Amy and Rory nervously clambered up the steps after the Doctor, following him through the darkened shaft in the roof of the room. An empty biting frost stung at the air in the vast hall they found themselves in. The room was almost completely pitch black, the only light creeping in from a few windows set into the sides of the room. However, through the windows, it was not the outside world that could be seen, but a twisting swirling mass of deep blue and purple clouds, surrounding them. Trapping them. They gave off an eerie glow, which scratched and wound its way into the interior of the derelict building, casting distorted elongated shadows across the already darkened space.
The Doctor was stood a little ahead of his companions, his form silhouetted against the unearthly light that was being cast across the room. He had the sonic screwdriver in his hand and was focussing intently upon its constant whirring.
"Now! This room takes up a whole floor of the house, so it's big. Very big! So, the question is, why give all that space to one room?"
Amy and Rory looked at each other, exchanging a nervous glance. Without looking away from his wife, it was Rory who spoke next.
"Doctor, if it's just an old house, does interior design really matter?"
The Doctor flicked the sonic back into his pocket, before swirling round to face the couple.
"Ah, but, Rory, that's the thing – it's not just an old house. After what happened downstairs, we can be pretty sure it's not just an old house. But then what's the point of it? And if everything that happened down there was just a greeting…"
He spun back round, to face the rest of the vast, shadowed, chamber.
"What's waiting up here?"
Rory and Amy instinctively grabbed each other's hands, their fingers squeezing tightly together.
"Doctor," Amy stammered, "can we not just head to the stairs?"
"Can't be that easy." the Doctor whispered, thoughtfully scanning every detail within the area. "But then again, how do you know if you don't try? Come along Pond."
The Doctor, anxiously though briskly, started to make his way across the room, heading to the barely visible staircase at the far end. Amy and Rory followed, though their nerves forbade them to do so with as much speed as the Time Lord. As they moved, the cold lashing violently at their skin, a quiet rattling echoed from one distant corner of the room. Amy froze, Rory quickly stumbling to a halt beside her.
"Doctor, what was that?"
The Doctor was already wandering off in the direction of the noise, bent over slightly, peering into the darkness.
"I don't know…"
The soles of the Doctor's boots made dull, reverberating echoes as they touched the floor, sending a slight shiver through the darkened room. As the twisted shadows began to conceal him, another sound issued out from within the darkness – an inhuman, heavy, scuttling sound.
Peering into the darkened corners of the room, the Doctor's eyes widened as he started to pick out an outline.
"Amy, Rory… you should run. Now!"
"What is it?" Rory asked quickly, rooted to the spot.
"Run!" the Doctor repeated, his tone urgent, fearful.
He was running towards them, leaving the shadows behind, as something quickly stirred within them. Before Amy and Rory could move, the thing had burst out of hiding, into the dim, unearthly light that dwelled within the room.
It was huge – a hulking, pulsating, slime-ridden mass. A giant worm-like creature, its skin pitch black and adorned with cracked, black bones. A million legs protruded from underneath it, each one a small, tough, claw-like appendage with a brutally sharpened end. Several blood red eyes were bulging from its misshapen head, each one with thick veins swelling from its surface. There was no iris or pupil – just that searing, empty, crimson stare. Its mouth was surrounded by rotting mandibles and bloodied fangs, each one thicker than a human head, and beyond which there laid a thick, dark abyss.
The creature let out a terrifying, trembling roar, which echoed endlessly against itself, filling the cold air of the dark, forbidding chamber. Amy screamed – a high, terrifying sound, almost drowned out by the creature's bloodthirsty bellowing.
She had turned on her heels and started running, desperately trying to escape the thing, Rory by her side. But it was coming after them, its movements large and clumsy, but powerful. And fast – very fast. Amy found herself repeatedly ducking and weaving in all sorts of different directions to escape it; if she ran in a straight line it would catch up with her easily.
She was vaguely aware that she had lost track of Rory somewhere in the maze of wooden pillars that seemed to fill the room, but she couldn't find him now – it would only result in that thing catching her.
The Doctor was stood near the edge of the room, moving slowly with the sonic trained on the thing. An intent, determined expression was on his face, the sonic's whirring becoming increasingly high pitched.
"Oi! Beasty! Over here!" he called out, running towards it, the sonic still aimed squarely at its dark, bone-armoured body.
With another deep, excruciating roar, it thrust its swollen head round, to face the Doctor. Slowly, its whole pulsating, stretching body, began to writhe and turn, so that it was entirely turned towards the Time Lord. Its vein-ridden crimson eyes, met his sharply staring gaze.
"Okay… here's the tricky bit…"
He held the sonic screwdriver out, its tone reaching a screeching crescendo. The creature screamed out, a cry of pain, the sonic sound waves tormenting it. Then, with another of its reverberating deep bellows, it launched itself through the thick dark air, leaping at the Doctor.
