Guys, this chapter, the last one, and the upcoming one were supposed to be all one chapter in my original outline. Am I cramming in unnecessary details? Or has this story just developed a mind of its own?
Donna leaped back in shock, all coherent thoughts flying straight out of her head. The Upper Cirulians had immediately launched into a crescendo of bewildered and fearful chattering, and the ground underneath them all was quaking.
He was gone. There wasn't even a visible hole among the long grass. It had taken less than a second, and there was no trace of him; he'd as good as vanished.
The reality of the minor quake happening beneath her didn't even register with Donna until the spot where the Doctor had been eaten up by the dirt began to collapse in on itself. And finally she processed what was happening: the structural integrity of the ground was being intentionally and systematically compromised. Of course, her thoughts would have been more accurately translated into words as Cave things making ground fall, as most of her brain at the moment was dedicating itself to getting her far enough away to be safe.
The dirt tumbled downward, reshaping itself until it found enough empty space to fall through the darkness and create what appeared to be a… a path. A gradually descending ramp, stretching towards the now-panicked crowd of Upper Cirulians, leading to God knew where. It wasn't finished yet. It was still being made, as the rumbling became further and further removed, descending ever nearer to the caves beneath their feet.
Donna somehow ended up with the Upper Cirulians. She genuinely didn't remember the path she'd taken to reach them. All she could do was watch the natural destruction unfolding, and all she could think was He's down there.
The path before them was about two metres wide and many times that in length, even before it vanished into utter darkness. The thick layer of soft brown soil from which sprouted gave way to gritty, rock-filled dirt, and a coat long purple grass covered the ramp, only beginning to thin soon before the ramp morphed into a tunnel and sight was no longer a factor.
They all stared down, fully aware of what the Doctor had intended—still intended—for them to do. And every single one of their instincts, human and Cirulian alike, was screaming to ignore him and run for the hills.
"Doctor?" Donna called uncertainly, voice cracking slightly.
A faint echo of her own voice bouncing around the void before them was her only reply.
For a single, insane moment, Donna contemplated turning around and walking away.
And she did turn around. But she stayed planted firmly in place, and, facing the confused natives, even now slowly backing away, she said authoritatively, "All right, how many of you lot are comin' with me?"
Many of them whispered to each other. Most of the rest just blinked at her. All of them stared.
"He's gone," came a voice from the back.
"Yeah, I can see that. He asked us to follow him. You've been doing that up till this point; you really gonna stop now?"
"This is insane," a Cirulian nearly her same height at the front of the crowd said scornfully. "Walking aboveground into the Hills of Heiut is one thing, but going down into that? With those things?"
"I've done it once already today," she said, looking at him evenly. "So has the Doctor. This is his second time, and he already lost all his senses to 'those things.' Got 'em back too! With nothing but the power of persuasion. He could have saved himself and left you lot to rot, but he didn't." She couldn't know this for a fact, but she was sure that it was true. "He's a bloody miracle worker, he is. And he's a madman. And he's the kindest man I've ever met. He's doing this just to save you from 'those things,' don't you see? He needs you to meet him halfway, just to come down there to see the things firsthand; he's promised your safety, put himself on the line for you. Haven't you lived like this long enough? Aren't you ready to see what you've been so afraid of?"
They still weren't fully convinced. Donna was not surprised; it would probably be unreasonable to expect as much. But she was just about done standing here when he was down there, waiting for them, waiting for her—and she was silently terrified that he was not nearly as safe as he'd given the appearance of believing.
"Right," she declared, and raised her hand. "One more time: Who's comin' with me?"
The mob mentality was truly pathetic, Donna thought as she made her way through the darkness, mostly by touch, and tried to imagine what this must be like with the knowledge that everyone around her could see clear as day.
Three Cirulians had stepped forward surprisingly willingly. Three. And that alone seemed to convert almost half of them. She'd done a quick headcount and concluded that a little over twenty were coming down with her, about that many were staying at the surface, and half a dozen had gone back to the community—hopefully to bring more witnesses to whatever insanity the Doctor was engaging in down here.
The muscles in her arm had stopped seizing up before every attempt to feel for the next section of wall, but she was still not enjoying the awareness of her inability to detect anything about what they were getting themselves into. Once they found wherever it was they were going, how were they supposed to know?
She was trying to have more faith in the Doctor, but her survival instincts were too insistent that this whole thing was madness, and with every tentative step she took she expected to trip over a skinny, prone form.
"This man," came a small voice from right behind her, snapping her out of her thoughts, "the Doctor. How do you know him?"
She blinked, surprised at the question. "He's my best friend," she said after a moment. And after another, she thought it beneficial to add, "And he saved my life at least once before I even could tolerate him."
"You've come a very long way to get here, haven't you?"
"Well, not here specifically," she said, and almost tripped over a sudden short drop. The tunnel was quickly becoming less even. "But yeah. We've been all over."
There was a pause before the next question, which spoke to Donna a fear of hearing the answer. But, "Have… Have you ever seen anything like this before?"
For a long moment, she was silent. And, speaking perfectly honestly, she replied, "I haven't. But the Doctor? He's seen a little bit of everything. If there's anyone this side of the Milky Way who can help you, it's him."
"Milky Way?" the voice asked vaguely, but Donna wasn't paying attention anymore. She was pretty sure she could make out shapes in the distance. Shapes of what, she couldn't be sure. Probably rocks. Hopefully rocks. But there was definitely some light source somewhere. How deep were they? Where was it coming from?
She didn't realize she'd stopped in her tracks until the same voice from before asked, "Is there something wrong?"
The questioning murmurs of the Upper Cirulians behind her finally registered with her. "I think… I think we're almost there," she said haltingly, and quickly followed up with the disclaimer, "Maybe." Even she doubted the words. How long could they have been moving? Ten minutes? Twenty tops. And so painstakingly slowly too. "Stay close."
One minute of slow progress later, during which the light became evident enough that most of her companions had remarked on it, they rounded a corner. And suddenly the caverns opened up before them.
The roof of the cave had to be fifty metres up, if not more. For an instant Donna was alarmed and bewildered, knowing there had been no particularly sharp incline during their short journey, but quickly reminded herself that this was a world of hills and mountains. The one they were currently inside must have been almost completely hollow. Near the top was a long but narrow opening that offered the blessed sunlight by which they could now see.
And what they saw scared them all to pieces.
The walls of the cavern, which could easily house a fifteen-story office building, were absolutely covered with creatures that vaguely resembled grey lizards that measured, on average, three feet from tail to horned nose. Their long, sharp teeth glinted in the dim light of the sun, and their small, beady eyes—hundreds upon hundreds of sets of them, looking from all directions—were all trained on the group of Upper Cirulians led by the woman from Earth.
Many of said Cirulians screamed. Donna vaguely heard the solid thump of a body hitting the ground as one apparently fainted. None of the lizards reacted noticeably. Not that Donna was paying much attention to them.
Standing in the center of the cavern was a lone figure. His brown trench coat lay on the cave floor to his left, and his suit jacket to his right. His sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, and his arms, hanging limp at his sides, were sporting a total of seven dark spots—which weren't getting any more detailed with this amount of light and the distance of several metres between them, but Donna could certainly hazard a guess as to what they were.
It might not have even worried her that much, given his confidence and what they had learned about these creatures. Except that, despite his upright position, his head fell back, his posture was slumped, his mouth hung open, and his eyes were shut.
When she shouted his name across the cavern, forgetting completely about the hundreds of potentially hostile eyes watching from all around them, they didn't open.