Longview, Florida

In Burrows Park, which was usually bustling with lively children and their caretakers during the daytime, nearly everyone left once the sun could be seen setting from the large open field where school and YMCA sports teams would often gather for games. As much as the people of Longview took pride in the fair weather they received, it was custom to get back indoors by eight at the latest unless it was some special occasion. As the sheriff of the Longview Police Department liked to put it: "It's better to spend Friday nights cruising through your neighbor's liquor cabinet than through Burrows Park. There's something about that place which makes it unapproachable after the sun sets."

However, this wasn't enough to draw away Christine Green and Harry Sullivan, who liked going on both early morning and evening walks whenever the weather was right. On this particular evening, in which it was sixty degrees and nearly every house in sight was adorned with Christmas lights, they decided to avoid staying within the boundaries of the homes and fences and to set foot in Burrows Park, seeing for themselves what made it so eerie during the night.

"I don't see what the big deal is so far, Doc," Christine remarked once they were approaching the empty playground and tennis courts, which made up the entrance of the park. "The creepiest thing about the park right now is that it's so quiet that you can hear the crickets chipping."

"Oh, really, Christine? The fact that the place keeps getting darker by the minute doesn't even slightly scare you?" Harry asked, making sure to keep her as close to his side as he could. Although he wouldn't admit it to Christine, these sort of isolated places used to frighten him back when he was young. As much as he would try to convince himself that the neighborhood boys' stories of the monsters which stalked the cornfields after sunset couldn't possibly be true, he would never dare to walk around there at night. Now, after everything he'd seen and learned about all the dangerous things which actually were out there, walking around in the dark was nothing to him.

"I think I get more scared when it's light out and I can hear the thoughts of everyone that's walking outside and see how they keep getting bad ideas about us," Christine said.

Ever since they'd returned from London, Christine's powers hadn't been the same as they once were. While before, the thoughts she heard from people's minds were random, she'd now started hearing more of people's negative thoughts, which often involved gossip, complaints, insults, and even blunt remarks of discrimination and intention to hurt others. After she repeated something very explicit which had been scaring her to Harry, he'd grown very worried and starting limiting the amount of time they went out in public. This was what had led them to start going on these walks more often than before, which in addition to allowing them to spend time on their own, also appeared to have a calming effect on Christine, who would become less anxious and frightened after doing so.

However, such actions didn't go unnoticed in a town like Longview. People had already started raising questions when Christine left school and started being looking after a British doctor, and now that they saw her being cooped up at home more often than usual after getting back from a "vacation", their curiosity spiked up even more. They started demanding to know exactly who Harry was and what he'd been doing with Christine, and would bring their questions to Patti Green while she was at work, and upon failing to get satisfying enough answers from her would turn over to her neighbors, who provided them with more vivid, although not completely accurate, details.

All this led the people of Longview to draw their own conclusions. Some believed that Christine had a rare disease for which only a foreign doctor was able to treat her using medicine which had yet to be approved by the FDA, while others believed that she was becoming mentally ill and that Harry was supposed to be monitoring her so she wouldn't hurt herself. Some even thought he'd been abusing her in some way, and that Christine stayed close to him because she was being forced to. Either way, they were highly convinced that something was wrong with Christine, and that Harry Sullivan had to be more than what he seemed.

"I can't say I disagree with you," Harry said as he thought about all this. "People in towns like this can get some very strange ideas just based on what they hear, and sometimes it's better to be alone once in a while."

"Yeah," Christine remarked.

"But overall, are you feeling okay, Christine? Do you think staying away from other people has been doing you any good?"

"I think it's helped a little," Christine answered. "When I started hearing nothing but bad thoughts all the time, it was hard for me to forget about them. They would keep running through my mind like echoes almost all day long, and that's why I started feeling scared more often before. But now that we don't go out as often when others are around, I feel calmer, and when we are around other people, I don't hear their bad thoughts as much as I did before."

"That's great to hear, old girl," Harry said, stroking her hair. "Let's hope that you continue getting better as time goes on. And don't hesitate to tell me when something scary starts happening again, got it?

