Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who.
Chapter 1: One Heck of a Year
Leah Thomas stared out the passenger side window, watching the blur of the snowy landscape outside. The sky had already gone dark a half hour ago, and only the lights of the vehicle and the streetlamps lining the street illuminated her surroundings.
2020, mused Leah, letting her eyes wander. Talk about a total suckfest.
Faintly, the girl could hear the soft hum of "Smooth Criminal" playing in the background, and she absentmindedly drummed her fingers on her thigh to the beat of the song. It wasn't her favorite song by Michael Jackson. In fact, she much preferred "Bad" over "Smooth Criminal," but she still liked it nonetheless.
"So, everyone knows the plan?"
A barely audible yes was came from the back of the vehicle, and her mother briefly glanced in the backseat before her eyes shot back to the street. When her dark blue eyes glanced at Leah a moment later, asking her silent daughter the question again, Leah tried to look serious.
"Sorry. Lost all my memories about five minutes ago," said Leah. "Memory loss. It runs in the family." She raised her finger to her chin in fake contemplation, tilting her head slightly to the side. "Or does it? I simply can't remember."
Leah heard a small giggle from the backseat, mentally cheering for half a second.
"Who are you again, ma'am?" Gesturing her arms wildly, she asked, "For that matter, who am I?"
Leah finished dramatically with a playful smirk in her mother's direction. The girl's mischievous eyes flickered with humor, waiting for her mother, whose attention was currently facing the slightly snow-covered road ahead of their vehicle in concentration, to react. In the back, there was a loud chortle, and Leah considered her performance a success.
Her mother didn't even have to turn her head. "Apparently, my mentally challenged and hearing-impaired adult child is what you are," deadpanned the older woman, rolling her eyes at her daughter's antics.
"What? You mean to tell me I'm not the Queen of England? I want a refund."
"It's too late to return you now. Heaven knows I've tried." Leah's mother side-eyed her daughter, though the corners of her lips were turned upwards. "Why did I get stuck with a smartass for a daughter again?"
Leah batted both her eyes. "I get it from my mommy." She shot finger guns at her mother for the full effect.
Behind the two women's seats came a burst of poorly concealed snickering. Leah and her mother shared a smile, knowing that they had momentarily amused their nearly noiseless third passenger.
Sooner than not though, the snickering ceased, leaving only her mother's unanswered question hanging in the air.
Leah lowered her arms and turned fully towards her mother, pushing her glasses up her nose for the thousandth time and sobering up, the pensive atmosphere in the vehicle gradually returning.
"No, but seriously," she said. "This is a woman who understands the plan." Her mother gave Leah a look that seemed to say are-you-really-being-serious-right-now-or-just-messing-with-me?
It was scary how well Leah could understand her mother. The two of them didn't even need to speak half the time to know what the other meant. This was one of those times.
Just the same, Leah was going to answer aloud.
"Really. I got it."
"Good," said her mother, nodding as well, the lighthearted atmosphere from before now completely gone. The woman gripped the steering wheel tight. "If all goes as planned, this should be the last trip we have to make. Then, it's off to the airport for us. We'll never have to go back to that...place again."
No one else in the vehicle spoke. While her mother paid attention to the road, Leah's eyes briefly darted back to the snowy landscape outside her window, counting a couple more of the drifting snowflakes in the air, before silently sliding to the young woman in the backseat behind her mother.
Eve Thomas fidgeted with her hands, looking up anxiously at the starlit sky. Her voluminous dark brown hair cascaded down her back and shoulders in small, kinky waves. She had a couple of longer strands that framed her face nicely, and the dark color of her hair did wonders for her spotless complexion.
As if she could feel someone watching her, Eve's head turned towards Leah. Her dark blue eyes, eyes that mirrored their mother's eyes exactly, rested on her sister's face.
She really does have beautiful eyes, Leah thought.
She wished her own shared their color, instead of his. Anyone in their right mind could tell that Eve was a gorgeous woman.
Unfortunately, she looked nothing like her sister.
After spending nearly two decades with her, Leah was one of the few who could say she knew Eve well. Firstly, because they were twins, and as she was her twin, Leah knew Eve's tells. She knew that her sister wasn't just gazing at the stars for their beauty. Waves of stress were rolling off of the young woman.
