The Doctor didn't like having niggles. They usually distracted him from whatever task he had at hand, and it never led to anything good. A niggle normally led him to a bad guy, or a situation where he'd have to run and he was already trapped in a seemingly haunted house that also seemed to be trying to kill him and Danni, so he wasn't sure where it could go from there.

Only those who knock can enter, and no one else until they have departed.

It was a strange rule. Maybe they were just inhospitable and didn't want too many people in their house at once. Then again, their house also seemed full of ghosts and creepy butlers, so maybe it was for the protection of the people inside? Easier to keep an eye on them?

Only those who knock can enter, and no one else until they have departed.

There wasn't much protection going on inside the house, though. They'd been attacked by ghosts in a ballroom, then locked in a little room with a girl who'd been separated from her mother. Who left a child on their own, especially one who had come to their house after hurting themselves?

Only those who knock can enter, and no one else until they have departed.

It was with a familiar cold feeling that Doctor realised what was niggling him. He also hated the fact that he was right and that it wasn't leading to anything good at all. If only those who had knocked could enter, and no one else could enter until they'd left, how was the little girl there?

He smacked his forehead, partly as a punishment for being so slow and partly to jostle his brain into working. He then winced, forgetting he was holding his screwdriver. The little girl was there because she hadn't entered. She was part of the house. There probably was no mother. It was all a trap.

"Danni!" he called, just to hear her scream. His hearts quickened in panic. "Danni!"

Danni had already scrambled up off the floor and away from the cackling little girl. His first instinct was to grab her arm and pull her away, and considering the lack of resistance he got to that he knew she was terrified.

The doll rocking on its own was quickly overshadowed by the cackling from the child that they'd heard on the way into the room, who seemed to have gained more friends. The laughing echoed in the room, making it sound like it was coming from every direction.

"What are you?" he demanded, sonic in hand like it was a weapon that could defend them both.

"We are going to keep you forever," Rebecca replied in a sing-song voice. "You can join our friends."

That seemed to please the laughing children, who raised in pitch and made Danni wince. She hugged close to the Doctor's side where she always felt safe. And, in feeling safe, she felt more confident. "What about Amy and Rory?" she asked the child. "You said they were burning."

"They're not, but they will be," she replied. She reached out and grabbed her doll, holding it in front of her in the mimic of a cute childhood pose. The horse kept rocking, which was very unnerving. "Amy and Rory, Amy and Rory."

Amy and Rory.

The shadows that surrounded the room stretched more as the children sang the names of their friends before giggling again.

"Don't," the Doctor warned them. "Don't threaten our friends. It's not a smart move."

The horse stopped rocking. Again, Danni really wished that it would all stop. Why were there not any lights? It seemed to be getting darker and darker.

"We're not," Rebecca replied. "We're not going to do anything. You will, once you join us."

"Nope. Not going to happen," Danni replied. "We're going to get out of this stupid house and find our friends, then we're going to run as far away as possible, right Spaceman?"

She looked expectantly up at the Doctor, like she knew somewhere in his big brain there was a plan running around, waiting to be caught. He loved her faith, and he really hoped it was right because all he had at the moment was a sonic screwdriver and a door that wouldn't open.

"Right," he agreed. "You and your-your shadow children are just going to have to play without us."

Both the girl and the doll frowned. "That won't do," Rebecca told them. "You're our new friends."

The Doctor glanced around. He wasn't sure if provoking the creepy little girl was a good idea, after all they still weren't sure where the shadows were coming from or, in fact, the laughing. However, he could never resist pressing a button, be it real or metaphorical.

"We are not your friends."

There was a definite pause as the little girl realised what he was saying. Then, like a scene out of a horror movie, both she and the doll bared their teeth and roared in anger. The Doctor grabbed Danni's hand as they were charged at.

"What did you say that for?" Danni exclaimed.

The Doctor never really had an answer for his more stupid actions. "Well, sometimes you've just got to be firm with children," he offered as he pulled her back to where they had entered.

"Are you saying you're going to put her in a time out? Send her to her room?!"

"Well, it's worked once before!" he retorted.

They came to a stop where the door in had been before it had disappeared. It hadn't reappeared, which had been the Doctor's hope, so he started switching through the settings on the screwdriver in the hope that something would appear and let them out. Nothing did, though and he growled.

Danni, on the other hand, kept her back against his so she could watch for Rebecca and her demon doll. The room wasn't particularly large, so she had expected to be pounced on pretty instantly. However, she seemed to stop in the middle of the room. The doll was still growling and snapping, but Rebecca had gone still and quiet, as if she wouldn't come over to them. Or, rather, that she couldn't.

