of the room, June spotted a man. She was just close enough to see him well. He was tall, had dark cropped hair, and wore a large leather jacket. He leaned against the box she had been 'camping out' behind. But the thing that struck June the most about him was the fact that he looked human. But June knew that if humans could travel to other planets, it wouldn't be a secret, so he couldn't be human.
"I'm going to take you home," the man said. He took a moment to scan his surroundings. June ducked behind the box again and stayed put. "I promise, I will. But I can't take you home if you don't come out."
June thought about it for a moment. A human looking man had said that he would bring her home. She didn't have any bad feeling nagging at her but she still didn't trust him. June had no idea how she would be able to get home by herself, so, she had to take the chance. Things had already gone so wrong that she wondered how bad they could possibly get? With a deep breath, June stood up and walked out from behind the box.
The man smiled when June walked up to him. "There you are," he said. "Knew you were down here."
June frowned and shook her head. "How though?" she asked. "How'd you find me?"
"I was just minding my own business when an escape pod almost crashed into my ship," he said, crossing his arms. "And my ship picked up on the life signals coming from that escape pod. And to my surprise, the life sign was human." He gestured to her. "Humans aren't supposed to be flying through deep space in an escape pod in 2017. So, I got curious and tracked where you landed. You know you've got a whole city of Silgols looking for you? I don't know what you did to make them so frantic, but I thought I'd take you home before they got to you."
"Silgols?" June asked. "That's what the aliens are called?"
"Yep."
June nodded. The name fit the aliens, sort of. She glanced up at the man. She could just tell that he was a little odd. "Who are you?" she asked after a moment.
"I'm the Doctor," he told her.
"Doctor who?" June asked.
He laughed a bit. "Just the Doctor," he said. "What about you?" June narrowed her eyes at him. She didn't know whether to trust him or not. Who had a name like The Doctor anyway? "I am the one taking you home, I think I should know your name," he said.
June sighed. He made a good point. "June Harlow," she told him.
"June Harlow," he repeated absentmindedly. He pulled something out of his jacket. It was a small silver thing with a blue bit at the top. It looked like a tool of some sort. The Doctor pointed it at the wooden crate and the tool started to buzz. A moment later, he pulled the lid off of the wooden crate and reached inside. He pulled out an aluminum can of something. "How did you get here, June Harlow?" he asked.
June leaned over the side of the crate and looked inside. The box was filled with cans. "I was abducted," she told him. She reached for a can. It had a green label printed on it with a drawing of some sort of alien fruit. She looked at the Doctor. "Are you an alien?" she asked.
"Yeah, I am," he said. June frowned at him because he didn't really look like an alien. "Don't worry, most of us don't go around abducting people." June found herself snickering a bit. The Doctor opened up the aluminum can and began to eat what looked like pink orange slices. June furrowed her eyebrows and wondered what kind of alien fruit it was. "Spatium Persica," the Doctor said. June tilted her head. "Space peaches," he explained. He held a slice out to her. "Want one?"
June narrowed her eyes and reached for the slice of space fruit. "This won't poison me, will it?" she asked.
"Why would it?" he asked with a lopsided smile. "It's just fruit."
June held the slice of space fruit in her hand. Normally, she wouldn't trust so easily, but she was hungry. So, she popped the space peach into her mouth. It tasted like a peach flavored candy mixed with an orange flavored candy. June had never tasted something so uniquely good.
"Pretty good, yeah?" the Doctor asked, smiling at her. June nodded. He took a can from the box and tossed it to her. "There. You're probably hungry."
June laughed a bit. "I haven't eaten in—" she stopped. She didn't know how long she had been gone from Earth. Time didn't feel real on alien planets.
"Don't worry," he said, interrupting June's thoughts. "You'll be home soon."
"Promise?" she asked.
The Doctor smiled. "I promise."
June opened the can of space peaches. Much to her delight, it opened just like a normal can. She quickly began to eat. "Alright," she said after her first few slices. She felt much more relaxed and even a little confident. "Let's go. The sooner the better." The Doctor grinned at her.
They both left the storage room and ventured towards the outside alien world. The second June stepped out into daylight, she felt tense. The city was no longer empty. Crowds of aliens—Silgols—walked from building to building. If they ventured any farther into the city, they would see her.
"My ship is parked next to where you crashed," the Doctor said. "It's a bit of a walk, but I know how we can get around them."
"How?" June asked. "They're everywhere."
The Doctor walked across the lot full of handles, June following him, unsure of what exactly he was thinking. They stopped at the edge of the smooth stone floor. A sea of mud lay out in front of them. "Hope you don't mind a walk in the mud," he said.
June grimaced. "How do we get around them if we walk in the mud?" she asked as she bit into another slice of space peach. She was sure that the aliens had gotten through and around the mud before.
"They can't move well in this," the Doctor explained. "They need smooth surfaces, especially when they're in their natural forms. Slithering and mud don't go together well." Without a second thought, he stepped into the mud.
"But I'm barefoot," June said.
The Doctor stopped and looked back at her. He glanced down at her feet, then looked back up at her. "Why?"
"I didn't want to leave tracks," she told him.
He laughed a bit. "Of course, you didn't."
"What's wrong with that?" June asked.
"Nothing," he said. "It's a bit clever actually. But you're going to have to walk through the mud if you want to get home without getting caught." June frowned at him. "Do you just want me to leave you here to be spotted, then?" he asked.
"No." June sighed and stepped into the mud, cringing at the feeling.
The walk through the mud was difficult, but manageable enough. June felt more disgusting with each step she took. And she kept wobbling and almost tipping over, leading her to keep grabbing onto the Doctor's jacket sleeve for support.
June was never the best at small talk, but she tried her best to keep conversation with the man. "Are you sure they won't just come out in the mud to get us?" she asked.
