Hello again, and a Merry Christmas to you all! Happy New Year too, now that I think on it. Any good New Years Resolutions? Mine will be to keep up with my updates! Thank you so much for your reviews and follows, they mean so much to me. I had one person tell me it read like a real episode and for me, that was the highest praise I could ever get so thank you!

And now on with the show!

They followed the source of the light for a few minutes, now silent. The Doctor's face was focused, as though some instinct was telling him something was wrong. personally, Rose suspected it just meant civilisation, but she wasn't going to question him. He'd been right on far too many occasions for that.

The light was more intense now, and she gasped as they rounded a final corner, the path widening out into one massive cavern. She could barely see the ceiling above them, nor the walls on either side, but she could make out tall structures rising up above them, like pillars hewn from the rock.

"Oh, thats beautiful." The Doctor crowed, staring up at the rocks around them. "Look," he gestured to the nearest one, and she did so, seeing that they were rooms, numerous rooms hollowed out, and that the windows all had intricate markings around them, too intricate for her to distinguish anything at this distance. "Brilliant, isn't it?"

She beamed at him, glad that his features had cleared in the face of this newest distraction.

"Absolutely brilliant how species adapt to different situations.." He began, starting off on a ramble, but Rose was no longer listening, looking around. The light had caught her eye again.

"Doctor." She called, stopping.

"...I mean, judging from these markings, we're in the midst of a highly religious race.."

Here he whipped out his glasses, the glasses that Rose had fondly termed his 'sexy specs', pausing briefly to study the rocks, before walking again.

"Doctor." She tried again, more insistently.

"I remember once finding a place like this, absolutely lovely race if not a teeny bit barmy, but it was never quite on this scale...Rose?"

He turned, eyebrow raised, half expecting to see that she'd wandered off, but no, there she was, in her lovely denim jacket with her hair tied up into that messy bun that made her look even more-

Her voice cut into his thoughts.

"I found your fire."

This made him focus, he hurried over to her, looking to where she gestured.

It was a fire indeed, a ring of it, set up like some sort of pen, with the flames as the fence. And in the centre, he could see...

"Is that people..?" Rose asked him softly, and he frowned, running towards it.

It was people, he realised, trapped in the ring of flames like animals. They couldn't be comfortable, the flames were intensely warm, even at this distance. But before his rage could kick in, he noticed something. They weren't making a fuss, weren't calling for help. They weren't doing much of anything at all really, just sitting in a small huddle, about seven of them, just sat there quietly.

And they were...wrong somehow.

"Let's get a closer look." he murmured, and called out to them.

"Hello?"

The one nearest them, a young man, turned his head towards them, inquisitive.

"Yes, hello." The Doctor called softly, his voice even and reassuring. "Who are you then, hmm? Who put you there?"

The man tilted his head slightly and moved closer. Rose beside him gasped, somewhere between sympathy and horror.

"His eyes..." She breathed and he nodded.

"I'm so sorry..." He murmured to the young man, the young man with the ancient haunted eyes, eyes that were dead to the world, fogged over to almost the point of blindness. His skin was paper thin it seemed, pale enough that they could see the veins pulsing weakly. His figure was skeletal, something the Doctor hadn't noticed originally with the thick clothes he was bundled into, cloth with runes painted all over it like some kind of ward.

"Doctor, what's happened to him?" Rose asked in his ear, she had moved closer to him. He shook his head.

"He's a young man, but its like his energy has just...gone. Everything, his cells are just...giving up. Its not a sickness though, it looks like it was an instantaneous shift. Everything at once, just...stopped."

"Or was taken away." A woman's voice called.

They turned together, and the Doctor removed his glasses, smiling politely at the figure in front of them. She was thin, her own pale skin glowing against the glare of the fire. Her dark hair was twisted into an intricate braid, and she made Rose think of some tribal woman, more runes drawn onto her skin, at her forehead and her wrists. A necklace had still more runes attached like a charm bracelet, a little gaudy for Rose's tastes, but it suited the woman somehow. It was her eyes that were the most interesting. They hadn't been able to see it on the young man, as fogged over as his eyes were, but the woman's were like a cats, wide and amber, with a pupil that was thin and slitted in the bright light of the fire.

She stared at them.

"Strangers do not come here." she said, her voice rich and accented, mistrust obvious. "Least of all through the crystal caves. Who are you?"

"Ah." Said the Doctor. "but you see, we're not your usual strangers." He fished into his pockets, pulling out a small wallet and flipping it open.

" We're whatever it says here."

The woman's brow raised.

"The paper is blank."

"Ah." He pulled it back, pulling a face.

The woman's glare increased.

"I shall ask again. Who are you?"

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, aware that his next words would either save them or endanger them.

I hope you enjoyed! I shall post up as soon as I can but until then, let me know what you think!

AbsentDaydreamer x