She started to look around as the Doctor growled again, smacking the screwdriver. "I really need to start installing more apps onto this," he snapped. "It's bloody useless."

"Just keep trying, Spaceman. You'll get there," she told him as she caught sight of a dancing shadow. And another. And another. They moved around the walls and the floor, stretching and waving about. The laughing from the bodiless children was growing in volume. "Although, if you want to speed up a bit…"

"I am trying," he retorted as the shadows began to take shape. The children were coming for them.

"Doctor," she started.

"Just give me a moment!"

She grabbed his jacket, tugging on it as she kept her eyes in the room. "Doctor!"

"What?" he exclaimed, turning around and seeing why she was so concerned. "Oh! That's… That's not good at all."

"What do we do?" she asked, panicking more and more. When she knew an adventure, she could find a little comfort that she knew how it was supposed to end, even if her intervention alone meant that it might not be that way. She always felt so much more out of her depth when she didn't know what was coming. She looked up at him, wide-eyed. "Theta, what do we do?"

That was a good question, one that he really didn't have an answer to. The shadow children really didn't seem like they were going to let them go easily.

"You'll be my friend forever," Rebecca cackled and the shadow children joined in. The Doctor took a look around, trying to find a secret exit, or a window, or something that he could use to get them both to safety. Unfortunately, the only thing that seemed available was the locked door at the end.

"Go left," he told her. "I'll go right. Head to the door."

She nodded her agreement. "Count of three?"

He grabbed her hand, lifting it to his lips so he could place a kiss on her palm. "Make sure you keep running, Danni-Girl," he instructed. "I'll have thought of something brilliant by the time we make it to the other side."

"Don't doubt you, never will," she promised even though her heart was racing. "One, two, three!"

~0~0~0~

Amy and Rory's feet sunk in the mushy ground as they ran as fast as they could. The roaring of the monster that was following them, combined with its own stomping feet, made the ground even more unstable.

"Swamp monster?" Amy exclaimed, her voice broken as she tried to not choke on her own panting breaths. "Zombies, skeletons and swamp monsters?!"

"What do you want me to say?" Rory retorted, trying not to sound so sarcastic. "This is what always happens!"

Amy glared at him. "He doesn't do it on purpose," she exclaimed. "He just- He's just really bad at it!"

They continued to run away from the monster, not even glancing back at it in the fear that it was a lot closer than they'd wish it to be. Not every one of their trips ended up with them running for their lives, but whenever it happened it was hard to remember the pleasant trips.

They both felt a massive wave of relief when they finally saw the edge of the swamp, where the sodden ground turned into dead – but solid – grass.

"Look!" Amy cried. "It's-it's the graveyard!"

They had managed to make their way back around to the start of their journey, where they had first been attacked and where they'd been trapped outside. Surprisingly, Rory found the slightly familiar comforting. He didn't like that.

The rumbling continued until they crossed the threshold of the graveyard, then disappeared as quickly as it came. Amy stopped, much to her husband's protests, and turned around. The swamp monster had completely vanished.

"Where did it go?" Amy asked.

"Who cares? Let's go before it decides that we're worth the chase," Rory retorted.

"But look; all the zombies are gone too," she pointed out. The graveyard was now as empty as when they had first found it, and the sky was becoming increasingly dark under the heavy clouds that were filling it. "Why does this feel like a Scooby Doo episode?"

"You think we're going to catch the swamp monster, tear off its mask and find old man Jenkins underneath?" Rory asked, genuinely curious.

"Maybe," she replied. "Come on, we need to get to the bottom of this."

"Or, and hear me out," Rory said as he followed her towards the front of the house. "Maybe we should head to the TARDIS, like the Doctor said."

"And, like I said, we can't just leave them in there," she snapped back. "And they're our friends. We can't just walk away!"

Unfortunately, as Amy tried the front door yet again, they still couldn't get in. She slapped in a few times, her angry Scottish side coming out as she starting swearing at the owners inside.

"Look, we can't get in. All we can do is wander around getting chased and…" A crash a thunder sounded out, rattling the old bones of the house, before the heavens opened up and rain began pouring down on the area. Luckily they were under the porch covering, but it wasn't in a good enough state for it to be more than a basic covering. "And soaked by the rain. We should go."

"There has to be another way in," she muttered to herself. "We didn't check the back properly"

She headed off, staying close to the wall of the house, knowing that Rory was going to follow her despite his reservations about their rescue mission. He was sensible, and cautious, and she loved that about him. However, she also knew that he was loyal and kind and even if they did go back to the TARDIS he'd never be able to live with the fact that he didn't try everything to help.