She must be nervous, thought Leah. I wouldn't blame her.
Giving her sister a little wave, Leah watched as Eve returned her wave with a tiny smile before looking back out the window, one of her hands fidgeting with the end of her violet coat sleeve. Her dark blue orbs continued to scan the sky above anxiously.
Leah softly sighed and returned to looking out the passenger side window herself, although her eyes kept to the winter scenery outside. Staring at the seemingly endless landscape of snow, she noticed she had a couple of smudge marks on her glasses.
I just cleaned these before we left, she thought. How are they dirty already?
Absentmindedly, she twisted one of her rings, her thoughts drifting to their current situation.
2020 had started relatively normal for the Thomas family. At the beginning of the year, they finally finished moving into their new townhouse on the outskirts of the city of Springfield. The house was in a safe neighborhood, their neighbors were quiet, and the landlord, much to their surprise, wasn't sketchy. It was perfect for the family of three.
Too perfect, it seemed.
The month after she and Eve both graduated a semester early from high school was a complete blur. Between studying for finals, finishing any additional paperwork for college, and preparing to move out and live independently, the girls had stuffed their schedules to the brim with activities to accomplish before being separated.
Their mother had planned on all of them taking one last trip as a family before the twins would go their separate ways in the fall. The girls had committed to different colleges several states apart, and the trip they had planned would've been the last in a while that they could have together.
Leah had thought the worst 2020 would bring was the murder hornets in January. After all, what could be worse then finding out hornets that could kill you live only a couple states away?
Then came COVID-19.
Obviously, their trip had been cancelled. But as unfortunate as the pandemic was, at least one good thing came from the lockdowns that followed.
Eve and Leah got to stay together for a little bit longer.
Since pretty much everywhere was on a lockdown for the pandemic, both their college's classes were online, meaning that they would be indirectly going to college together.
However, the more the family stayed inside the townhouse, the more they started to notice some oddities. On occasion, the house would get very cold out of the blue, and all three women in the house swore that they saw shadows—shadows in the shape of a person. Each woman wondered if they were imagining things.
It wasn't until Eve brought it up one night that they discovered they were all seeing the same entity.
Ghosts may have made some people scoff in disbelief or tremble in terror, but not the Thomas family. Specifically, Eve and Leah's mother, and her side of the family, had encountered ghosts before.
They didn't advertise it to most people for obvious reasons.
After all, Leah thought, who would believe us anyways?
They had confronted the ghost one night. None of them could see it physically, but the women could feel its presence when the living room grew unbelievably chilly. Working together, the Thomas family demanded that the ghost leave their home and never return. As long as the phrase was said with confidence and sincerity, ghosts would typically disappear.
They never saw that particular entity again.
It was too bad the peace wasn't meant to last.
Now, Eve and Leah had opposite personalities, and that sometimes meant that they didn't get along. Leah was a sci-fi geek, like her mother, who preferred to act like herself, and to not blindly follow what everyone else did. Understandably, this didn't win her the title of Miss Popularity with her peers.
Eve, on the other hand, was more into the latest trends, be it fashion or social, and wanted to have a large social circle. Their differing interests drove each other mad and made it difficult to be friends with even each other.
Yet, no matter how much they couldn't stand each other sometimes, they were all each other had. There was an unbreakable bond between the two sisters, one that Leah was convinced could not be broken by anyone or anything.
So, when Eve's behavior radically changed, Leah had immediately grown suspicious.
By then, they were about a week into September. Eve began to lie often and made reckless decisions daily, which was odd for her. Leaving the house to go to work when she didn't have a scheduled shift? No one liked their job that much, especially when the said job was at a grocery store with a boss who was an absolute control freak with an authority complex.
Later, she and her mother discovered Eve was trying to get certain types of...attention...from boys online. Technically, it was Eve's decision, so Leah and her mother couldn't interfere, but when one of her admirers started to stalk Eve at her work, they stopped her from meeting the strangers who had been attempting to sweet-talk her into doing dubious activities.
