They fall into silence as River realises she took a wrong turn, landing them both in a narrow hall. Stone shifts behind her as she turns to backtrack. He turns with her and they both watch as the their way back is sealed off, plunging them both into darkness.
"On the bright side," River starts, "That thing shouldn't be able to follow us."
He shakes his head. "A wall of stone isn't going to stop that thing."
She sighs. "Of course it won't."
Suddenly, a dim light illuminates the room. There is no source, the very air seems to be giving off a faint glow.
"Anyone there?" calls River. She's shushed by the Caretaker. She counters his offense with a glare.
Eventually, he begins walking forward and she follows, grumbling.
It takes them seven strides to reach an empty room. Somehow they couldn't see it until they were there despite the illumination, like it obscures as much as it reveals. Anyways, room. Small, very boxy, ten by ten feet maybe? Little bigger?
"For such a small room, it sure is interesting," says River.
Unfortunately, the pain in his arm finally hits him and he winces, gritting his teeth to avoid making a noise but failing. She turns to find him staring at his crimson stained sleeve and clutching it forcefully, like he's trying to crush the pain out of it.
Deciding she may as well help, she moves forward and tries to take his jacket off. He instantly recoils.
"I didn't save your sorry backside for you to bleed to death," she scolds, "Let me help."
He relaxes and she gets him to release his arm long enough to slide the ridiculously endearing tweed coat off his shoulders. She then rolls the sleeve of his Oxford up, causing him to sharply intake a breath. Ignoring his reaction, she takes a rag from her pocket she always carries (thankfully she hasn't needed to wipe anything with it yet) and bandages his arm best she can.
"I'll be needing your belt," she tells him.
He cringes, but nods, so she carefully removes it and wraps it tightly around his upper arm, berating him when he whines.
"Put pressure on it," she orders and he complies. She turns away from him to examine the interesting wall.
Said wall, just to the right of their exit from the hall is a wretchedly bleached colour and covered in unintelligible scribbles and symbols. Hateful words are carved into the stone in many different handwritings.
Then they spot an odd dark blur on the wall near the ground. Suddenly not feeling his injury as curiosity takes over, he moves forward to mimic its position. It seems like a person on their knees perhaps. Weeping. He'd put his hands up to cover his face to completely copy the blur, but is wary of his arm, which is slowly stopping its bleeding.
River is looking over the words. Many of them have been roughly scratched in, but one is clear, precise, and chiseled in with care.
You will burn in hell for this Jessica!
River thinks back unbidden to a certain gravestone she saw.
Jessica Davish crying and alone
"Y'know," the Caretaker begins suddenly, but leaves the word hanging for a few moments before continuing. "At Hiroshima towards the end of World War II, after they dropped the bomb, blew out everything, and destroyed hundreds of thousands of innocent lives; people looked into those ruins and found many, many terrible things." He traces the outline of the image with his eyes. "But what I found to be the worst thing of all, oddly, was the shadows. There were plenty of miserable wounded, their skin literally melting off, the fires, and all that is horrid, but I thought the shadows were the worst."
River looks confused. "What are you talking about?" she demands.
He stands up to face her.
"Even though the bomb detonated almost six-hundred metres above the city, it still generated enough heat to literally disintegrate human beings below it. Their bodies protected the stone behind them from the brunt of the blast, leaving a sort of... shadow. They were destroyed in a single moment. Nothing left of them except their blurred outline on whatever happened to be behind or below them. Could you imagine? Something so devastating as to remove any sentient being in a flash of light and leave nothing but an imprint on a meaningless, scarred backdrop."
River shakes her head. "What does that have to do with anything?"
He gesturing to all parts of the wall while clarifying. "Look. See how the wall in the hall is dark and normal and the wall in the room is bleached?" He waits for her to nod. He then points to the blurred figure and speaks with an even voice.
"Shadow."
-(BREAK)-
Rory yelps and jumps towards John before spinning around. At first, slight anger bit at him because he couldn't see anyone. Thinking he just had a laugh at his expense, he was about to turn around and scold John. Then he sees something shuffling in the shadows. Something very wrinkly and disgusting. Something carrying a battle axe.
"Run!" yells John, and they both turn and take off.
The shuffling thing behind them lets out an inhuman growl and begins pursuing them.
"What is that?" cries Rory as they flee deeper into the corridors which quickly turn into a maze.
"How should I know?" John yells back.
Another one steps out of the dark in front of them and John stops abruptly, Rory crashing into him. He grabs Rory's sleeve as he changes direction to get him moving again.
The cold bothers neither of them as they scramble to escape the odd but definitely dangerous things intent upon their doom, not even slowing when John throws down his torch on a large pool of some form of oil that is pooling in a spot on the ground, igniting the lot and creating a barrier between them and their pursuers. Not the end of their troubles though, as there seem to be an infinite number of them coming from every direction, and after standing so near that inferno, both of them are sweating from stress, action, and heat.
