"What the hell are you doing here?" someone asked him.
This was strange, Charlie realised, because it was a man's voice – not a bloodthirsty child.
As he ventured around with his fingers, he discovered that the ground felt different. It was no longer the damp, mossy forest – but a hard, gleaming white floor.
He finally looked up, and was met with the bright lights of some kind of spaceship or space station.
"Woah…" he muttered, dazed by the disorienting vision.
He tried to stand up, and was roughly pushed to the side of the corridor by one of the dozen men around him.
They were soldiers, judging by the heavy scales of armour and bulky guns.
Fortunately, they weren't aiming at him. But then, they seemed rather preoccupied, or they didn't consider him a threat.
They all wore a red and black military uniform, emblazoned with gold circular symbols.
Charlie was pressed up against the wall by a fierce looking man, with heavy lidded eyes and a shock of fair hair. He seemed to be a battle-hardened veteran, and appeared to be the only soldier without a helmet. Perhaps he held a higher rank than the others. Or perhaps he'd realised that helmets weren't going to make much difference.
There was a tremor, which would have knocked Charlie over again, if it weren't for the soldier grabbing him.
He hardly batted an eyelid, even though the spaceship they were on was under heavy fire.
"What are you?" he demanded. "How did you get on board?"
"I… I don't know," Charlie stammered.
"Are you one of them?" he yelled.
"Them? Who – who's them?"
"The Daleks!" the soldier barked with incredulity.
"I don't even know who they are," Charlie confessed, hoping that these soldiers would believe him, and weren't about to kill him.
"Then what are you?"
"I'm – I'm just a human."
The soldier shared a stunned glance with one of the others.
"A human? What's a human doing on board this ship?"
"I don't even know how I got here!" Charlie protested. "I was with the Doctor."
The soldier glared at him, as though he'd just spat in his face.
"Perhaps the Renegade brought him aboard," suggested one of the others.
"Is he here?" one of the others asked.
"What is he doing? Taking children into battle?"
Charlie was quiet as the soldiers conferred. He could tell they were all scared. They were in the middle of a battle, and they all seemed to know of the Doctor.
"You're Time Lords," he realised. These were the Doctor's people. They were at war.
The soldier looked at him again. "Yes."
"Do you know where the Doctor is? Could you get me to him?" Charlie asked.
The soldier regarded him as though he were something unpleasant that he'd stepped in.
"He's not here. In any case, I rather doubt you'll be safer with him. In fact, by the Doctor's side is probably the most dangerous place you can be."
"Then…" Charlie began.
"Silence," the Time Lord grunted.
There was another explosion, and Charlie felt an impact rock the ship.
"Take up positions," the Time Lord Commander ordered, releasing Charlie. "Nothing must get past."
There was a window in the opposite wall, like a porthole. Through it, Charlie could see hundreds of bronze saucers bearing down upon them. They were unleashing a barrage of intense laser fire.
A short distance away, a capsule-shaped ship succumbed to the onslaught, and exploded in a blazing fireball. Charlie expected to see shrapnel; fragments from the ship blasting into space.
Instead, the innards of the ship billowed out. The ship was turning inside out: control rooms multiplying tenfold. These were Time Lord ships, bigger on the inside, like the TARDIS – they must have been similar to the vessel he was standing in.
There was no counting how many people must have been on that ship; how many people were dying in this war.
Then he remembered that this was just another memory – something the Doctor had seen. Was it possible that this memory was even worse than the last?
Charlie was trapped in this memory, however terrible it was. And this time, he was separated from the Doctor.
"Sir," one of the soldiers spoke up, staring wild-eyed at a comms device, "Gamma squad have just reported there's been a hull breach. They're on board."
The Commander cursed. "How many?"
The soldier shook his head. "An entire battalion."
The Commander's rigid posture slumped, as the colour drained from his features.
"If the Daleks have boarded the ship…"
He looked around. It seemed to Charlie that he was silently saying his farewells to the other soldiers.
"…then we're all dead," he concluded.
"What about the boy?" one of the soldiers asked, pointing at Charlie.
They kept talking about him as if he wasn't even there. So it surprised him that any of them cared.
"There's nothing we can do for him. There's no hope for any of us. The least we can pray for is that the General will have mercy on our souls. Pray that he won't resurrect us to fight again."
"Even if we end up in Hell… it can't be any worse than this," one of the soldiers muttered.
The other soldiers shot him grim looks, but none of them denied it.
The ship shuddered again. They could hear the strange sounds of energy weapons discharging; getting louder, as the assailants neared.
"Shouldn't we at least get this human out of here?" the one compassionate soldier suggested.
"No point," the Commander muttered, drawing his pistol. "He's as good as dead already."
"I'm not having this," Charlie protested, standing up – only to be shoved back against the wall by one of the Time Lords, "I need to find the Doctor.
"The Doctor isn't here," the Commander growled.
"He has to be. This is his memory," Charlie reasoned, "I'm going to find him – and I'm not letting any of you stand in my way. You're not even real!"
One of the men, dull grey eyes, and a battered nose, turned sharply towards him. His sudden gaze was so severe that Charlie almost leapt out of his skin.
"What did you say?"
