Have you ever felt...disconnected? Have you ever felt like a viewer, watching of the events as they unfold around you? Like a passenger, being taken down a path of pre-decided events, events which you can't control yet can't escape?

My name is Lynsey Perron, and this is my story...and sometimes, just lately, I wonder if I'm not going mad. I've travelled with the Doctor and Rose for...well, I can't quite remember...a while. I think. But sometimes it feels like no time at all. Sometimes it's as if seconds have passed, and I'm rushing through a movie, playing the game, yet never quite touching the sides. And I can't do it anymore. I know where I am, and I know where I'm going...yet why, when I close my eyes, am I sometimes just there, as though no time has passed?

Am I real? What is real? And where are we going next?

The Fourth Adventure: Locus Heights

"Woah!" I screamed, as a missile smashed into the deserted pavement in front of me. The Doctor and myself leapt back from the blast, the heat prickling our skin, setting our teeth on edge. We ducked around the corner, hiding behind the cover of a grocery shop which, at better times, sold all manner of exotic fruit.

The city was a mess; all around, civilians were screaming and running for the hills of the surrounding deserts. And such was the swollen population of Locus Heights, people were even dying in the scrum to escape. The heat of the planet was extreme, though the Doctor told me on the way that Women Wept was mostly a very cold planet. Only here, in the heat of the great desert of Women Wept, did people live. In peace, until today.

It was very much like a city in the middle east might be, though I can't claim ever to have travelled there. It wasn't unlike, I supposed, Dubai, which I'd only ever seen in pictures or on television. Around us were great, modern skyscrapers of all shapes and sizes, some made of glass and other's polished metal. Dotted about the streets where luxury cars of every colour and of fantastic, alien design. Cars with round roofs and ten tiny wheels, cars that floated, cars which ran on caterpillars. Plenty had been destroyed now by the missiles that were raining down on the city, as had a lot of the structures which towered above us. But as well as the modern effects, the city had real signs of some ancient culture. Rustic stone buildings and statues of strange creatures. Decorative fountains and ancient museums. They, like their newer neighboring buildings, were being destroyed chunk by chunk, piece by piece. Of a population of twelve hundred million, I shuddered to think how many were dead, and how many were going to be. Though plenty had gotten away, more to follow, I knew that just as many would not.

We were among those who were running. But we were not running away from the danger. Oh no. We were running full pelt towards it.

A soldier was with us, a man who I can't describe, on account of the full-face metal helmet he wore. Certainly he was large, but that's all I knew. He wore a combat outfit with desert camouflage, and a tight fitting armour vest over his top. This vest was jet-black, with pieces of metal integrated into the bodywork. Heavy duty body armour. Similar armour was wrapped around his legs, separate pieces above and below the knees, and he had two shoulder pads which were all metal. His arms too were strapped with this armour. He was, I imagined, almost bullet-proof. He could probably take a fair few shots before going down, and I supposed his role was to lead a charge, to draw the fire of the enemy, providing cover for his less armored, and more mobile team. In his hands he cradled a rifle of a strange design. It was blue-grey, small, and had multiple attachments stuck on, among them a suppressor and some hideous looking chute under the barrel, which I presumed shot explosives. Contrary to what I expected, the gun fired bullets, as did the guns of the other soldiers around us. I'd been expecting lasers.

We were heading towards the town's secret military base. Except it wasn't such a secret any more, nor did it appear to be the property of the military at this moment in time. Someone had gotten in, and hacked into what should have been the ground-to-air missile system, which was there to protect the city if ever it came under attack from the sky, shooting down any warships or invading forces which might arrive. But now someone had reprogrammed the system. Gone was the ground-to-air operation. Instead, when fired from huge turrets in the buildings roof, the missiles would rise only briefly, before falling back to the ground, smashing into the very city they were supposed to protect, killing the citizens who's lives they existed to save. Someone was in there, turning the city's own weapons against it.

Not someone, me and the Doctor knew. Something. The Whispering had materialized inside there and was butchering the city. In effect...preparing itself dinner.

"The creature behind this," the Doctor yelled to the soldier, shouting to be heard above the explosions, "can't be damaged by yer guns. Only me and me mate here can stop it, but we'll need ya help to get in there."

"You'll have all the help you need," the soldier screamed back, "on my go, we'll push up."

The Doctor had shown him his psychic paper, which identified the pair of us as high-ranking officers in the planet's military. Hence the total obedience of the soldiers.

"A friend of ours," the Doctor continued, "is in there, being used as an hostage. She ain't to be harmed, you understand? I want that girl outta there in one piece."

"We'll do all we can." the soldier screamed, as to our right, a building took a direct hit and collapsed instantly, bricks flying apart. We pressed ourselves up against the wall of the grocery as the road next to us was showered with debris. Thick, gritty dust filled the air, making me cough, turning my eyes red and watery. If anyone had been in that building, perhaps hiding under a table or a bed, hoping beyond hope that it would stop, they'd almost certainly have just died.

