Chapter Two - Metallic Monsters
The day had been a strange one. I couldn't shake the feeling of dread that had settled over me since the nightmare of yesterday. And now it was night-time again. I drank my cocoa and listened to music as I tried to ease my mind. Propped up on my pillows, I allowed the calm sounds of the music wash over me as I drifted off to sleep.
#
I was floating in space this time. Just miles of blackness, never-ending. Not even a star in sight. Then away in the distance there was one tiny shining star. I floated towards it, and as I drew nearer I realised it wasn't a star, but a door. A door? Hadn't I been here before? I floated closer and those same words were written across it. 'The Doctor'. I knew I had to go through it and held out my hand to push it open.
On the other side I was in another world, another land that was totally alien to me. The ground I walked upon was entirely made up of sand. Soft yellow sand. It stretched into the distance all around me and I could see nothing except gentle undulating dunes reaching away to the horizon. I walked a little way then shimmering in the distance appeared a metal city. The walls gleamed in the sunlight and I was impossibly drawn towards it.
Immediately I was then standing on the outskirts of the city. It was a sea of glass and steel. I held my hand to one of the walls and the cold pierced my skin making a stark contrast to the warm sun on the back of my neck.
My clothes hadn't changed this time, I was still in my nightshirt and my bare feet padded over the threshold of this strange building. Inside was no different to the exterior. The walls were bare, metallic and cold. The floor exactly the same. I was inside a metal box, with corridors leading off in various directions.
I walked through one of the arches into another room. The door hissed across the arch behind me, closing off the entrance through which I'd just walked. I continued walking forward through corridors and rooms, each time the exit closing off behind me. I was walking through a maze and I had no idea what I would discover at the centre.
Eventually I could walk no further. There was no corridor left open to entice me. The final arch had hissed shut behind me. I turned on the spot and realised I was trapped. My only option was to sit and wait.
#
"Excuse me. I wonder if you could help me."
I look up to see a comical but friendly looking man in the room. Where did he come from?
"Do you know where we are?"
I shake my head. "I have no idea," I tell him.
"Oh dear, that doesn't really help us, does it." He shakes his head and pats down his black coat.
"How did you get here?" I ask him.
"Me? Oh I've been here all along." He answers.
He starts moving around the room, feeling the metal panels as he does so. "What we need is a door," he suggests as if I hadn't thought of that myself.
"There was a door over there," I point at a wall.
"Yes, that's what's bothering me, it's not there anymore," he walks over to it and stares at the wall as if a door will magically appear under his gaze.
"I think they are coming," he states in alarm. He turns back to look at me, "we've got to get out of here."
'You don't say Sherlock,' I think to myself.
"What's your name," he asks me.
"Alice," I answer
"I'm the Doctor," he states, turning back to the door that never was and running his hands over the wall.
My brain pauses for a moment as it concentrates entirely on processing this information, and then my body seems to function again and my heart recommences beating. He doesn't look like the Doctor I think. Although I'm not entirely sure what the Doctor should look like.
"Uh oh," he mutters. "I think they are here."
The door reappears and swings open and into the room sweep two metal canisters. They glide effortlessly and I wonder at their encasement, burnished metal and studded with metallic balls at the bottom. There is a metal grille at the top, and various implements protrude from the obscure machine.
"Move, move to the door," one of the machines bleats to us.
I look at the Doctor, wait for his reaction.
"Why," the Doctor replies. "What do you want with us?"
"Obey, you will obey us." The machine demands. It moves forward and waves one of its gadgets at the Doctor.
He chooses to obey and I move to follow him.
"Not you." The machine turns on me. "Stay here."
"Now listen to me," The Doctor says. "She comes with me." He holds out his hand to me, and I grasp it.
"She stays here." The machine repeats, a pitch higher, obviously annoyed if a machine can be annoyed.
"Oh you are in a bad temper." The Doctor claims. "I'm coming, but one word of warning. You leave her alone." He gives my hand a small squeeze and then lets it go.
"She is for the experiment." The machine advises.
"What experiment?" The Doctor asks
"Reproduction. Move!" the machine waggles a weapon at the Doctor.
"No! You can't do that. You can't." he exclaims.
"MOVE!" the machine repeats.
The Doctor starts to move out of the room but turns and speaks to me one last time. "I'm sorry. There is nothing I can do to help you."
I look at the floor, realising he is right.
"Alice," he says softly.
I look up at him again.
"Do what it says. Whatever the Dalek wants you are safest to obey. I'm sorry."
With that he turns and leaves the room. One of the machines, a Dalek follows him out. The other stays with me. It rounds on me and points one of its long metal arms at me. Too late I realise it is a weapon.
With no mercy and without reason it fires on me. My stomach is ablaze with the raw energy of its gun. Burning me and consuming me from the inside. I cannot bear the pain and fall to the floor.
"Doctor!" I call out in vain. "Help me!"
#
I am awake now, sitting upright in bed staring at the wall opposite. I am shaking violently and look down at my body to reassure myself I am still in once piece. I take a deep breath and blow it out then pull the covers back over me.