If you were to look inside the apartment of Aydin Hansen on any random day, chances are you would see a strange figure hunched over a desk, tinkering on something or other. They would be typing away at a keyboard, programming some ... program, or maybe they would be assembling some invention that had sprung up in the forefront of their mind. There is one sure fact though, if you were to look into Aydin Hansen's apartment, they would be working on something, no matter how important.
Aydin Hansen had a slight build, yet imposing aura. They had a curly mass of short, orange hair atop their head with buzzed sides. Their eyes were a dull brown, but contained a sparkle of excitement in them. They had wide enough shoulders, but their frame was still skinny. Another thing you may happen to notice was the ratio of muscle to fat. Aydin's body was mostly muscle, hardly a piece of fat in sight, and despite their constant desk work, they kept this ratio. One last thing you may notice was the angular, but soft features of their face, having a thin, but pleasant face. Their lips were thin and they had bags under their eyes.
All of this one might take in when looking into Aydin's flat, but why would you? Why would you bother spying on such a mundane, ordinary person? The answer of course is you wouldn't, but if someone were to look into Aydin's flat one fateful afternoon, this is what they would see.
-(0)-*
Aydin awoke with a start her, yes HER, head was painfully laying atop her cluttered desk. And her desk wasn't the only cluttered place in her flat. In fact, you could barely see the floor with all of the scrapped inventions and the many, many completed ones.
Aydin gave her head a small shake to clear it and glanced at the clock. "Blimey. A full hour of uninterrupted sleep? Wow, I must've been tired." She exclaimed noticing the time. She got up on her feet and stretched a little, popping her joints. She promptly sat down again at her desk and looked at the contraptions littering the surface. "Ooh... I like this one." She said to herself as she lifted up the strange machine. "A foreign energy detector. Oh, did I finish it last night? Wow that was quick. I bet UNIT has nothing on my detector thingy. Thingy? Really? I need a better name, blimey." She rambled on, but with nobody to listen. She ran her fingers through her hair a few times, while she inspected the machine. Suddenly, the device in her hand beeped. "Ooh. My detector thingy has detected something" she said, sticking with the original name. "Better find it then."
Aydin picked up a long white lab coat and threw it over her jeans and t-shirt, completely forgetting that she hadn't eaten in two days. She ran out the door walking against the flow of people on their way to work, and muttering to herself as she ran. The detector thingy was beeping faster as she got closer to her destination and soon it was beeping like mad. As soon as it hit that point, Aydin stopped and looked around the alley she was in for the energy she detected. All there was, was a broken down couch and a strange, vivid, blue police box.
Aydin didn't know why, but she wanted to touch the blue box. She felt /compelled / to touch it, as if it was asking her, whispering to her. It glowed softly, illuminating the alley in a calming blue light. It felt familiar to her in a strange way, as if it were calling her. "I really shouldn't touch it" she said, running a hand through her hair. "Ha ha nooo. I would never touch a strange object giving off foreign energy. Me? Never." She really tried. Ask her any day and she would tell you, but Aydin was a reaally curious person. "Just a little tap wouldn't hurt. Like a poke, but not a poke, a tap" she convinced herself. And she did. She lightly moved her hand towards the box, grazing her hand over the edge. Thing is, though she only tapped it lightly, she immediately regretted it.
A burning pain shot up Aydin's arm, travelling up into her mind. She doubled over and screamed, unable to take the agonizing pain spreading throughout her body. It was like lava in her veins, fire in her mind. It burned through her, changing her, destroying and replacing her. And it hurt. Oh yes, it hurt like getting burnt alive and baked and suffocated and bleeding out and so so much more. Aydin couldn't handle it. She wanted to end it, to be released from this agonizing existence.
And in an instant it stopped. Just ended. The pain, the agony just done. As quick as it started, it just ended. She uncurled herself and let out a choked sob, sliding down the brick wall, onto the alley floor. She quickly dried her tears and held her head in her hands, trying to forget the pain she just went through, trying to banish the panicked thoughts. "I-it's alright. Yes just perfect. All is well that ends well r-right? Everything is f-fine." She tried convincing herself. It was fruitless and Aydin soon began crying again, no matter how much she tried to stop.
