CHAPTER THREE:

Clara lifted her aching head up off of the TARDIS floor; clumsily she managed to pry herself up into a sitting position. The TARDIS warning bell sounded out loudly throughout the room, a sudden wave or Déjà vu hit her; she shook it off quickly and focused on the present.

"Something isn't right…." She mumbled softly; why wasn't the TARDIS moving? Why was it so quiet (aside from the warning bell)?

She stood up slowly, taking in the atmosphere around here, the lights were turned down, with only the emergency lights illuminating the room; it casted eerie shadows across the console.

Stepping closer she saw that the console was covered with dust and cobwebs- it looked as if it has not been touched in years.

Quite suddenly she felt a tingling sensation on her right arm, looking down she saw a large greenish colored spider with bright glowing red eyes crawling down her arm, startled, she jumped slightly and brushed it quickly off of her arm, it fell onto the floor and quickly scurried away.

She started to move away from the console when the sound of static startled her. Turning around she saw a hologram of the Doctor come into focus.

"Must we go through this again?" she mumbled, irritated at the TARDIS- this was definitely not the time for her to be chastising Clara.

"Clara," the Doctor said, "you have to listed to me closely"

This was not the voice of an interface, it was much too tender, less calculated, and most of all, much too frightened.

"Now that this hologram has been activated, you have obviously attempted to go back in time and find the coordinates"

There was no hint of a smile on his face, no suggestion of him trying to cover his fear as he usually did, no, this time he was frightened. And that frightened Clara more than anything else.

"You-" The voice was cut off, static filling in.

"What? No! Keep going" Clara said desperately; as if her desperation would somehow help clear the static.

"Remember- the words-" The static was getting worse, but a few repeated words became clear "The words. Don't- look- away-" The hologram became broken, the control filled with loudness of the static "Whatever you do, don't come and find me" his last sentence rang clear, it was the last this she heard before the image broke and the room went silent.

THE DOCTOR:

A blood-curdling screech echoed across the cold, damp, dismal concrete walls of his confinement. He could hardly tell that it was his own; actually, he could barely comprehend anything, for the pain was making the world warp into a haze of blood and blades. He sat limp against the back of the chair where he was tied; trying hard to shake of the feeling of nausea that had settled in his stomach.

"Why don't you just kill me?" the doctor chocked out, blood dripping down his chin.

Rook chuckled loudly, taunting him "Come now! You know that would only ruin the fun"

One of the bulky men- the Doctor's most enthusiastic tormentor- raised the whip high in the air and was about to bring it down once again on the red, swollen, crisscrossed area of skin that had once been the Doctor's back but Rook raised a hand to stop him; with reluctance the man lowered the whip and let out an indignant grunt as he took a step back.

"Besides, that would make it much to easy for you to come back, and as much as I- and my colleagues here- would love to do all of this to you once again, I am afraid that would take too much time, and would be much too big a risk."

"Fine, kill me twice and get it over with." The Doctor said grimly, staring at the floor, trying not to think the unnerving quantity of blood that lay at his feet.

"What's the matter?" Rook pouted his lips mockingly "Is our Doctor feeling a little depressed?"

The Doctor remained silent, anger pulsing from his eyes as he stared at Rook's sick, sadistic smile; the shadow that covered half of his face caused his expression to appear even more menacing.

"I though you were stronger than that Doctor; what with how protective you are with that little Clara of yours, I'm sure if I had her near me I would take very good care of her and-"

The Doctor cut him off "You will not touch her." His eyes narrowed as he spoke.

"Ah, but Doctor! You seem to have misunderstood me; I by no means meant to give the impression that you had a choice in the matter- I would never give you such an opportunity" Rook stopped pacing in front of him, his hands behind his back, his back was perfectly straight, giving him much to innocent and gentlemanly of an outside image

"You know that I did what I did because I had no choice" The Doctor lowered his gaze to the ground again.

"We all have choices" Rook stepped closer, bringing his face right up to the Doctor's "And you made the wrong one" The sick smile appeared on his face again; except this time his teeth were showing in an almost animalistic manner "So guess what? You made me suffer, so now it's your turn"

And with that he turned, his cloak spinning as he stormed out of the room. He raised his right hand waving is absently behind him saying "You can have your fun now boys"

Once again the inhuman screeching reflected across the concrete; directly followed by the sadistic laughter of the two of them as they relished in the warm and sticky sensation of the doctor's blood as it splashed across their skin.

