Everyone leapt back, weapons at the ready.

"It's the hyena!" shrilled Warren. "It's coming to get us!"

"Technically it isn't a..."

"In the walls?"

"Maybe it lives in the walls!"

Bang. Bang. Bangity-bang.

"If it was the little hound, why would it bother making all that noise?" said the Doctor reasonably. "Is anyone there?"

"Me," squeaked a voice. Almost too faintly to be heard, the voice added, "I'm not a hyena!"

"Where are you?"

"In... shaft... help?"

"Elevator shaft?"

"Yes! Yes. Help. Please?" Bang. Bang.

"But it's not even a door anymore!" exclaimed River. "It's solid metal! How did you get in?"

"From... above... came... help..."

"Help..." muttered the Doctor. "Oh! Help you? Or help us?"

"You!"

"So... meaning us."

"Yes..."

"Colin!" Warren cried incredulously.

" 's me," said the voice faintly.

Warren leaned on the door. "It's locked!" he informed Colin. "What are you doing here?"

"Heard... about... monsters..." Xan recognized the Scottish accent now.

"That's a reason to come here? Are you mad?"

"Open... door... please... hanging..."

"No!" shouted the Doctor. "Not in your life! I'm not bringing another person in here to get eaten. No more of you! You got lucky! You're not trapped in here. Don't..."

"Actually," came Colin's voice, indistinctly, and then he said something else that couldn't quite be heard.

"I can't hear..."

"I said there's an iron door over my head and it's blocking the way up!"

"Oh, no." Warren put his head in his hands.

"Why did you have to come down here anyway?"

"Wanted to see... oh, just let me in, before I fall to my death, all right?"

"But how?" River Song asked. "The door's not even a door anymore!"

The Doctor was inspecting the frame of the metal. "Well, that's not very good." He concentrated, trying to think of another entry point.

"If not the door, then maybe the walls? Can we break down the walls?" Xan asked.

"They're carbonized porcelain and graphene," said Warren. "The axe couldn't..."

"Then what use is the axe in an emergency?" The Doctor really had a point.

"Bashing up monsters, I suppose," said Warren. He pounded on the metal. "You okay in there?"

"Not... exactly..."

Finally, the Doctor had everyone stand back, and he pulled a bundle of wires out of his pocket. They extended out into an electronic spider web that he spread over the door. The wires clamped on and stuck tight to the metal. "I was saving this for an emergency," he said petulantly. "You can only use it once."

Once was quite enough. As soon as the machine turned on, it crumpled inwards, and crushed the door like tinfoil.

"We could have used that on a blast door!" said River, who was the first to recover from the shock.

"Yes, I know. And now we can't."

Colin swung in and crashed to the floor. He sat up again and unclipped the rappel line he was attached to. "I do a lot of mountain climbing," he said proudly.

Warren shook him angrily. "What are you doing here? Do you want to get yourself killed?"

Unworried, Colin removed the pack from his shoulders and threw it on the ground. It thumped metallically. "Are there really monsters down here?"

"Yes!" Warren shouted, exasperated. "Yes, and now you're going to get eaten!"

"Not if I've got this," said Colin smugly. He reached into the pack and removed an enormous tranquilizer gun.

"How did you get all this together so quickly?"

"I... always have a mountaineering pack ready at home, and my apartment is across the street... this's in case we meet any unfriendly animals, you know..."

"Did you tell anyone about us being down here?"

"Yes, of course. I said about the reactor meltdown, too."

The Doctor exploded. "Why did you have to come down here? Why do you people always make it so hard for me to keep you alive? We're trying to get everyone out!"

"Trying to help," mumbled Colin. "I brought first aid and everything..."

It was now from the other side that Xan saw herself. She saw herself in Colin. She thought she understood the Doctor's anger, now, at the way humans threw themselves willingly into danger.

But it was true that help would be useful.

"What else do you have in there?" she asked. "Emergency rations and rope and that kind of thing?"

"Yes. Right. That sort of... thing..."

It looked a whole lot more like scientific equipment to the Doctor. He reached in and pulled out an empty injection stick, and turned it over in his palm, like twirling a pencil. Then he threw it back and gave Colin a suspicious look. Colin slung the bag onto his back and avoided him.

"Well, now that there are five of us..." the Doctor grumped.

"Maybe we should find the way out first," suggested River. She inspected the plasma pistol. "Where the Waterhelm man left, that was probably where we should start. That hallway."

"That's what we were doing, wasn't it?" Xan asked.

"Well, let's keep on doing that, then," said the Doctor.

He let River lead. She knew the way to the reactor room. He stayed at the end, where he could keep a close watch on all four of the scientists. Xan noticed this, and let her walking pace slow until she was next to him.

