Gregory

caineskiss@hotmail.com

This is yet another of my original fics, inspired by the universe of Doctor Who, again this is all owned by the BBC, not me and I am not publishing to make any profit. This is the second part of the story that begins the tale of Gregory.

Phyllis cowered in the corner as the two gentlemen stood over her. They were wearing black jump suits, and a familiar seal was on their belt buckles.

The shorter one spoke, "Phyllisoporadloomeder, we suspected it would be you who were hiding the

Renegade."

"We never suspected he would elude us for so long," continued his partner, "I'm very impressed but this charade is over, your House is gone and you have been exiled. It is finished. No one will miss you. Not even him."

Phyllis reached into the bedside drawer, touched a device, "No, it's not. You'll never stop him. He'll become the man he once was, and then he will revenge the House of Heartdown." She smiled as she met her fate wrenching her atoms into the void.

Six miles away from the small cottage, Gregory collapsed in agony in the toilet of the college.

* * *

Stacey was worried; Gregory had disappeared into the toilet and not emerged, though she had held a look of disdain for him throughout the rehearsal. She thought he had looked quite upset when he disappeared to the bathroom. She resolved to find him, steadying her self against the appalling smell of the fifties block room that constituted for a gent's lavatory. She gasped when she saw him flat on his back, his eyes closed, and his chest wasn't rising or falling. Vomit was stuck to the side of his cheek. Stace ran over to him holding his hand, it was cold, she burst into sobs. "I, I…didn't mean for you…I mean I'm sorry…"

Then she screamed as Gregory sat bolt upright, staring fixedly at the wall. Spraying rancid vomit over his clothes, he gulped at the air, fearing it would escape him again. He pulled his hand away from her and she realised it was sweaty. Dripping with sweat. He stared straight ahead, she reached to hold his hand, "I'm here I still love you…"

He cut her off savagely, "Don't touch me! You burn me like fire!" She backed away from him, looking at his staring expression.

"You don't look well…you should see a doctor."

"No, I'll be fine." A pause of contemplation. "I have to go I'll see you later."

"Are you sure you should ride? You really look ill."

"I'll be fine." He insisted, staggering out to the lot where his bike was locked, he fumbled with the keys muttering "Fine…fine…fine I'll be, be fine." The lock fell off with a clank, as Stacey watched him as he leaped on the bike, and roared into the night.

Gregory listened to the roar of the engine as he made his way home, he had blacked out and he felt different somehow, he was wearing nothing but a shirt and trousers, no leathers, but he felt comfortable, it was like being wrapped in a blanket. Stacey's hand holding his own was cloying an unnatural heat that he felt was too much. He took his eyes off the road for a second; he was covered in his own vomit. He must have thrown up when he blacked out, still he hadn't died back there, and Gregory felt different. There was something about the air around him, he felt a tingling sensation running down his spine. He pulled over, he sniffed the air: he smelt the leaves and a myriad of scents, he saw the colour of every leaf even though it was dark, Gregory felt the worms wriggling in the soil: felt their life.

He saw the strands as every being was born and lived and would die, some peacefully, some at the hands of others, he saw Time. His epiphany finished he remounted the motorcycle and returned home, this was puberty with a vengeance.

* * *

Gregory returned to the cottage elated, it was curtailed rapidly. The tingling along his spine was now a dull throbbing pain, he staggered into the front door. "Bad habit!" He stumbled into the front room, there was something there or rather something wasn't. Where was Phyllis?

He roared at the top of his lungs, "Phyllis."

Absence.

He dashed upstairs into Phyllis' room: she wasn't there. He dashed through the house looking for her, she was nowhere to be found. He was disappointed but not concerned. He had known many a time when Phyllis had wandered off and returned days later, bedraggled and in need of her bed. He'd helped her into bed, and settled down to a cup of tea in front of the News or a trashy movie, before going to sleep in the armchair. Gregory settled down to find Phyllis' breakfast untouched. He lifted the cover and ate the toast, now cold. Then he went to bed.

