The Tyler Factor

By Lumendea

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Life Not Lived: Disasters Beginning

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or any of the spinoff material and I gain no income off of this story, just the satisfaction of playing with the characters.

….

Rose carefully packed her school books for the day into the messenger bag, doing her best to ignore the sonic screwdriver that was sitting near the edge of her desk. In some ways, she realised with a sigh, she felt better knowing what it was called. Not that it really made anything easier. Her fingers brushed over the small leather journal that Doctor Blake had suggested she buy. Rose paused her packing and carefully picked it up.

Inside were written descriptions of her dreams over the last couple of weeks and any hallucinations that occurred. There were a couple of drawings scattered throughout the journal. They weren't very good and it frustrated Rose greatly. She had this weird nagging feeling that she could draw a lot better than that, but her fingers just didn't work with her.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Rose studied the rough drawings of the brown-eyed man with the wild hair that filled one page. On the next page was a drawing of the blue-eyed man, the one that Rose was certain she'd seen being taken away by UNIT. There was a page with other faces too, less familiar, but ones that she just couldn't shake off. She closed the journal with a loud sigh and took in a deep slow breath to calm down.

"Easy Rose," she told herself. "Easy girl, it's okay." She stood up and slipped the journal back into her messenger bag and with another sigh, reached for the bottle of pills on the desk. Carefully, she poured two into her hand and swallowed them with a quick gulp of water from her water bottle. "Another day, you can do this," Rose said out loud, squaring her shoulders.

She paused and studied her reflection in her mirror carefully. There were still bags under her eyes, but they weren't as bad as the previous week and the concealer was doing a pretty good job hiding them. She'd eased up on the eye makeup a little so as not to draw attention to how dark her eyes were. Rose fingered her long hair thoughtfully, wondering what she'd look like with shorter hair. Maybe it would help her not look as tired all the time, which would be good.

Her mobile phone chimed, the alarm going off and Rose nodded to herself. After turning off the alarm, she swung her messenger bag on and grabbed her purse, starting to dig out her key. She rushed downstairs and called a quick farewell to her mother and the nearest maid before vanishing into the garage.

"Okay," Rose told herself as she put her messenger bag into the front seat. "Remember what Doctor Blake said, one day at a time. Don't lose sight of real life." Rose turned on the car and took another deep breath, clutching at the steering wheel for a moment. "This is your real life, Rose Tyler." She reached over and hit the button to open the garage. Rays of sunlight poured into the garage, shining off the polished surfaces of the family car collection. "This is your real life," Rose repeated to herself, stepping on the gas and focusing on her trip to London for school.

….

Stepping back into the house, Rose glanced around in surprise at the heavy silence. There was no maid cleaning in the entry hall and she could only hear the faint sounds of the television on in the living room down the hall. With a small frown, Rose headed up to her room, all the while looking around for signs of anyone in the house. She reached her room without seeing anyone and shrugged out of her bag. From her desk, the sonic screwdriver seemed to glint at her, but Rose ignored it in favour of heading back downstairs.

"Mum?" she called as she headed down the corridor. "Mum? Anybody?"

"Here Rose," her mother's voice called, but she sounded alarmed and weak.

She walked into the living room and found her mother sitting on the sofa with a slack jaw. Behind her were the staff who were all looking transfixed at the television screen. Moving over to her mother, Rose sat down as a horrible sense of dread flooded through her.

"Mummy? What is it?"

"Oh my god," one of the maids said breathlessly.

Turning, Rose stared at the television screen and forgot to breathe. Grabbing the remote, she turned up the volume and sunk into a chair right in from the telly. Her mother was staring at the screen with horror next to her, jaw slack. On screen, buildings were smoking and Rose could make out crushed cars and burn marks everywhere. At the bottom of the screen kept repeating the words: US bombs major city overtaken by an alien threat.

"The strange behaviour has been linked to Bane; a product that we have now discovered was approved in less than a month by the US food and drug administration. Doctor Matthews, a representative of the US government just confirmed that startling truth: Bane contains alien organisms that took over those who drank the product. Sources are indicating that the examiners were likely placed under the same mind control that gripped the west coast of North America this morning." the reporter said sadly, circles under his eyes. "The death toll reported from Los Angeles has already passed three thousand and is expected to grow as the United States Government sorts out the rubble and wreckage. This is with the bombing being centred on the local Bane manufacturing plant. Reports so far indicate that those who were controlled have returned to normal, as normal as can possibly be hoped. We're about to show you footage from the event itself, be warned that it is very disturbing."

Then the coverage cut away from the reporter to shaky footage obviously caught in the middle of the chaos. A large strange creature with tentacles was crashing over a car as people in the background ran. There were humans walking towards the person holding the camera, bottles of orange liquid in their outstretched hands. An eerie chant of 'drink it' could be heard over the screaming. A group of people dressed in black body armour rushed into view, heading for the strange creature. They had a small logo on their shoulders that looked like a number, but the footage was too fuzzy. Then the strange creature behind the humans let out a high pitched roar and jumped off the car and over the humans. There was a loud scream and the camera dropped.

"Turn that off," her mum demanded, shaking her head. "I can't listen to it anymore."

Obediently, Rose raised the remote and shut off the television. Silence rang in the room and Rose could barely breathe again. Her mother stood up and strode out of the room, her hands shaking slightly. Rose could understand her shock and terror. Rose heard the staff talking in low voices for a few moments before they wandered out of the room, staying in pairs and whispering to each other. She was suddenly alone in the room, remote still in hand.

Bane…. Matthews, it sounded so familiar and that thing looked familiar…. Rose could almost see black blood spilling out of a sliced tentacle, an image that made her shudder. Yet it wasn't quite right. Los Angeles wasn't familiar at all and Rose couldn't help but want to shrug off the strange feeling of guilt that was churning in her stomach. She swallowed and set the remote back on the side table.

