Chapter 14, The Hungry Earth, Part 1
Disclaimer: Paige Williams belongs to me but the rest is the BBC. Also thanks to my beta reader IheartReid'XaiverandMoriarty23.
"Behold...Rio!" The Doctor announced, bounding down the steps to the doors in excitement after landing the TARDIS in Rio (where he'd promised us plenty of sunshine). I opted to wear some black shorts, a red vest top, a lightweight blue blazer and red converse high tops. But our faces soon changed from excitement to disappointment in a matter of seconds, as he opened the doors to reveal a cold and rather dank looking church filled graveyard.
"Nuh-uh" Amy sounded in disappointment as she, myself and Rory stepped out the TARDIS first. None of us were pleased that yet again The Doctor had landed us in the wrong place, that we hadn't asked for.
"Not really getting the sunshine carnival vibe," My brother pointed out the obviousness that we were not in Rio.
"Yeah, not any sunshine here more like cold and miserable…" I somewhat agreed with my brother in complaint, feeling the coldness touching my legs.
"No!" He shouted at Rory, not really caring about where we were. "Ohh, feel that, though. What's that?" He asked with a curious look appeared on his face. He walked in front of us to a spot of ground, lightly jumping on it, making all of us look at him oddly.
"What are you doing?" I asked in confusion, going up to him, my hand on my hip.
"Ground feels strange..." He stated back in reply. "Just me," I heard him say to himself as none of us had a clue about what he was talking about. "Wait..." He pondered before looking at over at the gravestones. "That's weird," He told us while still looking at the grass-covered graveyard.
"What's weird?" My brother asked him what he was finding so odd and I wondered that to.
"Doctor, stop trying to distract us. We're in the wrong place," Amy came up to him, annoyed at what he was doing and by the fact that we were not where we were supposed to be. She rushed around to the over side of church, us following while Amy complained about how cold it was and not wanting to stay here. "Doctor, it's freezing and I've dressed for Rio. We're not stopping here."
"Doctor! Are you listening to me?" Amy asked moodily. "It's a graveyard; you promised me a beach!" She pointed out to him, not paying the slightest attention whilst I noticed, getting closer, he was more interested in the blades of odd grass he was holding between his fingers.
"What's that?" I asked in interest, coming up beside him, looking at the grass he had in his hands.
"Blue grass. Patches of it all around the graveyard…" He replied, pointing it out to me. I saw what he meant the odd patches that didn't seem like anything to me when we got there.
"So, Earth, 2020-ish, ten years in your future, wrong continent for Rio, I'll admit, but it's not a massive overshot…" He explained where we were and admitted it being a bit too close to call for being anywhere near there at all.
"Why are those people waving at us?" Amy asked him and Rory, looking over a hill at the people waving to them on a hill opposite, making me and the Doctor look as well. Before he got binoculars out of his jacket to have a closer look whilst I squinted my eyes, trying to get a good look.
"Can't be…" He said, thinking that something that couldn't be possible was down there. He was looking through the binoculars but then put them down.
"Can't be what?" I asked him, snatching them from him.
"Hey!" He said, annoyed. As I looked closely at the two people waving on the hill, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was my brother and Amy but ten years older.
"It's them!" I said, pointing out in excitement, passing the binoculars back to him so he could look properly a second time to see more clearly what I was on about.
"It is!" He said in the same tone of excitement as me.
"It's you two!" I pointed out to them both, joyfully.
"No. We're here," He told us we were being crazy saying it was them. "How can we be up there?!" He asked, confused, looking over to the hill then to the Doctor.
"Ten years in your future. Come to relive past glories, I'd imagine…" He replied to my brother, giving him a reasonable explanation for them being on there. "Humans, you're so nostalgic…" He said, admiringly, about how people on this planet, coming back to remember the good old days.
"We're still together in ten years?" Amy asked, sounding a little surprised.
"No need to sound so surprised!" Rory replied, happily.
