WOOOW ! OH! AH! that's a good entrance right ?
anyway! Guys! new chapter!
I loved writing it. Just like I'm gonna love writing the next one. I'm not telling you spoilers. ;)
The new cover is made by myself!
Also, the title of the chapter might change in the future. i have no idea of a name for this chapter. so i took the name of the music that mainly inspired this chapter. It's from the video game The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt.
please don't hesitate to leave a reviews, I love reading reviews.
The doctor was the first to wake up. He didn't feel like he had been sleeping and was tired, so tired. He sighed as he slowly rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. While he became aware of the events of last night, he heard a slight sigh right next to him; turning around, he saw a redheaded, tangled head sleeping in his bed. Alvia...
Alvia who had been with him in one of his rare moments of weakness; in one of his rare moments he didn't feel like the doctor anymore, but like a man who had exterminated his own people. She, who had been there for him, to comfort, support and love him.
He didn't deserve her... He didn't deserve her love, her friendship and everything she offered him.
He looked at her and removed a few locks from her face, his fingers gently caressing the soft, pale, warm skin. He saw her face again, emptied of all the usual stress and exhaustion she used to wear on her face. To his astonishment, he noticed pearls of tears hanging from her lashes.
She cries in her sleep? he observed with sadness.
One of the pearls of tears had grown large enough to start rolling over her face towards the cushion. He wiped it off with his thumb before putting a kiss on the top of her head. His gesture seemed to have woken her, for she moaned as she began her waking process. It took her a few minutes before she finally opened her eyes and met his.
"Hey..." I greeted softly, my mind still wrapped by sleep.
"Hello Alvia..." the doctor murmured quietly with an almost invisible smile.
I closed my eyes before reopening them a moment later, taking a deep breath that sounded strangely like a sigh.
"How do you feel? "I asked him, remembering the events of the day before.
"I'm alright. "
Liar...
I knew that answer. So classic from him.
I finally got up, standing on my elbow while my other hand rested against his thatch-free cheek.
"How do you really feel? "I asked him again, with a slight insistence.
The doctor put his hand against mine to deepen the contact against his cheek before he let himself fall into bed, dragging me against his chest. He stared at me silently and I waited patiently for his answer. I knew that I couldn't rush the doctor to answer me at the risk that he would turn his back and keep everything he felt inside. What had happened last night was an unbelievable proof of the trust he had in me.
A trust that I didn't really think I deserved, but which I cherished with the utmost care. Knowing about the doctor's past was an honor coming from him and being able to be there for him as he counted Gallifrey's lost children was something so important that I would not be able to describe it.
He sighed finally before answering.
"Tired, exhausted, empty..." he murmurs. "I feel like I can't be the doctor anymore, like I don't have the right to. "
I moved to be bent over him, sitting on my lap and my other hand reaching to his other cheek to raise and turn his head so he could face me.
"It's just a dark moment. A very, very dark moment that you can get up from, that you have to get up from. We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are. And I told you, I'll be there for you; in your good times and your bad; until you don't want me by your side anymore..."
"Until the End of Time..." he whispers, staring devoutly at me.
"Exactly..." I whispered in affirmation as I leaned in a bit more to kiss him.
His free arm slipped behind my back as we tenderly and passionately kissed. A few minutes later the kiss ended, and the doctor blinked his eyes with confusion.
"It was a Harry Potter quote, wasn't it?"
I suddenly burst out laughing as I nodded.
"Sirius Black," I said. "It was him or Dumbledore."
The Doctor couldn't help but smile, stretching his lips as he chuckled too. With the Doctor's bad mood gone, we began to talk about anything and everything; staying in his bed, warm under the blankets.
Several hours passed before we finally got out of the bed and separated to clean ourselves each in our own bathroom and get dressed before we found ourselves back in the console room.
"Do you know what I want? "I asked cheerfully, leaning slightly backwards and resting quietly against the Tardis console. "A French breakfast."
I was drooling over the memory of a French breakfast.
"Oooh! That's a brilliant idea! Plus, I know exactly where and when we could have that breakfast !"
"If you say anywhere but France, I swear, I'll drive the Tardis myself to get you into France."
"Nah! No worries! " reassured the Doctor. "So, I was thinking, Paris. 1853 or 1900; your choice."
"1900. " I decided after a few seconds of reflection. "If my memories from my classes are right, it's the year of the World's Fair in Paris, isn't it?"
"Exactly, I thought this might be a good place to visit and-"
The Doctor was cut off by a strange noise that echoed through the Tardis.
"What?!" he exclaimed.
The noise resounds again.
"It's not the TARDIS, I assume? What is it?"
