Title: Manipulation of the Mind
Author: Trustno1
Disclaimer: Doctor Who related things property of the Beeb. Story, other characters and the Voice property of my disturbed little mind
AN:Thanks to everyone who still reads and reviews!
Chapter XXI
She was walking through the TARDIS. The walls and floor shifted fluidly, melting like the painting by Dali she once saw, of melting clocks. For some reason she didn't like that picture; it made her feel… strange. She didn't like them, but she couldn't explain to anyone when she first saw them why, and she probably couldn't now. These melting walls were having the same effect.
She walked into a brightly lit room, drawn inexplicably to the sliver of light emerging from the door like a moth to a flame. Her mum was sitting cross-legged on the floor, holding a book that first looked tiny, then grew, and it looked like her mum was a borrower, or thumbelina from the fairy tale, and this book was now half the size of her. Everything in the room at once was too big, and seemed to swell as it were a living, breathing monster. Rose tried to move away, but felt as though an invisible magnet was pulling her further into the monster's lair. Her head felt fuzzy, dream-like, disconnected with reality, and she didn't like it one bit.
"Come sit, little Rose. I'll tell you a story, a fairy tale," he mum said, in the voice parents use to entice children into sitting quietly and behaving. Except that now, it modulated slightly, distorted with the room, or by the room. Despite feeling scared, Rose sat next to her mum, on a floor that felt like squirming snakes that wouldn't support her weight. It did, but he mum was now growing bigger, swelling in size, rushing towards Rose at a speed that defied logic. Rose let out a strangled cry of fear and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her mum was her normal size, though the room continued to breathe.
"Once upon a time," Jackie began, in the queer modulating voice, " a princess lived in a tall tower. One day, she was kidnapped by a gypsy rover, who she fell in love with, and stayed with for the rest of her life. Her family and true prince were very unhappy with the little princess. But still she travelled with this gypsy rover, and there were lots of dangerous creatures that hunted them down, like giants, and witches, and dragons, and big bad wolves, and a hundred other things." Rose listened to her mum speaking in a curiously monotone voice, the only pitch and emotion given by the unearthly modulation that was disturbing her more and more. She was dreaming, she knew, the kind of fever induced dreams that you have when you are young, and that terrify you into your parents bed, where it's safe and warm. But it was her mum who was scaring her, and she didn't know why she was so scared. Maybe because of the surrealistic nature of it all, and the fact that she seemed to have no control over anything that was happening. True, she very rarely did in real life, but the Doctor was now always by her side, or never far away, like a parent in the next room, and even if she had to brave a hallway full of dark, whispering shadows that reached out to her, he would be just around the next corner, hand outstretched for hers, ready to save her.
But not now. There was no loving parent; no wonderful, dependable, loving Doctor nearby, and this story was scaring her, and didn't look as though it were about to end nicely. She knew there was a terrible ending; a frightening climax; an awful moral that her mum was working up to, and she didn't want to hear it, didn't want to know.
"I don't like this story mummy," she whimpered, surprised to find she sounded like a young child. Her mum looked up from the book then, eyes thin red slits, hair suddenly black and mouth drawn back in a snarl. Rose's heart stuttered, then began thumping wildly against her chest, as if hammering to be let out, and she cried out in fright and disgust. Her mum took a deep breath and rose up, higher and higher, rushing towards Rose who squeezed her eyes shut against this monstrosity, tears escaping the closed lids, and prayed she was only dreaming, and would wake up.
She was standing in a bright field. The sky was so bright, in fact, that she had to squint, and could hardly make out any of her surroundings. Any attempt to open her eyes resulted in the feeling she got whenever she had tried to stare at clouds when she was little; the lids instinctively closed, but not before the world turned momentarily white, and her eyes ached and protested against the brightness.
Someone was near her. She whirled around, blindly seeking out the other person.
There was no other person. Not in Rose's opinion of a person anyway. Stretched between four metal-looking poles, thinner than paper with eyes and a mouth, was Cassandra, the last 'pure human'. Rose could barely make her out, but a brief glimpse was enough.
"You died!" she spluttered, the only coherent thought she could manage to vocalise at this time. The piece of skin emitted a sound that may have been a dry laugh.
"No, I just… disappeared. You're the last human, Rose, the last one left. Watch your planet burn. From the best view imaginable." Her eyes rolled to the side, pointing out something just behind Rose. She turned and through fingers that shaded her eyes saw the sun. Red and expanding. Expanding at a phenomenal rate; it covered half the sky already.
"Goodbye!" Cassandra said, and disappeared.
Rose whirled around, dimly aware of a feeling of disconnection, but more aware that she could feel the sun's heat on her back, burning her. Fear rose in her chest, threatening to burst out in a shrill cry of fright that Rose would have been ashamed off under normal circumstances, but these weren't normal circumstances. She didn't know what to do, where to go. She spun round, trying in vain to find the TARDIS, or the Doctor. As she did, she wondered if this was what Gallifreyans felt like before their planet was obliterated, wondered if this what they saw in their last moments. Then she wondered if this was what the Doctor thought as he imagined this happening millions of miles and hundreds of years away from him, and, crazily, she hoped he wasn't actually here to witness this. And wished she wasn't here.
Not knowing what else to do, knowing it was a dream but still terrified, she spun, faster and faster, until the field and sky and sun blurred into one, colors merging into a blur.
The central column appeared as a column of messy light, then focused. Blue-green light pulsed up and down. The Doctor was no-where to be seen. The TARDIS gave an almighty shudder, knocking Rose to the floor. She pulled herself upright, fighting against the ship's vibration, and clung helplessly to the controls. A wave of fear swept over her at the loss of control, one stronger than she had felt for years and years; since she was a little girl and one of her dolls had caught fire on one of her mum's candles.
She didn't know what to do. The TARDIS was moving – and it didn't seem right to her, it was shaking far too much – and the Doctor was no-where to be seen, and she didn't know how to work the controls. She felt panic taking over her, sweeping through her stomach, up her chest, clenching her heart, stopping her throat, so no sound but a feeble cry could escape. She blindly pushed buttons, pulled levers, turned knobs, hit the control panel with a panicked fury, but the TARDIS was juddering and crumbling and breaking apart around her. A wall melted inwards, a door exploded outwards, a support column expanded and engulfed another wall, the front door shook off it's hinges, and Rose was sucked out into the vortex, sucked into oblivion, falling, falling, falling…
…jerking upright like a zombie in a late-night TV horror movie, or a person plagued by a terrifying nightmare; jerking upright straight into an astonished Doctor's arms.
End Chapter XXI