Rose Tyler did not consider herself nimble in the least, but she was in the midst of a considerable balancing act. One foot planted on a precariously placed box, and the other extended in such a way to shift her balance and allow her to reach awkwardly. She slowly ran her fingers over the edge of the top shelf, disturbing only a thick sheet of dust. She breathed a sigh of frustration, looking down the seemingly endless row of shelves that were contained in this infinite joke of a garage. The box teetered under her weight, and she shifted her footing to accommodate this. She found herself clasping the edges of the shelve unsteadily, her footing ready to give way. This is ridiculous, she thought. I don't even know what an alien toolbox looks like! It could be a trout, or a brick, or--
The lighting suddenly flickered overhead. Rose craned her neck, gazing upwards, her eyebrows pursed in consternation. She had sensed a presence.
"Who's there? Who's that?"
As if struck by an invisible clout, the room abruptly jerked. A deep groan rose from the ground, metallic grinding that Rose felt commence beneath her feet, rapidly rip through the room, up the walls, and ebb into the ceiling. The tremble was enough to incite the box to give way under Rose's struggling foot, and thrust her forward to meet the shelf. She felt the sickening crack as her already raw lip split open against the metal of the shelf, a warm gush of blood now trickling down her chin. She slowly lowered herself to welcome the ground beneath her trembling feet. With a slight hop, she stood, her hand raised to her bloody lip, and her gaze widened.
"Doctor?" Her voice traveled across the disturbed room. With a final glance around, she inched towards the door, and set off down the hall to find a bathroom in the depths of the TARDIS.
The Doctor's gaze was fixed on the dim horizon. The planet was barren and cavernous; a landscape of brown mingled with black and red. The scattered boulders gave the surface a ravaged look- as if the planet had survived a series of intense earthquakes. Thesoil was loose under The Doctor's feet; he sensed a soft tremble coming from its depths, and the pebbles jumped around his ankles. His hand was firmly placed on the TARDIS door.
"Why here, old girl?"
He stood contemplatively, and then trudged ahead, hopping over wayward stones with relative ease. With a whistle, he came to a stop and gazed into a spanning crater that stretched as far as he could see. Its impressive depths were concealed in darkness, and it seemed bottomless from where The Doctor stood. "Mighty impressive, sure, but astoundingly inconvenient for the weary traveler," he peered from side to side, finding the crater to exist as more of canyon, with no away across. Small stones rolled down the sides of the chasm, leaving vague dust trails as they fell.
He pulled himself to the edge, dangling his feet resolutely. Propelling himself forward with the guidance of his hands, he skidded down the curved side of the crater erratically. With a stunning realization that his plan of action was considerably flawed, he desperately reached for something, anything, to stop the unpleasant sensation of having his limbs violently ripped from the sockets as he continued on his way. He tumbled, and suddenly found himself wedged against a protruding rock about thirty metres from the crater's edge. He gasped, a thankful grin spreading across his features, exultingly proclaiming, "Nothing like the impending threat of death to get the adrenaline pumping!" He laughed unabashedly and slowly continued down his way, this time taking care to not slip.
From behind the rock that broke his fall, a hooded figure crept on all fours, swiftly darting down after the intruder.
Rose stumbled slightly as she continued down the hallway. One hand was pressed again the wall in preparation for another violent shake, and the other was at her side, still wet with the blood from her injured lip. A few drops slid down her fingers and plummeted to the ground, but this was of little concern to Rose, who was desperate to wash up before returning to The Doctor and lying about having looked everywhere for his decidedly nonexistent toolbox. She was thinking of something particularly biting to follow it up by, but her train of thought was rudely interrupted when she noticed the irregular behaviour of the droplets of blood on the pristine TARDIS floor.
They were streaked along the floor, as if running down an incline. Rose could not recall The Doctor even commenting on this sort of phenomenon, so she ripped a beaded bracelet from her arm ferociously, allowing the small glass beads to scatter in every direction. Curiously, the beads behaved in the same manner, and began rolling down the hall. It was hardly a swift movement at first, and Rose kept up with ease, but soon the beads raced out of sight.
"Hey, not so fast! Damn it."
Thankfully, Rose no longer needed them to guide her, as she felt her entire frame drawn by an increasing force, beckoning her down the TARDIS's winding corridors, and into its depths.
