Chapter 1: The Fun is about to Begin.
Thanks to my followers, favorites, Reviewers, or people who just read the story. Hope you guys like it. This chapter is dedicated to my AMAZING new beta WhoLockVenger Of Awesomeness who has been so great and supportive. Here is the next chapter, hope you guys like.
Now is where the story picks up: The next day I woke up later than usual, probably because I stayed up all night thinking about the man I had seen outside the hospital yesterday. Nevertheless, what I woke up to today was even stranger. Instead of my alarm I was awoken by the squeals of the other kids and rushed talk of the nurses. When I open my eyes I saw all of the kids crowded around the windows, jumping up and down excitedly while the nurse tried to get them back to their beds.
I hopped out of bed and walked over to the window where Anniebell was sitting. She turned back to me with a big gapped tooth grin, "The rain, Chrisy! Look at the rain!" I looked out and it took me a minute to see what she was talking about. At first it just looked normal until I realized the rain was falling up instead of down! Now that is something I never thought I would see. It was scientifically impossible, but then again science had been proven wrong. It was fascinating to look at. The rain flew upwards, gliding against the windows, and it was only raining around the hospital, nowhere else. Then Nurse Stroker blew that stupid whistle.
"All right, I want all of you back in bed now. There is nothing to worry about. Just a weather anomaly," She said. The other nurses and her where corralling the kids and I was about to go back to my bed when I looked out the window at the upward falling rain. This was what I had been waiting for, wasn't it? Some weird strange adventure. A new mystery to solve. I kept looking between my bed and the door, and I had made up my mind: Time for a new adventure.
I ran over to my bed and pulled the curtain around me. I changed into some light blue jeans, a grey shirt with a Shakespeare quote on it, a purple hoodie, my silver teaspoon necklace, and my red trainers. I pulled back the curtains and, when the nurses weren't looking, ran out the door. I went running down the halls to see what was going on everywhere else. Just like in the children's ward every one who could was crowded around the windows watching the rain in awe. Then the hospital started to shake.
It wasn't just a little tremor. The building began to pitch back and forth wildly. I was thrown into one wall then another before I was able to grasp on to a doorframe to keep from being tossed around like a rag doll. When the hospital finally stopped shaking it was darker. Not like the lights went out dark because the lights were still on, there just wasn't any light coming from the window. I looked and saw that it was night out, but it wasn't normal night. For one, it had been lunch time a few seconds ago. And two, the stars looked different. I knew what stars were in the summer sky in London. I should be seeing Leo and Camelopardalis and Ursa Major. Instead I was staring Orion right in the face. This was so weird. I pushed my way towards the window and I got a good look at the grey crater covered surface below.
We were on the Moon.
I guess I can scratch that of the list.
But seriously, the entire hospital was on the moon! And we were breathing, on the moon! And we were alive, on the moon! It seemed everyone else began to realize this to because the entire room began to panic. Nurses and Doctors were trying to calm patients and regain their own composure. That's my cue to move on.
I kept running down the hallways, but all I could find was the exact same thing: Patients panicking; doctors trying not to panic. I kept running until I ran into someone and we both fell to the floor. I looked up to see one of the medical students who used to work in the Children's ward, Martha. She had always been nice; really smart too.
"Sorry." I groaned as we both got up from the floor. She smiled.
"It's fine." She mumbled right before she saw who I was. "I'm Martha." Yes, she didn't recognize me. "You are?" she sighed exasperated.
"My name is Christina, I'm here…uh…doing volunteer work. I wanted to come explore, see what was going on. I left when the rain started. Martha, we're on the moon!" I exclaimed. It was the best cover story I could come up with.
"I know that. Because of that we need to make sure all of the patients are okay, so, time to start doing some of that volunteer work, follow me. Wait… I know you." She stated firmly.
Crap.
"You do?" I asked nervously.
"Of course I know you. I wouldn't forget." She exclaimed. Here it comes. I am about to be sent back to the Children's ward. "You were that girl from this morning. You said today was going to be fantastic." She paused. "Did you know this was going to happen."? I blinked confused. I hadn't left the hospital in weeks.
"Listen I honestly have no idea what you are talking about, but you said we had people to help, so let's go help them."
As we ran down the hallways the panic started rising. I wasn't very good at running due to my condition and was having a hard time keeping up with Martha but I wasn't going to let that stop me. I did almost run into a poor little old woman in a blue robe. When we got to orthopedic, Martha and the other nurse who was with her, Swales, started trying to calm the patients down.
"All right now, everyone back to bed, we've got an emergency but we'll sort it out. Don't worry." She said as she ran over to the window. I tried to help calm down some of the patients as best I could.
"It's real. It's really real." Martha said as she was about to open the window but Swales stopped her in a panic.
"Don't we'll lose all the air!" She cried.
