A/N: I will review reply! I WILL!
A couple of running chapters, now...
Chapter 12 - Trapped
"Call UNIT!" Jack was yelling, hammering on the door holding them in containment, trying to be heard. "They'll tell you everything! We need to leave!"
"Jack," the Doctor said slowly, knowing it was completely useless and verbally urging Jack to realise that too.
In truth, Jack had already realised it... But he felt better knowing he was trying to do something rather than sitting doing nothing. Still, he sighed, pulling back from the door and looking at the Doctor and Rose huddled on the single unmade bed, cuddling together under the one blanket they had for warmth. After being taken from quarantine they had been locked into a private hospital room on the top floor whilst the officials decided what to do with them. Don had not appeared since what had happened earlier.
The only good thing in amongst their current mess of a situation was that the Doctor's infection had began to recede to the point where he had limited use of his left arm again, which he was currently embracing Rose with. At least he was getting better, now. Maybe his left heart would start up again soon, Jack couldn't help but hope as he moved to the other two, dropping to sit on the bed in front of them.
For a moment there was only silence. And it really was silence. There were no cars chugging along in the background, no stray voices calling out into the night, not even any wildlife calling out. The world previously so busy with the rush of human and other animal life alike had become completely dark, cold and silent.
"Why aren't we freezin' to death?" Rose wondered suddenly, looking out through the window above their heads to the pure black sky above. "Coz the Sun isn't comin' through?"
"The creature is containing most of the heat, trapping it in," the Doctor replied. "Like a giant blanket around the Earth."
"That's not good, is it."
"No," the Doctor replied, grimacing. "The human race can't live in these conditions for very long. We're looking at a couple of months, at the most."
"How did it get to this?" Jack suddenly asked, but it was a question aimed in no particular direction.
"Do you mean your life in general or right now?" the Doctor wondered. "Because I don't think I can answer that first one."
Rose giggled through her shivers as Jack beamed happily. "A couple of hundred years ago I had a stable job and a sex buddy and now I've got..." He paused to consider this, frowning slightly. "Well, about the same really, but that's not the point..."
Rose and the Doctor both laughed, and it took a moment for Jack to realise how long it had been since he'd heard the Doctor laugh. He'd never noticed before, but the Doctor's laugh genuinely made him a little bit more content.
Grinning slightly, he continued, "I was a great conman. Why did I give it up again?"
"To travel in time and space with two really great people?" Rose wondered.
"Yeah, you seen them around anywhere?" Jack asked cheekily in reply.
More laughs filled the cell... but then the Time Lord's eyebrows lowered in confusion as Jack's eyes suddenly averted to a point above the Doctor's head, and his entire expression fell
The Doctor turned to see what he was looking at.
"Move!" he yelled, grabbing Rose by the shoulders and pushing her off the side of the bed where they both fell into a heap on the floor, Rose squealing a protest.
"What..." she began as she pushed him off, but her next word quickly died in her throat as she realised what he had just saved her from. The black goo, the Darkness Incarnate was coming in through the window... slowly trickling through the weak point between the frame of the window and the wall... but it was getting faster like a river breaking its banks, making distinctive slurping sounds as it moved...
By the time Rose had got up from the floor the Doctor and Jack were already trying to break down the door of the room but to absolutely no avail. Was something blocking the other side? Jack tried ramming it with his shoulder and giving it a firm kick but it became increasingly obvious it was not going to open.
"Doctor!" Rose yelled and the Doctor spun around to find the Darkness Incarnate had already moved down the window's wall and was beginning to flood the entire room, creeping slowly but surely towards their feet.
"Let us out!" Jack was yelling, hammering on the door exactly as he'd done before. "It's an emergency!"
No one was there.
The Doctor grabbed Rose and pushed her behind him, tensing his entire body as the Darkness continued to progress towards them... There was nothing they could do. They were trapped. Jack finally stopped hammering on the door and turned to see it was but a metre away from them... They were going to die.
The Doctor was tensed, Rose gripping onto his arm as Jack closed his eyes...
Then it stopped. But the ordeal was far from over. It was beginning to build into a mound in front of them, getting bigger and bigger as the seconds trickled by – but they had nowhere to run. They found they could only watch as it built and built and manifested into recognisable facial features... but it was like something out of a Hollywood film. A pointed chin, narrowed eyes, horns and slits for nostrils until finally it reached a stage of perfect recognition – a giant demonic face as tall as the room itself made entirely out of the Darkness, staring down at them with a simple, evil smile.
"Let me help you!" the Doctor was yelling, but even he knew the futility. Still, he seemed to be the only one of the three capable of speech as Rose commenced screaming and Jack was so paralysed it was as though he were frozen on the spot. "You said you wanted an eye? What kind of eye?"
It didn't reply. It simply pounced.
The Doctor grabbed Jack and Rose and pushed them out of the way just in time as the black demonic face slammed into the door and burst on impact, the substance now covering the entire door and only leaving the three a little island of clean floor to stand in.
"Jump!" the Doctor yelled and made a frantic leap for the bed, scrambling up to stand on the mattress. Seconds later the other two followed, and the Darkness quickly consumed the little island they'd been stood in.
"What the hell is going on in here?" a voice suddenly yelled and the door opened...