"Hey, let's go and talk to them! We could say hi to future us!" My brother's fiancé suggested. "How cool is that?" She asked, seeing what he thought of it and smiled at the ide. She started to rush off but the Doctor stopped them.
"No, best not; really best not." He told them, making them stop and turn back around to him. I knew from how he was telling them that crossing their timelines would not be a good thing to do. "These things get complicated very quickly, and..." He tried to explain before I noticed he'd gotten distracted by something interesting.
"Oh, look!" He said. He was looking into the distance, and I saw that it was a mining facility of some sort. "Big mining thing," He told us in interest, sounding like a three-year old. I found to be rather cute. "Oh, I love a big mining thing!" He said, sounding more excited.
"Of course you do," I stated sarcastically.
"See, it's better than Rio! Rio doesn't have a big mining thing," He told us that he was finding this way more exciting than going to Rio.
"We're not going to have a look, are we?" Amy moaned, sounding displeased at the idea but I could tell he was on a roll already. He was excited to have a poke around this mining place.
"Let's go and have a look!" He suggested excitedly, grabbing a hold of my hand, pulling me along with him whilst making me and Amy laugh. It was funny seeing his childlike joy for going to the place.
"Come on you two, let's see what they're doing!" He called out to my brother and Amy as we went down the hilly graveyard. Amy caught us up a few minutes later, whilst Rory went back to the TARDIS to put Amy's engagement ring back.
-DW-
"'Restricted access, No unauthorised personnel'" The Doctor read the sign out loud, before looking at the locked gate standing in our way. He then got his sonic screwdriver out, directing it at the padlock on the gate, pressing on it, making the padlock come undone.
"That's breaking and entering." Amy pointed out, unsure about what we were doing. My watch was warming up against my chest unpleasantly like it had before in Venice. It was like it was a sign, a warning, but I tried to ignore it.
"What did I break?!" He asked Amy cheerfully, not really taking the consequences into account. "Sonicing and entering, totally different…" He implied, taking the padlock off and pushing the gate open for us.
"Come on, then…" Amy called out after she walked through the open gate. I looked back to see where my brother had got to. I could see the Doctor was wondering the same thing.
"You're sure Rory will catch us up?" He called out to ask Amy with some concern.
"Let's go. I'm sure he'll catch up with us eventually…" I told him not to worry before grabbing his hand and pulling him along to catch up with Amy.
"What about now, can you both feel it now?" He asked me and Amy once. Asking like the last five times that he'd asked us if we could feel the movement he was feeling beneath our feet as we walked down another corridor of the mining facility.
"Honestly, I've got no idea what you're on about…" Amy announced.
"Neither do I Doctor. You've asked us that a couple of times already,"
"The ground doesn't feel like it should…" He told us in a way that something wasn't right to him as he got the strange grass out that he plucked from the ground earlier from his pocket, sniffing it as we walked along.
"It's ten years in the future, maybe this is how the ground feels now." I pointed out to him.
"Good thought Paige, but no. It doesn't," He implied that my theory was wrong as we continued walking. We then started to hear a whirring sound as he pulled out the sonic screwdriver. "Hear that? Drill in start-up mode. After-waves of recent seismological shift and blue grass," He theorized about what we were hearing and about the reason for the odd grass. Before he putting the grass in his mouth and chewing on it, making me and Amy cringe a little bit.
"Oh, please! Have you always been this disgusting?" Amy complained, laughing a little, wanting to know if he had always done strange things like that and I agreed with her.
"Yes have you always been this revolting?" I asked trying not to burst into laughter.
"No, that's recent." He told us it's a new thing that he'd developed.
"What's in..." He started asking, now noticing a door, walking to it and then poking his head around the corner as me and Amy followed behind him. "Here?"
"Hello!" The Doctor called out. A woman in her forties, with short black hair, standing by some complicated machinery looked up, noticing us.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" She asked the three of us about our sudden appearance. "And what are you wearing?" The woman pointed out our clothes, reminding me just how cold I was since I was wearing shorts and Amy's were shorter than mine.
