Amara stepped out of the TARDIS onto a beach. The water was the perfect oceanic blue, and the sand was almost white. The wind that hit her face was pleasant and slightly salty, and the sun was shining brightly down on her.

"This isn't where we're supposed to be," The Doctor stepped out from behind her, frowning. "I've been to Nohadon at least seven times, and I don't remember there being an ocean that's blue in colour."

"What colour is the ocean there?"

"Purple." He walked forward, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"Where are we, then?"

He placed a finger in his mouth and brought it out, making Amara recoil in disgust. "Do you have to do that?"

He held up his finger and turned to her. "You asked me where we were, I'm answering your question."

"By licking your finger?"

"It helps me to determine the contents of the atmosphere here and narrow down our location!"

"And it gives you germs and will probably make you sick!"

"I'm a Time Lord, I don't get sick!" He rolled his eyes. "And anyway, I think I might know where we are."

She raised her eyebrows and he said, "The atmosphere is mostly nitrogenous but also has a decent amount of oxygen- the rays aren't ultraviolet, or, well, the rays we feel here aren't, and," He jumped, making Amara back away slightly, frowning, "The gravity's middling- I'd say we're somewhere on Earth."

"But there's nobody here." She walked towards him, gesturing to the empty beach. "Earth's got almost 8 billion people living in it, and we're on a beach. Why are there no people here?"

"Maybe it's Sunday." He shrugged. "Sundays are boring, although, beaches are boring too, and people do boring things on boring days, so there should be people here, but even that depends on what timezone we're in, and that'll take a while to figure out."

"Do you think it's safe?"

He turned to her, gesturing around. "Safe? We're in a beach! Name one place that's safer than a beach!"

"A fortified castle that's also underground and can never be found unless someone wants to, has excellent security, and has discreet escape routes that can only be accessed by the people living in it. Ooh, and has enough food and water to last at least five years."

The Doctor blinked at her. "You've really thought about this."

"I always get plagued with dreams about a serial killer or a bunch of terrorists coming into my house and killing me or me having to escape undetected. That really prompts people to design the ultimate defence bunker."

He shrugged and tilted his chin. "Makes sense. Anyway, do you want to explore around a bit?"

She shrugged, folding her hands. "I don't know- we don't know where we are and what's here. What if we get lost? Or killed? Or injured? Or what if something happens to the TARDIS? Or-"

"Or what if nothing happens at all and we just have a fun day at a random beach?"

"You can't guarantee that."

"Neither can you guarantee that something bad will happen." He held out a hand. "Come on, Mara, we could either get back into the TARDIS and miss out on something fun, or we could explore for a bit and have the time of our lives."

Seeing that she was still hesitant, he added, "Alright, then. The first sign of danger, we come back immediately. Whenever you want to. Yeah?"

She took his hand and nodded slowly. "Okay."


"Do you have to note down every distinct looking landmark in your notebook?" The Doctor asked Amara as she wrote about a pair of trees growing out of a sand-coloured rock that was distinctly square shaped. There had been a bunch of rocks facing the beach, which they'd climbed up and landed up in some woods. Amara had her timeline journal with her, but had seen that there was a section specifically called "Places you visit", and she decided to use that one to note down everything she saw.

After she finished writing, she looked up at him. "Judging by your wonderful record of getting lost and not knowing where the TARDIS is, courtesy to the Genghis Khan incident-"

"Oh, for the love of all things bright and beautiful, please stop mentioning the Genghis Khan incident."

"I will not, because I remember you pissed him off and were about to get us killed and that would've been prevented a lot sooner if you'd known the way back." He scowled at her and she rolled her eyes. "Believe me, you'll thank me later when I have a comprehensive path that'll lead us back to the TARDIS when we see the first sign of danger."

"If we see the first sign of danger, anyway, are you done?"

She nodded and stepped over a few spherical rocks to go and join him. "Any idea on where we are?"

He shrugged, holding up a huge leaf. "Still nothing clear, but we're definitely on Earth. Feels Atlanticky, but I can't be sure- oh my God!"

He let go of the leaf, disappearing from view as it fell back behind him. Amara climbed over a few roots faster. "Oh my God what?"

He didn't answer, making her heart rate increase a little bit. "Oh my God what?!"