"But they're not exactly air tight. If the air was going to get sucked out it would have happened straight away, but it didn't." Martha tried to reassure her. I walked over to them.
"Not only that but if the air had been sucked out the instantaneous vacuum would have instantly caused us all to have been sucked out, frozen to death, or to spontaneously combust." I said. Swales just started to cry harder.
"That didn't really help." Martha grumbled. I mumbled sorry. We turned around as a curtain around one of the beds was pulled back and the man from yesterday in the street stepped out. He looked at exactly the same. Same suit, same hair, same trainers, and same excited look in his eyes.
"Very good points. Brilliant, in fact. What are your names?" The man said coming over to the window.
"Martha."
"And it was Jones, wasn't it. And you." He asked turning to me. It took me a second to answer.
"Christina" I managed to get out.
"Well then, Martha Jones, Christina, how are we breathing?" he asked us.
"We can't be." Swales sobbed.
"Well obviously we are so don't waste my time. So, what have we got? Is there a balcony on this floor, or a veranda?" he implored.
"By the patients lounge yeah." Martha said.
"The one by the Children's ward is closed." I added. Martha gave me a look. "I volunteer here a lot." I covered and she seemed to except it.
"Fancy going out?" the man raised eyebrow. I grinned.
"Yes!" I exclaimed.
"Okay." Martha added.
"We might die." The man stated, to see if we were serious.
"We might not." Martha replied.
"Besides, what's life without a little adventure?" I laughed. The man grinned wildly.
"Well come on then!" He yelled and the three of us ran of the room. Adventure here I come.
When we got to the balcony we stopped in front of the door. We all looked at each other and took a breath, then opened the doors. Myself, Martha, and the man (I really should learn his name) stepped out onto the balcony. We looked at each other again, and took another deep breath of air. Wait, AIR!
"It's air! We are breathing actual air! In space," I yelled, maybe a little too excited, but this was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me. I get to actual scratch "go to the moon" off my list. I gripped the man's shoulder than ran over to the edge of the balcony. "Oh, I just love air, don't you? You know it is only 20% oxygen. But that doesn't matter. It's worked out so perfectly, we can still breathe it anyway. A perfect combination of nitrogen, and oxygen, and neon, and methane, and argon, and carbon dioxide. And that's just the top five. There are so many others. And it's all ours. Sure other planets have atmospheres. With all the new extraterrestrial stuff popping up all over the place, it's a given that some are breathable. But not one is exactly like ours." I took another deep breath. "It's just, fantastic." I turned to the two of them and smiled, then noticed the looks on their faces. Martha was looking at me with a look of shock on her face, and the man was grinning ear to ear. He walked up to me and gripped my shoulders.
"You are brilliant, you know that. Absolutely brilliant. Not too many humans think like that. Oh, you sound just like Ro…" he stopped speaking and his smile faltered. He turned towards Martha who had walked towards the other end of the balcony.
"I've got a party tonight. It's my brother's twenty first. My mother is going to be really, really mad." Martha said looking waywardly down at the planet below. I followed suit, gazing at the giant orb of blue and green dotted with clouds.
"You okay?" the man asked her. She nodded. Then I spoke.
"It's funny, isn't it? Looking down on Earth from way up here. All those people down there going about their lives. My gran is down there. She- my Gran! What's she going to think happened! She probably thinks I am hurt. Or dead! I have to call her let her know I am okay. I have to…" and I was about to run inside when the man stopped me. He looked at me with concern in his eyes, but also firmness. A firmness of someone who had seen far too much in far too short a time.
"Not now. I have to get to the bottom of this, and I need some help. But I promise I will get you home safely to your gran. You have my word." He said with a hand on my shoulder.
"Thank You." I replied gratefully. Something about his voice and his demeanor made me feel calmer. Like everything was going to be all right.
"You two want to go back in?" he asked.
"No way!' we both blurted at the same time. I stopped shyly, but Martha continued. "I mean, we could die at any minute, but all the same, it's beautiful." She was right. Looking down at it, earth was gorgeous. "How many people want to come to the moon? And here we are."
"I know I wanted to." I mumbled under my breath.
"Standing in the Earthlight." The man laughed.
"That's the thing though," I started, "it isn't Earthlight at all. The sun is reflecting its light of the earth to us. Just the same way moonlight isn't really moonlight, but that's okay. The moon, and the Earth, they take the light the sun gives them and they change it, they soften it, to where instead of a hot blaze of glory, they make it calm, and comforting. Not something that wakes you up, like the sun, but something that lets you fall asleep." I finished with a sigh. I looked back at them and they were just staring at me.
"How do you think like that?" the man asked.
"I don't get out much, so most of the time, I just think. My gran would call me her little philosopher." I laughed.
"Your gran seems like a very brilliant woman." He said.
"Oh she is." I replied.
"What do you think happened?" Martha asked, bringing us back to the matter at hand.