"I dressed for Rio!" Amy told the woman.
"Yes, so did I, but somebody promised us sunshine and beaches but has failed to deliver…" I told her, whilst glaring at the Doctor, making him a little uncomfortable but she thought what I said sounded odd from the look of her face. However it didn't really bother me.
"Ministry of drills, earth and science." He told the woman who we 'apparently were', getting out the psychic paper that he'd shown me awhile back, flashing it to the woman, being a show-off like he normally was. "New Ministry, quite big, just merged, a lot of responsibility, don't like to talk about it."
"What are you doing?" He asked the woman.
"None of your business," She replied, defensively.
"Where are you getting these readings from?" He asked, looking at the machines screen that had all sorts of things on it that he understood but I didn't.
"Under the soil," The woman told him as Amy and I had a look around.
"The drill's up and running again," The voice of a Welshman announced to the woman as he walked into the room. He looked like he was in his fifties or sixties and had white hair. He wasn't looking so pleased to see the three of us here.
"What's going on and who are these people?" He asked the woman whilst Amy and I looked at the Doctor, who was inspecting the hole of dirt in the ground that I never noticed before. He was picking up some soil then letting it drop out of his hands.
"I'm Paige. This is Amy and that's the Doctor," I introduced us, gesturing to each one of us. I saw the Doctor wasn't playing the slightest attention.
"We're not staying, are we Doctor?!" Amy asked, moodily, sounding a little bored. She didn't want to be here anymore.
"Why's there a big patch of earth in the middle of your floor?" The Doctor asked the man and woman about the hole.
"We don't know, it just appeared overnight." The woman told the Doctor.
"Oh, no." I said, silently sighing in worry. I saw a concerned look on the Doctor's face, which made my watch warm unpleasantly once more.
"What's wrong?" Amy asked me. "He got that face on… the one where he discovered something very bad," I told her, looking over to the Doctor and she looked over as well. Now she was as worried as I was.
"Good, right, you all need to get out of here very fast…" He told them with panic in his voice.
"Why?" She asked, wondering what on earth he could be on about. He sounded crazy.
"What's your name?" He asked, wanting to know her on a name basis.
"Nasreen Chaudhry," She told him.
"Look at the screens, Nasreen, look at your readings…" He tried pointing out to Nasreen what was on the monitors was a bad thing. "It's moving," He gestured to the screen.
"Hey, that's specialised equipment! Get away from it!" The Welshman called out for the Doctor not to touch the machine as he walked over. Amy and I crouched down to inspect the hole in the ground.
"What is?" I heard Nasreen ask the Doctor as both Amy and I still looked at the hole, before it started to steam with a white mist. It sounded like one of those machines that singers use to create a dramatic effect but somehow it looked worrying to me.
"Doctor, this steam, is that a good thing?" Amy asked for the Doctor to come and look at the mysterious steam and he turned to look.
"Shouldn't think so. It's shifting when it shouldn't be shifting," He told us, coming over to look at it but it didn't seem to make any sense.
"What shouldn't?" Nasreen asked the Doctor, probably wanting a more sound explanation from him, but before long the ground started to shake madly, making me get up in a hurry.
"The ground, the soil, the earth, moving, but how? Why?" The Doctor pondered rather calmly whilst the rest of us seemed to panic, before he went over to look at the screen.
"Earthquake?" I suggested.
"What's going on?" The older man asked, wondering to why the ground was shaking beneath our feet.
"Doubt it. Cos it's only happening under this room," He replied. This was the only place shaking.
Then two holes suddenly opened up in the floor near me, making me jump back with a small scream. I was looking to the Doctor in fright but then more holes appeared making us all jump back once more. "Doctor what's happening?" I asked, my voice shaking in panic. I wanted to know why the ground was doing this.
"It knows we're here. The ground attacking us," He told me in reply. The ground wanted us.
