The new clothes the Doctor had picked out for her itched. Also, the colors clashed and her shirt didn't fit her very well, its seams pinching around her shoulder. Still, she supposed the entire ensemble was better than nothing.
That and she should've had, well, she did have more important things on her mind. She couldn't help it though, as she tugged on a sleeve; the clothes kept trickling back into her thoughts. In a way, their laughable normalcy was one of the only things still keeping her sane.
Oswin stood outside a door no visibly different from any others she and the Doctor had passed in his enormous ship. It was completely barren of any markings whatsoever, its plain handle the only thing breaking up the flat, steel monotony of its surface. But at the same time, it felt different. If the Doctor tied a blindfold over her eyes, spun her around, and dragged her down some other corridor, Oswin knew that she'd be able to find it again. Depending on the true size of the Doctor's ship (he'd been rather evasive when she asked how big it was during their journey from the sick bay), the search could take hours… maybe even days… but she knew she'd find it again.
She was a shadow. And whether it was with soap or thread, Oswin knew that she was still attached to… it.
Her blood thrummed as her fingers hovered over the doorknob. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the Doctor hovering anxiously nearby, setting her nerves on end.
At last Oswin turned the knob and pushed through.
It was far darker in the small room and it took her eyes a moment to adjust. There were only a couple dim lights; small squarish, blinking things that lit up the right wall like one of the giant switchboards of ancient times. Slowly Oswin began to make out other metal details. The lights were part of a large, rather complicated looking machine with countless wires trailing down onto the floor, towards the back center of the room…
Then the wires extended up… and wrapped themselves around an all-too-familiar shape.
A single Dalek sat unmoving, lifeless in the very back of the room. The wires protruded from the top of its casing, and even as she looked she could feel them protruding from her own head, their metal ends jabbing the very center of her brain…
Oswin slammed her eyes shut and breathed deep breaths until the feeling vanished.
The Dalek was her… The Dalek was her…
Even with the thought practically screaming itself over and over again, it felt… wrong. She opened her eyes again and her mind was oddly… blank?
The Dalek was just a Dalek. A cold, dead, unfeeling Dalek. She was Oswin. Here in this body. Her body.
She took a step forward and heard the Doctor make a stifled noise of protest behind her. She ignored him and took another step. And then another still.
It got harder to walk the closer she got. They seemed to repulse each other, the Dalek and her, like two magnets of the same polarity. Oswin wasn't quite entirely sure why she kept going. Her feet were taking her steps for her. She finally stopped when nausea began to overwhelm her.
She doubled-over, her stomach about to heave… and then the Doctor was pulling her back.
They stumbled out into the hallway. As Oswin fought to regain her breath, fought to regain full control over her consciousness, she watched the Doctor pull out a tiny key and lock the door. Then he turned to her, a strange, pained look in his eyes.
"Satisfied?" his face seemed to say.
Oswin didn't say anything in response. She didn't know anything to say in response.
Perhaps she'd pushed him too far. He clearly hadn't been pleased with either her curiosity or what had just happened. He took one last look at her and then walked off.
Her knees grew too shaky to support her anymore, and Oswin sank to the floor. She didn't cry. Her head was too confused to cry.
She could feel the door calling out to her subtly, like the barely audible call of a siren. Like a siren though, Oswin knew only bad things would happen if she responded to its call.
As much as she protested that she was human, that she'd always been and would always be human, she couldn't escape the fact that, at least externally, she was also a Dalek. The Doctor obviously wanted her to forget that part, and - the more she thought about it - the more she realized that she did too.
She lifted one of her hands up and examined the hairs on the back of it.
Was that a realistic hope or was she being a foolish girl, dreaming of making soufflés with her mother again?
Even if it was foolish, she'd take the chance.
Eventually she managed to stand up despite her legs still being a bit shaky. With one last glance at the forbidden door, she set off in the direction that the Doctor had gone.