Chapter Three

"Genesis; right? That's what this is?" The Doctor asked, getting too close to one of the figures for Clara's liking.

"Doctor, maybe we should stay back. They might be dangerous."

The Doctor gave her an amused look. "Do you have a phobia of babies or something, Clara? These ones are newborns! They can hardly walk."

Clara tried to calm the alarms ringing in her head. She wanted to believe this was a harmless, spectacular event they were witnessing. But something wasn't right.

"Doctor, the trees."

"What trees?"

Clara swallowed, trying to make sense of everything. "The trees we saw earlier. They crumpled into themselves. How would they do that?"

The Doctor shrugged, biting his lip. The brightness in his eyes was waning. "Maybe that's what trees do around here."

"Or?"

He scratched the back of his neck. He wasn't smiling anymore. "Or the planet is eating its own trees and making glowy people."

Clara's eyes widened. "Is that possible?"

The Doctor put his hands in his pockets. "I've met sentient planets before."

"Like the sentient sun we met?"

The Doctor wiped his hand over his mouth. "Sometimes even more dangerous."

Clara sighed. "Okay, I think I've been creeped out enough for one morning. Back to school, yeah? Class starts at eight. We can grab a coffee first."

"Clara. I don't think they're babies anymore."

The three figures they'd first encountered were fully functioning now. They walked as a small unit toward the Doctor and Clara, who backed away from them and the dozens of others still springing out of the ground.

"Ah, they grow up so fast, don't they?" Clara said sarcastically. The figures were still approaching as the Doctor and Clara backed quickly away.

The figure on the right opened its mouth. "We are children of the planet and sun. We do not require time nor caregiving."

The Doctor furrowed his brow. "Every organism is a child of the universe. What makes you special?"

The figure tilted its head. Their pace was slowing, at least, allowing the Doctor and Clara to almost come to a stop.

"The planet itself has given us life."

The figure in the middle slowed the group to stop before opening its mouth. "The sun was running out, and so the planet looked to itself for its energy requirements."

The figure on the far left spoke up. "It absorbed the energy from the indigenous organisms. By doing so, and with the light still entering from the sun, it created the perfect formula for us to be born."

Clara raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, not following."

"Wait," the Doctor said to the aliens. "So the planet started feeding on itself? How long can that last?"

The figure on the right took a step forward. "That is why we were created. Unlike the trees and other plants, we can leave this planet."

The figure in the middle stepped in line with the other. "We can find other worlds; other organisms."

The last figure joined its partners. "And bring them home to feed our planet."

The Doctor shook his head with a dark smile. "You've really got a whole plan worked out, don't you? And you're, what, five minutes old?"

"Three," the figure on the right said.

Clara held up both of her pointer fingers. "Hold on. You said your star is going out. Won't the planet be destroyed anyway?"

The Doctor clicked his fingers. "Good point. Well done, teach."

"Lucky I covered science yesterday. If I covered pottery class I would've been much more lost today."

The Doctor looked to the figures. "Well? Do you have a response?"

The figure on the left said, "The sun is not yet gone. It will take millenia. Long enough for us to learn to absorb others' energy. Long enough to move our planet to a more energetic star."

The Doctor smiled, taking a step toward them. Clara hung back, still wary.

"I'm sorry?" The Doctor asked. "Now I can believe you're toddlers. You want to move a planet? What, do you think there's a U-Haul for that kind of a thing?"

"We have seen it done before," one of the figures said.

"By races much stronger and situations much different than yours," the Doctor explained. He sighed. "What is this all even for? Really? What is it that you want?"

"Survival."

"Survival. Ah. For your species, you mean. For your planet. What about everyone you plan on absorbing? What about all that energy you want to drain? What about their survival?"

The figure on the left turned its head sharply toward the Doctor. "Our only concern is our safety and the safety of our planet. This is standard protocol on numerous worlds. In numerous species."

"Selfish ones," the Doctor said bitterly. He met Clara's eyes and motioned for her not to talk. "You don't need to do any of this. You don't need to become another draining species for me to fight. You don't need to start down that path. You can use the energy you have, and do what you can to be happy, and then when it's all over, you can just let it go. Let the planet and the sun go away. The circle of life."

The figure on the left looked to its companions. "Siblings; I have learned a method of absorbing this being's energy: through the energy in his voice. Feast, my siblings."

The Doctor furrowed his eyebrows. "Is that a joke or-?"

His voice was suddenly cut off as a wave of strange energy hit him, pinning him to the spot. He felt one of the figures put a hand on his chest and a wave crashed over him, blurring the surroundings. He could hear Clara behind him, supposedly held back by other aliens, but he couldn't call out to her.

All of the energy in his body was being suctioned off, through the hand on his chest, into the ground beneath the figure's feet.

Clara watched the Doctor fall to his knees. The thing had its hand on his chest. It was glowing brighter than ever. She tried to push through the arms holding her back but they were too strong; they had the energy of a sun and planet.

"Let him go!" She shouted, then silenced herself. It had said something about the energy in the Doctor's voice. If she spoke, they might be able to get her too. Then they'd definitely be in a bad situation.

'Okay, Clara, what do you do when a bunch of glowy people are draining the Doctor's energy on a planet millions of miles from home when you've barely been out of bed for an hour?'

Clara had no idea what to do. So as the Doctor cried out in pain and sank closer to the ground, Clara did the only thing she could.

She cried.

And suddenly the hands holding onto her arms went away.

Suddenly she was free.