Clara woke up with a start. She immediately opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was the darkness. She felt lost and confused. She had no idea of where she was or why she was there. What had happened? How did she get...where ever that place was?
She was having some difficulty remembering anything at all. Her memory was as black as her surroundings and her head was aching painfully, making it hard for her to think straight.
She took a couple of deep and slow breaths.
It was important to try and focus. The best thing was to start by listing the little she knew for certain.
Her name was Clara Oswald. She was an English teacher from Blackpool, planet Earth. She was a time traveller.
"Doctor!" The name came out in a feeble whisper, hardly strong enough to make it our of her throat.
The memory of the Time Lord made her stand up so quickly, her head throbbed and she felt an unexpected twinge hit her like a dagger. Her hands reached to cover her face and muffle an inevitable moan. She waited for the pain to leave her before continuing to analyse her situation. What else did she know? She had been lying on what she assumed was a bed. A comfortable bed for that matter, but it probably wasn't relevant to her in that precise moment.
"Every little counts," she thought to herself.
She hadn't noticed the presence of a window, but when she had gotten used to the darkness it helped her have a general idea of where she was.
For starters, it wasn't any place she could recognize. It was a large, circular room. Many beds were arranged along the wall, like numbers on a clock. She couldn't see properly, but there seemed to be people sleeping in them. This realization made her shiver. She was really starting to feel scared, now. She hugged herself, using her arms as a protection more psychological then physical.
It was then she noticed that someone had changed her clothes. She was wearing a white nightgown. She inadvertently blushed at the thought. How did she manage to sleep through all that? The only explanation she could think of was that she must have been drugged, somehow.
More and more details were coming back to her. She was going to have a picnic with the Doctor, but then she had started feeling incredibly tired. The Doctor had gone inside the TARDIS and she had lost consciousness. She couldn't remember anything else.
"The flowers," she realized.
The flowers must have been tampered with. They must have used them to put her to sleep and kidnap her.
The Doctor would know what to do. She sighed. She felt incredibly alone, but she also knew she couldn't give up already.
Clara slid carefully off the bed. Her bear feet touched the cold, stone floor. She thanked her legs for supporting her. They were aching and wobbled dangerously, but they still allowed her to move.
She took a few steps and reached for the bed next to hers, before starting to shake its owner. She needed to wake him, or her, up, to gain some information.
The figure in the bed shifted under the blankets and she realized it was a girl. She opened her eyes and Clara saw them immediately filling with utmost fear. She raised slightly on her elbows and, at the same time, shifted away from Clara. This way Clara could have a better view of her. She was wearing her same nightgown and had some really beautiful, long, black hair. She was very young, Clara noticed. Twenty, at most.
She touched her gently on her wrist. This gesture made the girl try to retrieve even further back. She could hear her breathing become progressively more ragged.
"Don't be afraid," Clara whispered, giving her a warm smile and trying to sooth her. "I'm not here to hurt you. I just need to ask you a few questions."
The girl didn't say anything and looked at her suspiciously. She felt her scrutinizing gaze travelling her entire body. Clara's small figure and the fact that they were wearing the same outfit probably reassured her in some way, because she stood up and turned to sit at the edge of the bed, facing Clara, who took a small step back and straightened up slightly. She waited for the girl to say something, but nothing came out of her mouth. She just remained perfectly still, looking up at her. She was probably waiting for her questions.
Clara started feeling uncomfortable under her piercing gaze, so she took some other steps away from the girl's bed and sat down on her own, without looking away and hardly blinking.
She rubbed her arms with her hands, uncertain what to ask first. There was too much she didn't know and she had the feeling that she had to be careful with what she asked. Before she could make up her mind, the girl surprised her by deciding to speak.
"You're the new one, then," she stated, in a low voice.
Clara didn't know what that meant, so she didn't have the means to contradict her. "I – I suppose so," she shrugged. "I don't know. It depends on what you mean by new one. New to what?"
This particular question seemed to make her uncomfortable, because she shifted in her spot. "They probably took you in while were all sleeping," she said, without answering directly.
"Who's we? Where am I? Why am I here?"
As her impatience grew, her voice got louder. She heard movements in the other beds, but she ignored them.
"Take a wild guess," the girl replied, still in a scared whisper, even though Clara could tell the sarcasm in her voice. It took her by surprise. "Where do you think we are?"
Clara took another look around the room, her eyes examining the stone walls and the high sealing. "It seems like a tower of a castle," she said, not entirely seriously. It was the feeling she had, but it didn't seem so plausible. The girl frowned and looked as though she had said something highly offensive and wasn't sure if Clara was entirely sane. She felt embarrassed, even though she didn't know why.