She almost tripped over a root as she tried to reach him as soon as possible. Her carelessness was so rampant that she actually ended up bumping into the Doctor by accident, almost pushing him off what she would later find out was a cliff.

He turned around and managed to grab her arms and steady her, after which she muttered out an embarrassed, "Sorry,"

"It's alright." He murmured as she went to stand next to him, before gasping. "Oh my God!"

They were on a cliff that had a sand-covered path that looked like sandstone that led down to a valley- if it could've even been called a valley, that is. The ground was entirely covered in sandstone-like rock paths. There were mountains all around said valley, and the perimeter of the valley was full of sandstone statues. Amara couldn't make out what they were exactly as they were high up. The valley itself had a very cracked ground, vines sprouting through them and running unevenly across. The very middle of the ground had a ruined fountain that was circular in shape, but had a lot of cracks in its perimeter, the same vines growing out of it and into the fountain, covering the statue in it with vines.

"Remember how I said we were on Earth?" The Doctor said a few moments later. "I take that back. No place on Earth's ever been like this, and I've been almost everywhere."

Amara nodded slowly. "I deduced that much."

The Doctor turned to her, holding out a hand. She raised an eyebrow and he shrugged. "No signs of danger yet."

She sighed. "I guess." The Doctor grinned as she took it, and the two of them started walking down the sandstone path.


"Definitely worshipped the sea gods," The Doctor murmured, inspecting one of the statues closely. It had the head of a lion, the body of a human, and a mermaid tail. Its hands were clad with stone wristbands, and it was holding a stone spear, whose tip was nearing blunt what with all the crumbling stone. "Seem to be Pan Cromated." He turned away from the statue to Amara, who was noting down every detail of the statue. He tilted his head and pouted. "Come on, we're on a mysterious island with the mysterious remains of a city even I don't know about, and all you can think of is taking notes like this is a class you need to pass?"

Amara continued writing, looking at the statue occasionally. "Thank me later."

"I'm telling you, with my excellent sense of direction, there's no chance we'll get lost." He came to stand next to her, looking down at what she was writing. "And don't even mention the Genghis Khan incident," He said as she opened her mouth to say something. "We all have bad days."

"I was gonna tell you that irrespective of whether you have a good sense of direction or not, it's always better to have a backup plan."

The Doctor shook his head as she closed her book, muttering something in a language she didn't understand. "You said something about a Pan something?"

He turned around, stopping his tangent. "Yeah, Pan Cromated. In galactic terms, that's some time after the Silurians and Sea Devils went into hibernation due to the whole asteroid threat. Looks very Earthy, if you ask me."

"But you said that there was no way a place like this was on Earth."

The Doctor's grin became borderline maniacal and there was a gleam in his eyes when she said that. "Exactly! That means there was a civilization nobody knew about, and we're probably the first outsiders to see it!"

Amara, however, was a lot less enthused. She folded her hands, shrugging. "What if there was a reason nobody knew about it? What if they wanted to be hidden?" She hugged herself tightly as a gust of wind blew past them. Amara thought that it was a lot colder than before. "What if there's something really sinister here?"

The Doctor stared at her for a moment before bursting into laughter. "You really think something's gonna happen in a city that's been abandoned for so long?"

"What if it was never abandoned?" She whispered, moving closer to the Doctor, feeling the familiar fast heartbeat start up again.

"Ghosts don't exist, Amara." The Doctor said softly. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

Amara took a deep breath and shook her head. She was travelling with the Doctor, of all people, and was jumping through his timeline. She was gonna be doing this for a while- she couldn't be a walking ball of anxiety all the time. "No, yeah, you're right." She forced a smile at him, hoping it would become real soon. "There isn't anything to be afraid of. I was just overthinking things. Let's go look at the rest of the place. Unknown civilization, there's probably a lot to see."

The Doctor looked at her for a moment and raised his eyebrow. "You sure?"

She nodded, the grin still on her face. "Yeah, why wouldn't I be sure?"

"I dunno, you seemed pretty not-so-sure earlier."

She shrugged. "I changed my mind. People do that all the time."

"Come on, Mara, in what angle are you 'people'?"

"In all of them?"

He stared at her for a moment before tilting his chin and shrugging. He held out a hand and she took it. "So, what do you wanna see first?" She asked him as they started walking, and he frowned. "You don't wanna choose?"

