A/N - Hey, I meant to post this a little earlier on today, but I got sidetracked, hahaha, aw well, I hope you enjoy, anyways! Would you appreciate some teasers for the rest of the series?
"What's up with you?" the boy said, appearing out of the crawlspace behind Callum.
"What time is it?" Callum asked, whirling round to face him, catching him offguard as he toppled out of the gap and crashed down on top of him, sending them both falling to the floor.
"D'you mind?!" the boy growled, standing up and dusting his cloak off. His hood had fell back, revealing him to be a pale-faced boy with a scar running down over his left eye. His hair was a mess of raven black, and his ice-blue eyes were unnaturally bright without his hood. "Why do you need the time?"
"I have an hour left to exist, basically," Callum replied, quickly. "Time now, please?"
"Jeez, fine, fine, quit whining," the boy sighed, unbuttoning his cloak and reaching into the pocket of the dark red shirt he was wearing underneath before pulling out a fancy looking pocketwatch. "One minute past eleven."
"At night?"
"What do you think, genius?" the boy sighed, rolling his eyes as he pocketed the watch again. "Haven't you noticed outside?"
"We're in the middle of a storm," Callum pointed out. "What's to say it isn't daytime?"
"You've got an hour to live and you're squabbling over what time of day it is?" the boy replied, raising an eyebrow.
"You're a bit of an asshole," Callum sighed.
"Pfft."
"Anyway, what's going on here? Wherever 'here' is."
"Not completely sure, if I'm honest," the boy replied. "I just appeared here a few hours ago, next thing I know I'm getting chased by those weird guys. Just so happens you had to come along and appear just as I was trying to get out of here. Count yourself lucky I helped you out."
"Hm, yeah, for someone who was helping out, you're still an ass."
"Hey, y'know what, I didn't have to show you a way out back there," the boy said, glaring at him.
"Yeah, well, thanks, I guess..." Callum replied, awkwardly.
"Hn. What's your label?"
"My label?"
"Yeah, y'know? Like, your name?" the boy sighed.
"Oh, I'm Callum."
"I'm Alex, nice to meet ya. Now shut up and come on," the raven-haired boy said, turning and walking off down the corridor they had crawled into.
"Where are you going?" Callum asked.
"Did you miss the part where I said to shut up?"
"Must have, aye."
"Ugh, fine then," Alex groaned, stopping abruptly and spinning round to face Callum. "I'm gonna show you where we are, and then maybe you or whoever's talking through your ear can work something out, because I'm sure as hell not capable of hiding from psychos with guns and working out an escape plan."
"Tell him he sounds like an asshole again, Callum," Keith said through his earpiece, and Callum bit down on his bottom lip to stop himself from laughing in Alex's face. Instead, he nodded and waited for the boy to start walking away again before allowing himself a grin.
"Don't do that to me again," he warned Keith with a chuckle as he followed after Alex.
"Sorry, mate," Keith laughed. "Oh, yeah, it's just me here for now. The Doctor's been working on some gizmo to scan your hologram, and Laura's somewhere in the TARDIS library to try and find a book on rift storms or something like that."
"Oh, well, at least you haven't all forgot me," Callum said, now walking alongside Alex as they turned the corner.
"Bit hard to when it looks like your ghost is hovering by the front door, y'know."
"Hm, yeah, that's real nice, Keith," Callum laughed.
"D'you mind shutting up before someone hears you," Alex hissed.
"Right, hey, Keith, I'm switching the earpiece onto silent for now, buzz through if you need me, 'kay?"
"Got it, man! Keep safe, 'kay?"
"Cheers, I'll do my best," Callum smiled as he reached behind his ear and adjusted the little control on the back of the earpiece.
"Who was that then?" Alex asked quietly, as they found themselves ascending another flight of stairs. "Friend?"
"Yeah," Callum nodded. "I've been travelling with three of my friends for a while now, but I fell out our... uh, ship... into a rift storm or something like that."
"Hm, can't say I know anything about rift storms," Alex replied, looking at Callum out of the corners of his ice-blue eyes. "I was in the Citadel, down in the Undercity, minding my own business, next thing I know I'm in this stupid place. Got a pretty good view when I arrived though. Now shut up and follow me."
Meanwhile in the TARDIS, Keith had got bored – and a little freaked out – of waiting about in the console room with Callum's hologram. It had frozen with its eyes wide open and its mouth shut, reminding Keith too much of a dead body, except its slight transparency and habit of flickering every so often reminded him more of a ghost.
Having abandoned the console room, he was making his way along the corridors trying to find his way to the TARDIS library. He had no idea where the Doctor had went off to for working on his machine thingy, but he knew Laura would no doubt still be in there, trying to find something to help.
