Chapter 3

Breaking

3.

He thought he might be dreaming when he woke up lying on the floor in front of the tall mirror. It was the same mirror, he remembered, that used to stand in his old bedroom, covered by a white sheet.

Lifting his head from the dusty carpet, he blinked his puffy eyes against the light that flooded in through the window. In the watery sunlight that was filled with a trillion dust particles, his old bedroom looked neglected. A thin layer of dust covered his bed and furniture. The ceiling was thick with ancient cobwebs, and on the walls dark patches of damp were visible.

Nervousness settled in his aching bones, and he bit on his lower lip, his front teeth scraping off scraps of skin till it bled an iron tang into his mouth.

He didn't want to be here. If he was dreaming, he needed to wake up and get back to the hellish consciousness of his concrete cell. If he stayed unconscious for too long, his captors will notice, and then the man will come. He will be punished. His bloodied and swollen hands reminded him of what the man could do to him if he disobeyed his orders again. None of his fingers had any nails left on them after they were skillfully removed with a thin filet knife and a set of rusty pliers.

But if this was just a dream, why did it still hurt so much?

Clumsily, he pushed his bony knees under his belly, drooling blood and saliva, winching as every movement he made caused his healing rib to throb achingly in his chest. When he finally managed to get on all fours, gravity led a rush of blood down into his hands. The increased pressure in his fingers caused the badly closed wounds to split wide open and he whimpered.

His bleeding fingertips left a smear of blood over the dusty carpet. He was distracted by its vibrant color for a moment, mesmerized and horrified at the same time. Then he raised his head towards the mirror. In his blurry sight he finally caught the wretched creature in the reflection.

His naked body was so filthy that he looked grey. Disgusting stains ran between his buttocks all the way down his legs to his feet. He was covered in open sores, his skin was a patchwork of colors ranging from angry red, deep purple to faint yellows and blues. Inflamed areas around his wrists marked where his restrains had been. His hair had grown back, and had become a tangled crow's nest infested with lice. They hung in dirty strings in front of his eyes, which were deep-sunken, lifeless and dead.

With his damaged mind almost unable to link the pitiful image to himself, he traced his features with his bleeding fingers, smearing blood all over his hollow cheeks and his battered jawbone. It was swollen, and ached so much that he could hardly close his mouth. It left him drooling constantly.

He cocked his head, nervously nudging his shoulder up against his cheek, and looked at the horrified face in the mirror, transfixed by the blood before raw dread kicked in, triggered by a sudden change of light that was reflected on the mirror surface.

He trashed backwards, screaming like a mad animal as all of his childhood fears resurfaced. He grabbed hold of what ever he could get his hands on and hurled it at the mirror in sheer panic.

The toy race car, the red paint long since faded to a dull pink, crashed into the reflective surface, creating a spiderweb of cracks before the splintered shards dropped out of the wooden frame in a rain of glass.

"I am not going back!"

Although his words were forceful, his voice was trembling, hoarse by the lack of use. Tears stung his eyes as the pain shot through his rotting jaw. Suddenly getting frightfully aware of his own disobedience to his cruel master, he crawled away from the mirror over a carpet that was now littered with broken glass. Mind-numbing fear was making him completely oblivious to the countless of cuts into his knees and legs and hands.

"M'sorry. M' sorry! Please…don't – don't." He murmured as he backed out of the room. He half-stumbled over something soft that was lying near the staircase.

It was the body of a woman. Her abdomen was bloated, her eyes, mouth and nostrils covered with flies. With her stiff fingers she was holding onto a photograph of a little boy in a wheelchair. All around her lay suitcases, thrown wide open with their content spilled out onto the staircase, littering the landing with the woman's clothes and personal belongings.

He leaned forward over her, examining her face. Her hair was spread out like a halo around it, a crown of gold and crusted blood. With a trembling hand, he gently stroked a lock away from her eyes.

"Oh no." He murmured, slowly caressing her cold blue cheeks with his fingers. "No. No. Please, no."

A hard-wrenching whine followed, which he forced himself to smother by cramming a fist into his mouth. He could not scream. He must not scream. The man hated it when he screamed. Never must he scream.

Sobbing quietly, he curled up and folded his arms over his head, preparing himself for the punches that did not come while slowly and compulsively rocking back and forth for comfort.

