With a loud bang, the cable snapped. It fell down to the capsule.
"The cable's snapped!" Ida exclaimed.
"Get out!" the Doctor shouted.
They dove out of the capsule as the cable crashed on top of it and the tunnel collapsed. They stood up from their hard landing on the ground.
"How much air have we got?" the Doctor asked.
"Sixty minutes." Ida checked her wrist device. "Fifty-five." She looked up at him. "Can you fly us back up?"
The Doctor looked up at the shaft. He inhaled through his teeth. "Flying straight up is really hard, especially for so long. It would be slow and I'd eventually tire out. And carrying a passenger, it's out of the question." He looked sadly at her.
Ida looked disappointed, but she tried to cheer herself up. "Well, we've got all this cable, we might as well use it," she said, "The drum's disconnected, we could adapt it. Feed it through." She began gathering the cable.
They secured the cable so Ida could pull the Doctor back up after he floated down the pit.
"That should hold it. How's it going?" Ida asked as the cable unraveled.
"Fine! Should work . . . . Doesn't feel like such a good idea now," he said, standing on the edge of the pit, "Ha. There it is again. That itch." He bounced up and down. "Go down, go down, go down, go down, go down."
"The urge to jump. Do you know where it comes from, that sensation? Genetic heritage. Ever since we were primates in the trees. It's our body's way of testing us. Calculating whether or not we can reach the next branch."
"No, that's not it . . . that's too kind. It's not the urge to jump, it's deeper than that. It's the urge to fall!" He jumped backwards down the hole and didn't even try to slow himself down.
"Doctor!" Ida shouted.
The cable jerked the Doctor to a stop and his feet hit the wall of the pit.
"Oi! I can stop myself!"
She ignored him. "Are you okay?"
"Not bad." He floated his weight off the cable and shone his flashlight around, keeping the tip of one foot against the wall. "The walls of the pit . . . seem to be the same as the cavern, just . . . not much of it. There's a crust about twenty feet down and then . . . nothing. Just the pit. Okay then. Give me more cable."
"Well, here we go, then."
She gave him more cable and he lowered himself down . . . down . . . down, into the endless darkness.
"If they get back in touch . . . if you talk to Rose . . . just tell her-." He paused, not wanting to say it. "Tell her I-." He knew it was true, but saying it meant accepting it. "Oh, she knows."
He released the last hook and floated in space for a moment before letting himself fall. He tried not to fall too fast, but there was no way to tell how fast he was falling. The endless darkness encasing him made it feel like he wasn't falling at all, just floating in the middle of nothing. The air blew around him. He couldn't tell if he was controlling it or if it was controlling him. He fell and fell and fell. He lost track of time in the endless nothingness. He fell for days and days. Or was it only minutes? Sometimes he wondered if he was even conscious. He could've fallen asleep and slept for days and woken without even knowing he'd fallen asleep.
All he knew was a hard impact and sharp pain, and he fell back into a void of nothingness.
The Doctor flew through the tunnel as the cavern shook and crumbled around him. A blast of air threw him off balance and he fell to the ground and crashed into something. He looked up and beamed with delight. It was the TARDIS! He laughed with joy.