"I said I changed my mind about being scared, that doesn't mean I'm still not indecisive as fuck."

"I wouldn't really word it that way, but you make a good point."

"When do I not?" She said, taking a deep breath as she tried to quash down that tiny voice in her head that was objecting to her current decision. She knew it would get louder as time went on, but that was a problem to take care of then. Unless it actually meant well and she was being an idiot.

She took a deep breath. She was with the Doctor. And everything looked safe. Oh, yeah, of course, venture into the unknown and what could be a possible death scenario because it looks safe! Maybe it was safe and she was just overthinking it. Or maybe it wasn't and she was underthinking it.

She felt the Doctor's grip on her hand tighten, which brought her out of her overthinking tangent. She blinked and looked at him, surprised but relieved that he was just casually walking towards one of the statues that looked like half a horse and half a mermaid with human hands and a trident, green vines looping around it, not seeming to notice that he'd tightened his grip on her hand.

He then stopped dead in his tracks, making Amara frowned. "What's wrong?"

"Shh- hold on." She stared at him as he closed his eyes for a few moments before opening them again. "Someone's here. Someone else. I can feel the vibrations of their footsteps."

"Really?" She murmured, turning to the other side and narrowing her eyes. "And the fact that they literally just walked out of the bushes there didn't give it away?"

"Wha-" He turned to the direction Amara was looking. True to what she said, there was a young man and a young woman walking out of the bushes, both of them dark-haired and carrying backpacks. They couldn't see their features properly as the two of them were quite far away, but Amara thought they looked quite similar. The two of them also didn't seem to notice the two of them as they talked amongst themselves about something.

However, that was short-lived as the woman noticed them a few moments later and started walking towards them with long strides and her head held up high while the man followed her, trying to keep up with her. His strides were a lot shorter and he was running, sputtering out something that Amara couldn't make out, but the woman seemed to be ignoring him. Once she came close enough, Amara saw that she was scowling at them.

"Who are you, and what," The woman demanded, coming to stand in front of the two of them, "Are you doing here?"

"Hello! I'm the Doctor, and this is my friend Amara!" The Doctor grinned, seemingly completely oblivious to the woman's clear displeasure. "It's nice to meet you!"

"How did you get here? How did you even know about this place?" She narrowed her eyes, placing her hands on her hips. "Are you both from NACDAS? They sent you here, didn't they?"

"NAC- what?" The Doctor frowned, clearly confused.

"As if you don't know-"

"I really don't."

The woman scoffed. "Oh, please, stop with the lying."

The man had finally caught up with them at that point. He grabbed onto the woman's arm to stop himself from falling over. He straightened up and adjusted his gold rimmed glasses and pushed back his floppy dark hair. He turned to the two of them and smiled. "Hello!"

Amara nervously waved at him, an uncertain smile on her face. "Hi?"

"Oi!" The woman smacked his shoulder, making his head snap towards her. "Don't fraternise with the enemy!" She turned back to the two of them. "Right. How did you even get here? NACDAS doesn't even know the vague location of this place! Unless, wait, hold on," Her eyes widened. "Have you been spying on us?!"

Amara closed her eyes and shook her head. "No, um, I'm sorry, I don't think I follow. You know where we are?"

"And what the hell is NACDAS?" The Doctor interjected.

The woman scoffed again while the man stared at the two of them, wide eyed. He wiped his brow and adjusted his glasses. "Wait, you actually don't know?"

"Come on, El," The woman interrupted, gesturing to the two of them, "They clearly don't know."

El shook his head. "No, they don't look like they're lying, and there don't appear to be signs of them lying," He murmured, squinting at the two of them before he straightened up, shaking his head. "But that can't be possible…"

"What can't be possible?" Amara asked, suddenly not feeling so good anymore. The familiar heartbeat increase started and she thought she felt slightly nauseous.

"Don't mind him, he's just gonna keep theorising for a while, now tell me, how the hell did you two get here? How do you even know about this place?"

"Do you know about this place?" Amara asked, frowning. The woman frowned back at her. "I'm sorry, I thought I was asking the questions here."