"You're not real," Charlie muttered. "This isn't really happening. We're in a kind of dream."
The soldier narrowed his eyes.
"I'm sorry?" he challenged.
"I mean…"
The other soldiers began muttering among themselves. They clearly thought he was crazy, except for the one soldier, whose entire attention was focused solely on Charlie, despite the fact that their ship was under attack.
"Ricard, focus!" the Commander grunted.
"Of course, Commander," Ricard replied, continuing to ignore his orders.
He turned back to Charlie.
"You're certain this is a dream?"
"Yeah."
Ricard frowned, mulling over Charlie's assertion.
"If this is a dream, then you're not the one doing the dreaming."
Charlie threw the man a puzzled glare, inching away from him slightly.
"I don't understand what you mean?"
Ricard refused to explain further, but kept his eyes locked on him.
Charlie didn't have a chance to ask any more questions.
There was an explosion at the far end of the corridor, as the attackers blasted the bulkhead doors.
The other soldiers quaked, firing hesitant looks at the Commander, steadfast in his belief that it was their duty to stand their ground.
The corridor beyond was clouded with thick, black smoke, concealing the advancing forces. Charlie had no idea what the Daleks looked like, but he was pretty certain he never wanted to find out.
The Daleks opened fire: single, precise bursts of electric blue laser bolts, which evaporated the Time Lords instantly, reducing them to ashes. They screamed in pain, until they had no lungs left to scream with.
They were clinical. Precise. Not a single shot was wasted.
He couldn't tell how many Daleks there were. There could have been thirty, or there could have been one.
The Time Lords returned fire, but their defence seemed ineffective, as they were vaporised, one by one. They knew they were doomed.
Charlie kept out of the way, hiding at the back of the squad. The middle of a warzone was the last place he wanted to end up.
It seemed that the Doctor was unintentionally showing him the worst ways to die. The thought made him despair. How fragile and fleeting was life, in this wide and dangerous universe?
"Retreat!" the Commander yelled, realising that they stood no chance against the shrouded attackers. "We can't stop them."
The Time Lords darted between cover, laying down bursts of suppressive fire, whilst the few surviving soldiers retreated back down the corridor.
Charlie did the same, trying to keep out of harm's way. Ricard shadowed him, keeping close behind. Not once did he fire his own weapon. He seemed more concerned about where Charlie was heading.
The strange man was beginning to unnerve him. Something about his reaction to Charlie mentioning that he was in a dream had changed him. It had drawn Ricard's attention to him.
He wondered what that meant – was it good or bad?
Suddenly, the Daleks ceased their offensive, and began screaming in grating, electronic voices.
The Time Lords shared worried looks, fearing what was about to happen.
"THE DOCTOR IS DETECTED!" one of the Daleks screamed, its voice laced with hate, fury.
The soldiers' worried glances melted into hope.
"The Doctor's here?" they murmured. "He's on board?"
They were saved, their expressions indicated.
Except there was more to it. Charlie could tell that they weren't all overjoyed to hear the news. It was as though they were thinking: at least, we hope we are.
"LOCATE THE DOCTOR! EXTERMINATE HIM!"
"ONLY ONE UNIT IS NECESSARY TO EXTERMINATE THE OTHERS."
It didn't sound as though the Daleks were just going to leave them.
And the Time Lords still seemed terrified at the prospect of facing just one of these monsters.
"If we concentrate our fire, sir?" one of the soldiers suggested.
"Aim for the eyestalk?"
"No," the Commander grunted. "That won't succeed. There's only one way we can stop it."
They shared a grim look of realisation.
"I shall do it myself," the Commander decided. "The rest of you fall back."
"But sir?"
"That's an order!" the Commander yelled.
The Dalek advanced, issuing its harrowing cry of EXTERMINATE!
The only thing Charlie saw was a single, blue eye, penetrating the smoke.
"Yes, sir," the soldier responded, nodding gravely.
The other Time Lords took off down the corridor, and Charlie didn't hesitate to follow them.
Looking back over his shoulder as he ran, he saw the Commander standing tall and proud, courageously facing the oncoming Dalek.
An orange glow swirled around the Commander's hands, and flickered beneath his collar, as though his skin were erupting into flames.
Charlie somehow connected the pieces together in his mind. Without knowing exactly how he knew, he knew that he was witnessing this magical regeneration the Doctor had mentioned on the verge of death.
The energy surrounding the Commander began to glow brighter, until his hands were no longer visible.
"Gallifrey will never fall," the Commander resolutely issued his final words, before thrusting his hands forward, shooting a concentrated stream of golden energy into the smoke – straight at the Dalek.
The Dalek shrieked, emitting an electronic gargle as it exploded in a shower of sparks.
The Time Lord roared in agony, and a fireball erupted, the heat of which seared Charlie's back, even though he was far down the corridor.
There was no way the Dalek could have survived that.
The last Charlie saw before turning the corridor, was the Commander's shrivelled husk of a body collapsing to the floor in dust.
Author's Notes
So this is my theory: during the Time War, the Time Lords found a way to weaponise regeneration. We've seen the Doctor destroy Daleks like this, on Trenzalore in The Time of the Doctor – and he's destroyed the TARDIS a couple of times before as well.
