Amara backed away, her heart starting to beat faster again. She closed her eyes, immediately opening them again as all she could see was the bloated body of the man, whom she saw when she opened her eyes. There really was no way out, was there?

"But- that's not-" Elend sputtered as Amara clenched her fists, digging her nails into her palms to feel something other than the gripping pain she felt in her chest and the adrenaline rush that she knew would make her more dizzy and nauseous than alert. She slowly backed out of the cabin, just as Elend turned around.

"He- he died here. He drowned!"

"And I have a feeling we would too unless we get out of here," Amara said, turning around and running out of the cabin, panting for breath when she got out. She took a deep breath, trying her best to ignore the pain in her chest as all it seemed to want to do was exhale. She tried to even out her breaths as Elend came out, his hands folded close to his chest.

"He came here before us." He murmured as Amara turned to him, her eyebrows furrowed. "That's your biggest concern? This man drowned in the cabin for God knows what reasons, and you're talking about how he got here before you?"

Elend shook his head. "No, that's not what I- Thea and I, we're supposed to be the first ones here, every single ship that went through to this place always got destroyed in the Bermuda Triangle and the remains of everything would wash up ashore."

"But what if that's not the case? What if the island's what's killed them? Didn't you check how many bodies were there in the ships?"

Elend shrugged. "Everyone would always return, either drowned and dead or they'd be too delirious. And some of them would've forgotten, everyone dismissed that as a side effect of the water or something. But he died here. What if he wasn't the only one?"

Amara, who was already flipping through the pages of her notebook, looked up at him. "I don't know, and I don't care at this point. We need to get out of here as soon as possible before the same thing happens to us."

"But how could he drown in an island? That's above the ocean?" Elend wondered aloud, and Amara breathed out a sigh of relief. She pointed at one of the trees, whose roots were wrapped around a rock. "Oh Thank God, that tree, I saw it when we were pretty close to the beach."

She started walking towards it, Elend following her. "What's the beach got to do with all this?"

"That's where the Doctor's spaceship is. If we manage to find it, I think I'll be able to drive her all the way to him and we can get out of here once and for all. And then I'll definitely stay away from beaches for the rest of my life."

"Shouldn't we be concerned about what's happening here? You know, all the island shaking and the whole spinny thing, and the body we found there?"

"We could do that, or we could get out of here alive. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss and other times, it's what'll keep you safe eventually." She climbed up a few rocks onto the muddy path, her feet squelching in the wet, clayey ground.

"And you know exactly where your ship is on the beach? After the whole island spinning thing?"

"Not really, but once we're on the beach, it'll be easier to find. Plus, the Doctor taught me how to summon it with the key when we're at close proximity, so that'll be extremely helpful."

"Summon the- what the hell are you talking about?" Elend stopped Amara, who was looking at her book and at the scenery in front of her. She smiled as she recognised something else from her book. "Looks like things weren't that displaced… or I just got lucky." She murmured as she started walking forward. "Oh, and about the summoning thing, you can basically have the TARDIS materialise around you if you do a thing to the key."

"TARDIS?"

"That's what the ship is called, it'll make more sense once we go in there." She looked back at Elend, who was climbing up the rocky and muddy path behind her. "It stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, by the way."


"The island spun around clockwise, right?" Amara asked as the two of them walked down the last rock and stood at the beach.

"Yeah, why?"

Amara smiled. "Because I know which way the TARDIS is." She started walking towards the right.

"How are you so sure?"

"Because those rocks out there, I recognise them. This is literally why I took notes about the whole place."

"What, you knew we were going to get lost?"

Amara shrugged, shaking her head. "Not really, but I expected something along the lines of that would happen, especially judging by the fact that this is the Doctor we're talking about."

"What, stuff like this happens with him all the time?"

"I wouldn't say all the time, but mostly, yeah. Although, to be fair to him, it's not like he consciously seeks trouble. Mostly."

They walked around a corner, and Amara's eyes widened as she spotted two familiar figures walking in front of them, their backs facing towards her and Elend. A relieved smile started to form on her face when she called out, "Doctor!"

The taller figure wearing a brown trench coat swivelled around, his trench coat billowing around him as he did so. The two of them ran towards each other, and before she knew it, Amara found herself engulfed in a hug by the Doctor. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he picked her up and spun her around, pulling her close. He put her down soon after that, his hands on her face as he turned it around, possibly checking for injuries. "Are you alright, are you hurt?"