Ignoring the graveyard this time, they headed right around until they came upon what was obviously a basement entrance. Two doors covered a stone entrance underground, one of the door handing on just by a hinge. "Ah ha, knew it," Amy declared, a little smug. She chucked the broken door open and it snapped off the remaining hinge, hitting the floor with a loud bang that was barely audible over the ever-increasing rain. "This will work just nicely."

"Really? Nicely?" Rory commented. "Heading into the dark, grim basement of a dark, grim, rundown house will work nicely?"

"Where is your sense of adventure?" she asked him before heading in without him.

"Amy," he hissed, hoping not to disturb anyone, or thing, that could be watching them. "Amy, don't go…" He sighed heavily. "Amy, wait for me!"

~0~0~0~

The shadow children seemed to change flicker and change, becoming more solid as Danni and the Doctor darted forwards. Danni had never been so grateful that her life in the last few years had involved a lot of running, because she powered forward without much effort. However, the closer they made it to the doors on the other side, the angrier the shadow children seemed to become.

"You can't run from us!" Rebecca cackled. "We can play forever."

They reached the two doors at the same time. Once again neither door opened and, in unison, the pair turned around and pressed their backs against the wood.

"How's that plan of yours coming, Spaceman?" Danni asked as the mediocre light of the room seemed to dim as the shadows approached. "Because, I'm going to be honest here, I've got nothing!"

"I-I, er, it's still forming," the Doctor offered. "I've just got to…"

She glanced over at him to see him patting down his jacket, reaching in and searching those impossibly large pockets of his to find something that could help them. Her heart skipped a beat as she realised that he really didn't have a plan.

He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and, quickly dismissing it, held it out to her. "Hold this!" he told her before rummaging around again. She did as she was told, not wanting to argue when they were both about to die.

She looked back at the shadows that had almost taken over the entire room. She could barely see anything except the shining of ghost-like eyes and the occasional flash of something that she couldn't make out the shape of.

Something grabbed her leg and she screamed as she was pulled down to the floor. "Doctor!"

"Danni!"

She looked up but couldn't see him through the darkness that was quickly consuming them both. She tried to looked in front of her and couldn't make anything out. She grasped around the screwdriver tightly. It wasn't a weapon, but it was comforting to know he'd given it to her, even if it was just so he could get it out of the way.

Hands were all over her and, in one last ditch attempt to save herself, she pointed the screwdriver out and set it off. It illuminated the area with its green glow and all of the hands that had grabbed her let go and the shadows hissed loudly in pain. She looked down at the screwdriver and, suddenly, had an amazing idea.

She pointed it to the side the Doctor had been on and the shadows had the same reaction, letting him go with a painful shriek as they backed off. "Light!" she told him before he'd even realised that he wasn't being attacked anymore. "It's the light!"

He blinked for a moment, confused before gasping and scrambling up. "Of course! Light beats dark." He helped her off the ground as the shadow began to return around them. "It's so simple, how did I not think of it?"

Danni tried not to glare at him before setting the sonic screwdriver off again to drive them back. "Great, now what? The screwdriver isn't strong enough."

"No, it's not, but I have something that is!" he exclaimed, pulling out a small keyring torch from his pocket. "I got this from a cracker," he explained. "Not a Christmas Cracker, a food cracker. Interesting story, actually, not entirely sure how it got in there…"

"Spaceman, focus!"

He nodded. "Right, sorry. Let's see if this works."

Danni didn't expect such a tiny torch to give off such a bright beam of light, and evidently neither did the shadows, who all screamed as the beam pushed them back to Rebecca. She and her doll looked rather outraged that they had managed to fight off her friends.

"You're not playing nice!" she shrieked from the other side of the room. "You're hurting my friends!"

"They were hurting us first," Danni defended as reached behind her and fumbled for the door handle. It moved, unlike before, and she could have cried. Instead, she opened the door. "Doctor, in here!"

"No!" Rebecca screamed with the sound of the shadow children echoing her. She charged at them but Danni dashed out of the room, the Doctor on her heels. He slammed the door shut behind him and the pair leant against it. There was almighty thud from the other side, one that dug the handle straight into Danni's back, but then there was nothing.

They'd come into yet another hallway, with the same dreary wallpaper and carpets that looked like they'd had better days. Danni stepped cautiously away from the door first. "That was too close," she stated bluntly.