"Mom." He cried, as tears flowed down his ruined cheeks, and dripped from his chin onto her dress. "Please, wake up. Wake up."

He buried his face in her bosom, ignoring the stench of decay that hung around her like a funeral shroud, and draped her arm around his shoulder as he curled up next to her.

He lay there for a long time, his sobs slowly subsiding into a weak incoherent murmur as he held on to her.

The Doctor and the empty house

3.

Inside, great Oakdown hall looked quite the opposite from its crumbling façade. The mosaic floor in the entrance hall was recently waxed and shone like a flawless mirror. Not a speck of dust could be found on the steps of the grand staircase. The crystal chandeliers were all cobweb free and sparkled in the late afternoon sun. The Doctor cast his eyes over the familiar faces in the gold-framed portraits of the Oakdown family. For the third time since they had landed, he felt his hearts bleed. When he stepped inside, he had expected to find a bleak, desolated place, an echo that had faded into the past. He would have accepted it. Instead, he felt he had walked into a lively memory, a place trapped inside a time-bubble in which it seemed that at any moment now, someone he knew from his childhood could walk right in to greet him. He wasn't trespassing a graveyard. "Oh no, it's more like walking into a living tomb." He muttered under his breath.

Without realizing that he was guided by his memory, the Doctor took Clara straight to the living room. The furniture was still arranged in the same way as he remembered from his youth. There was lord Oakdown's favorite highchair, right next to the marble fireplace where he used to sit and read to the boys on cold winter nights. And there in the corner stood lady Oakdown's harpsichord, a cherished family heirloom. She could play on it like an angel, would not even allow the children to touch it.

"It used to be such a glorious place." The Doctor told Clara, his hearts were suddenly overflowing with melancholy and a deep sense of loss overwhelmed him as his mind's eye kept filling in the empty spaces with people and laughter.

"Saint Clemens day." He reminisced, placing his hand on the cool fireplace mantle. "A roaring fire in the hearth. Countless of guests, all important of course, lord Oakdown was well-respected member of the Timelord council. Mountains of food flooding in from the kitchen onto the dining tables. Toys and presents, and games…oh the wonderful games we used to play." He cheered, smiling sadly. "When we were young, we didn't know any better. Everyday was like Christmas and life was one great adventure. We thought that we had all the time in the world really."

"What happened?" Clara dared to ask.

"We grew up." He said, regretfully. He looked away, sweeping his eyes over the floor next to the fireplace. Something shiny caught his attention. He squatted down to take a better look at it. It was a thin shard of glass, triangular of shape, lined with a smear of blood on one edge. When he picked it up, an icy chill ran through his fingers.

It was as if he had touched winter frost.

"Who are you two? What are you doing in here?" An elderly voice asked, just when the Doctor rose back to his feet. He quickly pocketed the shard away and was about to take out the physic paper, when he remembered that he was on Gallifrey. His bag of usual tricks won't work on his fellow Timelords.

"Ah hello there." He improvised quickly as he swirled around. "You know you left the door wide open –". He was about to say something clever and a bit confusing, but then he saw the old man who was standing in the door-way, carrying a bucket with a cleaning mop in his hand.

"Groundmaster Arziah?" It has been a long time, but he almost instantly recognized him. The caretaker had not regenerated since the last time he had seen him. The Doctor, of course, had. Countless of times, but for a species that had evolved to cheat death by regeneration of its entire cellular structure, a new face and body was only superficial, just an outer layer that was as thin as paint. It could be easily seen through to get to the individual underneath. It took Arziah only a second to recognize the stranger standing in front of him.

"You're that Sigma boy." A smile of recognition dawned on his lips. "The friend of our young master. How did you name yourself…hang on…I remember this!…it's the Doctor, right?"

'What does he mean, you named yourself?" Clara asked, arching a brow.

"Oh it's an old custom, every child of Gallifrey was to chose his or her own name." The Doctor took Arziah's hand and shook it whole heartedly. "Yes, yes! I am the Doctor!" He said with a radiant smile. "And you! Look at you!" He exclaimed, stepping back and waving his arms in excitement. "You're still you!" He concluded with a cheer.

"Nothing ever happens here." The old man replied, broadening his smile. "You know that. If it goes on like this I will still be in my second regeneration by the time you run out of all of yours!" Arziah was only joking of course. He couldn't know the number of regenerations the Doctor had already gone through, but the very irony of how close the old man was to the truth had not eluded the Doctor.