"No, I'm fine, but we need to get out of here." She said, "We saw the dead body of a drowned person and I really don't want to imagine or experience what happened to him."

The Doctor frowned, his hand seemingly subconsciously wrapping itself around hers. "What are you talking about?"

"That means someone was here before us?" Amara turned to her left to see Althea and Elend there, the former having asked the question. "That makes no sense, every single ship that came here ended up crashing and washing up ashore somewhere nearby."

"Well, I'm sure not everyone was on the ship when that happened, though." The Doctor said, but Elend shook his head. "No, you don't get it, every ship that washed ashore, it had the entire crew's bodies in it."

"And that didn't strike anyone as strange?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Anyway, whatever the situation is, that would mean this isn't the first time the island's sinking."

"I'm sorry, what?" Amara's eyes widened, her voice rising by an octave.

"Yeah, Althea and I found out that the island's slowly sinking. We don't know how exactly, but the whole spinning around thing is just accelerating the process."

"But that doesn't make sense- how can an island sink?" Elend asked.

"And how can we not be the first?" Althea frowned at him.

"The bigger and more important question right now probably is, 'Where is the TARDIS and how can we find it and get out of here as soon as possible?'," Amara said, starting to walk in the direction they came in.

"Not really, you already claimed to know where you ship wasn, didn't you?" Elend raised an eyebrow, and Amara shook her head. "Yeah, well, that's the biggest question that's gonna be answered now. We need to get out of here, and we need to do it fast."

"But what if we find out there's something sinister underneath and is probably preventing us from getting to the TARDIS? Then we'll have to find out what's going on here one way or another." Elend countered, and Amara rolled her eyes.

"Well, that would just mean we need to be faster and get out of here as soon as possible." She shrugged, and turned to the Doctor. "Right, Doctor?"

He shrugged. "I hate to say it, but she's right." He turned back to Amara. "Do you happen to know which way the TARDIS is?"

She pointed to the direction he came from. "If my calculations are right, that way. Plus, those rocks over there are identical to the ones I saw when we started climbing the cliffs when we came here."

The four of them started to walk towards the TARDIS, and everything seemed to be going alright until Elend gasped, tripped, and fell. Amara and the Doctor, who were taking the lead, ran back to see what had happened to him. He was sitting in the sand, clutching his ankle and complaining.

"Are you alright?" Amara asked, kneeling down beside him. Elend scowled at her. "No, I'm not, this is the most pain I've ever been in in my entire life!"

"Oh, for God's sake, Elend, stop being so bloody dramatic!" Althea rolled her eyes. "You tripped over a rock, you didn't get impaled by a sword or something."

"Ah, whatever he tripped over isn't a rock." The Doctor murmured, and Amara looked past Elend at him. He was squatting over behind Elend, digging the ground with his screwdriver. He really seemed to have found other uses for it.

Elend turned around, still holding onto his ankle gingerly while Althea walked over to him and bent down to see what he was scanning. "What is it, then?"

"There's an electrical impulse coming from here," The Doctor murmured, placing his screwdriver into the patch of sand Elend had tripped over. He pulled his screwdriver up again, letting out a satisfied "Aha!" as the sand slipped off the screwdriver and whatever it was pulling to reveal-

"Wires." Elend said, "Why are there wires in the soil?"

"They could've been dropped by the people who came here?" Altea guessed.

The Doctor fiddled with the wires before shaking his head. "No, then they wouldn't have an active electrical impulse." He turned to them. "The wires are connected to the island."

"What, like it's automated or something?" Elend frowned. "So the spinning part was just someone controlling everything? Or part of a code or something?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Could be, yeah. Can't be completely sure, though."

"Does this mean the island's still sinking?" Amara interrupted their conversation, and they all turned to her.

"Well, seeing that we've just discovered the wires and changed close to nothing, I'd say yeah." The Doctor tilted his chin and shrugged.

"So this changes absolutely nothing about our situation, then." Amara stood up, dusting the sand off her clothes. She turned around and started walking when the Doctor called her. "Wait- where are you going?"

She turned around and raised her eyebrows. "The TARDIS. Obviously."

"What, after all this?" He gestured to the wires. "The island's automated, don't you want to find out why? Or how?"