"What do you think?" The man asked back.
"Extraterrestrial. It's got to be. I don't know, a few years ago that would have sounded mad, but these days? That spaceship flying into Big Ben, Christmas, those Cybermen things. I had a cousin. Adeola. She worked at Canary Wharf. She never came home." Martha said solemnly.
"I am sorry." The man tried to comfort her. "I was there you know, in the battle." Then it struck me.
"So you know it wasn't actually Canary Wharf." I stated, wanting to confirm the rumor. He looked at me, so I continued. "So you know it was Torchwood." And he went slacked jawed.
"How do you know about Torchwood?" He asked, suddenly becoming wary of me.
"So it was Torchwood! Gran was right!" I proclaimed excitedly.
"How did your Gran know about Torchwood?" He asked.
"I don't know, exactly. She sort of just did. She calls it being a political enthusiast. I call it being a conspiracy theorist." I laugh but the look on his face stops me. His face hardens, as if I have hit a nerve. I recoil, because I hate it when I do that to people. Mostly because I know how bad it is to have a nerve hit. "I'm sorry. I said too much." I started to ramble. "Well, it's not that I talk too much. Normally I hardly talk it all. This is the most I have talked in a while. Gran says I just know too much. Like a sponge so full of water that it might get something wet that shouldn't be. I guess that is right, but…." I was cut of when the man put a hand over my mouth with a slight smile.
"I think your Gran was a bit wrong there. You know too much, and you talk too much." I smiled. He continued. "Now how are we going to find our way out of this?"
"I promise you Mr. Smith," Martha spoke up. So that was his name, Smith. "We will find a way out of this. If we can travel to the moon, we can travel back. There has got to be a way." Martha smiled trying to reassure the two of them. That was what I liked about Martha back in the Children's Ward. She had a level head and she always made sure everyone was okay. She was a good person. I truly did want her to pass her exams. She would be a great Doctor.
"Besides," I took a ball out of my pocket, "everything that goes up," I threw it in the air, "must come down. Newton was a genius wasn't he?"
"It's not Smith. That's not my real name." He said.
"Wait, what?" I asked.
"Who are you then?" Martha asked incredulously.
"I'm the Doctor." The man, well, Doctor, said as he was crossing to the other side of the balcony.
"Me too, if I can pass my exams." Martha chuckled. "So, what is it, Doctor Smith, then?"
"Just the Doctor." He said leaning over the railing. I couldn't take it anymore, I burst out laughing. For the third time in about five minutes, I really should stop doing this, people will think I am crazy, Martha and the man, the Doctor, looked at me like I had grown a third head.
"And what is so funny?" The Doctor said mocking offense.
"Nothing. I just think that's kind of funny. Can I be the lieutenant? Martha could be the commander." More blank stares. "Oh come on. Lieutenant, Commander, we are on the moon. Do neither of you watch Star Trek." I sigh. "Never mind forget I said anything."
"So people call you the Doctor?" Martha asked, to which the Doctor responded with a nod. "Well I'm not. As far as I am concerned you have to earn that title." She said sternly. The Doctor laughed.
"Well I better get started then." He then walked over to the front of the balcony and turned towards me. "Can I see that ball you had, Christina?" he asked and I fished it out of my pocket and handed it to him. He held the ball between two fingers in front of my face. "Do you have any sentimental attachment to this ball?" He asked me.
"It's just a bouncy ball." I said.
"Perfect." He grinned and chucked the ball over the banister. The three of us watched as the ball soared for a bit, and then bounced of a previously invisible screen.
"Just Like an immersion shield." I said in awe. The Doctor looked at me again. "Oh, come on. For a guy who seems to know everything about space, you have never seen an episode of Star Trek?" His face was still blank. "Oh never mind."
"Wait," Martha interjected, "if this is the only air we've got, what happens when it runs out?"
"How many people in this hospital?" The Doctor asked her back.
"Don't know. Maybe a thousand." She replied.
"One thousand people suffocating. And not much time until it happens." He said.
"Even less than you think." I added. "Bunches of people in the hospital have breathing problems. Once the air starts thinning out, they're goners." I thought of all of the kids in the Children's Ward. So many of them couldn't breathe normal oxygen correctly. How would they fair when the air started thinning?
"Who would do such a thing?" Martha asked.
"Why don't you ask them yourself." The Doctor told her, looking up. Martha and I followed his gaze to see three large columns like space ships sail over the hospital and land on the surface of the moon. Humanoid figures in full body armor started marching towards the hospital in neat rows. Screams could be heard from around the hospital as the residents watched what was happening. The doctor looked at the two of them with a determined look on his face.
"I hope you two are ready, because the fun is just beginning."
There is another chapter. Hope you guys like it. I would love to here you theories about how Christina's Gran knows about Torchwood, seeing as it is a top secret hushidy-hush corporation. Till next time.
~The BookWorm