A faint beeping could be heard from the detector thingy, and just like that Aydin's breakdown stopped. "Ooh what's that?" She wondered aloud to herself. "Maybe I shouldn't investigate that, I mean, I don't know what just happened, curiosity killed the cat and all that. I know" she lectured herself, chuckling at how much she probably looked like a psychopath right now. She ran a hand through her hair and stood up abruptly.
"What the absolute, ever loving, holy he-lot almighty fu-ndamentalists just happened?" She shouted, the situation just now reaching her. She pulled at her short hair in frustration. "Agh. I don't have a single clue. Wait." She stopped shouting suddenly. "I. Have. No. Clue. What just happened to me" she repeated. "T-that's amazing, muy bien, sehr gut, tres bien, molto bene, this is great. Exciting, intriguing, new, alluring, enthralling, simply fascinating. Must be what alien? Extra terrestrial? Not of Earth origin? Ooh maybe Unit's got a new creation. Maybe the UN." she was rambling now, but gave no f-rogs about it. Muttering to herself and shouting different theories. "No, no. Not UNIT or the UN. I've seen what they've got and even I'm ahead of them tech wise. Hmm. Must be extra terrestrial. Gotta be. Holy sh-ooting stars. Wow alien that's so amazing. I could sing."
The detector thingy beeped again and Aydin snapped her head to look at it. "Ooor, I could follow that signal and investigate what ever the hel-minthology just happened. Curiosity killed the cat, but it's a damn good thing I'm not a cat." She resolved, picking up the detector thingy and racing off towards the origin of the energy, not noticing the changes that had come about her.
It took only a few minutes to reach the site of the energy, a popular department store called Henrick's. "Hmm. Looks closed, but it doesn't hurt to try" Aydin shrugged and pulled the handle of the door, not expecting it to open. And it did open, with a loud creaking groan, only attainable with years of grime. She ducked inside and looked around the darkened store, expecting to see the manager or owner of the establishment. She didn't. The store seemed empty so Aydin took a moment to think aloud. "Okay. One story building. No one in here on this floor, but there's bound to be some storage cupboard here." She looked around the empty store until she found a still-lit lift. "Perfect" Aydin exclaimed and immediately took off towards the stairs. "There's still no way in hel-ot I'm going down the scrap metal death trap" she muttered glancing at the lift before racing down the stairs.
Down below the store was a bit brighter, though the lights flickered. Aydin could hear a voice near her. Young female by the sound of it.
"Winston? It's Rose. I've got your bag" the voice, Rose, shouted while shaking a plastic bag. A loud bang echoed from the storage room. "Hello? Is that someone mucking about?" Rose called into the room, before opening the door and looking inside. "Winston?" She called naively. "Is this a prank? Very funny. Is that you Derrick?" She shouted again. Aydin cringed at the volume, then noticed a dummy shifting it's head.
"Holy mother of all things! Shi-llings! Rose, right? I recommend backing up slowly. Oh yeah. Hello" Aydin called to the girl who's head snapped to look at her. Then, the dummies started surrounding the two girls, backing them into a piped wall. Aydin raised her fists defensively, sliding into an odd, natural martial arts stance. Suddenly, a man grabber Aydin's wrist and started pulling the two girls after him with a shout of "Run".
Although the contact was making her increasingly more uncomfortable as time passed, Aydin quickly noticed something wrong when holding the man's wrist. His heartbeat was fast, inhumanly fast, and it beat in an unnatural pattern. 'Oh my Lord. Strange double heartbeat and the fact that he was here, at the site of the strange energy. Is he? Omigod he is! An alien!' she thought frantically, coming to a sprastic conclusion. 'No wait. Stop. Don't just assume. Make some theories first.' she scolded herself as they ran into an lift, hardly noticing the man rip the arm of a dummy off. 'Okay. Theory one: he or it is an alien. Theory two: he works here with Rose. Theory three: he is human, but also detected energy like me.' Aydin thought, solidifying her theories. 'Much more reasonable'.