The weird part was that Eve swore she didn't know why she was so driven to get together with someone. According to her, she wanted nothing more than to stay home and remain single for the rest of her life.
It was as if her teenaged hormones were controlling her actions.
Despite staying inside their home after their family confrontation, mysterious bruising appeared on her sister's skin. In secret, Leah and her mother noted that Eve also had dark bags under her eyes like she hadn't been able to sleep. Many nights, Eve was restless.
Leah, who had her own room right next to Eve's, never knew what was going on inside Eve's room as she had respected her twin's much-wanted privacy. Her sister's door was always closed at night. Even though Leah was always up until the late hours of the night, she typically saw and heard nothing out of the ordinary.
I should have realized sooner, thought Leah. We could have stopped them so much earlier.
She remembered when Eve broke down and finally told them what was going on. That she didn't dream anymore, that she couldn't sleep.
That she saw eyes watching her in the dead of night.
The vehicle stopped, the engine dying as Leah's mother took the key out of the ignition, drawing Leah out of her thoughts. They had arrived at the townhouse, or as Leah called it, The House of Horrors.
Their mother slammed the driver side door and began walking towards the shadowed building. Eve followed closely behind her, being sure to keep herself within the reach of her guardian. Leah hung back for a moment longer. Before exiting herself, Leah mentally checked to make sure she had everything.
Phone? She patted her pockets. Check. Clove? Her fingers grazed her pocketknife. Check. IPod? Leah looked at the cupholder and grabbed it, placing it with her phone.
Hurriedly getting out of the vehicle, she caught up to her family just as they opened the front door, readjusting her winter coat tightly against herself.
This is it.
It was eerily silent inside the house, their footsteps making the only noise as they stepped on the hardwood floors. Leah's eyes ran over the empty living room and the kitchen as she passed them, looking for any danger. Not seeing any herself, she watched the back of her sister's head.
xxxxx
"I can see them!" sobbed Eve. She was in her mother's arms, trembling from head to toe as her mother stroked her hair. "I can see them watching me when I go to bed!" Leah and her mother shared a questioning look between themselves.
"What can you see, my dear?" her mother tried gently. Leah watched the scene quietly, holding a box of tissues at the ready.
"I don't know!" she sniffled. "Just, like, their outline, and...so-sometimes their eyes."
"You mean...like their aura?" Leah asked delicately. Eve shakily nodded, refusing to leave her mother's comforting embrace.
Leah whispered in her mother's ear. "Do you think they could be a different type of ghost?"
"Not sure," replied her mother, still stroking Eve's hair. "If they are, I've never encountered any like them before. Their behavior doesn't fit." Her face hardened in concentration. "I've never heard of a ghost able to leave marks on someone's skin before."
"But if they're not ghosts, then what are they?"
xxxxx
Leah shook her head at the memory. It was just under three months ago that Eve had told them about her "visitors." They had immediately moved Eve into their mother's room for her own protection. Clearly, whatever was tormenting Eve wasn't likely human.
Leah had a theory as to what the "visitors" were, but she couldn't prove it. It didn't matter though.
Whatever kind of creatures they were, they had frightened and harmed her sister.
Those creatures were never going to get their hands on Eve again. Leah was going to make sure of it.
The three women halted in front of the only closed door in the house—Eve's room. Now that they stopped walking, the house was completely silent. For once, not even the heater or refrigerator were running in the background.
Like the quiet before the storm, Leah thought to herself. She glanced at her sister and then around her surroundings, leaving no area unchecked. It's too quiet. I don't like this.
A mix of dread and foreboding filled her, but Leah pushed it aside. As far as she could tell, there was nothing there.
Yet.
"Are we ready?"
Eve inhaled shakily, looking like she'd rather be anywhere else but there. Noticing this, Leah's hand found her sister's and squeezed it in reassurance.
"You don't have to do this, you know," Leah told her sister. "You could stay in the car. Mom and I can handle this." Leah bumped her hip against Eve's, causing the anxious twin to crack the smallest of smiles. "We're tough girls." She waited for her sister's response, and after a moment, Eve shook her head.