"Who is this lovely young lady?" Arziah asked, casting his eyes on Clara.

"Oh, that's Clara." The Doctor answered, snapping out of his worries. "Clara Oswin Oswald, she's my traveling companion."

"Oh I see." Arziah inspected her for a moment. "Let me guess, human?"

"If you mean human in species, yeah." Clara acknowledged with a polite and friendly smile.

"I knew it!" Arziah clapped in his hands. "He always had a fascination with Earth. Even when he was a little boy he was always going on and on about what he read about that blue speck of a planet. Lovely to meet you Clara! I am Arziah, the groundmaster of the Oakdown family estate. Although nowadays, this grand-title just means that I am a glorified housekeeper of some sort."

"You knew the Doctor when he was little?" Clara asked with a devious glint in her eyes.

"Don't say anything!" The Doctor pointed out hastily. "Not anything embarrassing at least. Unless you want to tell her how incredibly clever I already was at a very young age." He added, standing a bit taller and straightening his bow tie.

"I bet you was.' Clara remarked, giving him a wink. She turned back to Arziah. "You're the one who keeps all of this tidy?"

"I am afraid so. I live here almost on my own now. All the other members of the staff have left. Only Mrs. Ruthician is still here, but she is on her last legs and has no other place to go, the poor woman."

"Where is lady Oakdown?" The Doctor craned his neck to look back over his shoulder at the door, suddenly expecting the strict and slightly scary Timelady to make an entrance.

"She packed her stuff and left the place years ago. Went to live with her relatives in the north." Arziah paused when he noticed the quizzical expression on the Doctor's face. "People who don't know the lady very well often think that she is stone-hearted.' He continued. "But I have seen her. I saw how she was after that…most unfortunate incident. She was a broken woman. Couldn't cope. She had to leave. After what happened, no-one could blame her."

"What? What incident?" Clara noted, but the Doctor wasn't going to let Arziah answer her question.

"If she is no longer living here, why are you still keeping all this up?" He asked quickly, and leaned closer, whispering into Arziah's ear so Clara wouldn't hear. "You're not waiting for him to return, are you?"

"No, of course not." Arziah gave him a fierce look. "If anything, it is my duty to the Timelord council to report the young master when he ever dares to come back. To be frank, if one day, he was finally arrested and put on trail for his atrocities, I wouldn't grief over it." He paused and sighed deeply. "Lord Oakdown was a good man. He didn't deserve what happened to him."

The Doctor nodded solemnly and stepped away. Arziah's answer had eased his discomfort a little, but he still couldn't stop the feeling that he was treading on bones. "So you keep everything as it was in honor of lord Oakdown's memories?"

"For Clement's sake no." Arziah shook his head warily. "Some parts of the house, perhaps, but not every room. You used to stay here, you remember how many there are! No, but the duke wants it. He pays me a handsome sum to keep the place exactly like it was the day the old master died."

"The duke? What duke?" The Doctor asked, furrowing his brows.

"The Duke of Deargloom, lord Oakdown's younger brother. He was in line to inherit the estate. After the young master was publicly denounced by the council and vanished from the known universe without a trace, Oakdown hall inevitably became his."

"Really, that's funny. He never mentioned that he had an uncle." The Doctor muttered.

"You were still children and the duke didn't come to visit very often. Actually-" Arziah added pensively. "I can't really recall that he did when the old master was still alive. Maybe the young master has never even met him."

"So the Duke of Deargloom lives here now." The Doctor glanced around, still wearing a skeptic frown on his face. "Looks like he's rather a humble man, doesn't like to put a seal on his own property, does he?" He commented, noticing the lack of display of the Duke's personal items.

"He's not really living here." Arziah explained to him. "He comes to visit. He stays only one night, every last day of each season, like clockwork. He lives in the capital you see, near the government's citadel. He took his brother's seat in the council."

"Well, he must love his late brother very much if he pays you to take care of the old estate." Clara opted.

"What? You mean to run it like a museum of tears and family misfortune?" The Doctor reacted doubtfully, folding his hands at his back and spinning around. There was something fishy about this story. Something important was being overlooked, but however much he was trying to think it through, he just couldn't figure it out. "Oh I wish I wasn't so slow." He slapped himself on the forehead several times before he turned back to Arziah, visibly annoyed. "Do you have a spare room? Can we perhaps stay for a couple of nights?" He had said it before he could regret it.