"Hello? Someone there?" He asked in a sarcastic northern accent.
"Hmm. What? Did you say something?" Aydin said rudely. The man looked offended and he scowled.
"I SAID what do you think? Think they are students too? Like her?" He said brashly, motioning at Rose. Aydin gave the man an incredulous look. Not one for social skills, Aydin answered quite rudely.
"Obviously not. You ripped off one of the fu-nding arms for gosh sakes. Plus, solid plastic that nobody could see through. Basing off that observation it clearly was sensing us in some way, and had little to no Intel on ordinary tasks, because it still hasn't used the lift call button. Also, they were obviously unfriendly and even malicious. Also also, it's nearly impossible to get so many students together, trust me I understand. Another thing, I'm assuming that mannequins were chosen because they were inconspicuous. I mean, clearly one small department store isn't the target, so this must be wide spread. Plus, I made this detector thingy that detects things. Well by things I mean energy. Wellll... not energy, but foreign energy, like unearthly or new. Ooh. And it picked up a lovely signal on the roof of this building, which, since I didn't see electricals inside the dummy, I'm assuming has something to do with controlling them. I'm thinking remote control because the energy signature was machinery, but it could, of course originate in a sentient being. Oh would you look at that 'sentient being'. I haven't even solidified the extra terrestrial theory. Anyways, where was-" A hand clamped over Aydin's mouth as she began to continue.
"Shush ape" the man ordered. Rose looked a bit confused at the lengthy explanation, and the man looked a bit... put out? Aydin bit his hand lightly, forcing him to jerk away. "Man, you sure know how to talk. So shush now." He ordered again, clearly expecting her to be an obedient child.
"Well whoever they are" Rose began. "Wilson is going to call the police on them."
"Who's Wilson" the man asked. Aydin winced having some idea where Wilson may be.
"Chief electrician".
"Wilson is dead". There it was. The hard truth looking over them. This was not a joke, this was not a exploration anymore. A man had died. Rose looked absolutely horrified.
"This isn't funny. That's sick!" she shouts. She still thought it was some kind of prank. Aydin gave her a 'really' look as the man ran towards a door.
"Hold on. Mind your eyes" the man says as he points the metal device at the door. It sparks violently and opens.
"I've had enough of this now" Rose shouted. Aydin disagreed. She wanted to know what the hel-minthology was going on. "Who are you, then? Who's that lot down there? I said, who are they?" She demands. She still thinks they're people playing a joke.
"They're made of plastic. Living plastic creatures. Your friend here was pretty damn close." He said before giving Aydin an odd look. "They're being controlled by a relay device in the roof, which would be a great big problem if I didn't have this" he said as he held a small explosive in his hand. "So, I'm going to go up there and blow them up, and I might well die in the process, but don't worry about me. No, you go home. Go on. Go and have your lovely beans on toast. Don't tell anyone about this, because if you do, you'll get them killed" he told Rose and Aydin condescendingly. He started running off, but he suddenly opened the door. "I'm the Doctor by the way. Who are you two?" He asked grinning like a madman. Rose hesitates looking bewildered.
"Rose". She said, confused. Aydin just grinned, and equally insane grin and answered.
"Aydin, Aydin Hansen at your service" she said, still grinning.
"Well Rose, Aydin, RUN" he shouted before dashing inside and slamming the door. Aydin knew what was coming and grabbed Rose's wrist and ran, as fast as she could across the street from soon exploding Henrick's. When the reached the other side, Rose was wanting slightly, but they both looked up at the store. Not ten seconds later, a orange cloud of fire engulfed the store
[A.N.: It's been a while since I've read these stories, and I've had a ball. Feel free to hate or w/e, as I literally cannot read these without cringing. I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, however, so, if you really like the premise of a story here, you can use the idea, continue the story, or even ask for a continuation/rewrite. I will be glad to oblige, and then subsequently link the new story. Anyways, thanks for putting up with/reading my prepubescent ramblings masquerading as stories.]