Author's Note: I have returned! I've finally managed to drag myself away from Final Fantasy X and finished the second chapter, as I thought I shouldn't leave my loyal fans in the dark (well, it was either that or the threat of physical violence I received from sheperdmoon if I didn't continue that got me going).

Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC and is used without permission.

Nightmare Syndrome

By Jack of the Pelt

Chapter Two

Piece of Mind

The footsteps stopped right in front of her hiding place.

The cupboard doors were flung open.

Sarah screamed.

"I say, old girl, it's only me!" said the familiar figure of Harry standing there.

Sarah let out a great gasp of relief and slumped back into the cupboard, sliding down it's back. "Oh, Harry!" she said. "I thought it was someone else!"

Harry frowned in puzzlement. "Who did you think it was, Sarah?"

"I -" Sarah faltered, suddenly unable to say who she thought had come in the room. "I don't really know."

"Oh, well I'm here now," he said, helping her to her feet and out of the cupboard. "Why did you run off like that, anyway?" he inquired.

"I saw someone in the mist," replied the young woman as they left the room and walked down the stairs, "so I followed them, and as it turned out it was Michael's daughter. When I called out to her she ran off and I chased her into this room, I talked to her but she started to panic and she ran off again. I tried to follow her but the door was locked, then I thought something was trying to get into the room, so I hid in that cupboard. The rest you know."

They stopped in the hallway just before the front door. "But Sarah, why did you hide in the first place?" asked her friend.

"Well, just before she ran off Rose started to talk about something called the 'Mist Knights'. For some reason I thought you were one of them, so I hid." Sarah frowned. "Now that I think about it, it was quite irrational of me, but I felt so terrified."

"Rose was in the room with you? Where is she?"

"You didn't see that young girl run out of here?" said Sarah, puzzled. "She was about twelve and had blonde hair tied back in a ponytail."

Harry shook his head. "Sorry old girl, but you're the only person I've seen in this house."

"Oh," said Sarah in disappointment. "Ah well, she can't have gone far, we'd better try and find her."

"We'd better," Harry said in agreement as they exited the building though the doorway. "There's no telling what she'll run into in this place."

***

As the pair left the house they did not see the large figure watching them from the top of the stairs.

"Sssuch weak mindsss…" it hissed malevolently. "Sssso easily manipulated."

***

Having carefully avoiding several more of the strange creatures - who were more interested in the corpses they were tearing apart and devouring rather than the two of them - the Doctor and Michael had now found themselves at another one of the chasms on the other side of town. They had not, however, seen any sign of Sarah, Harry or Rose.

"Shit!" Michael cried in frustration. "This is useless! We're never going to find Rose at this rate!"

The Doctor grinned at him. "Never give up hope, Michael," he said

"Wish I shared your optimism," muttered Michael, turning away and walking away from the chasm, the Doctor doing likewise.

Daddy…

Michael stopped. "Did you hear that?" he asked the Doctor when the Time Lord caught up with him.

"Hear what?" the Doctor inquired.

Daddy, over here…

"That…" the man murmured. Michael turned towards where the voice was coming from. Nearby was a large building - Highvale General Hospital according to a sign - to see a small figure standing at it's front doors, beckoning for him to come closer. "Tha…that's Rose!" cried Michael in joy and relief. He ran towards her, but the girl turned around and vanished though the door of the hospital. "No, Rose!" he cried. "Please don't run away!" He went to follow her inside.

"No, Michael don't -" the Doctor began to say, but it was too late, as the man had already disappeared inside the building. Shrugging his shoulders, the Time Lord hurried after him. "Why doesn't anyone ever listen to me?" he muttered as he entered the hospital.

***

Something watched the two figures enter the hospital from an open window on the third floor, the curtains billowing in the slight breeze.

***

The Doctor found Michael in near darkness. He was standing in front of the reception desk looking around in panic. "I didn't see where she went!" he cried in despair when he turned and saw the Doctor. "She could have gone anywhere!"

"Panicking will get us nowhere, Michael," the Doctor told him.

"I know," he replied. "But I just keep thinking this all my fault."

The Doctor patted him on the shoulder. "Come on, we might as well start searching for your daughter, and we might even find something that will help solve this little conundrum!"

Michael nodded, and then looked around, as if noticing his surroundings for the first time. "You know, why is it so dark in here?" he questioned. "What the hell has happened to the lights?" he asked.

