The Whispering, in fact, wasn't the first alien I'd met. Heck, the whole world had met aliens before that. The years between 2005 to...well I guess the last major incident was 2009(ish) unless you count that weird stuff with the graves back in '14. But yeah, the period between '05 to '09 were hectic; for a time it seemed as though the aliens would never stop coming.

Until they did; this time period (shall we call it the "time of the aliens") ended abruptly and violently, culminating in the Dalek's invasion of Earth. Oh, a few things popped up after that, just like a few things popped up now and again before 2005. But certainly, these five years (yes, five; 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, don't contradict me) were truly out of control.

And do you what happened after the last major incursion?

We all forgot. I kid you not, we just forgot. We knew a lot and we forgot. Like my rhyming skills?

Some examples - a spaceship crashing into Big Ben, the Christmas where people stood on the roofs, the battle of Canary Wharf, the Christmas Star which zapped people (ho, ho, ho) and of course, the aforementioned Dalek attack...

And when it's over, everyone forgets...why? Because we have to, I think. Because the alternative would each night be staring up at the night sky with sheer terror...I don't know. Your asking the wrong person, and I can't explain it. All I can say for sure is that we do forget. Oh, not all of us. And not totally. It's always there, at the back of our minds. Not the details; for example, who among us would know a Dalek when we saw it in 2020? But the fear. We remember that.

Maybe that's why we have nightmares. Maybe that's why we wake up feeling unwell and clammy, when we almost remember the time of the aliens, and the people we lost as a result of it.

All I know for sure is this; since meeting the Doctor, it's all come back to me. All of it. Including what happened to my old bunking-buddy Nick...

2009, Lynsey Perron at fourteen

So I received my "education", not that I really learned a thing, at Park Vale Comprehensive School in Ealing. Well, I uh...I received some of my "education" at Park Vale, I should say...I might have been moved there from the Coal Hill School in Shoreditch, having been expelled...and in turn, I might have been at Coal Hill only after having been expelled from Deffry Vale High School.

And yeah...maybe I was expelled from Park Vale about a month after these events. Maybe I ended up in borstal. I cannot confirm or deny these rumours, but I must stress that they are only rumours...so, um...

Anyway, down to business; I want to tell you a story of the first time I met an alien face to face. An encounter I'd almost completely forgotten until meeting the Doctor, but which I now remember as though it was only yesterday. And actually, you might be surprised to know that this story has a happy ending. But it was very traumatizing at the time. None of us ever expected to see Nick again. Nor any of the other kids who went missing.

It started one random morning back in '09. Think it was still Autumn, to be honest. That September, I'd joined the school with another new girl; a lanky Indian bird with a pretty, clever face and a northern accent.

"Rani Chandra," the girl said, offering me my hand. Inwardly, I scoffed. Upper-class so and so...

But I'm not rude for the sake of it, whatever else my flaws are. I accepted her hand. "Awright?" I muttered. "Lynsey. Good to meet ya."

We were sat together in the head of year's office, waiting for a pep talk on our new school, the rules and expectations, and what we could and couldn't do there. "So what brings ya here?" I asked Rani.

Rani squirmed in embarrassment. "Actually...my dad is the new headteacher. We moved here recently."

"Awch," I laughed, "that's a tough one, sis."

"Tell me about it," Rani grinned, "yourself?"

"Eh?"

"Why'd you come here?"

"Expelled." I said proudly.

Rani's eyes widened. "Wow! For doing what?"

I shrugged. "This and that. I don't give a toss about me education, Rana."

"Rani." She corrected me.

"Sure, sure. Nah, it's all pointless to me. I don't need to learn English, coz I can already speak it. And as for maths, that became a pointless subject once they'd invented the calculator. You agree?"

"Um..." Rani said, "well, I...I kind of have to disagree, to be fair. I want to go into journalism when I'm older, and I do kinda need to do well."

