"I said stay back!" Rose warned the creature again.
Once more, its supple tentacles unfurled from the ground in front of her and its four arms hung tensely at its sides. She watched it warily, the rest of its multitudinous limbs were hanging in the air around it, waving about as if poised to strike.
Rose tried to read the expression on what passed from the alien's face, but she couldn't. Two of its eyes were tightly shut, the other two were trained on her. It lifted its head and sucked in the biting cold air, its upper nostrils flared and bulged like gills, then closed. It continued to stare at her, and she had the terrible feeling it had been tasting her scent.
"Think I'd make a good meal?" she taunted it, trying to appear brave though her gut was roiling with fear. It had been ever since the fog had fallen.
The Doctor had assured her this was a peaceful planet, with no real sentient life, only animals. "Well… At the moment anyway." He'd said.
He couldn't have been more wrong, the thick milky fog was filled with monsters, and this one wanted her hide.
All of a sudden, the creature pulled back into itself. Rose stiffened, ready to run. A long fraction of a second passed.
Its eyes opened. Rose was blinded by light. Her entire self reeled and was frozen.
It was beside her. Holding her shoulders with pitiful parodies of human hands.
"Rose silent to me." A melodious siren-song of a voice reached her ears. She tried to struggle out of its grasp, but it held her fast in a strong fourfold grip.
"Let go of me!" she cried and gave one last desperate push against the ground, which was thwarted once more.
"Rose please listen to my voice." She paused, why would it ask that of her? "Please, just listen. I don't want to hurt you." That voice, beneath the nimble trill, beyond the silky lilt… She knew that voice, that tone. It-
It was the Doctor's.
Rose felt fear again, it rose through her psyche like a firework, exploding into terrible and vivid imaged of her best friend, being bested by this—thing.
"What have you done to him?!" she demanded in growing rage, twisting around in its grasp to face it, "Where is the Doctor?"
"Rose…" it paused, she stopped.
What followed chilled her heart and froze her to the core, leaving her staring in absolute horror.
"I am the Doctor."
Rose stood there in shock, an emotional maelstrom raging inside her. She refused to believe it.
She barely felt the padded fingertips pressing against her temples, or the small tendrils tangling in her hair, curling around her ears, and snaking down her neck. She heard a gentle melody, singing her to sleep, she tried to fight it.
And failed, relaxing further into blessed oblivion.