The Doctor went to the screen which displayed several constantly evolving Gallifreyan circles. He leaned over to read the Tardis analysis.
"It looks like some kind of signal. It's resonating through the Time Vortex in a loop. "he said as he took out his pair of glasses and put them on his nose.
"Is it a distress signal? "I asked curiously.
"Weell, I said signal, but it's not really a signal. I don't know what it is, I've never seen it before."
"Should we trace the source of that sound? It almost makes me think of the whales singing..." I remarked.
It was true that the sound reminded me of the whales' song, but it also reminded me of the signal that had resounded on Trenzalore. The sound, the rhythm; it was almost the same signal.
"The source must be incredibly powerful to resonate into the Time Vortex. I don't understand how it can be even possible! " deduces the Doctor with fascination.
"We should go and see what it is, something that resonates through the Time Vortex is certainly not to be taken lightly."
The Doctor agreed, and he started the Tardis piloting sequence in a quarter of a second. For once, I wasn't helping with the piloting; tracking the source of the "signal" was apparently a complex procedure that the Doctor preferred to do alone to prevent the risk of me making a wrong move.
So, I watched the Doctor go around the console, almost like he was dancing. Every movement seemed to be a different position, like in ballet. He would bend over the console to reach a switch near the rotor before twisting to reach another button; sometimes he would raise one leg to reach another mechanism to operate the console. He was fast, flexible and efficient. And despite the fact that the trip through the Vortex was chaotic, it was a trip that seemed to have been mastered after many centuries of living. The Doctor had most likely reached the happy medium of an orderly chaos.
After a quarter of an hour / twenty minutes traveling through the Time Vortex, we finally reached the signal source. The signal was still echoing over and over again in the Tardis and seemed to have increased in volume since then. As soon the TARDIS became calm, the Doctor stood still and seemed to be focused on something. This thing seemed to be really bothering the Doctor, for he had a serious look on his face which I saw very seldom, his lips were slightly moulded into an expression which I couldn't quite figure out yet.
"We haven't actually landed on the planet where the signal is coming from," tells me the Doctor. "I just want to check something before I materialise the TARDIS," he adds after a few seconds before he heads towards the TARDIS doors.
I approached too and saw what was in front of us as soon the Doctor opened the two squeaky doors.
It was a rather imposing planet - like all planets, by the way, as seen from space; but it looked imposing in a way I cannot explain - and dark; instead of having a sun, the planet had only a black hole as imposing as the planet for a source of light.
I was going to ask the Doctor about the planet and the black hole but then the Doctor interrupted me and sniffed loudly and licked his lips several times. His face twisted deeply in a grin of disgust and made a nauseating noise.
"Something wrong, Doctor?"
"This system is corroded by dark matter more than any other system or galaxy. It's like an extremely heavy, disgusting perfume."
"Is the signal coming from that planet? »
"Yes" nodded the Doctor as he closed the doors, forcing me back inside the Tardis.
The Doctor finally materialised the Tardis on the planet and then made a sign to stop me from doing anything because he needed to talk to me, and because he looked so serious, it was something important now.
"Before we go out there, we must prepare ourselves. The Tardis hasn't been able to materialise where the signal source is. We've landed on a hill a few miles from a gigantic antique city."
"Okay," I agreed, nodding seriously. " So, what should we take?"
"I take care of the food, medical supplies and potential sleeping equipment. I'd like you to bring along something to take notes, sketches, photos."
"We're doing an archaeological dig?"
The Doctor grimaced at the word archaeological before he spoke again.
"Sort of," he said. "This planet is known only for its strange solar system and ancient ruins. "
"Not even his people? "
"That's the thing, there's currently no record, no mention of a civilisation. Not even a trace of the city's architects. "
"How is that even possible? From what I know about archaeological digs, even for an antique site you can somehow identify a civilization."
" Well, like I said, absolutely nothing to identify any possible ancient life forms on this planet. »
I huffed and puffed in disbelief at the Doctor's explanation. I was fascinated and excited by the fact that we might discover something that currently had never been known, but I had this fear of what we might discover. There was certainly a reason that we didn't have any trace, any mention of a civilization, which potentially was a knowledge that could put our lives in danger. I mentally shook my head, I was too paranoid.
The Doctor finally moved to pack up the stuff, and I did the same, heading to my room knowing that I would find most of what the Doctor had asked for.
As I went into my room, I walked to the place where I had put all my art stuff that I carried with me since I moved into this world; I picked up my pencil case and sorted the different pencils and pens to get only the essentials. I prepared another pencil case that consisted of watercolour pencils with a brush that could hold water and several classic brushes of different shapes and sizes.