"Power Failure?" speculated the Doctor.

Before his companion could reply, the two of them looked up as the sound of creaking followed by heavy footsteps and a metallic scraping came from the floor above them.

The two of them stood staring at the ceiling for a few moments more after the sound had faded. "Whatever that was," said Michael, "that definitely wasn't Rose."

"I'm inclined to agree," replied the Doctor. He suddenly turned away from Michael and started walking towards the door to reception. "Let's have a look in here, shall we?" he said cheerfully, flinging the door open and striding though as if he owned the place. As he entered the room beyond he noticed the pool of blood near the desk, and the trail that led under the door to the next room, clearly showing that a body had been dragged though there. He went straight up to blood, examined it and finding that there was nothing of interest there, he then approached the door that lay opposite to the one they had come though. He was about to open it when he felt Michael's hand on his shoulder. He turned to see the man's face full of anguish.

"Doctor, what are the hell are you doing?" he hissed. "We have no idea what could have done that!" He gestured towards the pool of blood.

The Doctor paused, seemingly considering what had just said. "Good point," he replied. Then he opened the door and marched though into the room beyond. Michael cringed as if expecting some unspeakable horror to pounce on the Time Lord. But to his relief nothing of the sort happened, and as he followed the Doctor into the room Michael saw that it was a lounge, most probably for the hospital's doctors. The Doctor had walked over to the coffee table that was placed in the middle of the room and was surrounded by rather old looking couches. He had picked up a large leather bound book up off of the table and was slowly flicking though it.

"What's that?" Michael asked, curious.

"A journal of some kind, written by one of the doctors by the look of it." He sat down on one of the couches and began reading. "It seems to be about various patients."

As the Doctor rapidly flicked though the journal, Michael left him to it and started to examine the room. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the room, it had everything that you expected to find in this sort of place; a sink, cupboards, a refrigerator etc. He suddenly realised that he was hungry, so he opened the refrigerator, but was disappointed to find nothing inside, except for a month old open jar of mayonnaise. Closing the door, he stood up and opened the cupboard…

… And jumped back with gasp of fright as something fell out of the locker and landed on the floor with a loud clatter. He realised that the Doctor was now looking at him, probably wondering what had happened. Michael gave him an embarrassed grin, and the Doctor went back to the book he was reading. Michael looked at the object that had fallen to floor.

It was a pump action shotgun. He picked it up and checked that it was loaded, and found that it was. Lucky this didn't go off, he thought, it might of blown my feet off! Might come in handy though. He looked in the locker to see if there was any more ammo for the weapon in the cupboard and found that there were two more boxes of shells. He picked them up and placed them in his jacket pocket.

"Hello, this looks interesting!" the Doctor said suddenly. Michael turned towards him, and the Time Lord began to read a paragraph. "'Not only have Kevin's delusions increased in regulatory, but he has now taken to mutilate parts of his body such as carving strange shapes onto his arms when unsupervised. He claims he is doing this so the 'Mist Knights' can take him to see the 'Drowned Queen' and that this woman can turn him into -'" the Doctor stopped.

"Go on," prompted Michael, intrigued.

"I can't," he replied. "That's it." The Time Lord looked back down at the book in his hands. "It looks as though the psychiatrist was interrupted before he could finish this." The Doctor looked him in eye, a grim expression on his face. "And quite violently too - this page has been stained with blood…"

Michael frowned. "The 'Mist Knight' and the 'Drowned Queen'…" he muttered to himself, but then he shook his head. "No, it's got to be a coincidence."

"What's that?" inquired the Doctor, curious, leaning forward in the chair.

"Well -" Michael began, but was interrupted by a creak. They both looked up as the far door - the one opposite the one they had come though - opened. Michael raised the shotgun just in case it was something dangerous.

A dishevelled figure appeared in the doorway. His long blonde hair looked as though it hadn't been washed for a long time and his clothes were absolutely filthy, covered in brown stains which looked like - Michael suppressed a slight shiver - dried blood. He noticed with some concern that he had a very large gun in one of his hands.

The Doctor shot up from his chair. "Hello!" he said, starting to move towards the newcomer. "I'm the Doctor and this is my new friend -"

"Get the hell away from me!" he cried, cutting him off and bringing the gun up. Michael covered him with his own weapon, but the man didn't seem to notice.