"Suit yourself," I said. I could tell that being new at the same time was the only thing me and Rani had in common. She was a goody-two-shoes kinda girl through and through. I could tell at once we wouldn't ever be friends. Although my adult self would become close friends with poor, dead Steph, who was a goody-two-shoes through and through, my stupid arrogant kid self had no time for such people. But still, me and her chatted a little longer that morning, until the head of year (a large, pouchy man named Mr. Walt) finally turned up to give us a stern talking to about life at Park Vale. After that, we went our separate ways. We hadn't been assigned any of the same classes.

I said goodbye to Rani outside the office, as we walked off in different directions. I saw her often in the corridors after that, and I'd always raise my eyebrows or nod at her by way of greeting, receiving a smile in return. But overtime, as my reputation for a serious troublemaker grew, her smiles would become more and more reluctant. I suppose I didn't blame her; daughter of the head-teacher, and straight A student to boot. It was no good for her to be associated with someone like me. I understood that. I didn't mind. She had her friends; a funny kid called Clyde who's jokes often made me laugh, and a nervous ultra-swot called Luke, who I had nothing at all to do with.

That was her main friendship group. Odd little gang, really. Always acting like they were somehow different to everyone else, that they knew something we didn't...but like I said, nothing to do with me. I had my own set of friends. They were as follows;

1) Jess Bowman; once caught snorting drugs behind the P.E. changing rooms, pregnant at fifteen.

2) Lauren Howle; a beautiful red-haired girl who had been excluded seven times for getting into fights. She had severe anger problems.

3) Aaron Bollinger; fat, fat, fat. Always late. Always in trouble. He was bullied for his weight, and he in turn bullied a lot of other people to make himself feel better. Looking back, he's the only one of my friends I'm ashamed of now, as an adult. The others, for all their faults, were not bad people back then. Aaron was, although I suppose to an extent he was made that way by the people who bullied him for his size.

4) Nick Turner; great guy. Your go-to guy for cigarettes and booze. His folks ran a pub, and he could smuggle into school pretty much anything he wanted. For the three months I spent at Park Vale, before Mr. Chandra finally gave up and sent me away, Nick was my closest friend. I stayed in touch with him until the age of twenty, when I finally decided to turn my back on that lifestyle. I just said that Aaron was the only bad kid back then, and that was true. Back then, Nick was actually quite a good guy. A rule breaker for sure, but not a bully, and not someone who would hurt anybody else (unless you count giving them booze and cigs). But by the time we were both twenty, he wasn't a good guy. He was a violent dealer and a loan shark, a terrible human being through and through. But he wasn't like that as a kid. I know that for a fact, because now I can remember exactly when he changed. And what changed him.

I want to say this now, before I tell the story; Nick was not my friend by the time we lost contact. He was my dealer. That's the only reason I stayed in contact with him for so long. I couldn't be friends with someone like that. But I don't want to remember Nick as a violent dealer, as an armed robber and a scumbag who ruined lives. I want to remember him as the cheeky, funny kid who brought rum and coke into school, and who once stuck his foot through a wall as a dare. Let that be how Nick Turner is remembered; in 2018, when he and I were aged twenty-three (and out of contact entirely) Nick Turner was murdered by a rival gang. He was drowned; put in a cement bath and thrown in the River Thames as an example of what happens to whoever messes with whichever gang was responsible.

But what made him who he was? What killed the cheeky-chappie and replaced him with a monster? I think I know. In fact, I'm sure of it. He was never the same after what happened.

It was a clown. Oddbob the clown, with his rainbow suit and his white pancake face. He took Nick, and a lot of other kids along with him.

We were sat on a park bench. Which park and which bench are irrelevant. All you need to know is that we shouldn't have been there. We were supposed, of course, to be in school. But...naaaah. Neither of us could be bothered that day (which was true of plenty of days over my brief stint at Park Vale) and as such we skipped after registration and headed down to the park to light up. It was usually just me and Nick. Sometimes the others would come, with the exception of Lauren who never did. She was the only one of our group who actually did hold some interest in her future prospects and education. Though she was in trouble right along with us plenty enough, she did at least turn up for exams and lessons on a regular basis.