Finally came the notebooks; I took at least three of them. These three notebooks were journalistic, travel and drawing notebooks; they all had a different paper weight, size, thickness and number of pages. And I really hoped that the three notebooks would be enough.
I put the notebooks and the two pencil cases in a leather mailman's satchel bag, kindly offered by Sexy by making it appear on my bed. I added a camera - which I owned since Christmas and which I had used very few times - a box to store my glasses and the jar of my nanogenes. The last one was an impulsive addition, but I knew it could still be useful.
Once the bag was done, I took the opportunity to change myself into clothes that I was truly comfortable wearing for several days. If the Doctor had mentioned the sleeping equipment, I could only highly guess that we were going to be on this planet for at least a whole day and night. So, I changed into an old Levi's jeans that had belonged to my mother with a brown leather belt, a light grey graphic short-sleeved t-shirt with a round collar - with the MACUSA emblem on it - and as always, a pair of red converses. I finally put on a black hooded sweatshirt and my frock coat – which was clearly the 12th's one adapted to my morphology – , put the shoulder strap of the bag on one shoulder, placed my phone in one of my pockets and went to take my sonic screwdriver placed on my desk with some rubber bands and a pair of pins for my hair.
I'd tie my hair in a ponytail and pin the rebellious locks with pins on the way to the console room. There I would find the Doctor, and he packed the stuff into his coat pockets; don't ask me how he could get something bigger than the seam of the pocket in, I couldn't figure it out myself, all I knew was that they were bigger on the inside.
"I'm ready. "I told the Doctor as I put my screwdriver in the inside pocket of my coat.
"Right! Here, take this flashlight. Each of us will get one. "he said, handing me the item in question.
I took the item and put it in my bag and watched the Doctor finish putting the rest of the medical supplies in his pockets.
"I took my nanogenes just in case. " I said as he took the last roll of bandages.
He greeted me with a joyful smile and laughed lightly before he kissed me.
"Oh, you're brilliant! I completely forgot you had them! "he exclaimed joyfully.
I sniffed with fun until I got serious, placing my bag properly on my shoulders so I wouldn't get tired quickly.
"Is everything okay? Can we go now? "I asked while the Doctor put on his coat.
He hummed affirmatively, giving me a quick look and a smile.
So, we finally left the Tardis, the Doctor locking the doors with his key which he then put in one of his pockets; I tapped my chest to check that I too had my key and it was indeed around my chain with my ring.
This world was one of the darkest I'd ever seen before. The sky was dark, covered by equally dark clouds and only the black hole lit up the planet with a faint light; it was as if the planet lived in a constant twilight, it was like the Twilight Realm in Zelda Twilight Princess. The weather was damp and cold, but there was no wind to make the place even less welcoming than it already was. There were no signs of life, not even the song of a bird or the howling of an animal; it was like life itself left the planet. Even nature seemed to be dead, there were very few trees, and they weren't moving because of the absence of wind; there was no grass and we were walking on dark, ashen land.
The walk to the antique city took about an hour. An hour that we filled with cultural, scientific and literacy discussion. Arriving at the gate of the old city, we felt tiny in front of the gigantic and imposing architecture. The stones were covered with a dark greenish moss and the most precise details that may have been there in the past were erased due to the stone's erosion.
The architecture of the ruins undoubtedly reminded me of the lost Inca and Mayan temples that could be seen in movies like Indiana Jones or video games like Lara Croft or even Zelda Breath of the Wild with the ruins of the Firone Forest.
After a few minutes of observation, fascinated by just the entrance to the ruins, we walked in an almost religious silence inside the city. It was like changing world in a blink. While the world was almost a desert of dark dirt and ashes, without any vegetation, the ruins were its opposite; they were covered with moss, lianas and trees that had grown in every crevice between the stones they could find, displacing it as they grew. Vegetation had also grown on the ground between each slab of stones.
"How can vegetation grow here but not on the rest of the planet? "I asked confusedly, looking at the two distinct areas.
"No idea..." replied the Doctor, also confused. "I have a feeling we're not done asking questions about this place yet."
I nodded before muttering that I was going to write down this contradiction on paper, taking the opportunity to take out a notebook and my pen. As I walked deeper into the city, I described the city on paper, adding what the Doctor noticed in addition to what I as a simple human was unable to detect; such as the composition of the ambient air and its quality in relation to a Time Lord and a human.
The main street in which we walked separated into a junction of five streets, this junction that connected the streets to the main one was a kind of small square with a low wall in the middle that surrounded a shallow hole, half covered by vegetation and with plumbing that seemed to be obstructed. The Doctor and I deduced that it was a pond.