CLARA:

Clara paced back and forth, her hands raised with her fingers pressing together against her lips.

Think, Clara, think… What would the Doctor do? No. He isn't here, you are though, not that you are accomplishing much….

Clara mumbled, chastising herself. It had been two hours since she had received the Doctor's hologram and she had yet to come up with something she could do, and just sitting there waiting was driving her mad- there was something she could do to help him. She wasn't sure what yet, but she knew that there had to be something….

Clara stopped mid-step. Laughter. She could hear laughter coming from somewhere down the corridor.

She turned to her left and approached the corridor hesitantly, as she got closer she could see a light projecting from underneath the doors, turning towards the nearest one she took a deep breath as she pressed her palm against the cool metal of the doorknob and turned it slowly, unsure of what she was going to find next.

She was taken aback from what she saw. It was not a monster, not the horrible bloody scene of a dead body; nothing along any of the lines she expected- instead, she saw herself.

Curious, she tried to take a step closer but was brought to a halt when she felt herself walking into what felt like a brick wall. Rubbing her forehead she took a step back and raised her hand to the area where she had thought she felt the brick wall; her finger came in contact with something cold and hard in the doorway, it rippled much like a body of water would if you threw a peddle into it, Clara quickly retracted her hand and took another step back.

Clara then turned her attention back to the scene that was being played out; by now the Doctor had appeared and was standing very close to her, which might not have been very shocking if he had not proceeded to wrap his arms around her waist and press his forehead to hers before taking her face in his hands and kissing her deeply, pressing her body into the console, his hands were beginning to wander….

She watched as her own hands trailed up his neck and tangled in his hair, it was hard not to turn away but something made her feel as though it was wrong not to, she probably would have continued to stare if the door hadn't abruptly slammed shut causing her to stumble back by the sudden exertion of wind.

Behind her she heard another door swing open, she whirled around quickly and was once again faced with another image, but this time an entirely new situation was being played out.

This time Clara was shocked to see herself holding a gun to the head of the Doctor, eyes burning with fury, her lips mouthing out words that Clara was unable to hear; they stood in some abandoned area, void of any other form of life, surrounded by stacks of wooden crated with labels faded past any sense of legibility; but there was one particular thing that she had been able to hear: the sound of the bullet as it was fired right as the door slammed shut.

The adjacent door was the next to open. Inside she did not see herself, rather she saw the image of the Doctor sitting sullenly in one of the chairs located in the medical room; she him lift a begin drinking some sort of purple liquid out of a what appeared to be a test tube, within the next few seconds she watched as the Doctor's muscles contracted and retracted in a seizure-like movement as he slipped out of his chair and onto the floor, she couldn't help but run towards the transparent wall between them and scream the word "No!", the scene had been disconcertingly realistic.

She was thrown onto the floor as this door closed in a much more violent manner then any of the others had (most likely because she had been in the way). She heard another door open, this one behind her; she could see flickering shadows on the door in front of her; she rose to her full height and hesitantly turned around.

Clara let out a gasp as she watched herself running through a horrific maze of fire, the flames cast eerie shadows against the walls of whatever place she actually was, but the most shocking part of all came when the vision of herself walked right through a bright blaze of flames coming out with not so much as a scratch, she could have sworn that she had even scene herself shiver.

The door closed quite suddenly, knocking her off her feet once again. She reached back and placed her hands on the floor to use as leverage when she felt her fingers come upon something sticky and warm, she brought her fingers into her line of vision and examined the dark substance that coated them, raising it to her nose she realized that it smelled metallic; much like the way blood did.

A sudden scratching sound filled the corridor causing Clara's head to shoot upward. Her eyes grew wide with horror as she saw lines of blood being carved into the wall, it became apparent quite soon that as the puddles of blood continued to pool onto the floor a word was slowly being formed in a horrible scratched handwriting on the wall.

"CHOOSE," she mumbled reading the word written on the wall.

A hologram of herself appeared before her; obviously the work of the TARDIS (Funny how even in such dark times the TARDIS managed to find someway of taunting Clara) "Choose wisely" it said, "There a no second chances."