"You know where you are, right?" She sounded sincerely surprised.
"Not in the slightest," she said, almost apologetically.
"You're kidding," another soft voice said. "You can't be serious."
Clara had been so anxious to know what had happened to her, she hadn't notice that someone else had risen from his bed. It was another girl, wearing the same night dress they did.
Clara's heart ached.
This girl, who was timidly approaching their beds, was even younger then the first one. Clara calculated that she must have been sixteen years old. Just like some of her students.
She examined her attentively as she sat down next to the first girl with her big eyes and her thin eyebrows raised high on her forehead. She was small, probably a bit smaller than Clara, and had curly, blond hair, which stopped an inch over her shoulders, as far as she could tell from the dim light coming from the only window.
"Look," Clara addressed them both, gently. "I've never been to this planet before. I arrived this morning with my friend and his space machine and here I am now."
The two girls shared looks. All that disbelief was starting to bother Clara. In the meanwhile, another couple of girls had joined their little group. The oldest had probably Clara's age and the other one must have had more or less the same of the blond girl. They both looked tired and didn't say a word, even though Clara raised her hand tentatively to welcome them.
The girl she had woken up was starting to gain confidence, loosing some of her uncertainty as she addressed Clara. "This is the Castle. The Marquis owns it."
Everybody exchanged a knowing look and one of them nodded solemnly. On the other hand, Clara looked confused. "Who is this marquis?"
"He is only known by this title. Everybody calls him like that and nobody knows what his real name is."
"This sounds vaguely familiar," she muttered, ironically, thinking about the Doctor.
There was a moment of silence, as she watched all the beds empty, one after the other. Now that she could see every person in that room without the obstacle of their bed covers, Clara saw they were all girls. Some remained sitting on their beds, probably too frightened to move, but most of them formed a circle around Clara and a couple of them even sat down on either side of her. She couldn't help but noticing that they were all young and extremely pretty.
They were all looking at her, making her blush, so she addressed the girl with the long, dark hair, to address them all.
"Please, do go on," she told her, gently.
The room had fallen into silence, before it was broken by the girl to continue with her explanation. "The Marquis is a very powerful Lord. He is very rich and very powerful. He has been ruling our world for many years, now."
"So, is he some sort of king?" Clara interrupted her.
"No, there is a king," she clarified. "The king is a good man, but he's being controlled by the Marquis."
"He might be good, but he seems to be quite weak, this king of yours," Clara commented, to ease the tension.
This remark started some agitated whispers amongst the girls and some of them seemed to glare at her.
"Don't you dare saying something like this, ever!" the blond girl hissed.
She looked both cross and very determined, making her more menacing than her size should have allowed. She supposed that she must make the same effect to the Doctor, when she wanted to. No wonder he usually followed her orders.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't-"
"Yeah, never mind," the first girl dismissed her, without spearing her a glare. "You couldn't know."
"What couldn't I know?" she asked, wondering why these girls were acting so mysterious.
"The Marquis managed to gain all his power by kidnapping the king's only daughter. He blackmailed him, threatening to kill her in exchange for what he wanted," and then she gave what Clara considered a dramatic pause.
"What did he want?" she insisted.
Before the girl could reply, the door burst open. It happened so suddenly, Clara jumped and her heart started beating very fast. All of the girls screamed and ran as fast they could back to their own beds.
She wasn't as quick. The fright paralyzed her so she remained in her sitting position as a figure emerged from the light coming from outside the room, that momentarily blinded her eyes.
"Security," she heard a low voice saying, and it took a while for her to realize it was the answer to her question.
When her eyes got accustomed once again to the change of light, she could eventually see the owner of that voice.
A very tall man was silhouetted in front of her. He had dark hair and a dark beard and very dark eyes. She thought he could have been an handsome man, if it weren't for his expression, which made him just menacing instead.
The look he was giving her was hard and made her forget how to breath. It was enough to inject fear in her veins as poison. She felt small, as if his mere presence had shrunken her.
"You're new here, so I will forgive you for your impertinence," the man continued coldly, with an apparent calmness that scared her all the more.
"Tomorrow it will be explained to you what your duties are and what it is expect from you, so, after that, I will pretend that you do what you are told. Have I made myself clear?"
Normally Clara would have protested, she would have stood up and told the man in front of him that she would not allow anyone to treat her that way, but she had the feeling that this wasn't no ordinary situation, so she just nodded in response to his question.
He smiled, but it was a cold, emotionless smile, which made her even more frightened. "I'm not a merciful man, as you will learn. I don't Give many second chances. Now go to sleep," he ordered.
Clara watched him turn on his heels and slam the door behind him.
Her heart still beating at an alarming speed, she crawled back into bed.