The Doctor stopped and raised his hands, smiling in what he hoped was a calming fashion. "Please calm down," he said in soothing tones, starting to slowly walk towards him. "I assure you we're quite harmless."

"I don't care! I just wanna get outta this place!" He waved the gun angrily at them once more. "Just stay the fuck away from me, man! Don't try to follow me!" He turned and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

"Jesus," said Michael, staring at the closed door. "Who the hell was that weirdo?"

"That 'weirdo', as you so eloquently put it, Mr Brookes," replied the Doctor, "was most probably Kevin, the young man mentioned in the journal I was reading."

"How did you know that?" the man asked.

"Did you notice his arms?"

Michael shook his head. "I was too busy looking at that gun!"

"Those shapes he had carved onto arms were symbols of some kind." The Doctor frowned. "I swear I've seen them somewhere before…"

"Jesus, I hope Rose doesn't run into that psycho!" Michael said, agitated. "We have to go look for her!" Michael was about too leave the room when the Doctor grabbed his arm. He stopped, surprised by the man's strength.

"Don't panic," the Doctor said calmly. "Kevin said he was leaving, so I doubt Rose will run into him.

"But we have to find her!!!" Michael almost screamed.

"We will, we will," the Doctor replied, holding up a hand in a similar gesture to the one he had used on Kevin. "but we also have to find out what is going on in this town as well."

"That's easy for you to say," Michael muttered bitterly.

But the Doctor wasn't listening to him, as he had noticed something on the table and was walking over to retrieve it.

It was an A4 piece of paper that had been folded in half. The Doctor opened it and read it out loud; "'Doctor Davies, I left the package in room 6 on the third floor like you asked me to, Brian.'"

"'Package'?" asked Michael.

The Doctor grinned. "Intriguing, isn't it? Lets go and take a look!" he went over to the door Kevin had come though.

"Doctor!" Michael hissed. "What about that psycho?"

"Kevin? Oh, he should be gone now." He was about to open the door, when he stopped and turned back to Michael. "I almost forgot, what was the coincidence you mentioned earlier?"

"Uh, well, it's just my daughter Rose was having dreams about a Mist Knight and a Drowned Queen."

"Interesting…" the Doctor turned back to the door and opened it.

"Hey Doctor, let me go first," Michael said. "There's no telling what we might run into in this palace; I should really take the lead; I've have this after all." He patted the shotgun.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, allowing Michael to go first. "Hmm, I wonder how Sarah and Harry are doing?" he murmured to himself worriedly as they left the room.

***

"I tell you we've been going around in circles!" said Sarah to Harry, throwing up her hands in exasperation. She and her friend had been walking for at least an hour now and they had still found no sign of either the Doctor, Michael or Rose. At one point Sarah thought she saw something moving in the mist, but dismissed it as a figment of her imagination.

"Really, old girl?" replied Harry, all innocence. "I hadn't noticed."

"You see that shop over there?" she asked him, pointing a finger towards a nearby convenience store.

Harry nodded.

"I'm absolutely certain this is the third time we've walked passed it! How are we supposed to find the Doctor at this rate?" When she received no reply from her friend, she turned back towards where she thought Harry was and discovered that he was gone. "Harry? Where did you go?" she cried.

"Over here Sarah!" he called, as his head appeared from the entrance of a nearby alley that they had just passed. "I thought I saw the Doctor down here, so I'm going to take a look." He vanished back around the corner.

"No, Harry come back!" she yelled, running up to the alley. "Harry?" She peered down the passageway, but there was no sign of her friend, or even the other end. Cautiously, she started to make her way down.

She shivered. Was it her imagination or was it getting colder and darker the further she walked? And what were the red stains on the walls? Could it be… blood? No, it had to be graffiti. She hoped.

Sarah practically jumped back as she heard a blood curdling scream that came from the darkness at the other end of the alley. "Oh my god! Harry!" she cried, controlling her fear and running towards the source of the sound. Sarah stopped when she could just make out a wire fence in the gloom just ahead of her, and tried to regain her composure. After a while, when rationality final took hold of her again, she peered down the alley into the darkness. She could just make out what looked like someone sitting in a chair in front of the fence. As she approached it, she could now see that the figure was sitting in a wheel chair and was covered in a white sheet stained with red. She nervously reached forward and pulled the white cloth away.

It was Harry. His dead eyes stared up at her.

Unable to even scream, Sarah backed away from him shaking her head, close to tears with her eyes full of terror.

