Warren's eyes grew larger as the TARDIS reared towards her next destination and our next adventure.
I kept my hand perched on his shoulder in an attempt to give him some comfort. The Doctor kept circling the control panel, twisting and pulling knobs and leavers and glancing at the screen.
Finally we landed. I got up and Warren followed suit. I was just about to open the door to whatever awaited us this time when the Doctor stopped me.
I turned to face him, and he peered at me with an odd expression on his face. "Tell me," he said. "Do you feel weird at all? Woozy, maybe? Are you seeing things? How many fingers?" He held up two of his fingers, but didn't give me time to respond before putting them back down and taking out his sonic screwdriver. He proceeded to shine it straight into my eyes.
"Ouch!" I cried, shielding them. "What was that for? And I'm not going crazy."
He checked the sonic then looked back at me. "Right," he said, reaching out and poking my healing arm and making me realize how sore it was, "Shall we go on then?" And we walked out the doors.
We were on Earth again, that much was clear; where and when I didn't know. The street was empty and the sky was gray, giving it an ominous look. "Where are we?" asked Warren.
"Earth," said the Doctor, "2350 A.D."
My head spun. I hadn't really ever thought that earth would still be around that far into the future.
We walked down the road a ways, not coming across a single person or seeing any cars. It made me feel uneasy, and I couldn't imagine what it must have been like for Warren.
"Where is everyone?" I asked.
The Doctor shrugged. "Humans are unpredictable," he said. "There could be a gladiator fight- no, no, I suppose those ended a while ago, didn't they? Pity. What's that up there?"
He gestured farther down the road to the only building for what seemed like an eternity of pavement. I wondered how I hadn't noticed it earlier.
The Doctor stated jogging to it, and Warren and I followed suit. As we got closer, I noticed that there was a flurry of activity going on around it. Even closer to it, I could hear loud and panicked voices, and saw what looked like a mad rush for the door. Curious, we quickened pace.
Soon enough we reached the building. The busted neon sign on the roof said Barnum's Toys.
"Can't be Christmas yet," said the Doctor, puzzled. "And even if the toys are marvelous, they cannot possibly be good enough to create all this frenzy," he turned to me and smirked, "Earth toys have got nothing on Gllifreyan toys- now those are real beauties." Then he promptly turned and tapped a young woman on the shoulder.
It was clear from the bags under her eyes that she hadn't slept in awhile. She looked worried and frightfully pale. "What?" she snapped.
"Hello," said the Doctor. "Lovely day, isn't it? Mind telling us why you're in such a hurry to get in there?"
She looked us up and down each in turn. "Have you gone crazy?" she asked seriously.
The Doctor seemed to consider her question for a minute before answering. "Nope," he said, "sane as a… really sane thing… didn't really think that analogy through. Anyways, what are you all up to?"
"Where've you been living for the past four years?" she asked. "It's the Bug Plague. A swarm was spotted a few minutes from here; they could show up at any moment, now I really must get inside. And so should you, if you want to live." And with that she returned to picking her way nimbly through the crowd towards the door.
"Bug Plague?" said Warren quietly.
The Doctor shrugged. "Sounds like we'll see in a moment, best get inside though, she sounded serious."
Somehow we managed to make our way into the Toy store by pushing and swerving through the crowd. After that, we didn't know what to do, so we simply stood there in silence, observing people and anxiously peering out the windows waiting for something to happen.
After a while, a high pitched scream sounded from across the room. A woman was pointing towards the east window; and immediately panic struck. People were everywhere, running to and fro and hiding under shelves and behind various doors. The three of us stood where we were.
I didn't see anything, but as I turned to ask the Doctor, I noticed that Warren's eyes were huge and horrified, and the Doctor had out his sonic and seemed to see what everyone else did. Confused, I looked one more time out the window. Nothing was there.
"Doctor," I said, "Why can't I see anything?"
He and Warren turned to me. Warren looked surprised and said, "How could you not see those? They're huge! I've never encountered such creatures."
I ignored him and focused on the Doctor. He looked inquiringly at me and peered into my eyes once more. He opened his mouth to say something, but quickly closed it and turned back to scan the windows again without giving me an answer.
Giving up, I crouched down behind a shelf full of candy.
Warren and the Doctor looked out of place standing in the middle of the room. Everyone else was hiding from the impending attack of creatures I was blind to. My stomach growled, making me realize for the first time that I hadn't eaten in a while. I reached up and started tucking some candy into my pockets.
Just then, a crash rang out, and glass from the window shattered and fell to the floor amongst those that were hiding close to it. Warren looked positively mortified, frozen where he was. I yearned to see what was going on, what caused the shattering glass.
I scanned the room, looking for anything unusual that would clue me in as to where they were. I couldn't see anything but panicked people.
"Lilly!" I heard. It sounded far away.
The next thing I knew, I was on the floor having been tackled by Warren. He was breathing fast and looked as terrified as ever.
"You- um- you almost got attacked…" he said, scrambling up and reaching out a hand. I took it and he helped pull me up.