"Well, we don't know the answers to your questions, but you seem to know where we are, so that would be a helpful piece of information. That and the danger levels of this place because if I discover there's Drashigs here or something-"

"Mara, if there were Drashigs here, believe me, we'd all be dead by now." The Doctor said, and she stared at him. "Thank you for that valuable piece of information." She turned to the woman. "Anyway, where the hell are we?"

"How can somebody possibly go to a place without knowing where they are?" The woman frowned, placing her hands on her hips. "And least of all, here!"

"We just, erm, stumbled in here." The Doctor shrugged, placing his hands into his pockets.

"And we'd like to know where 'here' is as soon as possible, and now would be a great time to tell us, thanks." Amara forced a grin, exhaling out sharply.

"Oh my God!" The man stared at the two of them, eyes wide, "What if this is a side effect of being here? You slowly start to forget everything! Shockingly meta, if you ask me."

"I'm sorry, what?!"

The man turned to her, "You know, judging by the fact that everyone kinda forgot about this island for years."

"What island?!" Amara almost shrieked. "We've been talking for about three minutes, in the span of which I've asked you where we are at least three times, and I've gotten nothing but a vague reply and a hint that this place could possibly be altering our memories-"

"It's not, I would've noticed if that's the case." The Doctor interrupted her, giving her hand a small squeeze.

"But it would still help if we knew where we were, and I won't ask again. Where the hell are we?!"

"Well, we don't really know what the island's called, but judging by it's patterns and the fact that evidence of its existence appeared after the massive flood in the East Coast of the United States, we suspect that it's an island that's been buried underwater and has just resurfaced." The man adjusted his glasses again as they were slipping down his nose, "So we've just dubbed it as Atlantis because of some of the washed up architecture, but hopefully the evidence we find here would hint at it's real name."

Amara blinked a couple of times. "I'm sorry, we're where?"

"No, no, that's not possible, this can't be Atlantis. I've been to Atlantis, it got destroyed because of a friend of mine and his shenanigans. And the Atlantis I was in didn't even look like this." The Doctor said, making the man and the woman look at him incredulously.

"I'm sorry, what did you just say?" The woman blinked.

"Are you an Atlantean?!" The man shrieked, his voice becoming dangerously high-pitched. "Oh my God, I've always wanted to meet one of you!"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, no, I've just met them."

"What the hell are you talking about?!" The woman turned to him, "You couldn't have met them, it's estimated that Atlantis has been gone for at least five thousand years!"

"I'm a time traveller." He shrugged casually, and both the woman's and man's eyes widened.

"Time traveller?!" El exclaimed, "Oh my God, when are you from? What kind of a time machine do you even have- no, wait, hang on- how did you even achieve that? Time travel is basically just science fiction, isn't it? Well, more on the fiction part- how can you travel through time? Is it like a road or something to travel through?"

"More like a vortex." The Doctor tilted his chin. "And, well, time travel will end up coming in the fiftieth century-"

Amara cleared her throat, making both of them turn to her. "There's a time and a place." She interjected, gesturing around them. "We're in Atlantis! Or, well, a place called Atlantis!"

The Doctor turned to the others. "Right. Yeah, sorry. I'm the Doctor, by the way, and this is Amara, my best friend. And you are?"

"Elend Calamari, and this is my sister Althea. We're explorers."

"We're on a mission." Althea corrected, giving Elend a pointed glance. "We're here to look into this mysterious island so that we can learn more about their history and how the island somehow sank and resurfaced. There's not many artefacts from here back home, so we came here to find more things that could help with the research. We obviously assumed we'd be the only ones here since everyone else who came to find this island ended up having their ships sunk."

"What?!" Amara exclaimed, her eyes widening slightly.

"You know, since we're in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle and such. Thankfully, our ship didn't get completely damaged." Elend said, and Amara blinked.

"People kept coming here even though whoever came here never came back?" Amara raised an eyebrow. "How stupid can people get?"

"It's a place shrouded in mystery, Mara, people were just curious." The Doctor said.

Amara frowned. "Hold on, did you just say that everyone who tried to come here got shipwrecked?"

"Or plane wrecked."

Amara swallowed, "Yeah. If it's so hard to get here- and there's nobody here- and it just appeared out of nowhere- what if there's a reason all this happened? There's a reason as to why it's so hard to get here? Like it doesn't want to be discovered?" She hugged herself, rubbing her arms as she did so.