"What was up with that?" she murmured.

"Up with what?" he responded, equally quietly.

"You looked in Colin's pack..."

"It was just... just a thought. Nothing yet. How's your stomach?"

"It doesn't hurt, but it wants food."

"It's a little early..."

"Breakfast," she said. "Not lunch. Breakfast."

"There's snack machines around."

"But it's just junk. That's not real food. And it isn't very healthy."

"Well, you can..."

"And I'm not going to stop and tell everyone to wait up, please, I want a bag of cookies. Yes, I know the Siren Hounds are off chewing on people's legs, but I'm really hungry... I'm not going to do that. I'm just not."

The door was not glaringly obvious. River passed it by without any notice. It was the Doctor who saw the tiny pool of red at its base. Xan saw it next. "Stop!" she called. River backtracked quickly.

"You need to use the privy?" Song asked the Doctor. Xan hadn't realized it was a bathroom, then saw the sign. The Doctor was kneeling by the puddle. He touched some of it. "That's blood," he confirmed softly. Very slowly, he turned the handle of the door and pushed it open.

Everyone expected a hound to come leaping out, and River pointed the pistol hastily into the doorway. After a moment, the Doctor entered, trying not to step in the stream of crimson liquid. With a disturbed fascination building up inside, Xan followed.

There was a lot of blood. It had all been splattered on the walls and on the floor, and it dripped from the ceiling. The metallic stench hung in the stagnant air.

There were two men lying on the floor.

Revulsion could not find its way into her mind as Xan surveyed the scene. Someone had ordered it in bulk, and it couldn't fit through the door. To look at the bodies on the tiles and be disgusted felt like a great disrespect. They hadn't wanted this to happen.

That the door had been closed offered little mystery. After all, the Siren Hounds were capable of closing and opening doors. The one that got these men might even have come in under the guise of a human, asking for shelter.

The wounds on the men seemed to indicate that it was the hyena-hound. The little one. Xan wondered what its alternate form was. If the monster she'd stunned was a young man, then the smallest hound would be a child.

Now we are at six, Xan thought. As far as we know.

She looked at her reflection, in the long mirror. The fear in her eyes was stronger and the circles under them were deeper.

She thought there was movement behind her. Xan resisted the urge to look round. Her mind was frayed and her senses on overdrive. No wonder she was...

... there had to be something there. She was sure of it. Xan had turned away, and her blood froze as her mind received the image that had been caught out of the corner of her eye.

"Xan?" came the Doctor's voice, sounding worried. He followed her gaze to the mirror.

Without saying a word, he took her arm and hauled her out of the room, slamming the door behind him and locking it. He leaned on it and swallowed hard. It was the first time Xan had ever seen him genuinely afraid, but he was, with sweat beginning to form on his forehead and blood starting to drain from his face. But in a second, it all vanished.

"Can't be too careful," he said, ignoring the astonished looks he was being given. "Let's keep moving. And no one stops for a bathroom break. We're not going in those rooms. Ever."

And when they set off again, he was leading, and walking faster than before. Xan began to speak, a question, probably.

There were two of them. They didn't charge out of the hallways like before, but stalked slowly forward. Xan heard breath, and then a growl, and spun around, the words catching between her teeth. It was even more terrifying now, because they walked with slow purpose.

River brought her arm up and fired the pistol twice. Neither shot touched the leaping hounds, and there was a burst of muscle and movement and the gun fell, skittering on the floor. And then the creatures were charging, and everyone went from standing frozen to full flight.

Colin slowed and tried to pull the tranquilizer out of his pack. As he wrestled with it, a hound came bounding towards him. Warren doubled back and, raising the red axe, prepared to strike. The hound jumped back from his first savage swing, and on the second, Warren lost his grip on the handle. The axe flew past the hound and hit the wall.

Xan realized immediately when the two dropped back, and was about to head their way when the other hound, the larger of the pair, came galloping straight at her. The Doctor skidded to a stop, panicking as he saw Xan face the hound. He caught her wrist and forced her to run. She struggled against him.

"Keep moving!" he bawled. "Run! You can't get through it, you can't go back, I'm so sorry, you have to run!"

Xan couldn't see Warren or Colin anymore. They must have ran down another corridor. The other hound was gone, chasing them. Xan was shaking badly, but she managed to find the balance to turn and run.

And run.

A Supply Closet in Avalon University

December 24th, 2021

Warren poked his head out of the closet as soon as he dared, which was too soon, as Colin saw it. He pushed Warren's head back inside and slammed the door. Warren hit him with a mop, and Colin beat this off with a large sponge, which was a most unfortunate choice of weapons.