* * *

A few hours passed and something in the attic stirred, it reached out to Gregory's sub-conscious mind, caressed it. Gregory sat bolt upright, again, feeling slightly more relaxed than the last time. He was almost trance-like as pulled the cord that brought the attic steps down. He mounted them feeling some impulse that made him move up those steps to find whatever it was that was plaguing him. He stopped at the top of the stairs wondering how he got here when he felt a presence in the attic. He turned and looked at a large trunk standing on its end, it was about six foot tall and looked like a tall canvas coffin with leather straps across it. Gregory moved closer and touched the box. It tingled beneath his fingertip, it was warm but friendly, it seemed to flow beneath his fingertips, it felt almost alive. He wanted to open the chest, he looked around the chest for a handle and found only a small key hole. He touched around the keyhole, when a thought came unbidden to his mind, the jewellery box!

Phyllis had kept a box of trinkets that she mockingly called her jewellery box. It never contained any jewellery just knickknacks that she had collected over the years, in the box though was collection of keys that she had garnered over the years. Gregory stumbled down the ladder in his haste to get to the box. He ran into Phyll's room and scooped up the box, running up to the attic trying to prise the lid open, he knelt in front of the strange chest, dropping the hinges of the box against a strut of the attic. The box clattered open spilling its contents, Gregory separated out the likeliest looking objects that he thought looked like keys. As he brushed a pendant, he felt the same tingling he had felt with the canvas chest. He held it up to the fluorescent light of the attic: it was silver and shaped like a blunt shield. It was engraved with dots that were joined by straight lines. It hung from a silver chain that was connected to the shield by a square cross that seemed part of the metal.

Gregory grasped the key and put it gently in the slot, he turned it. The leather straps unbuckled and the door opened into a dark ominous space. He stood up and stepped into the chest expecting…a chest.

Instead he walked into a hexagonal room with a large control console at its centre.

He wandered around the room, looking at to roundels set into the wall that seemed to light the room, there was a screen in one corner, and in another face there was a door set into the wall. He moved towards the door avoiding the console, after all he could set off something that would cause "problems". Any button could press might cause the place to self-destruct like his own assumed fragile reality. He reached out to the door and it opened automatically, into a corridor, he traipsed down the passage looking in doors where various items were stacked haphazardly.

He looked in what could have been a bedroom, there was a fine silk shirt that looked burnt. He picked it up and gazed as burnt fibres fell from the cloth. There was a pair of trousers and boots that also were extremely carbonised, he looked at them but refrained from touching them. He walked out and continued his journey.

Later. He looked in another room where he saw an eighteenth century shirt and flounce, this seemed familiar, and he touched the jewelled slippers underneath the tailor's dummy. They seemed like real diamonds. Again he left the room and turned back down the corridor, this was the end of the corridor, and it was interesting, as he could have sworn the corridor was far longer.

However here he was, Gregory reached out to the door but it opened suddenly with a clank onto a large gothic room, in the centre was a mysteriously suspended sphere with grooves cut into it like a petanque ball. An ornate cage protected this, with elegant scrollwork across it, it was cylindrical arching up as far as Gregory could see. At the base of the cage was a mooring for the sphere with a circular hole embedded in its centre. Opposite the door where Gregory entered was a console, this like the rest of the room looked antique, a subtle mixture of Victorian and Medieval. It had elegant numbers that looked like typewriter keys, automatically Gregory walked up to it and punched in a code. With a grinding noise, the cage shrieked into the mooring. When the cage retracted with a clatter, the light holding the sphere seemed to draw it back. The sphere settled gently into the slot and all at once the edifice seemed to fit together. A great ringing occurred across the room and it seemed the area seemed much lighter. Gregory reached out and touched the hemisphere, a bolt of energy struck him, flinging him against the wall and he collapsed, sliding to the floor…