"Why would I want to do that?" She frowned. "None of that changes the fact that the island's gonna sink, and I want to be as far away from it at that time."

"But- a robotic island!" Elend said, and the Doctor pointed to him, giving her an 'I told you so' expression. "One disguised as Atlantis, that too! And it's been attracting researchers and giving itself a mysterious persona! An island nobody returns from!"

"The research potential that could be here, an automated island, that would be a technological marvel, all underneath the ocean…" Althea said excitedly, and Amara rolled her eyes.

"Did I fail to mention that the island is sinking? Like actually going into the water? Where we can't breathe? And most definitely will die?"

"If we find what's causing all this, we could stop that from happening." The Doctor shrugged.

"If you find it, that's a big 'if'." Amara put her hands on her hips. "I'd rather take the route that's more certain."

At that moment, the ground started to shake and Amara stumbled to the side. She tried to regain balance, when she saw the Doctor stand up and try to reach her, his hand outstretched. She tried to grab onto him as it started again, but unfortunately, she was too late.


The Doctor ran a hand through his hair after he kicked a rock on the side of the sloping hills at the end of the beach (he was also in incredible pain because of that, but he tried his best to keep that specific fact away from Althea and Elend). The second time. He'd lost her for the second time. On the same day. And she was alone. On an island that was going to sink any minute. He really was the most useless kind-of-but-not-yet boyfriend a person could ever have.

However, the rock pushed through into the ground, and the hill in front of him split. And revealed a bloody passage that was extremely dark.

"Bloody hell…" Elend murmured as Althea set her backpack down and started digging through it again. The Doctor frowned and leaned his head into it, blinking as he tried to adjust to the darker environment. However, he didn't need to do that for long because of Althea shining down an extremely bright torch inside, the white light illuminating a set of dusty stairs in a room full of walls that looked like they were made of metal.

"That is wicked." Elend murmured, leaning against the doorway, his left foot suspended upwards thanks to the whole ankle-twisting incident that had happened earlier.

"I know, right?" Althea grinned at him, and turned to the Doctor. He scratched his head and stared into the passage and turned to them, shrugging. Despite the fact that Amara was gone, again, and could possibly be in danger of drowning, again, he had to admit- a secret passage inside a hill on an island that was sinking because of it possibly being automated really made his itch to know the answer become worse. And, there was a tiny chance he could control the island from inside if there happened to be a control room of some sort and save everyone.

"Has potential." He said, and Althea rolled her eyes. "You're just downplaying your excitement, like come on," She gestured to the inside of the passage, "That's got to make you excited."

He shrugged again, "Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. Anyway, there's a chance we can control the island from here, so I say there's a chance of finding something useful inside."


Out of all the horrible things that had happened so far, the most shocking thing to Amara was the fact that she hadn't died of an anxiety attack yet. Her heart was pounding, the lump in her throat was becoming more pronounced, and she was positive her nails were going to cause some sort of damage to her arms. She really should've cut them earlier at some point.

She breathed heavily, trying to keep the tears at bay as she bent over, trying to ignore the fact that the waves were definitely higher than they had been before. The island was going to sink. Fast. It was probably one spin away from going under. Or not. Or maybe it was, who could tell? She knew better than to assume that it wasn't, because then at least she could be prepared for the worst.

She was alone, on an island she had no idea about which was sinking, she was separated from the Doctor again, and she was scared. Really scared. And the fact that her mind constantly kept reminding her of the fact didn't help matters at all. She knew it didn't help matters, but it was almost like her mind had a mind of its own. Which raised an interesting question. One that poked at the corners of her mind but one that was overshadowed by the huge red alert that was blaring through her.

Her vision started to become a little blurry, and she knew exactly what was happening. She groaned and blinked the tears away, feeling them trailing down her cheeks. She straightened up, closed her eyes, and shook her head. She was travelling with the bloody Doctor, of all people. And completely losing hope when being separated from him wasn't something any companion would do. And she wasn't going to either. Despite the fact that her brain was convinced she was going to drown unless she somehow miraculously jumped away. Which was unlikely but also likely in a way. She really didn't know the logistics of the whole thing, and she knew she wasn't going to figure it out in one day. No matter how much she wanted to. What she had to do was focus on the task at hand and not panic in the middle of it.

