Intermission
Three weeks earlier: The beginning
"Martha, could you come and look at those readings?" Mickey said. He was clearly disturbed by numbers that were popping out on the screen.
"Sure, what's the matter?" Martha didn't look biased at all. She's been to hundreds of those missions. Most of the presumable dangers turned out to be either completely innocent or easy to beat. There weren't many situations they couldn't cope with. And if they happened to come across one, well, there was always the Doctor.
"This thing is completely off scale." Mickey shook his head with disbelief. "Do you see radiation level on the other side? Unbelievable."
This concerned Martha a little. Higher radiation level wasn't exactly unusual, but Mickey wasn't exaggerating; the readings were really off scale.
"Run another diagnostic, maybe it's malfunctioning."
"Sure thing." Mickey answered.
Martha looked around. The other members of her team were also working. They have been here for almost two weeks and they still have nothing. The most interesting thing was the radiation levels from a while ago, but even that could be just faulty equipment.
And the anomaly was still there. Unmoving, unchanging, behaving like it was a constant part of a universe.
And nothing tried to come out of it yet.
Martha looked at the anomaly again. It was positioned on one of the walls of the room. It had a shape of a perfect circle and emitted bright, blue light. They've never seen something like it. The worst thing of it all was that, being in the close proximity of anomaly was strangely calming, so most of her team wasn't concerned by it at all. Martha had learned, through all her voyages with the Doctor, to be on guard of the time, but even she sometimes felt like there wasn't anything wrong, like she could just stop doing her tasks, sit down, and enjoy that aura.
It tried to drawn her closer.
The light of the anomaly flickered, and Martha shuddered, having, all of the sudden, a really bad feeling. Trying to shake it off, she approached the window and looked at the setting sun. The sky turned from blue to orange and now, as the night drew closer, it was light pink. They will have to wake up the night shift soon.
"Mickey, scan it again." Martha said.
"What? Now? For radiation?" Mickey asked, being fairly sure that it was time for them to finish off and head to sleep.
"No, for any life signs. I have a bad feeling."
Martha looked out the window again. The last of daylight was disappearing and…
"Hey guys, you're still here?" Martha quickly turned around to see night shift standing in the door.
"Oh, you're here already? I guess I lost track of time." Martha tried to smile, but she knew it had to seem pretended. She looked at Mickey, but he was still checking something on the equipment. "Just a minute, we'll finish the last scan, and we're leaving."
"Sure, but don't overwork yourself." One of the team members said. "Look it's already dark outside."
Are you afraid of the darkness?
Martha turned quickly to the anomaly. Did it just spoke? She heard this voice so clearly, like it was standing right next to her, but the anomaly still looked the same.
"Anybody heard that?" Martha asked, with nervousness in her voice.
"Heard what?" One of the guys said, looking around. "It's totally quiet here."
Are you afraid of the darkness?
"You can't hear that? Mickey, check the readings." Martha looked at Mickey, but he seemed more perplexed by Martha's unusual behavior than the analysis.
"They are completely normal. Are you…"
ARE YOU AFRAID?
Martha looked back at the anomaly. "GET AWAY FROM IT, NOW!" she screamed, but it was too late. The anomaly flickered again; changing colors from blue to orange to become pitch black a split of second later.
Then it murdered them.
The first shot hit Mickey. He didn't even had a chance to protect himself; the energy shot cut him in half and left on the floor in the pool of his own blood. The rest of the team reacted immediately, grabbing their weapons and trying to shoot at the anomaly, and so did Martha, by it didn't have any effect.
One by one, there were dying with horrible death. Someone was unlucky enough to survive the first shot and now his screams of agony were cutting the air.
It ended as abruptly as it started, leaving only Martha, standing with shocked expression in her companions' blood and intestines still pointing her gun at the anomaly.
She could see two silhouettes, slowly emerging from it, as the room lightened with gold light. The creatures approached her, and she tried to back off, but she slipped. One of the individuals bended over her, and in that moment, Martha recognized it. She knew who it was.
"You…" Her voice was trembling. Was it tears, that rolled down her cheeks, or was it blood? Martha couldn't tell anymore.
"Shhh, shhh." The one that Martha could see put a finger on her mouth. "It's okay. Will you please do me a favour?"
Martha said nothing, paralyzed by fear and power which seemed to emit from them.
"It's a fairly simple task. You will just ask Doctor one thing for me, ok?" It leaned closer and whispered to her ear. "Remember to ask him: Are you afraid of the darkness, Doctor? Because it is coming."
Everything covered in blackness, creatures lied Martha down on the floor and left; the gold light following them.
It was over.
Martha closed her eyes.