"Got it," Christine said with a smile.

A moment of silence followed as she and Harry walked further through the park. And then, as she paused to take a look at the full moon, she heard a familiar voice calling out through her mind, Christine? Christine, can you hear me?

Rose? Christine answered back telepathically, standing still as she did so. Is that really you?

Yes. I've been living in Northern Horizons for a while now, and there's been a lot of creepy things going on in there.

But how are you able to talk with me right now?

John Smith says that telepathic talk can be send out to other psychics who are miles away because our powers allow us to stay connected to each other no matter where we may be.

I see. So what's happening there lately?

I found out why all that scary stuff in Northern Horizons keeps happening. You see, something terrible happened there a long time ago during a New Year's Eve party where someone was…

"Christine?" she heard Harry asking her in a concerned voice. "What's going on? You look like you're hearing things again."

"Harry, I can hear Rose talking to me," Christine said

"Talking to you? But how…?"

"She's doing it telepathically, just like that old friend of yours that you told me about was able to do" Christine started to explain.

"No, I understand that," Harry said. He remembered how Sarah Jane had told him that she was able to communicate telepathically with her grandmother even when they were miles apart, and how his relationship with Sarah Jane had been one of the many things about his past which he'd admitted to Christine after the incident with the mysterious Time Lady occurred. As a result, the fact that Christine could still get in contact with Rose wasn't what surprised him. "What I'm wondering is why she's doing it now of all times, when she could have started doing so the moment we came back to Florida."

"I don't know why she didn't do it sooner, but she just told me that she's talking to me because she found out what's behind the scary stuff which we went through at Northern Horizons," Christine told him.

"So, there really was something funny going on there all along," Harry said. "I had a feeling about that a couple of times when we were there, but I didn't want to jump to conclusions without evidence, thinking that it was mainly due to Clara and Rose's abilities. In that case, she really does have something important to tell you. Go ahead and listen then, since we need to understand what happened there just as much as Rose does."

Rose, can you go on again? Christine asked, since Rose had come to a pause once she realized that someone had been talking to her.

All right, Rose said. So, what happened is this…

Heathrow Airport, England

As Harry Sullivan and Christine Green were on their evening walk in Florida, Sarah Jane Smith was preparing to take off on a Christmas trip to visit her father and her sister Rebecca, who were now living in Washington DC, where Hannah worked as a political analyst for the past two years. The recent U.S. election had left her extremely busy that year, to the point where she didn't have the time to have Sarah Jane come over. However, now that it was all over, she thought that she could make up for the time they couldn't spend together by having Sarah Jane stay with her for three weeks, and Sarah Jane didn't hesitate to accept this offer.

Along with Sarah Jane was Violet Marsh, who'd come by to help her with her luggage as well as say goodbye to her. Violet had never liked airports or planes much, despite having gone on them dozens as part of music tours and family trips, since they made her impatient due to their unpredictable schedules and her time on planes usually resulted in the few times in which she'd gotten seriously sick, so Sarah Jane knew that the sooner she could get into her flight without any issues, the better it would be for everyone involved, since no one wanted to put up with Violet when she became crabby.

"Well, Sarah, I can't say I envy you in the slightest," Violet said as she glanced around the busy airport with an impatient look on her face. "The way things are looking around here, it looks like you'll be waiting for an additional two hours, since flights are nearly always late now that everyone's going on winter holidays."

"Now Violet, that's only happened to me two times in the dozens of plane trips I've been on, and none of those times occurred during Christmas time," Sarah Jane said with a smile, determined not to let Violet go overboard with her complaints.

"And strangely enough, you weren't able to foresee any of those occasions," Violet remarked, making sure to keep her voice down as she told Sarah Jane this. "That just goes to prove that there probably is something evil about planes, don't you think?"

"I'm pretty sure we've encountered more evil forces than planes. Don't tell me you've forgotten Daniel More, or the Trickster, or that spooky troll-like creature who roamed around Monroeville for months before I was able to catch it," Sarah Jane said quietly, recalling some of the adversaries they'd had to face during their university years.