She took a deep breath, trying to reduce the pain the lump in her throat was inducing in her. She turned towards the side she was initially going towards before everything happened. And the solution started to come back to her. One that had always been there, but one she'd completely forgotten about because her brain decided to choose fear instead of logic. Again. She really had to work on that at some point.

She wiped off the slowly drying tears from her cheeks and continued to take deep breaths, forcing herself to think happy thoughts as she walked towards where she thought the TARDIS was.


Turns out the Doctor had been right about the whole passage thing. After a while of seemingly aimless walking through the metal walled corridors (and always turning left at every crossroad- or, well, crosspassage- a strategy Amara had quite literally drilled into his head), they entered a room. A control room, of sorts.

It had a huge console that was facing a metal wall. It was covered with buttons, levers, and other things of the sort- it was almost as insane as the TARDIS console room, but he knew for a fact that the TARDIS surpassed everything this island could ever be. There was a chair in front of the console, and on the wall the console was against were a multitude of huge screens.

"Is this the island's control room?" Althea wondered as she walked towards the console. Elend ran towards it and started inspecting the buttons immediately. "Oh my God, this is brilliant! The island actually has a control room! That means we could control the sinking from here."

"And save Amara." The Doctor murmured, walking towards the console and trying to figure out what each of the controls could mean. His eyes scanned over the console, his brain attempting to figure out how to stop the island from sinking. And every second he wasted meant a second closer to the horrible event. He hoped that Amara would find the TARDIS as well and do something. She was bloody brilliant, and he knew for a fact that she'd memorised the TARDIS instruction handbook pretty early on. He just didn't know when.

"Hold on- what does this red button do?" Althea called out from the side of the room. Elend and the Doctor turned to her as she pointed to a huge red button on the wall. It didn't have anything that indicated what it would do, but the Doctor assumed that it was quite important. In his experience, most red buttons did something important. He just hoped that this one did the right important thing.

"It could be the one that would stop the island from sinking." The Doctor shrugged.

"Or it could just speed the whole process up." Elend said, and the Doctor nodded. "That's a very likely possibility."

"So do we press it?" Althea raised an eyebrow.

The Doctor and Elend looked at one another. On one hand, it could be the command they were looking for. His initial survey of the console didn't really provide anything that could help, and the red button looked promising. But on the other hand, Elend could be right. It could very well lead to their doom. One could never tell with red buttons. They really needed to put signs about whether a specific red button was harmful or not.

"It could be helpful…" The Doctor said, and Elend continued. "It could also not be,"

"But we'll never know unless we press it." Althea said, "I've had enough of indecision today, and I say we press it." She slammed her hand onto it.


When Amara saw the TARDIS in the distance, she almost cried in relief. Her pace quickened, and she ran towards the doors that had the words 'Pull to Open' printed on them.

She pulled out her necklace from underneath her shirt, separating the locket shaped like an 'A' from the TARDIS key, which she inserted into the keyhole, smiling as the doors opened with a wonderful creak, revealing the warm and inviting console room.

She ran inside and up the stairs towards the console, barely hearing the doors close behind her. She ran around the console, frantically pulling the monitor towards her and then looking around for the instruction manual, her fear slowly increasing as she couldn't find it.

She looked up at the time rotors, hoping that the TARDIS would help her. "I need the manual," She said, looking around in case it would magically appear out of nowhere. She placed her hands on the console, feeling the familiar warmth course through her. She ran her hand across it, when she noticed something. Something that could help her big-time.


The moment Althea pressed the button, the biggest screen in front of the console lit up, the desktop being blue in colour, and the word 'Congratulations!' written on it in yellow.

"Congratulations, Doctor, Althea, and Elend!" An automated voice sounded from the room. The Doctor's head snapped up immediately, a frown etching itself on his face.

"What the-"

"How does it know our names?"

"You've cleared the main challenges this island has posed on you. You display the qualities of an ideal solver of these puzzles. Brave, clever, and willing to take risks. I'm Gus, the person in charge of this challenge."

"Challenge?!" Althea exclaimed. "Like this whole thing was a bloody game?"

"You've managed to pass all the tests put in your way and have done so exceedingly well."

"Hold on- what about Amara? Where is she?" The Doctor demanded, his eyes narrowing. "What have you done to her?"

Gus, however, ignored the Doctor and continued with their speech. "However, it is my deepest regret to inform you that only one of you gets out of this alive."

