A young woman spins wildly on the spot, her eyes raking in every facet of her surroundings. She is standing in a field, one that most days would be a lush green but today is stained red by the blood of thousands of soldiers, whose bodies lay crumpled and mangled on the floor in a heap not unlike something out of a nightmare. The young woman suddenly retches and, bending over, vomits. The stench of decay is overpowering.
Her eyes start to well up from the smell as she continues to search the horizon for any sign of her surroundings, any sign of civilisation. She calls out into the field, hoping desperately for an answer, but one she knew would not come. She falls to her knees, feeling lightheaded and sick. She is completely alone here. She didn't know how, but she could feel it. These bodies were the only remains of humanity left here, and she is totally alone.
*
The Doctor looks in the mirror in disgust. Her slick blonde hair is bunched up behind her in a tight knot, her multi-colored clothes have been replaced by a bright blue satin dress that spilt out across the floor, and she is wearing some very uncomfortable high heels.
'Seriously? You want me to wear this? I look like Anne Boleyn. Nice girl, terrible dress sense. She especially hated hats - who hates hats? I love a good hat.' Yaz looks at The Doctor, smiling widely. She is wearing a similar gown, though a little smaller and a bright piercing green, which contrasts with her darker skin very elegantly. Yaz shakes her head.
'Yeah, Doctor I think you're right. Not sure that's the right colour for you.' The Doctor looks at Yaz with venomous eyes.
'The colour? That's your problem with this dress? The colour?' Yaz chuckles. She turns to the huge wardrobe behind her, which is filled to the brim with the elegant trappings of an 18th century aristocrat. She picks out a much tighter dress, a dark red corset. She presents it to The Doctor. 'No, absolutely not. Last time I wore a corset I couldn't breathe for a week. Though, I was quite skinny back then. You know what, I'm just going to wear my tux.'
Yaz put the dress back, chuckling to herself. She knew the eventual outcome of this, but she had still gotten to see The Doctor in some hilariously decadent dresses. The Doctor looks her up and down as she begins the long, arduous process of taking off the dress.
'You look nice, though. Green suits you.' Yaz, taken off-guard by the compliment, blushes profusely. She turns away as The Doctor starts to get dressed into her tux.
'So what's the deal, Doctor? Why do we have to go this to ball? It sounds a bit snooty?' Yaz asks, curious. An 18th century ball didn't really sound like The Doctor's thing. The Doctor passes her a pad of paper in a black leather case.
'I got a message, and I have to tell you that's not too common.' Yaz looks at the paper and sees a series of numbers and dots, clearly coordinates, and two words: Doctor, help. 'There's only a few people who can send a message to my psychic paper, and so either one of my friends is in trouble or...'
'Or?'
'We're going to be walking into a trap. But, hey, it's probably the first one. Ta-da!' Yaz looksnaround and sees The Doctor with her arms outstretched, looking very slick in a white shirt and black jacket. 'What d'ya think?'
Yaz nods appreciatively, and The Doctor beams. She strides out of the wardrobe in the direction of the console room, Yaz close behind.
They enter into the glorious console room. It's crystalline console is bathed in a soft blue light from the surrounding roundels, and the almost intimidating yellow structures surrounding the centre are glowing ever so slightly. The Doctor strides up to the console and begins to flick a few switches. Yaz watches on, smiling slightly. She loves watching The Doctor work.
Then, suddenly, there is a huge jolt and the TARDIS begins to shake uncontrollably, as if it were being hit by an earthquake. Yaz grabs onto one of the yellow crystals for dear life while The Doctor holds onto the console, furiously pulling levers and punching switches. There is another huge jolt, and the loud sound of an electrical charge. Yaz is suddenly thrown off her feet by another jolt and flies back into the wall. She hits it with a loud impact, the breath being taken clean out of her. She falls to the ground, struggling to breathe.