I raised the cig to my lips and took a long, deep breath, the rich rancid flavour flooding my mouth and throat, making me cough. As we sat there on our phones, neither of us spoke. I remember wondering when, if at all, a teacher or a cop would come by and escort us back to school; we were, after all, still in our uniforms.

Instead, someone else came along. A clown. Nick noticed him first. He was across the playing field we were facing, talking to a bunch of little kids and their parents. He seemed to be offering them something. From the distance, he looked funny; he wore a baggy suit of bright colours (yellow, red and blue) and his face was decorated white with greasepaint, with a painted red smile on his mouth. His hair stuck up in three red tufts - one the top of his head, and two sticking out at the sides, and he had a round red ball nose stuck on.

"Ain't a circus on, is there?" I asked. Nick only shrugged.

"Ah man, he's coming over," Nick grunted, "we'll look stupid talking to that."

But there was no helping it - the clown walked away from the crowd looking slightly forlorn; evidently he had not been able to give away whatever he was clearly advertising. But he spied us and a real grin exploded across his face, under the big goofy grin which was painted on. He came bounding over, and quickly (looking back, impossibly quickly) he was standing there, right in front of our bench.

"Weeeeeell, hello friends," he exclaimed, throwing his arms wide. I shuddered when I caught sight of his teeth. They were yellow-brown, uneven and horribly sharp. His face, though mainly white (aside from the big smile) was decorated with black lining, and two big black eyebrows, with decorative dashes of black over his eyes as well. On his hands were two white gloves, his feet dressed in big floppy yellow shoes.

"Awright mate?" I laughed, looking him up and down, wondering why I suddenly felt scared.

"Ticketsssss," he drawled in an American accent, "Spellman's Magical Museum of the Circus! Come visit! Come laugh! Come play! How 'bout it?"

He offered us two tickets. And to cut a long story short, we each took one. Not coz we wanted to go, because we didn't. Circus museum? Forget it. As soon as someone says "museum" to me, I switch off. I'm still like that today, I regret to admit. But to be polite (or actually, just to get rid of the clown) we took his tickets. With a final bow and a flurry of the arms, the clown left.

On our way back to school (with a police escort, no less) we dumped the tickets in a nearby bin.

Over the next week, two things happened. Firstly, the very next day, Nick vanished without a trace. Taken from his bed. Overnight. He wasn't the first, he wasn't the last. It had been happening a lot in Ealing. Secondly, that clown, with it's stripy rainbow suit and it's terrible teeth, followed me wherever I went. I'd look behind me, and catch a glimpse of rainbow nearby - in a bush, on a bus, in a nearby window. When I lay in bed at night, sweating and jumping at every noise, I'd hear a cooing laughter coming from somewhere outside. I'd look out the window, and sometimes (but not every time) the clown would be there, standing in the street.

My upbringing was...bad. Absent dad, disgusting little flat with a druggie mum. But she was all I had. So I turned to her one morning, I tried to explain what was happening.

"Ach," she spat, slapping me hard across the head, "you've been on the bloody weed again, ain't ya? Stupid lil' cow. Stuff off. Get to bloody school, I ain't got the time for this."

And with a bruised head and tears in my eyes, off I went. On the way there, the clown followed me. Nobody else saw him. Nobody else cared. It was that day when I realized that the clown couldn't possibly be human. He appeared in such random places, with such frightening suddenness. He was, I realized probably who'd been taking the kids, heck who would probably take me any day now. I was so scared! I wondered if he'd taken Nick too - probably. Were they dead? Did he, perhaps, eat them? Or turn them into one of the many red balloons he sometimes held when he appeared? What would happen to me? In bed that night, I cried my eyes out. I didn't want to be turned into a balloon! I cried so hard that it woke up mum. She came in, hugged me tightly and sat with me 'til I slept. In the morning, she'd been having severe withdrawal symptoms. She hadn't had a drink in hours. But that evening, she was well tanked up on value supermarket Vodka and coke. That evening, she was content, and loving. That's what I had to deal with as a kid.

