There is some light -and very symbolic- gore here. Rated accordingly just in case. Continuing quote from Lord Byron's Manfred.
OoO
Though thy slumber may be deep,
Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;
There are shades which will not vanish,
There are thoughts thou canst not banish;
By a power to thee unknown,
Thou canst never be alone;
Thou art wrapt as with a shroud,
Thou art gather'd in a cloud;
And forever shalt thou dwell
In the spirit of this spell.
.
He barely has enough time to open his eyes before he crashes onto a huge pile of books. They break his fall all right, better than metal would, certainly, but he still lets out a cry of pain.
He gets up carefully. No broken bones. Good.
Suddenly, the silence is shattered by a cry of agony. He spins around and nearly falls off the small hill. He listens carefully but it's not repeated. Instead it's replaced by a quiet, gasping, horrible sound of some creature suffering a horrific death.
He clambers down clumsily in the darkness, heading towards the sound, fear gripping his hearts. Books slip and fall under his feet, and he loses his balance several times before he reaches solid ground. In front of him, there's a wall engraved with Gallifreyan symbols which emit a faint glow.
Encouraged by the slight increase of light, he places his right hand on the metal and quickens his pace. There seems to be nothing straight ahead, but after a while the wall veers sharply to the right. He hesitates, then turns around the corner, and the light blinds him.
It takes several seconds for his vision to adjust even after he opens and uncovers his eyes. And then he can see what's in front of him and he reels back, averting them again.
The light is emanating from the large room he has entered itself. Diamond-like crystals, bright blue and golden-orange, hang from above, jut out of the walls at random, lie broken on the floor, still glittering. They are poking out of the ground too, in sharp towering spirals and clusters like small trees of glass.
A white-haired man is slowly making his way across the uneven floor, crawling and leaving a trail of blood behind him. Every inch of his body seems to have been pierced by the shimmering material. At some points it's difficult to tell where his limbs end and the room begins. When he dares to look again, he sees that he's struggling to move over a particularly vicious-looking cluster that's digging into him. A shard of crystal has impaled his shoulder cleanly through and is sticking out like a grotesque broken wing, dripping crimson onto his back.
He wants to run away, oh, how he wants to; but he approaches carefully, stepping over the blood-stained stones. With no small amount of shock and horror, he recognises his third self.
Clothes badly burned and torn, large pieces of velvet and cotton lying shredded in his path. He can't decide if the face is unrecognisable because of a large, bleeding cut that runs across it or the grimace of suffering that distorts his features.
As if he senses his presence, the one on the ground opens his eyes and looks at him through a haze of pain. His hand presses down for support and a blue, spike-like shard runs it through. His head is thrown back, mouth open in a silent scream.
Feeling sick, he rushes to the other's side and slowly tries to move him to a place on the ground that might cause him less pain. He can't, he doesn't want to imagine why this is happening. He doesn't remember having to suffer such a thing in all his lives.
The blood-soaked body is pulled off, out of the sharp cluster with a sickening sound. It's like he's a part of the room itself. Broken pieces still jut out of him in so many places that he settles for turning the man on his side, cradling his head and settling his upper body on a part of the floor where the crystals seem fairly blunt. The half-open eyes seem aware and are looking intently at him.
"Thank you". It's a barely audible whisper.
"What-what are you doing?"
"The right thing… I made a choice… Doctor."
And he remembers the end of that life, the cave, the burning radiation, the sickness and pain that forced him to his knees half a dozen times before he managed to reach the TARDIS.
"What… are you… doing?
("I had to face my fear ... that was more important than just going on living...")
"You never met Davros", he whispers, unable to look at him.
"I was lucky in that regard." He stops, every word a huge effort. "But maybe… if it was cause for so much suffering… I should n-never have gotten the TARDIS… working again."
"No. No, come on, you fought tooth and claw for that, you can't say that–"
"So much death… so many wrong judgments…" The eyes close as if in deep thought, but there's such exhaustion on the bleeding face that he's afraid momentarily the man will die right there. "But no, I'm not saying it… I never would… made my choice…d-did what I had to". A small rivulet of blood trickles out of his mouth. "Go… you have a choice too."
The last words are spoken in a louder and firmer, though no less pained voice. Carefully, he sets him down and he sees a knee gaining purchase, a hand reaching out feebly to continue his struggle.
"Because… free will is not an illusion after all."
Inch by inch he continues and he doesn't look back.
You stay still, as if frozen on the spot for several long moments. It takes you a while to notice there's a tunnel-like opening, pitch black against the cruel light, in one of the walls.
Slowly, he gets up, his face carefully arranged into an apathetic, unreadable mask, and walks into the darkness once more.
.
.
The passageway is narrow and low-ceilinged and he needs to double up to move through it. The floor is mercifully smooth so he doesn't have to worry about tripping as he makes his way half blind. The usual hum of the TARDIS is heard through the walls once or twice. The only other sound is his footsteps and his tired breath.
There's a part where the ceiling is so low he worries he'll get stuck, and has to go on half-crawling. But after that the corridor seems to expand, and he soon finds himself able to stand up and walk properly again. It also becomes wider, and he wistfully thinks that if a small, brunette human was with him, they could have walked, run side by side without any difficulty at all.
(A less pleasing change is the lighting, which seems to gradually become warmer and brighter. Right. Any minute now.)
He keeps walking towards what he thinks looks like a distant exit, quickening his pace.
And the other slowly materialises, neither ghost nor truly flesh, somehow less substantial than he is but not transparent, in a small alcove of the wall a few feet in front of him and a little to his left. Like light becoming solid, he's there, from the brown sticky-uppy hair to the worn, battered, cream white sneakers.
The light brown overcoat sweeps the blotted out stars of his Converse, and flaps and billows faintly in a wind that isn't there.
You stop. He's standing with his hands in the pockets of his pinstriped suit, tall and skinny, head tilted slightly to the side. But he's not the Oncoming Storm, the fire and ice and rage that burns others and himself, he's not the furious god that you expect. The large, dark brown eyes that gaze at you look human, and only reflect a deep, somewhat surprised sorrow.
He glares defiantly back at the handsome face and keeps going.
"With Gallifrey saved…how could you do it?"
He stops abruptly; but he refuses to look back at the sad, devastated face, he refuses to look back at this younger, emotional one and his deep, human incomprehension and pain, he can't bear to look into the tearful eyes that longed for home and died alone and afraid without seeing it once, guilty, unknowing.
(The eyes that never will, now, after what you did; not even through your own.)
"As you would have said… I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
There's no reply. He hangs his head.
"How did he survive?"
("Davros? Come with me. I promise I can save you.")
"I don't know". And he can just imagine the shrug of the thin shoulders, the left eyebrow arching slightly. There's a beat of silence and a sigh, and the voice is a touch harder now. "How indeed".
("You said I could survive. You said you'd help me. Help me!")
He can feel the eyes that aren't really there drilling holes into his back. He'd much rather prefer a real drill, honestly. He still doesn't look at him, he stares straight ahead with a manic, desperate intensity.
"Have you told her? Have you told anyone?" A bitter laugh is heard. "The Master would be impressed, no doubt."
A sudden madness seizes him and he breaks into a run towards the distant natural light somewhere at the end of the corridor, teeth clenched, his blood pounding in his ears. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4–
(–The man who keeps running, never looking back because he dare not, out of shame.)
.
(to be continued...)