Meanwhile, The Doctor continues to angrily maneuver the controls, pulling herself along the console as jolt after jolt keeps hitting the TARDIS. Suddenly, she pulls back, as if hit by an electrical shock. The console starts sparking, and the central rotor begins to make a strange high-pitched whining, as if starting to break. A loud bell starts sounding, and The Doctor looks around, terrified. She crawls over to Yaz, who is still gasping for air. The lights in the TARDIS change rapidly from their usual cold blue, now turning a bright severe red. The Doctor quickly examines Yaz, then nods to herself, before getting up and dragging herself over to the other side of the room. She removes one of the roundels and brings out a small red device, which she aims at the TARDIS and presses a button on. Suddenly, everything stops. The lights go dead, leaving the console in just a low red glow. The rotor in the middle stops moving instantly, and the console ceases sparking. The only sounds now are the loud gonging noise and Yaz and The Doctor's laboured breaths.
The Doctor leans against the wall, trying to catch her breath. She looks over at Yaz.
'Hey, you alright?' Yaz props herself up, looking hurt but not injured.
'I'll be fine. What the hell happened?' The Doctor, after catching her breath, walks over to the console and examines some dials. She looks very worried, as if she's seeing something terrible. Yaz gets to her feet, worried, and joins The Doctor at the console. All she sees are a flashing serious of seemingly nonsensical symbols flashing across a small screen indented into the central unit. The Doctor is staring at it, unblinking. 'Hey, Doctor. What's wrong?' The Doctor looks up at Yaz, as if only now realising she's there.
'We're stuck.' Yaz looks at The Doctor, perplexed.
'Stuck? Where?'
'Paris, 1782. Or, should I say, just a second outside of it. There seems to be some sort of temporal distortion around the period which is preventing us from materialising. I've caused us to desync from the period to stabilise, but we're currently stuck here.' Yaz looks at The Doctor blankly, clearly not having understood. 'OK, so essentially there's some sort disturbance in time in this period, and it's stopping us from landing. I used this' - The Doctor brandishes the small red device - 'to throw the TARDIS out of sync with the universe, meaning that the interior is one second ahead of the exterior. It's stabilised us for now, but unless we can find a way to recharge the TARDIS... we're stuck here.' The Doctor kicks the console in frustration and subsequently cries out in pain, hopping over to the step to sit down.
'So how do we charge the TARDIS? Do we need...time petrol or something?' The Doctor smiles at Yaz weakly.
'No, we need to harness the energy of the Time Rift. Fortunately there's one very close to here. Unfortunately, we have no way of connecting them. Either we leave the TARDIS and get trapped in 1782 for who knows how long while the TARDIS resyncs itself or we stay in a dying TARDIS.'
'Well, how long will the TARDIS take to sync back up without the charge?' Yaz asks.
'Oh, it could be a matter of hours.' Yaz sighs in relief. 'Then again, it could take millennia. There's no way of knowing.' The Doctor looks forlorn.
'Well, why don't we go out and see if we can stop the disturbance? Better than just sitting around here.' Yaz ponders, and The Doctor suddenly beams at here.
'I knew I had you here for a reason.' The Doctor walks towards the TARDIS doors which and thrusts them open. The world outside the doors looks blurry, almost out-of-focus. 'Be aware, this might hurt. Though it's only one second into the past, raw time travel can hurt. I'll go first.' The Doctor takes a deep breath, and then steps through the doors.
The world warps around her as she steps forward. The lights around her bend and morph into strange shapes, there are strange, otherworldly sounds and the range of colours is almost unbearably bright. She keeps pushing forward, closing her eyes against the blinding, pulsating light and outstretching her arm to feel her way through. She hears a distant noise, something creepy but human. A scream. She moves towards the sound, the light bending more and more around her. Her outstretched hand hits what seems to be an invisible, pulsing wall. She pushes through and it engulfs her.
Yaz stands at the exit, attempting to see something through the strange, warped image in front of her but nothing. She reaches out her hand into doorway and feels nothing. She steps in.
*
The Doctor gasps for the air as she falls out of the TARDIS. As she looks behind her, she sees the blue box distorting and shimmering in and out of view, just slightly off. She takes a few deep lungfuls of air before she heaves herself up, and looks around. She realises something is wrong. It is the dead of night, and the street is completely empty. The road is cobbled and covered in dirt and mud. Huge buildings adorn each side of the street, and off in the distance The Doctor could make out the figure of the Eiffel Tower in the distance. She turns back to the TARDIS...and then stops dead.
The Eiffel Tower wasn't created until 1889. The Doctor licks her finger and points it into the air.
'This isn't 1782. This is 1903. And if I'm here...where the hell is Yaz?'
To Be Continued...