Once the pond was examined, the doctor decided to take a break, which I absolutely didn't refuse. The Doctor took out of his pockets two apples and water; our breakfast. I bit the apple as I approached one of the statues that surrounded the place. It must have been about three, four metres long and it had a sort of dragon's head – well, I suppose it was a dragon, that's just an interpretation of what I saw –. I took some sketches of the statue, drawing it from every possible angle. As soon as the sketches and drawings were finished, just like my apple, I went back to the Doctor's side. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and scanned a lot of things with it. He was sitting on the edge of the pond wall right now, the screwdriver by his ear, listening to the results he took.
The Doctor borrowed one of my notebooks to write down what he discovered, reading over his shoulder I saw that he wrote in Gallifreyan and English. His English handwriting was so dreadful, and I could barely read what he wrote. As soon as he finished writing down everything he needed to write down, we returned to our exploration of the city.
We had finally found a routine for the day: as soon as we discovered something, I would take sketches, drawings and notes while the Doctor scanned the area or particular thing and then write it down next. We noticed several things: first of all, the absence of any furniture in the houses, temples or shops; the few pieces of furniture that we found were in some temples and were made of stone. The second thing was script, or rather the engravings that we discovered-and which we copied religiously and methodically-in the biggest temples, on walls or sculptures. We discovered two different alphabets, both had a different, even opposite style: while one had the appearance of a Nordic rune, the other was reminiscent of Mayan writing and Sheikah alphabet.
Night fell slowly, and the ancient ruined city, already dark from the limited light emitted by the black hole, fell into utter darkness. Taking out our flashlights had become a real necessity. To prevent us from losing each other, the Doctor preferred to hold my hand - not that I was complaining - and we went looking for a place where we could rest safely. The city, which was already so empty of life, took on a haunted aspect with appearance of a thick mist. That's when a strange sensation to be observed stung the back of our necks.
And we, who thought that the ruined city was safe until then, were so wrong as ever. In the empty and silent streets resounded heavy footsteps with a metallic dissonance. I glanced anxiously at the Doctor who was completely alert. The heavy footsteps seemed to come closer in our direction and amidst the mist lighted by our flashlights appeared a massive silhouette. Advancing slowly the silhouette became more distinct and turned out to be a huge heavy flat armour with horns on the helmet, a thick rectangular shield and a heavy sword which was undoubtedly sharp enough to kill us in a single attack if it came to kill us. And in this spectral silhouette shimmered a pair of light blue eyes.
The armour was now within a few yards from us, and the thought of running away seemed to me to be the better idea. Because I'm pretty sure that thing protected by its armour wasn't nice at all.
"We must run away. "I hissed to the Doctor quietly as I could.
"Good idea, Alvia. Very, very good idea..." swallowed the Doctor, his eyes never leaving the silhouette for a moment.
it suddenly stops, bringing us to an immediate standstill.
His pale blue eyes turned crimson and then bright red as his grip on his massive weapon firmed up.
Without any warning, the Doctor dragged me along with him as he chose to retreat. The creature began to track us and seemed to be just as quick as we were despite its heavy armour. The adrenaline coursed through my veins as my heart began to race.
We ran again and again, chased by the spectral armour. In the ancient city plunged in the mist began to glow in a soft blue the runes of Mayan appearance and in crimson, the runes of northern appearance. And from the temples with crimson runes appeared other spectral armours which also started sometimes to hunt us down after they spotted us too.
"Those things are going to chase us until we can't run away from them anymore!" remarked the Doctor as he tightened his grip on my hand.
"Let's hide in some temple with blue runes!" I suggested, panting, my lungs and legs aching.
The Doctor promptly nodded in agreement and we ran looking for a temple with blue runes. This was rarer than the crimson rune temples, but finally we found one. One that we almost didn't reach, as two spectral armours patrolled near the entrance of the temple. They were alerted by the noises made by the dozen or more spectral armours behind us. The Doctor almost got a blade thrown at him, forcing us to let each other go.
And we rushed into the blue temple. As soon we were inside, the blue runes that gleamed intensified in their luminosity and the ground glowed with a soft blue light. The armours stopped at the gate of the temple as if an invisible barrier prevented them from entering; they turned around, turning their heads from right to left as if they were looking for us, unaware of our position, and finally they departed, leaving the temple to start walking again through the streets of the great old city.
As soon as all the spectral armour were sufficiently far away from our audition, we allowed ourselves to breathe.
"No life forms you said, huh?!" I hissed vindictively at the Doctor.