"Why did you do that?" Colin asked, throwing the sponge down.

"Don't. Slam! Doors." hissed Warren.

"Don't. OPEN. Them. Then!" retorted Colin.

"The thing is gone. I don't want to be stuck in here. We should get moving." Warren pushed the door open again, and dragged the mop out of the closet. It was unfortunately the plastic-handled kind, so it wouldn't make for a good spear if he broke it. "Stupid mop," he said, and threw it back. It hit the emerging Colin.

"Ow! Stop that!"

"Sorry."

"That really..."

"Shush!"

"Oh god, it's here?"

"No, not unless you summon it with all that noise you're making..."

"Oh come on."

Warren stuck his hands in the pockets of his lab coat, and pulled out a folded sheet of e-paper.

"A map?" snorted Colin. "You carry a map around in your pocket?" Warren ignored him and pasted the paper on the wall with one hand. He glanced briefly at the number on the nearest lab room, then made a dot on the paper with the stylus.

"Why do you carry a map around? You get lost?"

"Not if I have a map," said Warren. "It's like a circuit, okay? I just see things better from above." He thought hard and made another dot, then drew a route. "I think the hounds were chasing them towards the reactor room..."

"So we shouldn't go there."

"I guess not." Warren saw things better if he had the whole picture. Why mazes seemed so confusing was a mystery to him. Or computers, especially the old silicon wafer ones. They had everything laid out for you. But imagine trying to navigate them from ground level. That was the difficult part, right? "Which way did the Waterhelm man go? Which hallway?"

Colin pointed at a spot in the air. "Ah... like... like that... So, down... D wing." The number on the lab was C43. "And it was on level three, so we need..."

"Go like this." Warren mapped out a route.

"But this would be quicker..."

"I'm plotting a route that uses back stairs only, so we don't get near the reactor room."

"All right." Colin waited. Warren paused. Colin took another look at the map and said, "We go down this hall and up the little stairs with the weird red tiles..."

"Stair E west."

"If you say so. Then, down... I guess the back way where all the bathrooms are..."

"The Doctor said not to go in the bathrooms!" cried Warren. He began to draw a new path.

"Yeah, but he's a little weird, isn't he? Well, that's obvious, 'cos if Xan likes him..."

"But he's..." Warren didn't know how to explain to someone who hadn't grown up hearing the stories, the legends. "He's the Doctor."

"And a little weird. And who is 'the' Doctor, anyway?"

"Well, he's... like... kind of like a... good... spirit... well, some stories say he's a god, or an angel, and some say he's a spy, and others say he's an alien, or a demon, or a vigilante-type... or maybe it's a position you have, because there are many different Doctors showing up all over history..." Warren trailed off. He had a dreamy look on his face. "The story I used to hear didn't say he was called the Doctor. But I just know it's him. It called him Kronos. The Lord of Time. They said he could..."

"You are such a baby," said Colin. "He was just a bloke. Maybe some person pretending to be this Loch Ness Monster of London, but if he was, you know, a god, then why was he running away from those monsters? Whereas I," said Colin proudly, "I've got a trank gun. No more running for me." He had completely forgotten about the incident in the rotunda. Or, if he hadn't, he was pretending to.

They traversed the halls less than silently, but the hounds were nowhere to be found. Warren insisted on avoiding the bathrooms. He didn't know why the Doctor had been so adamant about this, but had seen enough horror films to know that the people who carelessly disregard advice and dire warnings are invariably the ones who die.

It grew colder and colder. The whole facility's power had been shut down, and heat was leaking out through the walls.

"So... D wing. What exactly are we looking for here?"

"Anything. The Waterhelm man came this way. Maybe there's an exit."

"Or maybe he's still here," said Colin. "What do we do then?"

"I think," answered Warren, "I should very much like to give him a piece of my mind."

Colin tiptoed down the corridor, feeling the walls. "It's a funny thing," he said, "but somehow we forgot that if we actually found the way out, it would probably be locked."

"And I don't have anything like a sonic screwdriver," added Warren gloomily.

"That was that thing the man had? It can open locks?"

Warren nodded. He tried to open one of the doors. The handle rattled, taunting him. Colin grabbed his arm. "Wait," he said. "Don't touch the handles. Don't touch anything..." He removed a vial of liquid from his pack. "If there's genetic material on the handle, this will turn black," he said. "So if the way out is though a door, then someone would have touched the door, and there'd be sweat..." He began to retrace his steps.

"So... why do you carry around an enzyme test in your hiking pack, exactly?"

