Meanwhile, the real Doctor is still trapped in one of his nightmares...
It was quieter down in the belly of the Time Lord warship.
The Doctor pulled out the sonic to open a hatch in the floor, but discovered it was already unlocked.
He scrambled down the ladder into a landing bay, his boots barely touching the metal rungs as he descended.
He'd only been here once before – but he always remembered where he parked the TARDIS. And there she was, the paintwork scratched and worn away from the fires of war.
He sped towards it, hoping she would let him in this time, when he felt a strange sensation around his waist. It was like a burning wire, working its way around him.
He'd felt this before. Another nightmare was beckoning.
The Doctor was inches away from the TARDIS. If he was just a little quicker, he could still reach it.
The invisible wire jerked suddenly, pulling him onto his back.
As he crashed to the floor, the lights above him flared in a blinding kaleidoscope of shapes.
When his vision cleared, he was looking not at the geometric patterns of a Gallifreyan roof, but a dying alien sky. The twin suns burned weakly; their heat fierce though a thin veil of a torched atmosphere, not bright enough to eclipse the few brighter stars beyond.
"No!" he yelled, slamming his fists into the dusty ground.
He had been so close. No doubt he was now lost in another awful memory. Another day he would much rather forget.
He tussled uselessly with the sand beneath him before he sat up.
He looked around at the blackened ruins surrounding him. He could see miles of it. This world had burned.
Had he done this? That was the Doctor's first thought. Was he responsible for the destruction of this planet?
No. No, it couldn't be. The Doctor never forgot the mistakes he made, and this was not one of them.
"So where am I?" he croaked, staggering to his feet.
He was struggling to breathe. The air was fire in his lungs. He could taste the ash still floating in the air, even though this world had been devastated centuries ago.
There was a feeling that things were coming to an end. It was an intangible aura this world held, which the Doctor noticed because of his unique connection to the universe as a Time Lord. The planet had maybe a few hundred years left. It was on the verge of death, in the grand scheme of things.
A sharp pain ruptured his kidneys. The Doctor fell to his knees in agony, allowing a moment for the feeling to subside.
When he looked up again, he saw a woman, draped in heavy, dark robes, apparently unconcerned by the scorching temperature.
"Can you hear that?" she asked. Her voice was slow, her words drawn out in an almost uninterested drawl. The words were a passing remark towards something quite inconsequential.
"Hear what?" The Doctor jumped to his feet.
Something felt wrong about the woman – not just that she was the only other living thing on this dying world.
"Nothing," she said simply, her hand sweeping in a wide arc from beneath an excessive sleeve, "Silence."
"Don't," the Doctor grunted, "talk to me about silence!"
A hint of a smile from the woman. As though the Doctor had misunderstood – and she was faintly amused by that.
"Everything has ended. Soon, you will too."
"I don't think so," the Doctor snapped defiantly.
"We are the last living souls. The only two left standing at the end of everything."
"Well, that all sounds rather lovely, and nothing if not a little verbose," the Doctor replied, his voice edged with a cynical politeness. "But you know where we are, I take it?"
"Don't you remember? Or does this not happen yet?" The woman gazed vacantly into the distance. "Or will it never happen?"
The Doctor put aside his suspicions about the woman: how she knew so much, how she was being so ominous, and how she could stand the heat in that robe.
If this was another nightmare, it was one he hadn't encountered before.
It was not impossible. The Doctor was a Time Lord. Things very rarely happened to him in a logical manner.
Time does not run a straight path. There are twists and turns, and oxbow lakes of alternate realities. There were things that never happened, things that may once have happened and then un-happened.
Time can be rewritten, and so can memories.
The sequence of events unfolding now may not be what it first appeared to be.
"You've seen this before," the woman hinted. "Your grave on Trenzalore?"
Yes, the Doctor had been to places in his future which no longer existed when he finally arrived there. His tomb on a planet devastated by a war he was responsible for being one of them. This world couldn't be like that, could it? Another Trenzalore?
"This is where I fall?" the Doctor uttered in disbelief.
"Perhaps. Perhaps you are already fallen? You are dying now, yes?"