"Yes of course we have, countless of spare bed-rooms. Why do you want to stay?"

"Oh well, I promised Clara a little holiday, and since we're here why not make the best out of it!" The Doctor smiled and rubbed his hands together. "What do you say Clara? Early walks out in the countryside, plenty of fresh air, maybe a bit of water-painting and afternoon tea with buttered scones? " He gave her wink that was a bit too obvious.

"Sounds very relaxing." Clara replied, although it more sounded like a daytrip for 80-year old pensioners to her. "Really looking forward to all that."

"See! She likes it!" The Doctor pointed out. "And you obviously, wouldn't mind a bit of company." He insisted.

"No. I wouldn't." Arziah responded, still somewhat puzzled. "All right. I can't see why not. It's going to be yet another month before the duke's next visit. I can make some arrangements. Let me see, Clara can sleep in the servant's room next to lady Oakdown's bedchamber, and you can take the young Master's old bedroom if you –"

"You know what, I really would prefer to sleep somewhere else." The Doctor interrupted him hastily, giving him a nervous grin. Treading on bones was one thing, sleeping in his old enemy's bed was just taunting with fate.

"Ehm, what are we doing?" Clara whispered to the Doctor after Arziah went out of the room to take care of some preparations.

"Having a holiday and playing the perfect houseguests." The Doctor answered, still grinning his tooth-achy grin. "Let's hope the rest of the house agrees."

And he wasn't referring to the ancient Mrs. Ruthician.

Breaking

4.

It wasn't until he heard the dogs, barking below at the foot of the staircase that he snapped out of his half-catatonic state. He crawled closer on his elbows and peered down between the wooden bars of the railing. In the gloomy darkness he could distinguish the three mutts who were fighting over of bone. It still had some scraps of meat on it, wrapped in what looked like some well-chewed pieces of fabric. A fourth dog came out of the kitchen. It was a huge black German shepherd, not unlike their old family dog Bruno. It had a dangerous rabid look in its eyes.

The shepherd was dragging something over the floor that left a long dark smudge over the tiles.

It was the carcass of a man, legless, with ribs sticking through the torn and bloodied shirt. The Sheppard clawed at the man's neck, and a severed head, only still connected to rest of the body by a thin thread of pink sinew, rolled into full view.

His father's face was gruesomely mutilated, almost unrecognizable, the part below his eyes already turned into the bloody grin of a lipless skull. He couldn't stop himself from uttering a guttural cry of horror when he saw how the shepherd took the jaw between his powerful teeth and dislodged it with a loud sickening crunch.

The feral dogs pointed their ears and gazed up at the shivering human who was half-hiding himself behind the railing at the top of the stairs. The big shepherd dropped his father's jawbone, licked his nose and sniffed the air, picking up the metallic scent of warm blood oozing from the many cuts on his body. The dog's eyes glazed over and it eagerly jumped up the staircase, taking several steps at once. It was followed by the rest of the dogs. Each one eyed their newfound prey with the same starved look glinting in their white-rimmed eyes.

He panicked and kicked one of the suitcases down the stairs, but that only startled the dogs for a second before they regrouped and continued their climb. Ears held flat against their necks, they were growling aggressively as they become more and more drunk on the scent of fresh blood and warm meat.

Desperately scrambling away from this wall of teeth and claws that was closing in on him, he accidentally lost his footing, his hands and feet slipping over the semi-coagulated pools of his own blood. All of a sudden, he was rolling down the steps at a dangerous, breath-taking speed. He would have ended up breaking his neck if his fall had not been softened by his mother's clothes that became entwined with his limbs. After landing hard on the floor tiles, he managed to quickly untangle himself, struggled up and limped to the door with the canine pack barking and napping at his heels. Just when they were about to catch up with him, he crossed the threshold and slammed the door, leaving the dogs trapped inside.

His stomach churned up bile as he sank through his trembling knees, leaning with his back against the panel. Even with his hands pressed against his ears he could still hear the enraged barks ringing on the other side, and every time the mad beasts banged against the wood and made it shudder, he uttered a muffled cry in fear.

