It's about to get freaky! ;)

Disclaimer: I don't own this. Except Hero. Oh and the DakTar. and Damon...

Several long hours drifted by, and Amy, Rory, and I sat inside the tent trying not to look each other in the eye. I kept running my mind over and over the moment when the Doctor was taken from us, when the light flashed painfully bright and he mouthed my name. I felt like there was a weight resting in the pit of my stomach, achy and sad. I had only known the Doctor for a brief amount of time, yet I couldn't help feeling like I'd known him longer, like I'd known him my whole life... He meant a lot to me, but I couldn't put my finger on the reason. It was a fact that I couldn't deny, but also one that I could not explain.

Thoroughly depressed, I leaned back against a barrel, letting my eyelids swing shut. I found myself picturing the Doctor. He was smirking at me, his mop of brown hair scattered across his forehead, his hazel eyes twinkling. He held out his arm like he did when I went flying across the TARDIS on our space flight, and I remembered what it felt like when he still clung to me, totally forgetting his arm around my waist. I pictured him dressed in a ridiculous frilly apron, passing me the fish fingers and chattering about a day he once spent on a beach planet.

I hadn't really had a good night's sleep since my last sleep in my own house, on Earth, before final exams. I felt exhausted. This was becoming a little too much. Opening my eyes, I glanced over at Amy and Rory. They had drifted off to sleep, leaning sweetly against one another. They seemed peaceful enough in sleep, though I knew they were probably worse off than I at the Doctor's absence. I sighed quietly to myself, settling down further onto the smooth floor of the tent. Perhaps it would be daylight soon so that we could learn more about what had happened to the Doctor. Maybe Damon would return soon with good news. Maybe...

In spite of myself, I drifted off the sleep.

I am walking down a long, dim corridor with many dark doorways on each side of me. I don't know why I'm walking towards the dim light at the end of the hallway, but something in my gut tells me that I have to hurry before it's too late. But the corridor keeps getting longer and longer as I walk faster and then eventually break into a run. Panting for breath I suddenly crash into the far wall and turn to the right to where the light is coming from. The last door in the hallway is open, and inside it I see stone steps leading down down down into that cold, flickering light. I move to the doorway and my heart leaps to my throat when I can hear screams coming from the dungeon below and they're his screams and I'm running down the stairs which seem to go on forever and I'm crying now and he keeps screaming and begging for mercy and I keep running down down down and I can't see but I can still hear him and now I'm screaming too and I fall down, down, down...

"Hero!"

I woke with a jerk, looking up quickly to see Amy bending over me. She looked a little concerned.

"Hey, you," she murmured, frowning slightly at me, "you okay, then?"

My heart was still pounding in my chest, but I nodded, rubbing my eyes. I was thirsty.

"You were twitchin' in your sleep... I'm sorry this whole mess has upset you," she went on, helping me get to my feet.

"It's not your fault," I replied, straightening my clothes, "I'm just... It was all so beautiful, but then it went so wrong..." Amy looked sad as I said this, but unsurprised. Probably she was fairly used to things like this.

"Well, it's time... Damon said we should step outside..."

My heart jolted, and I felt instantly alert. I met Amy's eyes for an instant, then followed her out of the tent and into the large cavern. Small shafts of light filtered down from the high ceiling all the way to the stone floor below. So it is daytime after all... Damon and Rory were waiting for us outside, both looking grave. A small group of green aliens stood nearby, regarding us curiously. If I hadn't been so tied up in knots inside I would have laughed when I thought about how strange and pink we must have looked to them. I focused on the two men in front of me, however, staying close to Amy.

"Hello again, friends," Damon greeted us, smiling faintly. He faced all three of us, laying a hand on Amy and Rory's shoulders and nodding to me. "The DakTar agreed to speak with me. I have to admit I'm a bit surprised. They have agreed to... something."

We all sighed in relief, leaning forward expectantly.

"Yes?" I encouraged him, my heart pounding in my throat, "Is the Doctor okay?"