She backed into something solid, and she span around.

When she saw what was there, she finally found her voice to scream.

***

On their way to room 6 on the third floor of the hospital, the Doctor and Michael had checked each and every room they could, hoping to find any sign of Rose, but all they contained were smashed furniture and, on a few occasions, a dead body. Michael didn't want to take a very close look at those, but the Doctor examined them anyway. The Time Lord told him that they had either been killed by having their throats or heads crushed, or by something being forced trough their chests. He had asked the Doctor if Kevin could have murdered them, but he just shook his head and said that whatever had done this had not used a weapon and would have had to be incredibly strong. Michael shivered.

They had finally reached room 6 and the door opened with a loud creak that made Michael wince. He and the Doctor stepped into the room beyond and saw that it was almost empty except for a bed just under the window, and on it was a large white box. The Doctor walked up to it and picked it up to find it was sealed with tape. He placed it back on the bed and started to rummage around in his pockets.

"You don't happen to have anything sharp, do you?" he asked Michael as the man joined him. "Ah this will do!" the Doctor cried out in triumph before his companion could reply, and he pulled out a Swiss army knife. He then set about cutting the box open and then removed the lid. When it was off they both looked inside and found that it contained several books and various other paraphernalia.

The Doctor took what looked like a sealed envelope from the top and opened it with his knife. He placed the knife back in his pocket and started to read the letter. "'Dear Jonathan, here is all the information I could find on the disappearance of the Cantrell twins in 1892, and I hope you find it useful in your research. If you need anymore help come and see me at the museum. Your friend, Justin Mader."

"The Cantrell twins?!" exclaimed Michael once the Doctor had finished. "That was wife's maiden name! That can't be a coincidence!"

"Two in one day? No, most defiantly not…"the Doctor murmured. "Let's see what else we can find in here." He put the letter in his pocket and took a tatty paperback from the box. The front cover read The (Mis)Trial of Maynard Chancellor showed a very old picture of a rather ugly man. He began to read; "'Maynard Chancellor was an old hermit who lived -"

"Is there anything on those twins?" interrupted Michael impatiently.

The Doctor frowned and flicked a few pages into the book. "Ah, here we are, the Cantrell twins…" He began to read. "'The two seventeen year old Cantrell twins vanished in the woods next to Velial Lake - which was just to the north of the town - on the 14th August 1892, and a huge search was organised the next day, but was unsuccessful in finding them. Laura, however, was found alive seven days later on the 21st and was covered in cuts and bruises. She was dazed and confused and had no idea where she had been, but as she had been found close to Chancellor's cabin, so almost all of the population of Highvale blamed the hermit for the twins disappearance and he was arrested the following day. Anna was never found, but most of the residents of Highvale at that time believed that Maynard murdered her and hid the body, and it was for this alleged crime he was eventually sentenced to death for.'" The Doctor closed the book and placed it back in the box. "I think I'm starting to understand what's going on," he said to no one in particular as he stared out of the window.

"So, what do we do now?" asked Michael.

"I think we should pay a visit to the Museum." replied the Doctor. "There might just be some more clues to what's going on here."

"But what about Rose?!"

"I don't think she's still -"

But before the Doctor could continue, there was a loud bang behind them as the door slammed shut, and they both spun around. Michael's jaw dropped in total horror when he saw what was standing there.

The creature could only be described as some kind of warped medieval knight, tall and thin, and clad head to foot in spiked armour that looked as though it was made from black iron and crimson leather, two huge horns jutting out from the sides of its head, making it looked even taller than it's already impressive height. Only its forearms were uncovered, leaving green-purple skin exposed. When he actually saw how long the creature's arms were, Michael realised that this must have been the thing that had made him drive off the road and crash his car. "What in hell's name is that?!" he said in disbelief, staring at the monstrous demon that must have come from the very depths of hell itself.

Before the Doctor could reply, however, the creature was crossing the distance between them with a speed that belied it's large size and apparent heaviness, letting out a deafening screech as it did so.

Panicking, Michael blasted it with the shotgun, making him stagger back with the recoil.

The creature, however, didn't even seem fazed and had now reached them. It easily swatted the man away with one of its massive gauntleted fists while grabbing the Doctor round the throat with the other, lifting him clear off of the ground.

"Die, Time Lord," it growled in a harsh metallic voice, the Time Lord struggling as it slowly squeezed his throat.

To be continued…