"Oh, those old bastards have provoked plenty of nightmares over the years, but at least you were able to tell that there was something wrong with them before they started in on their evil crusades," Violet said. "You've always said that the most dangerous of incidents often occur when you can't get even the slightest hint that something's not right."

"Now Violet, everything's going to be fine," Sarah Jane insisted. "If my flight is late, it will be sure to arrive at some point, and I won't be bored in the meantime because I'll have you around to keep me amused. And if I lose my luggage, I can contact an airline worker to recover it for me or else buy anything which I don't manage to get back. I'm going to be seeing Dad and Rebecca once again, and I don't want to let a couple of worries over incidents which are very unlikely to happen ruin it all for me."

"But I'm not just thinking about your flight," Violet said. "There's just something about how things are going this year, with you being perfectly well, Tom and I have having no troubles of our own, and everyone smiling and all happy everywhere I look that's making me feel a little suspicious about the state of things."

Sarah Jane laughed. "Are my powers starting to rub off on you a little, Violet?"

"I think they started rubbing off on me a long time ago, Sarah," Violet said, chuckling back. "For as long as I've known the truth about you, and especially now after finding out about Rose, I'm never able to go through an ordinary day without getting this queasy feeling in my stomach on account of not knowing what to expect, and Tom and the kids admit to feeling the same way as well."

"It may be tough for you, but just imagine what it's like for me, never knowing when exactly my powers will strike once again, and as of now, always wondering what exactly Rose is…"

And just as she was saying this, Sarah Jane heard that small, timid voice ringing through her mind once again, calling out as urgently as it could: Sarah Jane? Sarah Jane, can you hear me?

It was Rose Tyler, doing exactly what Sarah Jane had told her to do during times of trouble upon finding out about her powers several months ago.

Yes, Rose, Sarah Jane called back immediately, pushing aside her worries over what was possibly happening to the little girl and going forward on fulfilling the promise she made to protect Rose whenever she needed it. I'm listening perfectly well to what you're saying. Now go ahead and tell me what's wrong.

"Sarah? Is everything all right?" Violet asked cautiously, noticing how Sarah Jane's face had gotten pale and how she now had this look of deep concentration on her face. She'd known about her powers long enough to understand what was happening, but it never failed to surprise her when these moments just suddenly started going on once again.

"Let's just say you were probably right all along," Sarah Jane answered with a quick whisper. Her heart rate was accelerating steadily, and she wondering if anyone other than Violet had possibly taken notice of the state she was in, but she couldn't ignore this. If Rose needed her help, Sarah Jane was going to give it to her in any way she could.

Well, it turned out that Northern Horizons isn't as safe as we thought it would be, Rose started saying. Just when we started living there for a while, all these strange things started happening…

Blackpool, England

"Clara, are you sure you're not feeling well today?" Ellie Oswald asked her daughter. "As far as I can see, you don't look sick at all. And taking into account all the days you already missed of school when you started seeing Dr. Sullivan, you're going to fall even further behind if you stay home today once again."

"I'm not sick with a cold or a headache or anything like that, Mummy," Clara insisted anxiously, clinging to her purple bed sheets and refusing to get up to go to school. "The sickness is in my mind, just like the first doctor we saw was thinking. Or else why are you giving me that medicine to sleep, and why do I keep having these strange dreams?"

"Oh, honey, as I've told you before, what you have isn't that serious," Ellie said softly, patting her daughter's back. "Dr. Sullivan said that what you have is possibly just a sleeping problem. It may affect how you sleep, but that doesn't mean that it should prevent you from doing the things you normally do every day. This fear you have of doing anything normal or fun is what's causing you to think you're sick, not the sleeping problem itself."

But she wasn't telling the whole truth, Clara knew this perfectly well. Dr. Sullivan and Christine had believed that something was wrong with her the whole time she was at Northern Horizons, and when Dr. Sullivan had called her parents on the exact same day that the strange woman had brought her back home, she'd noticed how worried they got once they heard everything he'd had to say about her, how her mummy turned white as a sheet and how her daddy had held her hand and kept her steady as she struggled to keep holding the phone.