"No don't!" the Doctor yelled, but it was too late. The Darkness quickly spilled through the door and covered the man's right shoe and a scream of complete, undivided agony tore from his throat as he pulled out his foot again... but there was only a skeleton foot left on the end of a fleshy leg where the Darkness had consumed him.
The screams that followed quickly died as the Darkness moved up his entire body to encase him in the blackness, freezing him in mid-scream... and quickly dispersed to leave a skeleton to collapse to the floor with a clatter of bone on flooring. Another few moments, and the Darkness covered the skeleton. When it flattened out... there was no skeleton to be seen.
Then the Darkness turned its attentions back towards the three standing on the bed, and began to climb the legs of the bed's structure. The bed dropped a little, the Doctor grabbing Rose as she shrieked and almost fell off. It was eating the bed!
The Doctor quickly looked around for any possible escape... and as luck would have it there was a ventilation shaft directly above them.
"Get it open!" he yelled, reaching up to grab the ridge as did Jack. Rose screamed again and grabbed onto the Doctor when the bed dropped a little more, trying desperately not to fall off. The blackness was now at least a foot deep across the whole of the room. It was advancing, and quickly.
Finally the shaft opened and the Doctor and Jack both grabbed Rose in the midst of her screams, holding her up into the shaft. She grabbed the side and quickly clambered out of view.
The bed sank a little more. The Darkness was coming over the sides of the mattress and straight towards their feet. Jack was quick to grab the Doctor's legs and hold him clear of the Darkness and up to the shaft...
Then Jack began to scream. It was a shrill, ear piercing scream of absolute and complete agony that almost shattered the Doctor's eardrum. The Time Lord instinctively looked down... the Darkness was covering Jack's feet, advancing up towards his knees but he adamantly kept holding the Doctor up clear of the Darkness, as he screamed and screamed and screamed...
Frantically Rose grabbed the Doctor's arms and helped him up into the shaft. The Doctor quickly offered a hand down to Jack and grabbed his arm, pulling him up with every nugget of strength he could muster; Rose supporting the Doctor by wrapping her arms around his middle and pulling him back. Eventually Jack's head appeared, but he was still screaming, crying in pain. They finally got him completely clear and Rose saw the skeletal remains of Jack's legs, poking out from bloody stumps of where the thighs had been...
Her next action was more of a reaction, and completely warranted. She fainted clean away.
Thankfully it only took a few moments until Jack's feet regrew into their normal flesh and blood, and he finally stopped screaming, only gasping to try and get his breath back.
The shaft creaked, and began to sag. The Darkness was coming. This was no time for pleasantries.
"Let's go!" the Doctor yelled, grabbing the unconscious Rose and hauling her onto his back (which was slightly more difficult than it looked, as Rose's womb was still very swollen with the foetus inside) before he began to crawl through the shaft as fast as he could, hearing Jack close behind him.
They continue full pelt for at least one hundred metres, leaving the both of them completely out of breath.
"Where is it?" the Doctor yelled back to Jack.
"It's well behind us!" Jack replied, and the Doctor brought himself to a stop, carefully lying the unconscious Rose down before he sat and attempted to regain his breath.
"Fuck," Jack cursed, and the Doctor did not reprimand him for swearing as he dragged his hands down his face. "What..."
"I don't know," the Doctor said simply, feeling very shaken. "It's growing in power as it eats and eats... And it's only just getting started... It's going to eat this entire universe..."
Jack stared at him. "What the hell do we do?"
"I don't know," the Doctor said again. "I really, really don't know." He moved his gaze to Jack's newly reformed legs, and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm scared," he admitted.
"Well, I'm pretty sure I've crapped myself," Jack replied truthfully. "Where do we go now?"
There was a moment as the Doctor thought. Was anywhere safe? "The TARDIS," he finally replied. "It's the safest place, there we can figure out..."
But he was interrupted by a new voice, echoed and distant – a high-pitched, haunted singing in a simple nursery rhyme tune coming from somewhere quite distant...
"Zagreus sits inside your head..." it sang. "Zagreus lives among the dead... Zagreus sees you in your bed... And eats you when you're sleeping..."
The Doctor's eyes widened as Jack sat up, attentive. "That's Don!" Jack realised. "Who's Zagreus?"
"Someone he really shouldn't be singing about," the Doctor murmured. "His brain is collapsing, we need to get him back to the TARDIS right now." And with that he took hold of Rose and hauled her onto his back again, making sure she was secure as he began to move... but not before Don's haunted nursery rhyme came once more, echoing through the shaft.
"Zagreus at the end of days... Zagreus sets the skies ablaze..."
The shaft began to creak again, and both the Doctor and Jack checked over their shoulders... the Darkness was creeping towards them, its intent clear as it advanced closer and closer, gaining with every single inch...
A/N: Chapter 13 - 998
"Doctor?" Don whispered.
"Yeah, it's me," the Doctor replied.
"My head hurts."
"I know," the Doctor said gently. "I'm gonna fix you. I promise."
There was an ominous creak from the ventilation shaft above... and the walls themselves were beginning to groan. Within a matter of seconds the Darkness began to seep through the walls, as if the walls themselves were bleeding...