The Doctor nodded. "Yes, June, I'm sure. It's too difficult for them to move through the mud."
"Okay, but they can clearly manage it," she argued. He frowned at her. "They built all that." She gestured to the city they were walking behind. "That had to be just a mountain of mud at first."
"Yeah," the Doctor agreed, nodding slightly. "But it took them a long time. They're much faster in the city, so they don't really try to slither through the mud anymore."
June shrugged. "Alright." She bit into another space peach. "What kind of alien are you?" she asked. She was curious because he looked human, but still claimed that he wasn't. What kind of alien looked completely human, but wasn't?
The Doctor looked away from her, any amusement that he had worn slipping from his face. "One of the good ones," he said.
June chuckled a bit. "That's not the answer I was looking for, but okay." She knew that it wasn't such a great idea to push and bother the person who was offering to take her home. "So, what was that thing you used to open the crate."
That made the Doctor grin again. He pulled the small device out of his pocket and showed it to her. Small, sliver, blue tip, two buttons on the side. It looked like nothing she had ever seen before. "It's called a Sonic Screwdriver," he told her. "It can do just about anything." He slipped it back into his pocket.
June nodded. "Okay." She wasn't sure how else to react to that. She took a deep breath. "God." She shook her head and tried to process everything that had happened around her. Aliens, alien planets, a man with an odd name who looked human but claimed that he wasn't, a screwdriver that didn't look like a screwdriver and apparently did just about everything. She felt slightly dizzy with everything rattling around in her head. She almost laughed at the insanity.
"It's a lot to take in in one day," the Doctor said. June frowned at him. "I can see it on your face," he answered without the question even being asked. June wondered what exactly on her face made it obvious. "If it means anything, you're taking it well," he told her. She nodded faintly. How could anyone take a situation like hers well? "As soon as you're back home, you won't have to worry about any of this any longer."
June at another slice of space peach. The can was almost empty. She wondered if she would ever be able to stop thinking about space and other planets. She had only seen one alien planet and two different types of aliens (if the Doctor actually was an alien). How much more was there to see?
They rounded a corner and walked in silence. June sadly finished her can of space peaches and shoved it into her pocket. She started to realize that they were headed closer to the chrome buildings. She hadn't much thought about where they were going, she just blindly followed the Doctor, not a smart move at all. And now, they were just walking up to the city again. June felt slightly uncomfortable at the thought, but if the Doctor knew about her unease, it seemed like he didn't care.
They approached a thin, dark alleyway between two large, looming towers. June stopped just before the mud became marble. As much as she hated walking through the mud, she didn't want to go back into the city. The Silgols were still after her and she didn't want to risk going any closer.
The Doctor glanced back at her, like he only just noticed that she wasn't following him. "Aren't you coming?" he asked.
June almost laughed. She shook her head. "No," she said. "They're after me, I'm not going back there."
The Doctor sighed. "We have to cross one street to get back to my ship," he said. He glanced over his shoulder for a moment. "Come here," he said, gesturing June over to him.
"You said that we didn't have to walk through the city," June reminded him.
"We just have to cross one street," he said. "Walking around the perimeter of the city would take hours. We have to go this way." June frowned at him, still feeling uneasy. "Come here. Let me show you." She still didn't want to step onto the marble. "They won't see us here, don't worry." He tried his best to give her an unnerving smile.
June knew that she would worry regardless of the Doctor's words. She took a deep breath and took a shaky step onto the marble floor anyway. She joined the Doctor at the entrance of the thin alleyway. The Doctor pointed at a small, dark crack between two buildings across the street. "We slip through there and it's a straight walk back to your crash site and my ship. It's all mud. They won't notice us if we're quick."
She frowned at him. But, the Doctor smiled and before she could protest, he sprinted out from the alleyway. June didn't have much of a choice but to sprint after him. She felt completely exposed out on the street in the middle of the city. All of the Silgols on the marble street around them stopped when they noticed June. They all froze, their legs slowly morphing. June pushed herself to run faster.
She felt slightly sick as she ran. It felt like such a long way to run. Her legs felt like they were a blur of speed, but the alleyway she and the Doctor aimed to run for barely inched closer. The marble began to shake under her feet and June became distracted again. All the Silgols on the street had grown massive, towering legs and were stomping towards them. Upon noticing that the girl had slowed, the Doctor grabbed June's arm and pulled her along after him.
The light dimmed and the Doctor stopped at the end of the alleyway. June's feet didn't get much of a chance to slow before stopping, so she stumbled and began to trip. She expected to fall into the cold, mush of mud, but instead she fell against a cold wall. She immediately stood up in alarm and stumbled backwards.
She struggled to catch her breath as she looked at the smooth, grey wall. "I thought—" she began but stopped and gasped for air.
"Yeah, so did I," the Doctor said, staring at the wall in confusion.
Another layer of darkness washed over the alleyway. They both turned and saw that another wall had blocked the entrance to the alleyway. "What?" the Doctor wondered aloud as June groaned in annoyance. Whenever she thought she had a way home, something always got in the way. She had just wanted to get some fast food, that was it.
The wall moved ever so slightly and leagues of Silgols with long, towering legs swarmed into the alleyway. June turned to the Doctor. "You said—"
"I didn't expect them to be prepared," he said. June scoffed and shook her head. She couldn't believe that this was happening. "Sorry," he muttered. June wanted to be angry with him, but she didn't have the time nor the energy to be. Besides that, there were other bigger things to worry about in the moment. June prepared to scream and kick and fight against being taken by the aliens, but she never got the chance. Everything went black again. She probably should have expected it to.
That was the second chapter!
Tell me what you guys think so far.
Reviews and follows are appreciated.
Until next time,
~ C.C.