After a good three or four minutes of walking through a small art gallery, a weird cathedral-like room, and what appeared to be a garden, he finally found the double doors leading into the library.
It was peacefully silent in here, and Keith could immediately smell the familiar smokey incense that Laura always lit when she was studying or reading. She was sitting in the far corner, her reading glasses on and her hair tied back. Keith secretly thought that this was when she looked her most perfect, when she was completely distant from the troubles of the real world, caught up in a book. Her eyes always had that little glint in them, and she mouthed the words as she read them, stopping every now and again to push the glasses up the bridge of her nose again.
She hadn't noticed him enter, having been too focused on the massive leatherbound tome she had placed on the table in front of her, but she looked up as he appeared next to her, planting a kiss on her temple.
"Found anything yet?" he asked quietly, not wanting to disturb the peaceful aura in the room.
"I think I might have," she nodded. "I found a book on the third floor," - she pointed upwards – "and it's all about rift storms."
"Mm, I love it when you talk all smart," Keith smiled. Laura raised an eyebrow before continuing with what she was saying.
"Anyway, according to this book, rift storms are well known for leading to the sites of spatial disturbances along disturbed timelines."
"I'll pretend I understood that," Keith nodded. "Go on."
"Well, the book has a list of known rift storm locations, y'see," Laura continued, turning a few pages of the book and pointing at a list of places and the co-ordinates next to them. "The only problem is, we have no way of knowing whether Callum's landed through any of these, or whether it's a completely different location altogether."
"How many is there on that list?" Keith asked, scanning the list.
"Well, 34 possible locations," Laura replied. "I'm not sure how we could identify whether it's any of them though."
"Hm, let's go find the Doctor then," Keith said, stroking his chin as he thought. "Maybe his machine thingy'll be able to sort things out!"
Laura gave a small nod and picked up the large book, stuck her reading glasses into her pocket and licked a finger and a thumb before leaning over to snuff out the burning red incense stick on the table in front of her, before following after Keith, who was patiently waiting for her in the doorway.
"You weren't joking when you said you got a good view of the place," gasped Callum as he and Alex emerged in a roofless tower almost exactly in the centre of wherever they were. The rain had stopped, but the storm was still raging above them.
"Well, get looking and try and find us an escape then," Alex said, exasperatedly, sitting down on the rain-soaked ground. Somehow, the howling wind they could hear all around them wasn't actually affecting the little tower and Callum leaned over to peek over the wall.
"Woah, it's massive!" he cried. The tower they were on gave an incredible 360 view of the massive structure. It was easily twenty floors high, with sprawling buildings of different heights. Some parts were connected by stone bridges that ran over the constant black clouds that surrounded everything. Yellow light shone through hundreds of rows of windows, and towers and turrets outcropped everywhere, with the two boys standing on one of the taller ones that surrounded a massive central tower. "I just don't understand..."
"You're wondering where exactly we are?"
"Well, yeah..."
"Probably nowhere," Alex replied, unhelpfully. "If you tried to walk out the front door you wouldn't end up anywhere. You'd fall out and disappear down there."
"How d'you know that though?" Callum frowned, taking one last look over the massive structure before sitting down on the ground mirroring Alex. He propped his elbows on his legs, his hands under his chin and looked at the elder boy, who had closed his eyes and appeared to be deep in thought.
"I saw those guys from the library earlier," Alex explained. "Was spying on them a bit, and when they were in the entrance hall one of them walked straight out the front door and just kept falling. Then one of them saw me, started shouting and pointing a gun at me. Luckily, I'm quick on my feet."
"So how d'you know he just kept falling?" Callum asked.
"Think about it, geez," Alex sighed. "He was obviously screaming."
"Oh..."
"Hm, your ear thingy's flashing," Alex said, pointing a gloved finger at Callum's left ear. Callum furrowed his brow as he reached up and adjusted the setting – surely he should have heard a noise if the others were trying to communicate with him.
"Ik vaal'ak namun purdis kalim vandin holbentaj," burbled a strange distorted voice through the earpiece. Callum's frown deepened as he tried to adjust the setting again but nothing seemed to stop the strange voice in its alien language.
"What is it?" Alex asked, noticing Callum's expression.
"It's not my friends," Callum replied. "Some weird alien language, but it's not translating because I'm not in contact with the TARDIS."
"The what?"
"Oh, the ship I was travelling on," Callum explained, still fiddling with the earpiece. "Long story. Ugh, I just wish I knew what this was saying."
"Here, let me listen," Alex sighed, shifting himself over and pressing his ear against Callum's to listen.
"This is kind of weird," Callum murmured.
"Shut up, I'm trying to hear."
Keith and Laura found the Doctor in his study, the clock-filled room where he kept items that reminded him of some of his adventures. He had left his jacket in the console room, and rolled his sleeves up to do whatever it was he was doing. He had completely swiped everything off of his fancy wooden desk, and was in the middle of smacking two large metal devices together.