However, when the call was done, they'd given Clara big smiles and told her that she simply had a sleeping problem that could be solved by taking a small pill every night. They had no idea that Clara had hidden herself in the storage closet and managed to hear Dr. Sullivan telling them the full details of what she'd done, drawing scary things and repeating strange words over and over again while she was in a state that was hard to determine. The fact that her parents would lie to her about something like this was upsetting enough for the little girl, but how they deliberately refused to tell her that her condition was actually unknown was absolutely crushing. If Clara hadn't noticed that they were doing it out of concern for her, she would gave gotten seriously angry with them, letting them know exactly what she thought, but seeing how it really was, she said nothing, waiting to see if they would eventually come clean to her at some point. This had yet to happen so far.

And then Clara started remembering all the strange dreams she was having. Some of them were actually quite fun, like watching the girl from the future who made a mess as she tried to prepare a soufflé, or seeing the girl with the old-fashioned dresses running from escapades that occurred around a schoolyard or a tavern, in which she was trying to escape from a bunch of raggedly-dressed boys. But others were very haunting, like the girl who would play sad melodies on her harmonica after she'd gotten locked up in a dark room by a woman who dressed like a queen, or the girl who would draw a jackknife from a woolen piece of cloth around her waist as she tried to defend herself from a much older boy who was beating her. There was also the fact that they all looked very similar to her, which was the hardest part for her to understand. Were all these girls supposed to be her, representing all the different adventures she might have at some point, or were they completely different individuals who probably had something important in common with her? And why did she suddenly dream of Rose once? Could it be that she had something to do with all this…?

"Clara, is everything okay now? Do you still want to stay home, or would you rather go to school?" her mummy asked gently.

"I don't know! If you really think I should go to school, then just take me. At least then I won't have to worry about having the crazy dreams if I fall asleep again," Clara decided hesitantly.

"Now that's a good girl!" Ellie said with a bright smile as she helped Clara out of bed. "You'll now have something that will keep you busy and possibly even happy once again. Dr. Sullivan said that this is possibly the best thing we can do for you, and I completely agree with it."

"I hope that's true," Clara said, trudging along by her mother's side and thinking that perhaps she was right on this point; maybe she really did have to stick to her old routine if she wanted things to get back to normal again.

However, once she was dressed and washed up for school, had her breakfast, and was preparing to get on the car with her mummy to go to school, the bad stuff started happening once again. As they were going down the steps of the porch to head towards the car, Clara found herself stepping on a small pebble, and then tripping down the steps, skinning one of her knees as she fell.

"Clara!" her mummy yelled out in concern, immediately kneeling by her side. "Sweetheart, are you hurt?"

But before she could even start crying in pain, Clara noticed everything starting to get blurry, just as often occurred right before she was about to have one of her episodes. Before long, she could no longer see her mummy or even her front yard, but rather an elegant yet slightly messy room where Rose Tyler, wearing a school uniform and seated in a small wooden chair, was looking up at her with a small smile.

"It's been a long time since I last saw you, Clara," she said in a friendly voice.

"Yeah, and the last time you saw me was in my dreams," Clara answered angrily. "Why don't you just tell what's actually going on before I smack you awake?"

At this point, Rose's smile dropped, replaced by a look of deep concern. "Well, first of all, you didn't really see me in a dream, but in a vision which we were both sharing. And also, you're in Northern Horizons right now, and I want to explain to you what's been happening in here all along."

"Will that include the scary stuff that happened to me while I was staying there?" Clara asked firmly.

"Yes. To start with, I know what you were actually saying while you were acting strangely," Rose said.

"And what was that?" Clara asked.

"Dab flow, which is actually "Bad Wolf" spelled backwards," Rose explained. "There are these little girl ghosts I met here who explained this to me, and showed how it has to do with some power I have which is supposed to have them and some other ghosts who have been stuck in the hotel for years."

"Ghosts," Clara said with a hint of a smile. "I guess that means that things are really crazy in that hotel."

"It sure is," Rose said. "And just wait until you hear the whole story…"