"I'm very very sorry," Damon replied, looking at me, "but they would not show him to me. I expected them to treat this like the usual detainee situation, gods know it's happened enough..." He looked very sadly at us, then straightened, withdrawing his hands from Amy and Rory. "Anyway, the point is, our friend the Doctor is in grave peril. But, but..." He cut off our sounds of anguish, raising his hands, "the DakTar have agreed that the Doctor can and will receive a full pardon for his... crimes... if at least one of you, his faithful companions, can free him." There was a pause, then Damon went on, "Apparently this is like some sort of ritual competition or something, I couldn't really understand what they meant."

"We'll try, of course," Rory stated, and Amy and I nodded fervently.

Damon smiled sadly at the three of us, nodding in approval, "I begged to be allowed to try, but they refused and cut off communications for a few moments. I had almost given up hope, but then they reconnected and said that only you three may attempt to free our friend the Doctor. Now, we must hurry, the trial will begin soon..."

"Trial?" I murmured, confused.

"THE CEREMONY BEGINS NOW," boomed that same strange, mechanical voice, and we all jumped except Damon. He began to herd us away from the encampments toward a solid rock face. Suddenly a large doorway in the rock melted into existence, the strange voice of the DakTar spoke again, "SLAVES OF THE DOCTOR, YOU SHALL BEGIN THE TRIALS TO FIND YOUR MASTER."

"We are not his bloody slaves!" Amy cried, looking furious, "We're here because we are his friends!"

There was a terrible sort of metallic chuckle from wherever-it-was, that voice, and it went on, "ENTER THE DOORWAY NOW, SLAVES."

I swore under my breath, then led the way into the doorway. A long dark passageway lay ahead, and we all paused, looking back out into the bright cave. Damon was backing away, raising his hands in some sort of blessing. Then the rock wall melted back into place and we were left standing in near-darkness.

"Well this is just awesome," I muttered, moving cautiously forward. Amy looked like she was about to burst into flames right there with anger.

"I just wish, I just wish for once we didn't always get into some trouble," she hissed, taking Rory's arm for support hard enough to bruise, "the Doctor has got to be more careful, he''ll get himself killed like this..." She trailed off, lowering her eyes. She looked just as troubled as I did inside.

"Come on, then, let's rescue the Doctor," Rory said gently, steering us two girls down the passageway. There was water dripping down the walls, nasty looking water, so I stayed right in the middle of the path.

"I wonder what we're gonna have to do..." I began, and then we turned a corner and the passageway opened out into a large room with silver metal walls. We stopped at once, looking around us. The room was empty, and it extended for quite some ways ahead into dimness.

"Let's go," I said, taking a bold step forward, but was cut off as we heard an odd grating sound behind us. It took me a second to realize that some other stone door back in the passageway had just slid open.

We heard a low growl. Then a scuffling sound.

"Run!" Amy shouted, and we did, sprinting across metal flooring as whatever it was snarled behind us. I didn't want to look, but when I heard Rory shout I turned my head just in time to see a huge rat thing bearing down on us, snapping its fangs and roaring. A freaking roaring rat...

"Oh shit!" I screamed, trying to run faster. Amy and Rory caught up with me and we bolted through the vast metal room, gasping for breath as the creature slowly got closer. I could hear its claws scratching one the floor.

Up ahead I could see that the room dwindled down into another long passage, and this one had a fork in it. The right side only went for a little way, however, but the left side seemed longer and more like a viable escape route. By now we were running so fast that it would have been difficult to stop, so when we got to the fork and I dashed down the left-hand passage, it took a split second for me to realize that Amy and Rory had gone the other way.

I thudded to a halt, the creature slowing down about twenty feet from the fork, snarling. There was a loud thump of something heavy hitting a wall in the next passage, and Amy cried out.

"Damn it!" Rory shouted, "Damn perception filter..."

Perception filter...

I could see through those.

I turned around fully, facing the way I had come, and then Amy and Rory rounded the corner; they had doubled back and paused. They were staring straight at me but seemed as though they actually couldn't see me.

"I'm hear!" I shouted, "It's an illusion, just come through! That rat is right there!"

They began to inch forward, holding their hands out, and realized with a sudden jolt that the rat thing, or whatever it was, was gone. What...

And then without warning a heavy metal door slid down from the ceiling of the passageway, down between Amy and Rory and myself, shutting them out. Shutting me in.

The lights flickered and went out.