"I don't understand!" he replied, his face turned towards the gate of the temple, the sonic screwdriver sticking out. "The sonic's not detecting any life forms other than us two!"
"They all looked very much alive to me! "I groaned as I sat on the ground against an altar made of stone, taking my bag off my shoulders and putting it next to me. "Anyway, I don't go out again until they're gone. They must be all over the city."
"Did you see where they came from?" asked the Doctor, sitting down too.
"It appeared as soon as it got dark and misty."
"Not only that, some have come out of the places with the crimson runes. These are the temples we've seen the most."
"Do you think it has something to do with the signal?"
"There's got to be one. Those armours aren't there by accident," said the Doctor.
I couldn't think of anything to say. My mind couldn't connect everything we'd experienced today, from the discoveries we made during our exploration to the escape to save our lives.
So, I sighed, resting my head against the stone altar to observe the fissured and vegetated roof. And the Doctor prepared a camp for the night; starting a fire with some branches that he collected from the temple. I observed the altar, lighting the glowing runes with my flashlight and touching them carefully with my fingertips, curious and fascinated. What was the power that gave life to those runes and prevented the spectral guardians from entering the Temple? What was its origin and purpose? What was the history of this city? Was it tragic? Dramatic?
I was suddenly startled as a hand came to rest against my shoulder and when I turned to see the Doctor, with a sweet smile on his lips.
"Shall we eat? "he asked calmly.
I nodded and joined him around the fire, where some kind of mattress-sleeping bag lay. The dinner was silent, and we didn't linger to go to bed. We were separated by the small campfire, but it didn't take long before one of us abandoned his mattress to sleep with the other. The Doctor wrapped his arms around me and kissed me on the top of my head, and I watched the campfire in silence as the footsteps echoed outside throughout the town. I couldn't tell when I managed to fall asleep.
The Doctor sighed silently as he gently tightened the grip he had on his precious human in his arms. He didn't like this place, the dark matter was enveloping his senses like a perfume mixing the heavy smell of roses, dark chocolate and black cherries. He could almost taste the dark matter on his tongue. Everything in this place screamed at him to run away as far as possible to breathe air much purer than this one; but he couldn't. Not when some mysterious signal echoed through the Time Vortex, through his Tardis... and into his mind.
He must get to the source of the signal, to understand what it was, its power, and then stop it. Because it would drive him mad to hear the signal resonate in his mind again and again...
Was he going to go insane like his old friend? He, who had been driven mad by the Untempered Schism when he was eight. He, who claimed to hear drums when he was younger.
No. I won't become like him.
He won't become like his oldest friend, because he will discover the mystery that covered this antique city and solve the riddle that was the signal, and he will do it with her. His companion and his beloved.
I know that the day and night on this planet were quite different, but it was hard for me to tell the difference when I was expecting a big blue sky with the sun to light up the day. So, I moaned that it was still night when the Doctor tried to wake me up. He was holding himself back from laughing openly, but I could hear his amused chuckle and see his shoulders trembling with laughter as his lips were pinched in a slight smile.
To our biggest relief, the spectral armour disappeared, and the mist had subsided. It hadn't disappeared, but it really didn't bother us, as we could see about thirty meters towards the horizon and up high. Unfortunately, we got lost in the town. After running for our lives, the day before, we had strayed from our original street and it was impossible to find that exact street again; especially since the buildings and temples looked very much the same.
After a modest breakfast and packing up all our stuff, we started our exploration again, repeating the same routine as yesterday. The mist didn't disappear and became a bit thicker as we sank deeper into the ancient city. Under circumstances that I still don't understand, I ended up being distanced from the Doctor. Maybe I had gone too far or maybe the other way around; but anyway, I was alone. Alone in the ruined city with no landmarks and lost.
The mist was getting thicker and it became really impossible for me to find my way around the city. It was from this moment on that I began to call the Doctor; shouting his name again and again. My voice echoing against the time-worn stones.
I tightened and pulled the shoulder strap of my bag close to my body, holding it so tightly that my knuckles turned white and painful. I swiftly turned my head from right to left, taking awkward steps and turning over from time to time. My neck was tingling as the sensation of being watched was so strong. I no longer felt lonely and safe.
I heard whispers coming from the ambient flora, maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me; but it was doing its job very well because I panicked. My heart pounded so hard I could hear the pulse beating in my ears, fear twisted my insides as panic stole my breath.
"DOCTOR! "I shouted.
Then suddenly everything stopped. Reality took over. A hand rested on my shoulder, a big, warm hand. Just like the voice that followed after that touch.
"There you are. We've been looking for you everywhere."