I woke up that morning full of restless energy. The first thing I did was go check on the girl. I'd left her the night before sleeping in the spare room. I had toyed with the idea of camping out on the chair next to her, but the wall between us was quite thin and I reckoned that I would be able to hear anything that went on in there.

She was still asleep, but she was restless too, tossing and turning and twisting her sheets up into a mess. One of her hands was still draped on the floor, but the frown was gone from between her eyes. Maybe her back was hurting less than it did last night. Her skin did look healthier with much more pink in it. There was a flush in her cheeks that I hadn't seen before and her deathly pallor was gone.

Her hair was everywhere; lying splayed across her pillow, trailing on the floor, tangled around her body, twining round her arms. In the light streaming in form the window, I could see it had more brown in it that red. It was quite dark and set in loose curls that fell over her face and cascaded down to the floor.

"Looking better, isn't she?" mum asked from the doorway. I jumped, half spinning around, but didn't take my eyes off the figure lying on the bed. "Sorry about last night." she carried on sheepishly. "Did she really wake up?" Her eyes, like mine were fixed on the girl.

"Yes." I answered. "She complained about her back and told me not to leave to get you, but when we came back she was totally out of it again."

"That reminds me." said Sarah-Jane and gently turned the girl over, taking care not to hold her cut. "We need to dress this again and see how it is getting on. It may be bleeding through."

She gave me a pointed look and I took that as a sign that I had to vacate the spare room. Downstairs, she had put breakfast out on the table. I picked up a piece of toast and went to collect the post and sort out my school bag. It wasn't long before she called me up again.

"Rani not here yet?" she asked absent-mindedly as I walked over to look and the sleeping girl. I shook my head. "I've changed the bandages," she carried on, "but I think she's healing up fast and with any luck she won't need stitches."

The doorbell rang, so went downstairs to open it.

"Well?!" asked Rani as soon as she got inside. Her eyes were wide and full of questions. "How's she doing? How's her back?" she sat down on a kitchen chair and looked at me expectantly.

"She woke up last night." I informed her. "But when I come back from waking Sarah-Jane she was asleep again."

Rani was bubbling with excitement, wanting to go and look in on her, but it was getting late and we had to get to school. Sure enough Sarah-Jane shouted down, "Time to go off!" and we had no choice but to grab our bags and head out the front door.

The route from my house to Clyde's took us down the alleyway I found her in. it looked totally different in the sun, but I noted the darker patch of gravel were her blood had soaked in, not yet washed off by rain. How long had she lain in that spot. Had she been in pain? Had she been concious for part of it, unable to drag herself anywhere and wondering if the last thing she would see would be the cold ground?

I shuddered and passed the spot quickly. Rani was in a hurry, but she just wanted to get to see Clyde quicker. She really liked Clyde. I wondered how he didn't see it.

Clyde, when we got to his house, was all full of questions too. All too soon we were at school and then there was no time for talk as we made our way to our classrooms.

I was all set to walk home form school with Clyde and Rani, but when we walked out the school gates, mum was there in her car, looking impatient. She ushered us in and we set off at a fast pace in the opposite direction to Bannerman Road.

"Mr. Smith has picked up signs of alien activity about four miles from here." she filled us in. large amounts of energy are being stored and we need to find out what it's for." she veered off sharply at a junction and then carried on up a small street. "Mr. Smith says that amount of energy used for the wrong reasons could be very dangerous to the surrounding area." We spun around a corner and entered the factory part of town. Every building was grey and lifeless and litter was strewn everywhere over the filthy pavement.

We stepped out of the car and mum got her watch out to scan the area. She swept it around, watching the readings that came out of it. She frowned and swept again. She did it again, but nothing seemed to be coming up. She swore, looked at us guiltily and closed the watch.

"Nothing seems to be showing up at the moment, but I know which warehouse it is, so we'll go and check it out. It could be that the energy was used for teleportation and whatever was there isn't here any more." She retrieved her bag from the car, then pointed to one of the warehouses on the left hand side of the street. The iron door was rusty and the stones on the walls were crumbling, and, in some places, falling off. Chains hung from the doorhandles, but the lock that had held them together looked like it had been smashed open.

Rani looked uncertain. "Are you sure it's safe just to go walking in?" she asked. "Anything could be in there." She looked hesitantly at the grey building.

"We're just going to look." murmured Sarah-Jane. She motioned for us to follow her to the door. She tried it and luckily it was unlocked. Not that it would have made any difference against Sarah-Jane's sonic lipstick.

It wasn't as dark as I expected inside. My brain went over the windows I had seen from the outside. High up, dusty and very small, my working out concluded that they could not be the only source of the light in the large warehouse. There had to be something else illuminating it.

When I stepped around Sarah-Jane, I realised what it was. In the centre of the large room the warehouse was made up of, there were many machine, looking hi-tech and clinical. There were lights shining into a bed in the centre.

I had seen this setup before. It had been one of the first things I had seen. It was all too familiar.

A/N- Please tell me if you think I should carry on, as I'm thinking it's not very great and I might give it up for something else.

Tell me what you think. :S