"What's that you're smashing?" Keith asked as they approached him. He looked up for a second, suddenly aware of their presence before taking a step back from the desk and sighing.
"It's supposed to be an inversion scanner. To scan the empty space that the hologram exists in. Just doesn't seem to want to stay held together though. I even tried using gum."
"What sort of gum? Like tree gum?" Laura frowned.
"No, no, don't be ridiculous," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "It was minty."
"Should've known," smirked Keith.
"Anyway, what are you two doing here? Has something happened?" the Doctor asked, sitting down in the leather chair behind his desk and buttoning up his shirt sleeves.
"I found something in a book in the library," Laura replied, taking the large book from under her arm and walking round the desk. She placed it down and began to search for the page she had been looking through. "Ah, there it is."
The Doctor read the page over in a split second. "Right, so that definitely narrows it down then, doesn't it?" he said.
"You think? How are we gonna get to all 34 places and search for Callum in... 45 minutes?" Keith asked, looking down and checking the time on his phone
"Well, one of them is being protected by something that prevents us from following after him," the Doctor explained. "So we're going to have to go through the list and whichever one we can't get through to..."
"Is the one we're looking for," finished Laura, enthusiastically.
"Alright then, let's get a move on!" Keith beamed.
"Oh, well, d'you mind carrying that bit then?" the Doctor asked, pointing at one of the large metal devices on the desk.
"Surely we don't need it now though?"
"Well, yes and no – I've got a plan!" the Doctor smiled. Keith and Laura quickly exchanged oh no, not again looks, that was seemingly unnoticed by the happy Time Lord.
"C'mon, you've been listening to it for a good two minutes," Callum groaned.
"Yeah, well, it's difficult to work out where a sentence starts or stops. It's just the same phrase over and over again though," Alex replied, his ear still pressed against Callum's. He had pulled a small, round device with a screen and a keypad out of one of the pockets on the inside of his cloak and he was tapping away at it. Another minute later he finally pulled his head away and stood up, pointing at the device. "There. Got it."
"What did you do?" Callum asked, standing up. "You've translated it?"
"Of course, dummy," Alex said. "What did you think I was doing?"
"Aw, shut up and tell me what it says!" Callum sighed, facepalming in disbelief at the boy's continuing attitude.
"It's a distress call, by the looks of it," Alex replied, running his finger along the screen. A small electronic trill rang. "Oh, the translation's completely finished now. Yeah, definitely a distress call. It was broadcasting on all frequencies, which would explain why your earpiece got it."
Callum stuck his tongue out the corner of his mouth and bit it slightly, suddenly deep in thought.
"Can you trace that back?" he asked.
"I could try, but it'll take me a couple minutes," Alex nodded.
"Alright, then," Callum said, "but can we go back inside where there's actually some heat? It's baltic out here!"
"Hm, alright," Alex said, rolling his eyes. "We're gonna have to keep an eye out for those gun guys."
"That was on the priority list," Callum replied, opening the wooden door they had came through and descending the staircase. Alex followed close behind and they found themselves somewhere different from the way they had came before.
"Wait, that doesn't make sense," Alex noted. "We were in a completely different place before we went up those stairs!"
"Hey, yeah, you're right," Callum gasped. "Uh, any ideas?"
"Apart from the geography of the castle changing, you mean?"
"Well, yeah..."
"No such luck," Alex said, shaking his head. "Which poses a bit of a problem because now we have no idea what part of the castle we're in!"
"Or where we could end up," Callum added. "But how come the layout never changed before?"
"Must just go off at random moments," Alex said, his icy blue eyes not looking up from the screen of the little device in his palm. "We are in the middle of some time storm."
"Fair point," Callum replied, crossing over to the nearest window and peering out. The rain had started again, and the wind was still howling – enough to cause the glass panes to shudder slightly from the force.
Callum pressed his forehead against the cold window, closed his eyes and gave a big sigh. He had about forty-three minutes left to figure out what exactly was going on and get back onboard the TARDIS.
His trail was suddenly interrupted by Alex yelling his name and the sound of a gun clicking nearby. He swivelled around just in time to see two young women – a redhead and a blonde – both dressed in cocktail dresses, high heels and fur coats that gave Callum the impression they were from sometime in the 20th century. They were both pointing small pistols at the two boys, and they looked incredibly angry.
"Alright, you two," the redhead growled with a London accent, "give us one good reason why we shouldn't decorate the walls with the inside of your heads."
Callum exchanged a look of shock with Alex for a second before his attention was drew back to the two women.
"Oh, sometime today, pet," the blonde cried. Callum noticed she had an Irish accent. "My trigger finger's getting a bit itchy!"