I sometimes wonder what became of my mum. There's another story to tell about the last time I saw her. The day I snapped and walked out, leaving her cowering on the bathroom floor with a broken arm and shards of whiskey bottle in her leg. But it's another story, for another time.

That night, I told her again about the monster clown, who had taken Nick and several other kids, and who would soon be coming to take me away...

She kissed me again. "Naw, love," she said, "it ain't no monster. There's some sort of weirdo out there. 'Til he's caught, ya don't have to go anywhere near school."

So I didn't. The next day, I stayed home, and I saw nothing of the clown.

The day after that, everyone came home!

All the missing kids; Nick Turner, David Finn and Tony Warner, among with a handful of others. All back! Just like that! With no memory of what had happened.

And nobody ever saw that clown again. Only now, looking back on these events which I'd almost forgotten, do I realize how very lucky I was. Whatever stopped that clown happened just in time. Another day, another two, I too might have been taken.

But

Nick Turner was dead. Inside. Oh, he was alive and well physically. But all that...all that cheek, all that wide boy charm was gone. In it's place was a dark, brooding creature, a violent monster with a temper more explosive than Lauren Howle's, and no sense of when to back off, or what "going too far" amounted to. Whatever had happened to him, wherever he'd gone, had changed him somehow. For the rest of the time I knew him, he scared me. He scared me so much. He beat up Jess Bowman once! Actually beat her up! For no obvious reason. Part of me was glad, when I got expelled from Park Vale for setting fire to my exam paper; I was glad to be away from Nick.

Of course, he's dead now. And do you know what, I'm glad he's dead. That horrible, vile creature who robbed from old people, savagely assaulted people whom he'd lent money to, who provided people with noxious substances with which they killed themselves...he was dead, and good riddance to bad rubbish.

But still, I wept that day, when I heard the news. Because that hadn't been Nick Turner. Nick Turner had died in 2009, murdered by a monster dressed as a clown. He'd been hollowed out, mutated and crushed, until nothing remained of who he had been. Same memories, same body...but not the same person. I cried that day for the real Nick, who I was friends with for only a very short time, but who left a lasting impression on me.

That day, I remembered the clown for the first time in a long time. As I did, I suddenly found myself remembering everything else that had happened around that time...just before that, I think had been the Dalek invasion. Just after that...might it have been the Titanic incident? I don't know; I think time became so utterly distorted throughout that period, that it becomes impossible to really document these events, and the order in which they happened. And indeed, if they really happened at all.

But anyway, the next day...I forgot. I remembered Nick, I remembered that he died...but the time of the aliens once again slipped my mind. Just like that...

And I didn't believe in aliens.

Until I met the Doctor. And now, I see things differently.

And we won't rest, neither of us, until we have Rose back. Safe, alive and free of the Whispering forever. We will save her.

The Doctor's Diary, Entry 1964

So we've tracked it down again. The planet Kriakljjlefnflzijvlzwjitvalirjlc Apple 14. Or Kriak, as it's more commonly known. Only the natives of that world are able to pronounce it's full name. Literally, nobody else can. Not even a Time Lord.

But all ain't well down there now. The Whispering's there. Trouble is, it were jumping time tracks to get there. Though we're only a few hours behind it in the time vortex, we could land to discover it's been there for years. I dunno. I hope not. Blimey, I hope not. Countless dead if that's really the case. Countless dead.

I only hope I'm wrong, and we've arrived sooner than that. It's a level 2 planet. It's civilization is comparable to that of Medieval Earth. It doesn't know of aliens, and doubtless it will view the Whispering as some sort of supernatural creature. The place is a bit...I hate to say it, but...barbaric. I'm slightly worried that me and my chum might get hanged just for entertainment. I hope not. Any which way, we've got a duty to the people down there. We can't let this thing roam free, feeding on them.

So then, let's get to it.

END OF CHAPTER

Author's Note: Just to clarify, Oddbob the clown is a character from series 2 of The Sarah Jane Adventures. He appeared in "The Day of the Clown", in my opinion one of the very best stories the show made. I was genuinely scared as a kid.