He didn't answer. The liquid dripped colorlessly on the first few doors. And the next few. Warren stood, arms folded across his chest, as Colin tried every door, scuttling back and forth across the hall.

"This is getting us nowhere."

"No, it isn't! If we find a door that..."

"But we haven't found-"

"We might."

"But we haven't yet, so right now it's getting us nowhere... It might later, but..."

"That doesn't even make sense..."

"Look, I just don't like staying in one spot for too long..." Warren occupied himself with watching the drops of enzyme spread out across the floor, in little rivulets. "Colll-innn..." he said slowly.

"What?"

"It's turning black on the floor right here..."

"So did you step there?"

"I've got shoes on, I won't be leaving any genetic material..."

"No, but maybe you stepped in some blood or dog doings or something..."

"Try the rest of the floor."

"I haven't got a lot of this left, you know!"

"Just do it."

Drops of clear liquid fell on the white floor. They stayed clear. "See?" said Colin.

Warren carefully stepped on one of the drops and then lifted his shoe. The liquid did not turn black. "Can I have the dropper?"

"No!"

"Yes," said Warren, and took it.

"Give that back!"

Warren closed his eyes for a moment and then stepped forwards and off to one side. He placed a few drops on the floor. Darkness bloomed inside of them. Then he walked on a diagonal from the spot and placed a drop. It turned black. Back to the left. Black. To the right again. Black.

"Do you know," said Warren thoughtfully, "I'm very good at Battleships."

"How are you doing this?"

Warren straightened up. "Footsteps," he said.

"Big stride."

"Four feet. Four... bare... feet. Walking. Not running. The monster. Actually..." he stopped, and went back over the hallway. "I think all four of them. Look here. Two sets of tracks. They don't intersect. Maybe walking side by side."

"How do you figure this out?"

"I thought you were the woodsman here," said Warren mildly. "But the only time all four of them walked together would be when they came from... wherever they came from..." He consulted his map, and drew in a few lines. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing." Colin had been kneeling by one of the drops, holding a pipette. He stuffed it back in the pack.

"Okay," said Warren. He shrugged. The hallway ended by a big service elevator, and a secondary hallway branched off to the right. Warren followed the smaller hallway, with Colin trailing behind.

"That's odd..." said Colin.

Warren leapt a few steps backwards and turned around.

"Don't you think it's weird that this elevator isn't welded shut? Look, you can see the door... the crack here... all the other ones were solid. I would know, right?"

"Let's open it, then!" Warren jammed his fingers into the crack and tried to force the door open. Colin grabbed one side, and Warren took the other, but even with both of them pulling, the metal doors stayed shut. Warren next attacked the panel by the elevator. It didn't take much to pry off the cover and reveal the electronics. But even someone very adept at circuitry can do nothing without tools of some kind.

"A lever!" cried Colin. "We need a lever!"

"We don't have one, though."

"Well then I could... use one of your ribs," suggested Colin, whose favorite movie was Saw XVI.

"Oh, yeah, well..."

"Over your dead body?"

"That is not what I was going to say."

Colin stuck out a finger and pushed the 'down' arrow button by the panel. Warren gave him a long look.

"Well, it was worth a try," said Colin. "Rib cages, anyone?" He jabbed the button again.

"Hey..." Warren said carefully. He watched the circuits, then touched the button himself. A red light was blinking in the maze of wires. He looked closer, and then inspected the button. "This is a... it's a fingerprint lock," he said incredulously. "Look at that. I push the button, it reads my fingerprint, and it isn't a match, so it won't bring the elevator..."

"So we go, we find the guy from Waterhelm, we chop off his finger..."

"I think I can override it, though. One second..." He reached into the tangle. "There! Now try it..."

When Colin pushed the button again, there was a far-off clank, and a hiss. The elevator doors opened.

Suddenly, the two young men were very wary. Warren stepped forward, as if to enter the elevator, then stopped. He shivered.

"Well, go on," he said to Colin. "Get in!"

"Why don't you, then?"

"Because... because... 'cause you have the gun."

"But it won't matter once we're in the elevator who went in first!"

"Yes, but..."

There was a hiss. The elevator had decided that it was a mistaken call, and the doors began to slide shut.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Colin shouted, and he caught the door as it began to slide shut. Warren jumped into the elevator, and Colin fell in after him. The doors timidly opened again. All automated elevator doors are very insecure. This one was unsure of whether to close or if someone else would change their mind and decide to enter after all.

Warren looked at the panel of buttons. He tried pushing one, but it turned out not to be a button at all. That was strange. And none of them had labels on them, either. Colin tentatively poked the lowest one.

The doors slammed shut with a bang, and the elevator plummeted into the shaft below.