"Very too close," the Doctor agreed. He took her hand back in his now it seemed rather safe to do so, after all if the little girl and her doll was still chasing them then a wooden door wasn't going to stop them.

"What was that?" Danni asked him. "They only shadow monsters I know are the Nasta Verada, and they don't behave like that."

The Doctor didn't have an answer, because even as he wracked his incredible amount of knowledge, he wasn't sure what they'd just witnessed so far. There was a little bit of a thrill that come from not knowing something, but he tried to keep that to himself. He was sure that Danni wouldn't appreciate it at that particular moment.

Instead he looked down the hallway. Much like the others they had seen, it stretched out in front of them with seemingly without an end. The difference this time seemed to be that the walls were lined with portraits, although once again it seemed rather void of doors. Their only way out did seem to be the way they had come, and although that wasn't an option, he still took a look. He wasn't surprised to see that the door had also disappeared and he was rather interested to find out how that worked. The TARDIS could make rooms and hallways change as she saw fit, and remove them if she was annoyed. Was the house sentient as well, or was it controlled by the mysterious 'master' of the house?

"Theta, look at these," Danni called over and he turned back to see her look up at one of the portraits. He walked over and saw that she was looking at an older gentleman in a suit, looking very proper as he posed for the portrait. "I wonder who they are."

"Old owners of the house, perhaps," he offered. "Family of the current master, maybe?" The painting had obviously been left alone for a while as the intricate frame had gathered dust in all the crevices and on the nameplate and Danni reached forward to wipe it clean.

"Jazath Freegon," she read off, hoping she wasn't butchering his name. She looked up at the Doctor, wondering if he knew the name. When he shrugged to show that he didn't, she walked over to another one. He joined her in the hopes that one of them might give them some clues to what was going on.

"Mary Anne Hemsworth," Danni read off from another painting's nameplate. Nothing had stood out to her until she read that name, then she looked up at the portrait again. This one was of a young woman, roughly her age, who also had ginger hair and a very pretty dress on. "That was the name of the cat." The Doctor glanced over, only half paying attention until he finally looked at Mary Anne. He quickly moved over, looking at her with his noticing face on. "What is it?" she asked.

"It's nothing. Absolutely nothing," he replied slowly, looking around again. She didn't believe him at all as it seemed that he was looking for something. He rushed a couple portraits down the hall once he'd spotted it. This time it was another man in a suit, a little younger than the first one they'd seen. He had black hair with a white stripe through it.

"Is he special?" Danni asked him.

"I saw him in the ballroom," the Doctor replied lowly, much to her surprise. "He was dancing with her."

"With who? Mary Anne?" He nodded and she walked over, cleaning off his nameplate.

"Maximus Hemsworth," she read off before her gaze snapped up to his. "That's the name of the other cat."

"Uh huh."

She waited for more explanation from him before she shook her head. "No, no, you can't be serious," she replied firmly. He finally looked down at her, his eyes also slightly wide. "No, you are- you are not telling me that this house is turning people into cats!"

"Not necessarily," he offered. "Perhaps the cats are just named after the dancing ghosts. They are very nice names for cats, after all."

"How can they be cats and ghosts?" she asked him. "How-Why do they all have portraits in this hallway? Why do they all have different surnames, or no names at all? Who are these people?"

He quickly took her by the arms as she started to panic again. It was easy to ignore the panic when you were running for your life, but the moment you had a break it could bubble back up and he hated to see her so frightened. He rubbed up and down her arms. "Deep breaths, Danni-Girl. In and out."

She nodded, following his lead as they took in slow breaths together. "Who are they?" she asked, feeling a little calmer if not still just as frightened. "Are they the people that didn't get out?"

"We are going to get out," he promised her, hearing her unasked question about whether or not they were going to end up on the wall. "And I'm sure the names are just a coincidence."

"Meow."

They both looked down the hallway to see a cat, with grey hair, sat looking back at them with big blinking eyes. It has a stiff posture and stared expectantly at them, as if it their attention on it was a given. Danni couldn't help but wonder if it was the man from the first portrait, or if it was just a cat.

"Hello there," the Doctor called to it nervously. "Are you just a cat, or are you a trapped soul?"

The cat meowed again before standing up and walking off from them, down into the never-ending hallway. He turned back to Danni, knowing she wasn't going to like what he had to say next. "I think he wants us to follow him."

Danni had also gotten that impression and sighed heavily. "I want to go back to the TARDIS," she declared. She took his hand, threading her fingers in his. "This is a terrible idea."

"Absolutely awful," he agreed before they both followed the cat away.