He was turning and running from it, leading it through the room by the illuminated screech of the sonic screwdriver. The creature's roars were tearing through the room, disturbing signs of its determination to extinguish the unbearable noise and its creator. It smashed through wooden pillars, sending splinters cascading in all directions. The Doctor reached the far wall, a darkly clouded window next to him as he pressed his back against the cold stone. The emerald light of his screwdriver was still extended in front of him, taunting the hellish, worm-like monster that was stampeding towards him.
"Come on… come on…" his voice was quiet, the words muttered under his breath.
The black, twisting shape of the thing reared itself up as it came close to the Doctor, ready to bring itself crashing down on him, but he was still, waiting for the right moment…
The monster flung itself downwards – steeply downwards. The Doctor ducked out of the way, but watched, shocked. It wouldn't have hit him if he had stayed put. Instead it slammed into the floor, where it seemed to melt away into the shadows that clawed at the wooden surface.
Moving cautiously forward, to where the beast had been a second ago, the Doctor stared, surprised and wide-eyed.
"What? Where have you gone?" he whispered, though seemingly to nobody other than himself.
"Doctor?" Amy called out from the other end of the room. "Where did it go?"
"I don't know!" he called back, though his gaze was fixed on the spot where the thing had been. "It just sort of… vanished. But it was like… like it was joining with the shadows…"
"Joining with the shadows?" Rory repeated, perplexed.
"Yes, Rory, becoming a part of the darkness that is filling this room."
"How does it do that?"
"I don't know." the Doctor admitted, the shock still present in his voice.
He looked up, staring across the room at his companions. The Ponds. They were stood a short distance apart, having been separated when fleeing, and both of them still looked shaken up. They had been left unharmed but…
"Frightened." the Doctor whispered, so quietly they could not have heard. "Seems to be a lot of fear in this place."
He allowed himself to relax a little more, now that the creature had vanished. Raising his arm, he beckoned Amy and Rory over to where he was stood. Then he saw it.
At first it was hardly noticeable, just a blot at the back of the room, but it became more evident, more defined, with each second. The silhouette of the worm creature, visible against the warped blue light hitting the back wall.
"Stay where you are!" he suddenly shouted at Amy and Rory. His eyes were darting in every direction, looking for the creature, hiding amongst the shadows, but it wasn't there. "Joining with the shadows…"
They had seen it too – Amy and Rory were both now staring at the back wall, frozen, terrified.
"What do we do?" Amy asked, her voice timid, though loud enough to reach the Doctor.
"Just stay very still." the Doctor said, his voice slow, instructive.
The silhouette ripped open its fanged mouth and that same deep, echoing roar filled the room. And the wall was pulsating. It was as though it had lost its solidity, and where the silhouette touched it, the dull surface was starting to stretch and move. The creature was trying to leave the shadows.
"Okay," the Doctor called, his voice less calm now, "forget staying still. That might not be the best plan. Instead… RUN!"
They didn't need telling twice. Amy and Rory were bolting towards the Doctor, who was dashing for the staircase up to the next level. All three of them mounted the stairs at the same time, running, not looking back, but aware that the creature would be there. It would be behind them, reforming itself in the vast dark room.
They reached the top of the stairs to find a single, small wooden door. Locked. That inhuman scuttling was becoming audible in the room below.
"Doctor, sonic it!" Amy pleaded hurriedly.
"I'm trying!" the Doctor yelled, holding the sonic screwdriver against the lock. Nothing was happening.
"Doctor, we need to get through there, right now!"
"It's deadlocked!"
The bellowing of the beast was becoming louder, its destructive movements echoing out once more. They could hear it, hear it approaching them, hear it as it came to consume them.
"Just smash it down, then!" Amy shouted in fear.
The three of them rammed themselves against the door. Its wooden body creaked mockingly against their impact, holding itself in place. They kept slamming themselves against it, trying to force it to the ground, their attempts becoming more and more desperate. They could see the shadow of the monster approaching below. The unmistakable smell of its rancid breath was creeping upon them.
Their shoulders took another impact on the wooden door, as the monster's dark, bone covered body became visible at the bottom of the stairs, its bulbous red eyes registering them.
"Come on!" Amy screamed, hitting the door harder and harder.
The worm-like thing hurled itself up the stairs, soaring towards them, its vast dark jaws open, ready. The distance between them disappeared within a second. Those impossible jaws came crashing towards them, only a foot away when the door collapsed and the trio fell to the ground on the other side.
The misshapen head vanished into darkness once more, an instant before it would have hit the wall.
"Well, I'm glad we've got that over and done with." the Doctor commented, quite casually, as he picked himself up and dusted down his jacket.
Rory clambered to his feet, before helping Amy up. The Doctor's attention was fixed on the doorway.
The wall was slowly re-growing. Growing as though it was an organic, biological creature, healing a wound. A stone surface was soon covering the gap where the door had once been, cutting them off from the route back.
The Doctor silently turned back around. They were in a dark, stretching, wooden corridor. The walls were lined with an infinite number of doors and openings to other corridors, the end far out of sight.
"No turning back now…" the Doctor murmured, starting to walk down the impossibly long corridor, Amy and Rory following him. Following him into the stretching darkness…