The woman did not move. Her hands were still, now tucked away inside her robes.
"Your young friend, lost in your mind? He dies with you. The TARDIS drifts, to the end of the universe itself, and it dies too."
She laughs.
"That is funny," the Doctor agreed, waving his finger at the woman, "I've seen my grave before. More than once. I always my mind about dying when the time comes."
"You cannot escape the end of everything."
The Doctor nodded, clasping his hands together.
"You know, I wondered if we were where I thought we were. The last world at the end of the universe. Which intrigues me…"
The woman inclined her head, listening.
"Who are you? I've been trying to work it out for the last few minutes, but I have to admit, I cannot imagine who else would have survived to the end of time."
The Doctor grinned. "Who else would live this long?"
"I am Vyper."
The grin dropped. "Vyper?" the Doctor exclaimed. "You?"
A little nod from the woman.
The Doctor's mind quickly darted through a tangle of possible explanations, drawing conclusions from the few strands of information he had.
He had encountered VYPER on Solos Nine. It was a virus that had almost destroyed everyone in that virtual world. He and Charlie had stopped it, with a great deal of skill, determination, and more than a little blind luck.
"This isn't my nightmare," the Doctor concluded. "I traced the source of the Vyper virus."
"Did you now?"
"Charlie," he uttered, "It came from Charlie."
According to the corrupted system logs, the spread of the virus had begun at exactly the moment Charlie had been connected.
"Which means… Oh!"
The Doctor inhaled sharply, ignoring the sting of the air.
"The darkness. All that darkness inside my mind. It didn't come from me – it came from him!" The Doctor's words were spilling out as fast as his realisations. "And he had absolutely no idea. All that time… I knew he couldn't be that strong."
His fingers grasped his hair for a moment, struggling to believe the conclusions he was drawing. However, it was the only logical explanation.
"You destroyed the Arachnid Queen."
The woman smiled. Which meant he was right.
"Now it's time for me to destroy you, Doctor."
Oh, the confidence. The certainty! The Doctor silently applauded her.
The woman very carefully drew two long, curved blades out of her sleeves.
"Ah… One more thing. Last one, I promise," the Doctor quickly uttered, taking a step back.
"What?" the woman allowed him this moment, halting the swish of her blades.
"Do you know who Nate is?"
"Yes. Is that really your last question?"
The Doctor's eyebrows curled, adjusting the intensity of his frown.
"Well, I rather hoped you'd elaborate…"
"No. I don't care to do that."
"It's all tied together, somehow, isn't it? A great mystery, so conveniently packaged!" The Doctor kept talking, as he retreated. "Everything's right there, in front of me, but I can't see what it is."
He grinned, as the woman took slow steps towards him. Her feet were bare, evidently resistant to the burning sand.
"You think you've got me?" he teased her. "Right where I can't escape – where time is literally running out. If you don't kill me, the last seconds of life will. The universe's final breath… That's your nightmare – this is what you're afraid of?"
"I have no fear. I am nightmare," the woman's words were cruel, spat with such contempt, the Doctor knew he must have struck a nerve. "I will end your existence."
"Oh, you didn't know?" the Doctor chuckled. "You see, I've been to the end of the universe before. I'm sure I'll pop round again."
The woman scowled.
"The TARDIS is here. That's all I need to escape. To run away!" the Doctor declared.
"You're still dying."
"Oh yes. And only Charlie can save me! But he doesn't know how."
"And I suppose you do?"
"I don't need to know how," the Doctor protested chirpily, "Anyway. So long! Thanks for all the fish!"
With that, the Doctor turned and ran.
He had to catch up with Charlie. Who knew what he was facing in the depths of the Doctor's mind.
He had to be quick. He had lost too much time already.
The boy was slipping further away. Falling deeper into his conscious thoughts. To his subconscious thoughts.
He just hoped that his worst nightmare hadn't caught up with the boy.
++INCOMING MESSAGE++
Makes you think, doesn't it? All those dreams, all those memories…
How much of your life really happened?
Can you trust your memories? Can you trust the history books?
How do we know if any of this is real?