You think you can just run away? The man told him calmly as he held his ferocious canines at a short distance, pulling hard on their leashes. He was chained up inside a small wooden box that was no bigger than a small fridge. Iron collars bound his wrists, neck and feet. He couldn't escape, and he was fully exposed to the blood-thirsty hounds from the open side of the tiny container.

Shall I set them lose? Let them have their way with you?

Hunched in a fetal position, he whimpered when one of the dogs launched at him and snapped at his arms and legs. Drops of drool from the beast's maul sprayed on his cheek.

Will that finally teach you not to fight me?

The dogs were becoming more and more ferocious, jerking spastically, tugging madly at their bonds, mauls with sharp teeth that stank of rotting meat breathed into his face.

Terrified by the monstrous hounds that were both real and imagined, he crawled away from the front door, forcing his unsteady legs under his body till he was finally standing up. Snow with the color of ash was drifting down into the derelict garden and onto his naked, trembling body. He was hardly aware of the freezing cold, his mind now only focused on survival and escape. He shuffled as fast as he could to the edge of the garden, dripping drops of crimson on his foot-prints left behind in the grey landscape. Finding the old gap in the hedge, he crawled through and emerged at the other side, covered in scratch wounds inflicted by the barren branches, and trembling like a leaf in the wind of exhaustion and pain.

He cast his hooded eyes around at his surroundings.

Cheswick lane was abandoned. There was not a single living soul in sight.

Limping through the street, he saw that most of the houses were in complete ruin, little more then blackened skeletal frames that even struggled to remain standing. Litter and debris lay scattered everywhere. The air stank of burning chemicals and decay. The road was blocked by countless of vehicles, all stagnant with their engines shut down, as if their owners had collectively walked away from a chaotic traffic jam.

It was as if the whole of human civilization had ended.

He passed by cars that were on fire, billowing thick black smoke into the atmosphere that was already dark and gritty of smog. Other vehicles had smashed-in windows and dented coach-work, and were starting to show signs of rust.

When he finally dared to look into one of them, he found a whole family sitting inside with their seatbelts still on. Their bodies were in a far state of decay, crawling with maggots while hordes of flies buzzed lazily around their eyes and mouths. In the back, there was a child strapped down in a baby carrier. She was as blue and swollen as his dead parents and siblings, with her little tongue pocking out between his lips.

Horrified and increasingly succumbing to a state of shock, he stumbled on through this ruined world. A man who had just awaked from a horrible nightmare, only to find that it had turned into reality.

Soon it was getting dark, but none of the street-lights switched on, leaving the city hidden in a veil of darkness. From every narrow alleyway, the howls of feral dogs rang through the abandoned London streets, calling pack members to come out and hunt. He stopped dead in his track when a large shadow crossed the road, pupils shining with a demonic glow as light of the burning cars reflected on the back of the creature's eyes. More howls followed, this time coming from directly ahead of him. He didn't dare to go any further near that sound. His heart fluttered, a frightened little bird in a rattled cage. He cannot stay out here in the dark. The dogs will find him. Forcing himself to think rationally, his mind struggled, as slow like syrup dripping from a spoon, trying to remember where there was a safe place for him to hide.

An ordinary terrace house from his childhood past came to his mind's eye. A place, he remembered, where he had once felt safe, and protected.

It was right at the end of Cheswick lane.

Donna's house.

The false memories of Donna Noble

4.

The time vortex inside the window shifted, and Donna was transported to another time in her childhood.

That's the science museum. Gramps used to take me there during the long summer holidays. God, he still looks so young.

The light inside the time vortex revealed the London museum of natural history. On a busy afternoon, Wilf was searching through the great hall where they kept the whale skeleton displays. He came across a young woman in uniform and stopped her.

"Miss? Can you please help me?" He asked, looking confused. "I am looking for two children, a girl with red hair who's together with a dark-haired boy?"

The woman glanced over Wilf's shoulder and waved at the two boys who were climbing on top of one of the exhibits. "Hey you two! Get out that double helix. It's not a jungle-gym in here!" She shouted before she turned to him. "Sorry sir, it's a public holiday. The place is swamped with kids. I am afraid you'll have to be a bit more specific."

"Well, err…the boy is walking with leg braches, and the girl wears a green coat, does that help?"

Wilf was about to go on describing Donna to her in more detail when a high-pitched scream rose above the noise of the crowd. Wilf turned and saw people running out of the west wing exhibition halls. Parents were dragging their children away, fleeing in blind panic.

