The Tardis slammed into the planet, sending Donna and the Doctor flying into the walls.
The Doctor stood up and dusted himself off. "Donna? You alright?"
A muffled groan came from a few feet away. "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine."
The Doctor helped Donna up from the floor, took out his stethoscope and pressed it against her chest. He smiled and took it away. "Everything seems to be in order here."
Donna laughed warmly.
The Doctor walked up to the walls and put his stethoscope to them, walking around the perimeter, inaudibly mumbling as he went. "They held, but barely." He said bringing a graver air to the scene.
"If the walls broke we would have been toast." Donna said, still slightly in shock.
"You know, I don't much care for toast. There's an atmosphere out there, so let's go have a look. Besides, I think the Tardis needs a rest." The Doctor patted the dash board and walked to the door.
The Doctor and Donna stepped outside into a fierce wind. She shivered from the biting cold.
The Doctor took off his trench coat and placed it around Donna's bare arms, not saying anything, doing it from reaction.
"Thank you. You really didn't have to do that. I was fine. But thank you, Doctor," Donna said still rubbing her arms quickly.
He smiled. "Anytime. Besides, it would have be anticlimactic for you to die of cold out here after a truly text book crash landing."
"Don't kid yourself. We landed right side up due to sheer dumb luck."
The Doctor stared at the floor. "Let's get moving."
The two of them marched around the semi-darkness of the planet looking for signs of life.
Close to what should have been night fall, they found what they were looking for.
"Doctor! There!" said Donna pointing an enormous black mass.
After a few minutes of staring at what looked like nothing at first, the Doctor responded. "Brilliant, Donna!" They started to walk towards it.
"Do you think it's old?" asked Donna as they approached it, getting a better sight of its majesty.
"Yeah. Looks real old. Stone, not metal. Tall as well as thick; another sign of ancient peoples. Modern ones generally prefer tall wafer thin buildings… not massive caves." He finished with his last words echoing about the stone walls as they entered.
"Impressive." Donna said in wonder. "Reminds me of ancient Egypt."
The Doctor let out a chuckle as they walked into the darkness.
"No, really! Bu then again, it looks like the dead side of the Nile. Where they buried everyone. Mummy people?" said Donna, going out on a limb.
"Hmm. Not likely, but possible. But the writing on the wall is pictorial, so it was most likely made a long time ago, as this planet is really old, according to the Tardis. Primitive tools were also used to chisel it in, signs of an undeveloped civilization, but they could just be slow or newly developed." The Doctor scratched the back of his head while in thought.
"Doctor. I'm pretty sure it's ancient. No one has been in here in a while. A real long while." Donna bent down to the floor.
"How do ya' say?" he said, turning to her.
She swiped her finger across the floor. "It's dusty."
"Well…yeah… There's that too." The Doctor looked a little dejected.
Donna smiled. "So what does it say?"
The Doctor turned back to the wall. "Rubbish mostly. Praise for the gods. Offerings and that sort of thing. But I can't read much more without a torch."
Donna pulled out a book of rather large matches out of the Doctor's trench coat. "Here you go."
"I had those? Really? I thought I lost those in Loranda."
Donna let it go without a story. She lit a match, brightening up the extensive room.
"Ohh, that's interesting." Said the Doctor looking at the opposing wall.
"What?" Donna said quizzically.
"Behind you."
She turned to face where he was looking. "Oh! Well that's different."
"Technically it's the same as everything else."
Donna shot him a nasty look.
"It's just bigger and painted over everything else, not chiseled. And hurried." The Doctor spoke quickly to redeem himself.
"What does it say? Must be important. It's different than everything else."
"Appears to be a quick and dirty account of why things are the way they are. What went wrong? Why everyone is dead. Help me find the start of it."
They walked to the front of the chamber, picking up the start of the painted glyphs.
The Doctor began to translate them, tracing his finger down the wall as he went. "Long ago, this was a peaceful planet. Blah blah blah, praise for the sun and moon gods who together kept the planet in harmony. Ok, now it starts to get more interesting. Then one day the moon god betrayed them. He spun out of his circular walk around the planet and came crashing down. He slammed down on to the ground, making valleys into tall mountains."
They walked farther down into the chamber; into darkness. The only light was provided by the fading match.
The Doctor continued. "The moon gods betrayal on us cause there to be great winds. Night and day switched more and more quickly. Then the sun god failed us, and walked away. Even now he does not return, and night and day are as one, in a perpetual evening. Our crops have failed us. Many more each day are dying. Rocks spin around in our sky, landing and causing mountains. Our feeble race is failing. I write to you as one of the last." The match went out just as the Doctor finished reading.
Donna spoke after a few minutes of silence. "That's so tragic. But it only half explains what happened to us. Why did we get pulled down here?"
The Doctor responded. "After the moon crashed into the planet, it sent it spinning out of orbit of the sun. The fast rotation of the planet caused so much wind that all plant matter would have died. Also, when we stopped the Tardis, the wind started to pull us into a downward orbit. As the planet traveled through the galaxy, it kept gaining mass from the rocks that crashed into it. With it gaining mass, the gravitational forces put out by it grew immense, trapping us in its gravitational field. From the backwards spin of it, there are also fields of antigravity, which kept us not moving, instead of being pulled down to the surface. But as we tried to blast our way out of there, the winds pulled us into a pocket of antigravity and when we tried to accelerate it shot us in the opposite direction; straight down to the surface of the planet. By how forceful the gravity was, I'm pretty surprised that we found this place. Lucky that it hasn't been obliterated by rock."
"Again, like someone wanted it to be found eventually." Donna said smartly.
"Right." The Doctor responded, impressed with her. "Very good, Donna Noble."
"But why did the moon come crashing into the planet in the first place? Could it have been planned too?"
"Possibly. Probably." In truth the Doctor didn't know either. "Arm yourself with knowledge Donna, it's time to delve deeper into the temple.