"I'm sorry- what?" Althea asked, and the Doctor turned to the screen, which had shut down.

"What did he mean, only one of us is gonna survive?!" Elend exclaimed, walking around the room and running a hand through his hair.

"And what happened to Amara?" The Doctor murmured, going towards the screen. He pulled out his sonic, but put it back again. Damn thing didn't work on the island. Stupid Gus and his stupid challenges.

"And how do we get out?" Althea rushed towards the doorway, only for the doors to slam shut right in front of her. "That's it. We're doomed." She concluded, coming inside the room as the ground shook again.

"Oh my God-'' Elend pointed to the doorway. The Doctor turned around, his eyes widening as he saw that water was seeping inside underneath the door. Fast.

"The island's sinking." He realised in horror, as the water quickly covered the floor and started increasing in level.

"We should've just gone to your ship and not cared about the wires." Althea said, climbing onto the chair as Elend did the same with the console. "I am regretting the whole curiosity thing."

"Don't, it would've never led to us finding this, would it?" The Doctor murmured, looking around the room to see if there was any escape route of some sort. The water level was slowly rising, and they had to get out of there. Fast.

He could hear the water crashing against the door outside, and it was quickly flooding inside. He could also hear something that made him want to whoop in relief. She'd done it. She was alive. And she had the TARDIS.


They'd dropped off Althea and Elend back in Florida, where they both said they had to go to tell everyone what they'd found out. And after that, the Doctor had taken the two of them to a random place in the middle of deep space, and suggested they both go and take a shower- a suggestion Amara immediately agreed with.

She'd come back to the console room, donning fresh clothes that were much more comfortable, when the Doctor looked up from his monitor and pulled her into a long hug that she gladly returned.

"I'm sorry." He said after he pulled away. He turned to the monitor and ran a hand through his hair, avoiding her gaze. "I put you in danger, I broke my promise, and almost lost you. Twice."

She frowned and walked towards him, wrapping him in another hug. "Yeah, you did all of that stupid stuff, but to be fair, things go wrong about ninety per cent of the time."

He wrapped his arms around her, burying his head in her neck. "But I could've lost you."

"You didn't."

"And I insisted that we go look for clues about the whole wire thing when I should've just listened to you."

"Can't argue with that." She said, pulling away and shrugging. "But you had a hunch. And probably didn't have much choice after that anyway." She hated holding grudges against people, and she wasn't going to hold one against the Doctor. Especially about something that was the most him and something she wasn't even angry about in the first place. However, she was curious about one thing.

"What happened down there?" She asked him. He looked at her and shrugged. "The whole island thing was just a test. Or a challenge, or something."

Amara frowned. "I'm sorry?"

He nodded. "Yeah. We got hit with an automated voice there. Called itself 'Gus', and said that we'd passed the test. Well, by 'we', it meant Althea, Elend, and myself. And then it said that only one of us could survive and started flooding the room with water."

Amara's frown deepened. "Did you say 'Gus'?"

He nodded, and she blinked. 'Gus'. That was familiar, she remembered there was someone called Gus in the show. A villain the Doctor hadn't really "defeated". She shook her head and tried to remember it, when it came to her. Mummy on the Orient Express. That was when Gus had made an appearance.

"Mara?" She jumped and turned to the Doctor, who was looking at her, his eyebrows furrowed in concern. "You just, sort of zoned out for a moment."

She shook her head. "No, yeah, I'm fine. It's just that, well, Gus is a bit familiar?"

"Familiar how?"

"Familiar as in you meet them some time in the future."

He frowned at her. "Why did I face him now, then?"

She shrugged. "I'm not sure how the timeline works, but I don't think it'll affect what happens then. Or at least, I hope not. Unless- well," She shrugged, "Logically, I don't think there'll be much of a difference since Gus makes an appearance only at the end and you don't seem to know much about them-"

"Mara-" She felt a hand squeeze hers, and turned to the Doctor, who was giving her a reassuring smile. "It's going to be alright."

"You don't know that."

"On the contrary, I've seen versions of you from the future, which is enough evidence that I do know that and I know that everything turns out okay in some way or another. Trust me?"

She swallowed, staring into his eyes for a few moments before turning her hand and holding onto his. "Yeah." She whispered, and he grinned. She found it hard not to smile back.