"That...that's not possible!" Nasreen told the Doctor that he was being crazy.
"I'd listen to him if I were you Nasreen. He's often right about these sort of things," I told the woman truthfully whilst I was still in panic mode.
"Under the circumstances, I'd suggest..." He started to make a suggestion for what we should do then he just shouted it out. "Run!" and that's what we do started to do, making a getaway towards the door. He grabbed a hold of Nasreen, who ran to him. While Amy and I started to run towards the Doctor, we noticed the Welshman had gotten stuck in a hole and we both went to help him.
"Tony!" Nasreen called out ,noticing the predicament he was in.
"Stay back, Amy, Paige! Stay away from the earth!" The Doctor called in warning for us to move away from Tony but we both went to help him. I jumped over the hole first and Amy followed.
"It's OK we've got you," I told Tony in reassurance as we both grabbed each arm, starting to heave him out with what strength we had. But as soon as he was nearly free, we screamed. The ground was giving way beneath our feet.
"Doctor help! The ground's got us!" I called out to the Doctor in panic, unsure to what was pulling both of us in.
"Paige, Amy!" He shouted manically, racing over to us. "Both of you take my hands!" He instructed us, holding them out. He was crouching before us as we grab a hold of one and he kept hold of it like a vice.
"Doctor, the ground's got my legs" Amy told the Doctor what it's doing to her. I know what she means because it felt so tight on my legs that I couldn't move them. I was being sucked further into the earth.
"I've got you both!" He told us not worry, that he was here for us, keeping a firm grip on our hands.
"Don't let go of us," I told him.
"Never." He promised and I could see that in his eyes that we were both dear to him, and that he wouldn't let nothing harm us.
"Doctor, what is it? Why is it doing this?" Amy asked in worry, wanting to know what the earth was doing to us.
"Stay calm, keep hold of my hand, don't let go…" He tried to reassure her.
"Your drill, shut it down! Go! Now!" He instructed Nasreen and Tony.
"Can you get me out?" Amy asked, still panicked about what was happening and so was I to tell the truth.
"Amy, try and stay calm. If you struggle, it'll make things worse. Keep hold of my hand," He told her stay calm for her own sake and believe me I was trying to as well.
"I'm not going to let either of you go," He promised, standing up, trying to pull us out as much as his strength would allow him to. There was a slight shake, knocking him to the ground, losing the grip of our hands as we seemed to get pulled much further into the earth. It was now up to our chests.
"Doctor, it's pulling me down, something's pulling me!" I screamed in terror. I felt like I was going to die.
"Stay calm. Hold on, if they can just shut down the drill..." He told me.
"I can't hold on!" Amy told him, starting to lose her grip as we were sucked down further.
"What's pulling me? What's under the earth?" She asked, wanting to know if there was anything down there we should be afraid of. "I don't want to suffocate under there."
"Amy, Paige, concentrate," The Doctor told us to focus on getting out of there. "Don't give up!" He pleaded for us not to give in.
"Tell, Rory..." Amy started, tears forming in her eyes, wanting to give my brother a message from the Doctor.
"No. Amy!" He screamed in anger ,trying to keep hold of her but he failed as her grip slipped. Screaming more for her as she slipped under leaving me behind as I hadn't seemed to have sunk any further. "Amy, no! No! No!"
"Paige, keep hold of my hand. I'm not letting you go so easily, I can't lose you." He said, gripping hold of my hand, giving it a tug as I flew out of the hole as the ground had seemed to have stopped shaking. He held me against his chest, kissed my forehead in relief, but I could still sense the pain from him losing Amy.
He pulled me up, keeping a firm grip on my hand whilst I clung to him, not letting each other go as he got out his sonic. Scanning the earth, I could see he was determined to get Amy back and then my thoughts turned to Rory. I knew he had trouble trusting the Doctor sometimes, but this would just push him over the edge once again. Amy's life had been put in danger!
End of Part 1 hope you liked it xx :)