"Thanks," I said, feeling my face turn red.
He nodded.
The Doctor came scrambling up to us. "Well," he said, "If you two are done with whatever you're up to, I think we've got a job to do here."
"We weren't- I mean- we didn't-" I trailed off, my face going red again.
At the same time, Warren said, "We aren't up to anything."
The Doctor grinned. "Anywho, let's take down these things, shall we?" He walked away towards the door.
"Did they leave already?" I asked Warren.
"Yeah," he said. "Took off carrying some poor woman. Didn't you see them?"
I shook my head.
"Lucky," he muttered, then started after the Doctor. I followed.
"So," said the Doctor as we walked down a once more populated street. "Brainstorm. How're we going to beat those oversized beasts?"
We stopped walking. Warren shrugged. The Doctor looked far away in thought.
"Doctor?" I said. "Tell me. Why couldn't I see them?"
He looked at me with a strange look in his eyes. "I don't know," He said.
"You're lying, I know it," I said. "At least tell me what they look like."
"Giant flying insects," said Warren. "There's a reason it's called the Bug Plague. Those creatures are horrifying." He shivered.
"They're like bees," added the Doctor, "Only more huge-r and they probably eat people. Nasty habit."
I nodded. It was probably a good thing that I couldn't see them.
"Well which way did they fly?" I asked. "We can track them down sort of how we did the Morte Nera. Get rid of the source and get rid of the problem."
The Doctor smiled. "I thought the same thing; we must be brilliant, great team, you and I. But what can we use to track them? I didn't see any trail they left behind."
Warren piped up. "There was one thing," he said.
"Brilliant! I love it when things work out. Go on!" said the Doctor, beaming.
"It was the woman's shoe. It fell off her when they carried her off. Might have something useful on it."
"Right then, back to the toy shop!"
Off we went, retracing our steps until we were back at Barnum's. We split up and checked all the aisles until finally Warren shouted, "Got it!"
The Doctor scanned the high heeled shoe the poor woman had dropped with his sonic screwdriver.
"Perfect," he said. Without anything further, he walked off staring at his sonic like it had specific coordinates on it linked to the shoe's owner.
Warren and I followed him once more, through streets and alleyways and endless twists and turns. The sun was starting to set when we finally stopped.
"Here we are," said the Doctor, stowing his sonic in his coat pocket. He straightened his bow tie and we approached a modest shack.
The Doctor knocked. Like you'd expect to have happened at a haunted house, the doors creaked open but there was no one there.
No one I could see, anyways.
"Hello," said the Doctor. Warren turned pale and looked downright disgusted.
"Looking rather nice this evening. At any rate, I don't suppose we could come in?"
I nudged Warren and gave him a questioning look.
"You can't see her either?" he whispered. I shook my head.
"It's the woman. The one from the store. Only she…" he trailed off.
"She what? What's happened to her?"
"She's got something wrong with her. Her face, it's… well. Her eyes are huge and keep looking at a dozen places at once. And she's got feelers, like the ones on the giant bee things. It's like the thing bit her and now she's turning into one."
I tried to imagine what she looked like. It was frustrating having to only imagine something was there when the others could see it.
The Doctor must've made some headway with her, because he was entering the shack.
Nervously, we followed him inside.
All over the walls were hives. I could see that much. I didn't see any bees flying about in them, but I could hear a faint humming sound that told me the hives weren't disserted.
We walked deeper into the house and the humming got louder and louder. The Doctor sonic-ed most everything we passed. Suddenly he stopped.
What happened next was a blur.
One moment I was asking the Doctor why he stopped, the next I heard the humming noise so close as if it were right next to me. Warren tackled me again and yelled something to me, but I couldn't hear it because the humming was too loud. The Doctor scanned over me and then reached into my pocket. He pulled out the candy that I'd had hidden in my pocket. The humming went a bit quieter. Then the Doctor handed me the candy and said, "Don't ask questions and you'll be alright, just run."
My heart beat fast, but I did as he instructed. I ran through the hallways and almost made it to the door before I felt a painful prickling on my hand. Dropping the candy, I ran outside.
I held my hand close to me, feeling dreadful. My hand was going numb and my eyes started to tear up at the pain. I noticed the humming was farther away. Eventually it died down completely.
I was feeling even worse now, as if my hand were on fire. I looked down at my hand to where, I assumed, I'd been bitten. Only then did I notice it had happened to my arm that had before been bitten by the Nera.
"Doctor!" I screamed. "Warren! Help!" I was losing all feeling in my arm now.
They rushed out. I could feel myself losing consciousness. The Doctor and Warren looked blurry and indistinct and I couldn't make out what was being said.
The Doctor scanned my arm and said something to Warren, who proceeded to pick me up and began carrying me.
The pain was spreading to the rest of my body now. I cried out.
The last thing I remembered before I blacked out was Warren saying quietly in my ear, "Hold on, Lilly. Stay with me."
And then I was out.