"What's going on in there?" Wilf asked, frowning at the confusion. "Why is everybody running?"

"Just stay where you are." The security lady told him hastily.

"But my granddaughter is maybe in there!" He shouted after her as she moved away.

"Please sir. For your own safety, go to the office in the main hall. I will find your granddaughter and bring her to you, all right?" She was pointing out the way to the exit when another visitor almost ran her over.

"In-in the e-evolution hall." The man stammered to her as she tried to steady him. "The-the-the di-di-dinosaurs…they have come alive!"

"Granddad! Help!" Wilf's heart stopped when he recognized Donna's voice shouting out above the turmoil. Without thinking of his own safety, he ran towards the dinosaur exhibits against the chaotic flow of people.

"Hey what are you doing? Don't go in there!" The security lady warned.

"But that's her! That's my granddaughter!" Wilf yelled back, before he disappeared around the corner.

The dinosaur exhibit was made to look like a dark, tropical jungle, and Wilf almost tripped over the floorboards that were placed in the aisle to resemble a wooden footpath.

"Donna!" He called out. "I am here! Where are you!?"

He was answered by a mighty, reptilian roar. Wilf froze when a claw the size of an elephant's foot came down and splintered the wooden path in front of him like it was made out of matchsticks.

Suddenly finding himself facing a full-grown T-rex, Wilf though he was having a horrible nightmare and a heart attack all at the same time. "W-what have you done with my dear Donna you disgusting reptile?!" He managed to say, ignoring his rational mind that was cursing him for trying to converse with an extinct carnivorous dinosaur instead of running away.

"Granddad!" The unexpected shout made him look up into the harsh spotlights that illuminated the T-rex's head. Something green dangled from the creature's maul. "I am up here!"

"D-D-Donna?" Wilf gasped, hardly believing his eyes when he saw her waving at him.

"Can you please tell Martin to put me down? I need to go to the bathroom." She complained.

First, he didn't get what she meant, but then he spotted the boy, sitting there on the back of the T-rex, smirking mischievously with his metal encaged legs wrapped firmly around the terrible lizard's gigantic neck.

"I told you." He lectured Donna. "You cannot outrun a Tyrannosaurus Rex. He can do at least 60 miles an hour. You're lunch Red."

"Put me down!" She told him, crossing her arms over her chest and looking mightily annoyed.

"Only when you admit that I am right." The boy told her stubbornly.

"Granddad!" Donna whined, puffing a red lock of hair out of her face. "Tell him he's an asshole!"

Wilf's panic quickly subsided now he realized that the children were not in any real danger. He should have been more stunned perhaps, but then he had been in pretty weird situations before with these two. "Watch your language young lady! Or I will let you wash out your mouth with soap! What's going on?" How did that boy ever even manage to climb on top of that thing in the first place? "Martin!" Wilf said sternly. "What have you done now?"

"Nothing." Martin showed his most innocent face. "Red and I just thought that the exhibition was really dull. These animatronics are just stupid, they can only open and close their mouth and bob a little with their heads. It would be way more interesting if they could do more stuff." He held up a black box the size of a game console with wires sticking out to show Wilf. "Look." He made a green wire touch a red one, and the T-rex responded, raising itself straight on its hind legs before it let out an ear-shattering roar. "It's far more life-like now." He said, not without smugness.

"Put Donna down immediately, do you hear me!" Wilf was getting angry at how careless the boy was with his granddaughter.

Of course Martin didn't listen, and Wilf was just about to climb up the T-rex himself to get the children down himself when the security lady turned up.

"It has moved from its place." She muttered, taking in the whole situation with stunned expression on her face. "It's supposed to stand over there in the corner next to the Triceratops. How's this possible?" She cast her eyes up to Martin, than on Wilf. "That boy sitting on the back of our T-rex, is that your grandson?"

"Oh no, he's not. Thank God he isn't. Not related at all." Wilf was looking really upset and a bit ashamed now. "Martin, I am warning you for the last time, do as I say or I am going to tell your mother!"

The boy pouted in disagreement and made the T-rex snort in contempt. Still, the threat was working as he finally listened and slowly lowered down the dinosaur's gigantic head to put down Donna. As soon as the girl's feet touched the ground, she wheeled around and stuck her tongue out at him.