"Why should I feel guilty?" Rose asked out loud, shaking her head. "I didn't do anything wrong. I'm not responsible for what happens in Los Angeles. Their obsession with new, improved and natural drinks got them…." Rose stopped and shivered. "Sarah Jane Smith…." She whispered, the strange name dancing on the tip of her tongue. "Luke…"

"Rose!" her father's voice called from the doorway. She turned to see him standing there, gripping the doorframe with a relieved look on his face. His suit was messy and his tie looser than normal. Pete stepped forward, releasing the doorway and opening his arms to his daughter. Rushing forward, Rose hugged her dad tightly, pressing her cheek up against the silk of his tie.

"Daddy," she whispered. "Aliens."

"I know sweetheart," her dad whispered. "I know."

"What's gonna happen?" Rose asked in a soft voice, unwilling to release her hold on her father just yet.

"I don't know sweetheart," her father said gently, running a hand down her back. "Los Angeles will have to be cleaned up. That bomb was focused on the factory, but it took out more than a square mile of the city. We're just lucky that Bane hadn't become globally distributed yet or that could have happened to the whole world."

Rose shivered, wondering why the aliens had moved so soon and not waiting. Someone must have forced their hand, but who was it. Those UNIT guys that she saw by the river or …. Doctor Matthews or someone else entirely.

"It'll be okay," her father told her, hugging her a little tighter. "It'll be okay Rose."

…..

Things weren't getting better as all Rose could think as she dropped her messenger bag on her bed and slumped down the soft surface. She desperately wanted to curl up in a ball and go to sleep, but instead reached over and found the remote buried under term paper notes and jewellery on her nightstand. The wall television across from her bed flickered on and with a deep breath Rose changed to the news station.

"We are unsure what exactly happened today inside the Met," an American report said, glancing nervously at the large museum behind him. "Authorities have gone inside, but thus far there have been no statements as to what happened. An alarm was set off four hours ago from inside the museum, but no attempts to contact those inside have been successful." The report reached up and touched the speaker in his ear, falling silent for a moment. "Wait, we're getting something now."

Behind him, there were sounds of gunfire and the camera shook for a moment before it focused on an armed man in heavy combat gear stumbling out of the museum. He was screaming and shooting at something behind him as he headed for the stairs. He tripped and fell back over the stairs, still firing at something in the doorway. Then a large shape came into view and Rose gasped loudly. It looked like some kind of mummy, wrapped in heavy bandages, but it was much too tall with a strangely shaped chest.

The bullets seemed to harmlessly bounce off of the mummy as it reached down and grabbed the leg of the soldier. He kept screaming and the police along the barricade all started shooting as the camera man flinched, causing the camera to jostle. It had no effect and the man kept screaming as he was pulled back into the museum.

The camera jolted as it was tilted upwards as the sky above the museum shimmered. Then the smooth surface of a massive floating structure came into view and Rose could barely breathe. At the angle the camera was at, almost nothing was visible of the ship, but the dark shaded underside, just above the museum sent shivers down her spine. There were screams all around the camera and she could hear the camera man swearing and starting to pray.

"Apep…" Rose whispered, the name coming to her lips without a thought. She slammed her eyes shut, trying to drown out the screaming, but unable to move to turn off the television. There was a sword in her hand, she was fighting, but she wasn't. A serpent head and an oily voice flashed through her mind.

"We have lost the transmission from New York City," a new female voice said from the television, sounding badly shaken. "Please everyone remain calm. We will keep you updated as information comes in, but it appears that we are once again facing aliens."

"Apep," Rose repeated as she opened her eyes and looking at the television. "What is going on? Who are you? What are you?"

…..

The questions didn't stop there no matter what everyone tried. A sense of dread had settled over the whole world and the only good thing that Rose could come up with from the whole messy affair was that at least a lot of the fighting in the Middle East and Africa had stopped. Weeks drug on with images from the slowly recovering Los Angeles appearing on the news every hour or so and the images of the spaceship in New York hovering over the museum just before it vanished, leaving dozens of corpses in its wake.

Then there had been the reports from South America, Rose forgot where, but some kind of disaster had killed thousands of people near a tourist site. Something about some old ruins, she just couldn't remember clearly. Just like New York, the shop dummies and Bane there was no closure to it. The cause had just vanished without a trace and humans were left frightened and confused. Rose wondered if whatever had killed all those people, well maybe not killed. They'd all just vanished without a trace in what the only witness had described from a mile away as a burst of white light caused some a strange giant bird.

But there was nothing that she could do, no matter how many weird dreams she had. Rose went to her college classes and tried to laugh with her friends and ignore the tight painful feeling in her chest. It couldn't be ignored anymore, the sense that something was very wrong. It hung over her head every evening at dinner as she watched her parents pretend not to be fighting and working with divorce lawyers for her sake. Nighttime was the worst when she lay awake and tried to understand.

She should back and see Doctor Blake, she told herself as she stared up at her canopy one night. There was nothing normal about feeling guilty and responsible for terrible tragedies. It wasn't healthy to have flashes of what you could have done to make things turn out differently. Her journal was becoming filled with records of strange dreams and visions and there were moments where she was beginning to wonder which memories were real. But she couldn't bring herself to go back to the doctor; she didn't know what to say.

With a sigh, Rose sat up in her bed and turned the television on, hoping to find a late night movie or old reruns. She flipped through the channels in silence until she found an old black and white alien invasion film. With a frown, Rose set the remote to the side and pulled her knees up to her chest as the strange black blobs stumbled out of an obviously tin foil covered ship.

"Alien films on television," Rose chuckled before a loud sigh escaped her. "The world is starting to drown and yet still watching this stuff."