"You think the island's sentient?" Elend asked in disbelief.

"It happened in Roshar." She muttered, and when she got two extremely confused frowns from Elend and Althea, she said, "It's the world in The Stormlight Archive."

"The what?"

"Doesn't matter. Like I was saying, this all seems very adventure slash horror movie plot to me. There has to be a catch somewhere."

"Or you're just being paranoid." Althea suggested, and Amara shrugged. "Better to be paranoid than not. At least you'll be able to anticipate the worst."

Elend shrugged. "Makes sense logically, you know, better to expect the worst so that everything else is better."

"Exactly!" Amara nodded.

"Right, enough chit chat," Althea heaved her backpack and started walking towards the statue behind them. "We're here on a mission, and I completely intend to be successful in that one. You both can do whatever you like, but Elend, you're coming with me."

The Doctor followed her as well, and Amara rolled her eyes and followed the two of them, Elend walking beside her. "Are you a time traveller too?" Elend asked her, and she shrugged. "I drop by at times, but, yeah, you can count me as one."

"What's it like? Time travel?" His eyes were shining with curiosity.

Amara shrugged. "I dunno, I've only just started. It's been about a, um, week? Not enough time to actually form an opinion."

The two of them reached the horse-mermaid statue, which the Doctor was investigating thoroughly while Althea was bent over her backpack, which was on the ground. She was looking inside it and pulling out random things, including a grappling hook and a magnifying glass.

Amara went to stand by the Doctor, who was now wearing his glasses, frowning at the statue as he ran a hand across its mane. "Well, that's weird." He remarked as Amara approached him, her notebook open now and her pen in hand.

"What is?" She frowned, starting to write a description of the statue.

"The statute, it- it looks old-"

"It is old." Althea resurfaced, a brush and a small plate-like thing in her hands, which were covered with milky white gloves. "This entire island is estimated to be thousands of years old."

"You see, that's the thing. It looks old, it's supposed to be old, but it- it doesn't feel old."

Althea scoffed out a laugh. "Come on, don't be ridiculous, how could you possibly gather that?"

The Doctor looked up at her. "Believe me, I know."

Amara frowned at his statement, looking up from her notes. "What do you mean, it doesn't feel old?"

He turned to her. "Well, you see, people like me, we can sense time in objects and make a rough estimate of how old they are, in a way."

"I'm sorry, people like you?" Elend walked around the statue, holding something that looked like a measuring tape and his brown leather bound notebook.

He shrugged. "Yeah, people like me."

"Do you mean to say you're not like us?"

The Doctor nodded before turning back to the statue. "This doesn't make sense. An island that's resurfaced from the bottom of the ocean after years, and everything's-" He walked around the statue, his hand still on the statue. "Everything's perfect."

"I know, right?" Althea grinned, looking up at the Doctor. "This is going to be perfect for the research study. Imagine it, the first people to study Atlantis!"

Amara, however, frowned at him. "What the hell are you talking about?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I dunno, it just- there's something a little-"

He was cut off when the ground started to shake. Amara's pen slid across the page, making an extremely unappealing half-line, half-curve made of blue ink that stretched from the last word she wrote till the edge of the page. She gasped and grabbed onto the statue for support, pushing her book under her armpit as her pen clattered to the ground.

"What the hell is happening?!" Elend yelled, grabbing onto the statue for support.

Althea screamed in surprise, grabbing onto the statue as well, accidentally knocking into the Doctor in the process as the ground started to shake more. And move. Amara could feel it move in a specific direction- one away from the Doctor, who was yelling at her to hold on. However, his yells were slightly muffled tanks to everyone else yelling.

"Doctor!" She yelled, "We're moving!" She looked up at him, her heart rate starting to increase as she saw that he was moving as well- in the exact opposite direction.

"Mara, hold on!" He yelled, attempting to reach her hand as it was slowly slipping away from the statue. Amara attempted to do so, but that only led to her losing balance and screaming as she stumbled backward due to the force of the ground moving- no, sliding in the other direction. Elend managed to prevent her from falling, but by then, the damage had already been done.

Thanks to the fact that she wasn't holding onto the statue anymore, it felt like she was getting whisked away faster. She screamed for the Doctor again- however, her call was muffled by Althea and Elend yelling to each other- and of course, the Doctor calling out her name.