Martin rolled his eyes. "Oh how mature." He muttered. "I only did this because she asked me to. It was all Donna's idea." He explained to Wilf. Then, with as little less attitude, he asked. "Please don't go tell my mom."

"Oh you wouldn't want that, would you! You both are nothing but trouble together. Now get off that thing immediately, no whining and no pouting young man." Wilf said, wagging a strict finger at him. "And not a word from you young lady." Wilf added, noticing that Donna was about to complain about her playmate. "Not until we're home."

"I am so sorry about this." Wilf told the security lady, after he had confiscated the remote from Martin. He clumsily stuffed back the loose wires inside and handed it back to her, odd pieces falling off. "Kids hey." He added, as if this was about as normal as it could get, shrugging apologetically. "You can't take them anywhere without causing a scene."

The security lady took the black box without saying a word, but kept staring nervously at the two angel-faced children as they were hastily ushered out of the hall by the old man.

Breaking

5.

Donna's house was still standing, albeit barely. He was so grateful that he was able to find it that he almost cried out of sheer relief. With stiff frozen fingers he pushed in the doorbell. When it didn't ring, he knocked his fists on the door, first hesitantly, then urgently, banging on the surface till a flashlight shone from behind the frosted window-pane.

"Who's there?" A man sneered at him. He sounded hoarse, worn by age and tragedy, but still sounding very determined to protect his home and the people inside. "I can see you, standing out there on my porch. Identify yourself or I will shoot. I am armed you see. I am warning you!"

His heart-beat quickened when he recognized the man's voice. It was Wilf. Donna's granddad. Kind and wonderful Wilf. He opened his mouth, eager to communicate, and was about to say his name when the man returned to his sub-consciousness. What exactly are you doing? He yanked savagely on the chains of his neck collar, stopping the air-flow to his lungs, slowly strangling him. You do not speak without my permission.

"Do you hear me!? I want to know who you are!"

He wheezed, hyperventilating as he clawed at his throat. He desperately wanted to call out to Wilf, but he couldn't. The imaginary restrain was closing his windpipe and his words died a silent death between desperate gasps for air. As his eyes filled with frustrated tears, he only was capable to utter a string of inaudible raps and hisses.

"I count to 3. Either you go away or you speak up, If not, I will definitely shoot!" Suddenly, there was hesitation and fear in Wilf's voice. "It's not like I haven't done it before!" Wilf said, more in an attempt to reassure himself than to add an additional threat.

He opened and closed his mouth, forcefully pushing the little air that was left out of his lungs as he tried again to form words, but he couldn't. He couldn't say his name.

My dear boy, you don't have a name. None but the name I gave you. I don't want the old fellow to shoot you though. Such a dilemma..

"One!"

Do you remember how I taught you to bark? He shuddered and violently arched his back when a phantom whip cracked on his backside. The pain was so real that he almost bit his lower lip in half.

"Two!"

Come on then my boy, bark. Bark for your master!

"Three!" Followed by the sound of a cocking gun.

"Wilf!" He screamed wretchedly, finally regaining his voice. "Wilf! Please! Please! Wilf!"

He didn't stop screaming until the door opened to a narrow gap.

The short barrel of Wilf's service revolver stuck out, aimed at his chest. He squinted and shielded his eyes against the flashlight that hit his face. For a moment he panicked, thinking that the man had come back to take him away. Then the beam went away. Blinking, he saw a pair of watery grey eyes stare at him through the narrow opening. The old man's face had become much harder, lined by worries, his grey board had turned almost completely white, but it was Wilf. Kind and wonderful Wilf. He had known him since he was a little boy. He trusted him.

"Oh my Lord." Wilf muttered, lowering his revolver when he finally realized who was in front of him. Oblivious now of Wilf's gun, he dropped on his knees and hugged onto the old man's legs while uttering a string of incoherent gibberish, begging him not to send him back to the man and the hounds. He had wanted to go home for so long. He had endured so much, but now both his parents were dead, and the world he used to know was gone, and he didn't know why – he just didn't understand…

Shocked by his frail state, Wilf wrapped his arms around his bony shoulders, only to be alarmed by how cold he felt. After being exposed to the elements for almost an entire day, he was like a lump of ice. "Donna!" Wilf screamed back into the house. "Help me! Help me get him inside! Quickly!"

To be continued