The call drew me. How could it not? It was so yearning, and mysterious and demanding of attention. I couldn't seem to recall exactly when it had begun its call. I could almost imagine it had always been ringing, always been calling to me, I just hadn't had the ability to hear it yet. But it was there now. Like a song in the wind.

I made my way to it, walking. Each step landed on a new surface; grass, sand, cobblestone, dirt. What a sensation it was! To no longer simply drift, but to interact with the things around me, as if I truly did exist for real.

As I walked, fascinated by my own footsteps, I began to notice something else as well, a quiet pair of footprints walking by my side. For every one of my footfalls, there was one to match by my side, and as hard as I looked, there was no person to make them. Just an empty space beside me. Well.., not exactly empty, just simply unseen. I could feel their presence brushing up against me. A warm- no not warm... a burning soul walking hand in hand with me. There yet not quite there. I found myself wanting to shrink away, their presence was so intense, so unlike anything I had felt before. And yet at the same time, it filled me, fueled me, embraced me.

I kept walking. I was getting closer to the call, I could feel it. And as I drew closer, the more aware I became of the entities around me. I don't know when they first appeared but as I looked around me, I became suddenly very aware of their presence. Memories, and Ghosts, and Nightmares, and Figments pressing in from all sides, getting closer and closer and closer. They were all speaking, a cacophony of voices and sounds and whispers all mixed together into a terrible storm.

"Say hello to my daughter will you, Doctor?"

"Don't end up like me."

"Die my dear Doctor. You must die!"

"I love you."

"I hate you!"

"Help me."

"Don't forget me."

"You always got me into the most terrible trouble."

"The Doctor must not be allowed to continue."

"I hope you'll forgive me one day."

"Stop him!"

"Stop her!"

"What is it you always told me?"

"Wicked!"

"Sanctimonious."

"Fantastic."

"Hypocrite."

"Trickster."

"Cruel."

"Kindly."

"Doctor!"

I covered my ears with my hands, it was too much! Stop! Stop! I can't take it! My steps stuttered to a halt as they pushed and pushed, grabbing a hold of me, pulling me apart! I curled in on myself, it was too much to bear. All this sensation, all this feeling, all this responsibility. It was tearing my very Being apart. I tried to scream and found that I couldn't.

And then- and then it stopped. I could feel them more than I could see them. They were all around me, protecting me, shielding me from the outside; The Could-Bes. They spread out around me on all sides, both somehow so limited, yet infinite in their existence. The Could-Bes drifted along with me. As I walked, I felt a pang of something, of realisation. I wasn't like them anymore.

I don't think I am like anything anymore. I am something else entirely.

I trekked on, accompanied by a crowd of the entities matching my every step, and accompanied by those burning footsteps walking side by side. The walk was long, but I didn't mind. I watched the sky as it transformed to night, and day, and sunset, and starlight, and gray clouds and everything in between, as if it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. And as I travelled closer and closer to the source of the call, I could feel it's hum beneath my feet. Low, humming vibrations shaking the ground ever so slightly, moving through me like a living, breathing thing. The entities began to peel off as they felt it, faltering further and further behind until one by one they disappeared from view. Wherever it is that I was going, the entities wanted no part of it. Some waved goodbye, some slunk off into the shadows, and still others just watched unmoving as I drew further and further from them.

And then the Could-Bes left. It was like they took a part of me with them as they drifted away, back to their nonexistence. I watched them leave, an aching in my hearts. And when I turned around, I saw it.

A great pillar of golden fire stretching up into forever.

My steps faltered as I saw it. Even from this distance, the air pulsed with its raw, unbridled power. I froze to the spot, struck utterly still by the marvel before me. There was no end to this vertical path of fire, stretching up past the end of the sky and out into that void of infinite darkness. The Unknown.

The burning footsteps faltered too, its fire was no match for the pillar ahead and together we stood, beholding it. And then it called to me again, the pull, the need intensifying tenfold. I had never felt this before, such intense fear and intense need fighting inside of me.

The need won out as I felt myself taking a shaky step forward, and then another, and then another. The footsteps joined me, my need amplifying theirs and together we came to the pillar of fire. I could hardly breathe as I took in the sight before me.

Lined up on either side of a short path to the column of fire, stood the Had-Beens. Every single one of them, from the Librarian to the Artist stood watching, looking at me with shining, imploring eyes. The little path they had made between them, like a red carpet, led straight up to the golden fire. I was so close to it I could feel the actual heat radiating off of it. So hot, so frightful. I stopped again. The footsteps stopped.

What awaited me in that terrifying flame?

"Everything." came a soft voice from amidst the Had-Beens. The Gardener smiled at me.

"Maybe nothing." said another voice, The Gravekeeper this time, looking at me with those infinitely sad eyes.

"That's up to you." the Clown said with a smirk.

"Do you dare?" the Professor's dark eyes glittered at me.

The Tinkerer tilted his head with a smile. "It might be fantastic."

"It might be sad." the Dancer sighed.

"You must take a leap of faith, my dear boy!"

"How are you supposed to make new discoveries without the existence of the unknown?"

"There could be music out there!"

"And art!"

"And adventure!"

I stared at all of the Had-Beens, the afterglow of life pulsing in them, flowing from them to the fire and back again, and I understood. What a wonderful feeling it was, True Understanding. The Had-Beens had come from that fire. They had been born amongst the flames, fueled by the raw, golden power of Life. They had had a taste of the unknown, and that is what had made them who they are.

And now it was my turn.

The footsteps beside me hesitated as I began to walk towards it, the fire reflected in my eyes as I advanced. But then almost as suddenly, they advanced with me, keeping my stride as we approached. I pulled us both closer, towards our laid path. Our path upwards into that unknown void.

We stood only a single pace from it now. My entire body shook from the power of it. It was time. Time to be born Anew. I chanced a single glance back at the joyous Had-Beens before I took that last step, and entered the Flame.

It was hot and cold, and pain and pleasantness. It was everything and nothing all at once. It was fire that burned the brightest and hottest, and yet it was a cool breeze, caressing my cheek. I couldn't breathe. I didn't need to breathe.

For the smallest of moments, I registered those footsteps next to me. And then we were intertwining, I came to realise very suddenly that we had never really been apart. We were one. Neither him, nor I had ever really existed, not as our own entities. The Oneness had always been there. The realisation made me laugh. How ridiculous to think that we could have ever been apart! And as I laughed, he laughed. We grasped onto each other, feeling the need to be closer, to be together, to be one. This is how we are meant to be. I didn't ever want to leave.

And then the feeling began to fall away. The presence, the Oneness ebbed away. He was gone. He was gone! Where did he go? And that was when I opened my eyes. There he was, clear as day. And through his eyes I could see myself there, clear as day. We were still the same, but the one-ness was over. And as the Fire fell away, he faded from me. Falling away into the beyond, as I now recognised it to be. The end of life perhaps, but a new beginning all the same.

Alive. I'm alive!

The Universe, my Life faded in around me and I knew for the first time in both my existence, and my non-existence, exactly who I was.

I am The Doctor.

Oh, Brilliant!