Light from the torch lost, they stumble blindly around the passages until something perplexing somehow stops them.
A soothing voice whispers out from the dark, its existence calling them closer. "This way," it says, barely making a sound. Both men stop. It hums and hisses, the way one would think a serpent might, extending certain words and letters. Or maybe a powerful dragon, since it successfully manages that and a deep baritone, sounding ancient and knowing. Most likely more than just sounding ancient and knowing.
"Come, this way," it beckons.
The space the noise is coming from is dark.
John sneers at the voice. "No."
"I offer you safe passage," it hums alluringly. Rory seems to be leaning unwittingly towards the sound and John smacks his arm hard, effectively snapping him out of it.
They hear the shuffling of dried out feet over stone, the garbling of an ancient tongue.
It hums softly in a contemplative manner. "If you do not trust me, then I will leave you to the mercy of the dead. Believe this though, they have none."
Rory is fidgeting. "How much worse can it get?" he whines.
John scowls. "A lot worse, I'd imagine."
There's a clank as a monster rounds the corner and they both duck into the space where the voice came from and quickly find it's nothing more than a glorified hidey-hole, barely enough to accommodate them both.
"We're cornered now!" John hisses.
A throaty growl issues from the thing as it passes by, or at least they think it's passing by, but it stops, searching the glorified hidey-hole opposite theirs. Then it turns to search the one they're hiding in and both men cringe as their location is about to be discovered. However, a shadow slinks forward and rears up in front of them, effectively hiding them from view.
A pause. Shuffling is heard as the thing moves off, and the dark form falls back to the floor before beginning to slither away.
"This way," it tells them, voice still impossibly deep and lethargic for its size.
Both men exchange undefinable glances, wipe the sweat from their brows, and follow the serpent-like thing.
-(BREAK)-
The three manage to make it downstairs in time to see James slowly making his way across the floor. Rose motions that they stay back, so the three camp at the top of the stairs, watching the scene play out. They watch in earnest as James edges around the hole in the floor. Suddenly, the floor cracks and he begins to fall through it.
Clara gasps in shock and Rose cries out his name.
"James!" Rose dives forward, sliding on her belly and Donna grabs her ankles just to feel like she's helping somehow.
She finds another, smaller hole and peers through the boards. "James!" she cries.
No response.
"James, if you can hear me make some kind of noise!"
Silence.
"How far was that fall?" asks Amy suddenly.
Rose shakes her head before shimmying back towards the safe part of the floor. She turns to them.
"I don't know."
Clara stomps her foot in frustration for lack of anything else to do. "I am done! Done with this!"
"You and me both," Donna huffs.
"Where are the other four? That River woman or John or Rory or the bloke with the bow tie?" asks Martha.
"Basement I think," replies Rose.
"Should we find them?" asks Martha.
"They could all be dead already," Amy replies.
Rose shakes her head. "I just... I just need a good kip." Despite her training and practice in the field, the loss of a comrade has always affected her badly. She furrows her brows. They're comrades now? After a moment of thinking, she reckons they all are. Well, most of them. They seem sincere, and Rose is good at getting a read on people.
They climb the stairs, making it to the third floor.
Rose is about to take the second bottom bunk from the wall when she spots something interesting on the third bottom bunk. She moves over and crouches to examine it better. A wolf, sitting back on its haunches, head thrown back in a howl, has been scratched into the footboard.
"I think I'll take this one," she claims as she flops down onto it and rolls over on her side. She's always loved wolves.
Amy drops onto another bottom bunk and both Donna and Clara leave the room. Going across the hall to explore, they pass by the now damaged window and into the other half of the floor. The first door on the right reveals a cozy office space. An antique desk and chair dominate the room and books are loosely stacked around the floor. A couch sits across from the desk, up against the wall, a stack of old magazines taking up a whole cushion.
Donna flops onto the free cushion as Clara sifts around for a book, hoping to take her mind off things, a proper adventure to take her away from this awful place for a while. She treats them roughly in her frustration. Finally she decides on one and moves over to the chair, checking for traps and then, after finding none, she sits down to read.
Clara's eyes snap open, did she really fall asleep? Wow. Might as well go lie down. She places her book on the desk pages down to keep her place and rises. Donna must've gotten bored of the magazines, since she's nowhere to be found. Leaving the study, she goes to find an open bed.
Upon reaching the room, she finds no one is there. Maybe they went to look for the others, She thinks.
She decides upon taking the bed to the left of Rose's, the one directly in front of the door. Bottom bunk of course, no point in climbing.
-(BREAK)-
Slinky wants his prey to come back. Slinky didn't slink in here to wait around for nothing. Patience Slinky, he tells himself. The humans will come back eventually.
The door creaks open. Well, speak of the devil.