4. Escaping on the Path.
The Escape.
Ommera knows the Tardis must be somewhere within a few miles, or it wouldn't continue to provide translation. She doesn't know a word of the local language, yet she can understand and be understood.
What did the Doctor say about leaving? Go down a certain path for a mile in the late evening just before it gets totally dark, wait and hoot like an owl in the woods when it's fully dark. She practices owl-like hooting and notices her hands touch and activate her engagement ring again.
The path she must take has a guard room completely blocking its entry. She has asked other new recruits about the path as if she has heard about it by word of mouth. Some said the path was so treacherous it was just blocked off. But others differed saying it was likely to be being used for some secret purpose. Then the secrets abounded. There were so many possibilities, but no-one seemed to know for certain. No-one seemed to know anything more than their immediate assigned task. Ommera wonders what will become of these recruits after she has left. She fears the worst for them, but she can do nothing for them.
The Path.
On the evening the Doctor had told her that she absolutely must leave, Ommera decides to set off earlier than she might otherwise have planned so that she can leave time for negotiating an obstacle course for which she has brought along a pair of wire cutters. Descriptions of the path have sounded appalling, so more time may be needed. She passes the proper start to the path, blocked by a guard hut and knows she has no chance of going through. An alternative entry, suggested to her by other recruits, provides a few yards before barbed wire tries to entice her to return and find another way.
No!
Tonight is the night she has been told by the Doctor that she must rendezvous with him. The wire cutters provide a path through for her, and she passes through. But the cut ends of the wire show anyone following that there has been an escape.
Once on the start of the so-called treacherous path, Ommera speeds up. Light is fading, but this end of the path is easy going. It starts to deteriorate a short way ahead, but she hears voices round a corner, and chooses a bush to hide in, regretting it immediately due to the thorny nature of the bush.
Two uniformed figures stroll out of a doorway into the hillside. "Tomorrow is replacement day," one of them says. "The end day for them all."
A twig snaps under one of Ommera's feet as she adjusts her position to avoid cramp and try to avert one of the sharp thorns.
"What was that?" one figure says.
"Nothing," the other figure says. "No-one can get in or out of here."
They walk along the path towards the guard room.
It will not be long until the cut wires are discovered.
Ommera must get on, and fast!
She walks on quickly in the dwindling light and she reaches the edge of the woods.
She hears shouts from behind as her escape is discovered. She must hurry even faster.
The path leaves the woods and descends steeply. As the path deteriorates further, Ommera finds a step ladder to climb down. At the bottom of the ladder, she must scramble across to a rope handrail which might have been more useful before the path had slipped away below her into the gloomy distance towards the valley far below. Now she must almost dangle from the rope as she goes hand-over-hand towards the next rope cleating point where the path resumes.
Darkness is falling fast as she runs along the next short steep path and she stops to contemplate where to go next.
She can still hear the shouts from behind as her pursuers reach the top of the ladder.
Plant growths block her view far ahead, but the path plunges down the side of the valley in high muddy steps between clods of earth supporting the plants. She is rushing and tumbles into some of the plants. She grabs hold of the plants and hauls herself back to the path. "Why did the Doctor want me to traverse this path? It's impossible!"
One step between plant root balls proves too far and she misses the next supporting step. She plunges feet first through the plants downwards on the steep mountainside. She has no idea where she will end up. She grasps at the plants as she slides past them, but she is gathering speed. One last plant fails to give her any support before she plunges over the edge of a rocky cliff face towards a hard shingle ledge high above the valley floor. She lands hard and loses consciousness.
Will Ommera ever recover? Will her pursuers find her? What will happen to her?