Authors notes: About time I got back to this one.
Chapter 8
Amy wandered the labyrinth like interior of the TARDIS. But she felt like she was just becoming hopelessly lost. She was sure she'd taken fifteen left turns and somehow, despite not moving up or down she hadn't crossed a route she'd appeared in before.
She put her hand on one wall and followed it, like one might do to get out of a maze. Surely she'd come across the console room sooner or later. But after hours of wandering she didn't spot anything familiar.
Amy was beginning to despair. She might never get out of this place. She was so hungry and thirsty. Suddenly something popped into existence in front of her. A console of some sort with a clipboard on it. Maybe this could help her find her way back!
Looking at the clipboard her hopes both dropped and rose. It gave a list of codes, but they weren't directions to get back to the control room. Instead it was for food. Bacon, Eggs, chocolate, coffee, custard, fish fingers, the list just went on and on. She laughed when she spotted chilli-dogs on the list, then delight at the sight of strawberry-shortcake.
Amy licked her lips and inputted the code into the machine for strawberry-shortcake. The machine made a lot of ugly sounding mechanical noises and a tray appeared in the opening in the middle of the machine. A bar in a silver wrapper fell into the tray.
Disappointed, Amy picked it up and examined it. It was only the size of her finger. Unwrapping it she saw an unappetising bar. With her stomach growling she decided to try it. After one bite she crammed the whole bar into her mouth. It tasted exactly like strawberry-shortcake, the most delicious strawberry-shortcake she'd ever tasted. It was so tasty she had to have another. When she ordered a third however she found she just didn't want to eat it. Despite only eating two small bars Amy actually felt full.
She'd looked back for a brief second, but when she turned around the corridor ahead of her had altered. There was a new door where there wasn't one. Going through it brought her to some kind of laboratory. Beakers and test-tubes lined the benches. Some of this chemistry set was already turning and bubbling away. Pipes entered and left certain machines. It produced a loud ding noise and a hatch opened up revealing a tube of dark blue liquid. Amy took the liquid.
"What am I supposed to do with this? Drink it?" Amy asked. She un-capped it and sniffed. She instantly capped it again. It smelt of industrial strength nail-varnish remover. "Listen, do you want me to do something?" Amy called to the ceiling. "Can't you just tell me instead of pretending to be the Backrooms of reality?!"
A screen in the wall parted revealing a glowing wall of pink molten... something. The TARDIS shuddered like something had slammed into it. Three reddish slits appeared on the screen and formed into what looked like a face. Two eyes and a mouth that looked in at her with utter relish and cruelty in its intention. Amy knew that wasn't the TARDIS making that face. It was something on the outside that wanted in.
"Actually, send me back to the Backrooms, please." Amy said.
They'd slept in their shelter. They'd woken up early, or what felt like it was early. Sonic had checked his watch, it had glow in the dark arms so he could see the hands. They'd slept for at least eight hours. Or tried to while under the bombardment of that howling storm and the light from outside. It had been light for hours. It had woken Sonic up after only a few hours of sleep. Wherever this place was it had very short nights.
Despite that, they were going to wait until the storm ended, but ended up falling asleep again. They had to curl up and put their hands over their noses because a very fine dust was being dumped down into the building. It was so fine that breathing it in just made you cough, so Sonic and Tails did their best to stop it going up their noses as they slept.
When they finally awoke it was to dry, silent air. The storm had rolled on and now light shone down the stairway they had come down.
Sonic shook himself down, he was covered in this very fine dust. As he brushed it off he began to cough as some of it went into his lungs. This woke Tails, who also brushed himself down and suffered through the coughing fit afterwards.
Finally, they ascended the stairs and emerged into the dry atmosphere of... whatever planet this was called.
Sonic inspected the horizon as Tails wandered off to look at something. Sonic was looking for any sigh of a blue box against the yellow and orange backdrop. But there was nothing he could see.
"Hey Sonic, look at these." Tails announced.
"What did you find, buddy?" Sonic asked approaching his younger friend. The fox pointed at the walls, where long streams of some weird goo decorated the walls of the building.
"It's the same stuff that was in your shoe, I'm certain of it. And I think I know what it is." Tails said. He knelt down and picked up a few sand grains from the ground. He then smelt them before pressing them to his tongue. "This doesn't smell, nor taste like sand."
"I didn't know sand had a taste." Sonic said.
"I've smelt and tasted this before." Tails announced, "At a plastics factory. I don't think we're in a desert covered in sand, not entirely. These are very fine grains of plastic. That's why they melt so easily and form these globs of clear, brittle stuff."
"So we're in one large garbage dump?" Sonic said looking around at the beautiful landscape which now didn't appear to be all that beautiful. Still no sign of the TARDIS. "This is all well and good Tails, but it doesn't answer the big question." Sonic turned to his younger companion. "Like, why were you tasting plastic in a plastic factory."
"I wasn't." Tails said defensively, Sonic subtly laughed as Tails said. "Have you ever been in a plastics factory? You can taste the plastic on the air." Sonic looked away, smirking. Tails could be so easy sometimes. The hedgehog now looked out to the horizon.
"Still, it doesn't help us find the TARDIS."
"I've thought of that." Tails said, "I thought maybe I could rig up a chronotron detector again and trace the TARDIS' signature that way."
"And the reason you haven't done that?" Sonic asked.
"I don't have access to any tools." Tails added sheepishly.
Sonic rolled his dry tongue in his mouth. "I think first order of business is to find something to drink.
"Where? There is no water, there is no moisture." You even dug under the sand yesterday and found nothing.
"Sorry I brought it up." Sonic said, still calm.
"Sonic, did you find any sign of water WHILE YOU WERE OUT THERE!" Tails started shouted, a loud noise had surrounded them.
"NO, AND I RAN FOR LIKE A HUNDERED MILES." Sonic shouted back.
"HOW ARE WE GOING TO GET OUT OF THIS MESS?" Tails shouted, sounding hopeless.
"HEY, CAN I ASK A QUESTION?"
"YEAH" Tails said.
"WHY ARE WE SHOUTING?" The penny finally dropped and the two looked to the sky searching for the source of the loud whine they could hear. Something was coming down slowly and gently. It looked like a giant orb of some sort. It settled down very close to them, kicking up dust as it descended. It landed and settled itself down. The loud whine of it's engines finally stopped.
Sonic motioned for Tails to stay back as he approached the orb. They both knew that sometimes when meeting new creatures they weren't always friendly.
A hatch appeared in the orb and it slowly descended down into a ramp.
A figure stood there in armour. He descended the stairs, his foot falls almost hit with military precision. It looked like a knight of some sort. Only this knight wore a domed helmet with two slits in it, and his hands gloved hands only had three fingers and they held a long pole. He was flanked by two other similar looking soldiers and together they descended the ramp. Sonic and Tails realised another feature. The creatures were only a head taller than them. So by human standards they were short, and more than that, Tails swore they were exactly the same size.
The three ignored the Mobians as the lead knight planted the pole in the soil and a flag unfurled from it showing a round symbol.
"I, field commander Scrall" he spoke in a gravelly voice, "of the eighteenth battle fleet, claim this plant for the glory of the fourth Sontaran Empire!"
To Be Continued...
Authors notes: A bit short I know. I've just come back from a long hiatus so I need to get back into the swing of things. Thanks for being so patient guys.