"No. I...I want to do this," she breathed out, looking first at Leah and then turning towards their mother. "It'll go faster if I help you two."
"Alright, as long as that's what you want," replied Leah, softly smiling at her sister to reassure her and squeezing her hand again. This time, Eve squeezed back.
Their mother nodded, her hand turning the knob of the door.
"Let's get what we need."
The door opened, revealing Eve's room. A thin layer of dust coated the surface of her nightstand where her earring tree stood. The blinds on the window were open, and the bed was made, the teal blue and green comforter resting on top of the sheets. Most of her possessions were still in boxes.
Quickly, the three women got to work. Eve grabbed the small stack of books that she owned and placed them inside one of the many boxes on the floor. Leah and her mother took the sheets off the bed, packing them away. Clothes were removed from the closet and placed in the hallway outside the room. As far as packing went, the trio were very efficient.
Leah had just gone to move her sister's earring tree from her nightstand when she felt it. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, and she shuddered at the chilling cold sensation. It was as if someone had poured freezing ice water down her back, which was impossible.
Leah was still wearing her winter jacket.
Immediately, she was alert, her right hand diving into her pocket to grab her knife, and her eyes scanning the room. I don't see anything, thought Leah, but something's off.
In an instant, the room temperature dropped dramatically, to the point where Leah could see her own breath. It reminded her of when they had their first meeting with their apparent visitors. A bolt of panic hit her.
Where's Eve?
She whirled around, eyes desperately searching the room for her sister.
Eve was by the end of her bed in the middle of the room, shaking, and gripping a box so hard that her knuckles were white. However, that wasn't what caught Leah's attention.
A portal, an actual physical portal that Leah could see, had somehow appeared in the room. It looked like it came straight out of a sci-fi film, with swirling strands of blue and purple floating clockwise in a semi-hypnotic pattern. Roughly, it was the size of a doorway if a doorway was circular, though where the portal should have met the ground, it instead hovered by a few inches. The point where it started and ended wasn't clear, yet the portal continued to spin endlessly.
It was mesmerizing. Had it not been particularly threatening, Leah might have taken the time to admire it.
She couldn't though.
The portal was only a couple of feet from her twin.
"Eve!"
Leah could hear her mother running towards the room from the hallway, towards Eve, but she was too far away, halfway in the living room where she had been taking the boxes. She'd never reach Eve in time.
But Leah was half that distance away. She could make that distance.
Before she even finished the thought, Leah's feet moved on their own accord, rushing towards her frozen sister, the earring tree she held in her hand landing harshly on the ground, long forgotten.
Everything seemed to slow down around her as she got closer to Eve. She couldn't hear her mother's shouts or her sister's whimpering.
All that mattered to Leah was getting Eve away from that portal.
She could feel the impact as her body rammed into Eve's. Her arms shot out, effectively shoving her sister towards the door, towards their mother, towards safety. Eve landed on top of the box she was holding, groaning in pain, and breathing heavily, but Leah was relieved.
Eve was away from the portal. Eve was safe.
Her sister looked at Leah. Their eyes locked, and they stared at one another for a few seconds, Leah slowly smiling at her.
But a few seconds was all the creatures needed.
An unseen force grabbed Leah's arms, roughly pulling her backwards into the portal before she could resist.
As Leah fell through the portal, it flashed a radiant gold before returning to its normal colors, the barest hint of gold lingering around its edges. Seconds later, it closed, sealing itself permanently.
The house grew still, the heavy breathing of the two remaining women echoing against the walls. Eve's mother had her arms tightly wrapped around Eve's still form, watching the place where the portal once was, and where she last saw her other daughter. Distantly, the refrigerator dully started running in the background. Life in the house seemed to return to its normal functions.
The older woman was silent in shock, her grip electric around her daughter whose eyes rested on the ground not too far from where the portal had been.
And then Eve started to scream.
There, a lone pair of glasses, lenses slightly cracked, lied on the floor, as the last remaining evidence of Leah's existence.
Author's Note:
Hey everybody! Thanks for reading my first fanfiction. My first chapter is a little rough, but I swear the next chapters get infinitely better.
Comments and feedback are more than welcome! :)
~Miss Moira