"Move out!" the soldier bellowed gesturing for his men to head up the street, towards the military base, which although only two minutes walk, would be a disgustingly hazardous journey. Certainly some, most or all of us would die trying to reach the base. The soldier (only now did I see his name, Captain Tirwyl, on the breast of his uniform) moved out in front, whilst me and the Doctor followed behind. We both wore small, silver glasses, which he told me would nearly give us a view of the Whispering's true form, protecting our minds against the feedback of what we saw. Despite the terror and the desperation of the situation, that excited me. Finally seeing what it really was, or nearly seeing what it was.

We rushed down the street, taking cover behind a yellow-green little sports car with a rounded roof and a huge bonnet, which obviously concealed an obnoxiously powerful engine. There was a large crack in the windshield, where a piece of stray debris had struck, most likely from the block of flats above, which had taken at least four hits.

All counted, there were thirteen of us. Me, the Doctor, Captain Tirwyl and ten men. That was about to change, for the worse. As the Captain signaled again for us to move up, the first four soldiers were hit. They'd been using the apartment block for cover, but no sooner had they moved out into the open, turning left at a T-junction, they were killed. Not by a missile. Instead, explosions of blood erupted from them, and they shook and spasmed violently where they stood, before collapsing, lifeless, to the concrete. Blood pooled around them. Tirwyl swore and peered out from cover. He looked quickly, and ducked back behind the car. He turned to me and the Doctor.

"Machine gun," he said. His voice was cracked, and I wondered if he wasn't crying underneath that helmet. He'd just lost four men. "Automatic turrets, but they're all run off the same system as the missiles."

The Doctor nodded, and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "Will that armour keep ya alive?" He asked Tirwyl.

Tirwyl nodded. "If I'm very quick."

"Then take this," the Doctor said, passing him the screwdriver. "Point and think. It'll disable the turrets from a range of thirty feet."

The soldier nodded. "I think I can get that close before it shoots through the plating. But if I don't, then I'm counting on you to bloody well save this city. You get me?"

"We will," I told him solemnly, my mouth dry, "good luck."

Without hesitating, he leapt from behind the car, and out to the left, past the block of flats where his men were hiding in cover. I watched in horror as rounds, dozens of them, smashed into him, sending sparks flying as they hit his armour. He clenched his arms together in pain, but carried on moving forwards. The bullets made earsplitting tuk! noises as they smashed into him, metal rounds hitting the combined metal and Kevlar of his armour, hurting him, but not killing him. Not yet. But nothing stays bulletproof forever. And he still had halfway to go before he reached the thirty foot radius. I saw one shot go bouncing off his helmet, and he finally lost his cool and broke into a haphazard, clumsy run, slowed by the weight of his body armour.

But he made it. His right arm shot out, the sonic screwdriver in his hand, and I watched in relief as the turret shut down instantly, smoke billowing from the inside of the mounted machine gun. My relief was short lived; behind us, a missile slammed into the street. Not out of the woods yet, I reminded myself sternly. As one, me, the Doctor, and the six remaining soldiers moved out to join the Captain by the disabled turret. The front of his armour was mush. Pieces of fabric and bands of metal hung loosely from it, and it was awash with holes, some still smoking. With a grunt, and with the help of two of his men, he ripped is from his torso. His chest and stomach were bleeding - red blots dotted the front of his desert camouflage top. But they were small wounds. The bullets were still in the armour, which he promptly threw on the floor. They'd made a little impact on him, but only a little. Flesh wounds. The armour was destroyed, rather than the man wearing it. There was a scratch mark on his helmet.

He tossed the screwdriver to the Doctor. "I'm good," he said, a notable wheeze in his voice, "let's press."

"Right." The Doctor said, and it was then that I realized incredulously that the Doctor was, on some deep level, enjoying this. Not the death and destruction. He hated those things, I knew, and he always would. But the battle-ground. The feeling of adrenaline rushing through his blood as bullets and missiles came cracking towards him. I knew only a little of his past, but I knew he'd fought. I knew he'd fought in a war more hideous than anything I could ever imagine. And I knew he regretted it. But I wondered then if there wasn't more of the soldier left in him than he cared to admit.

He grabbed my hand and we sprinted down the street, past the turret. We had a shopping mall to go through, and then we'd be face to face with the military base...

And then we were there. I juddered to a halt and looked around in confusion. We were standing before a large tower, set up to look like a normal office block. From the roof, missiles launched, at the rate of one for every ten seconds, or thereabouts.

We got through the mall without incident. I remember now.

"How do we get in?" I demanded, when the Doctor's sonic screwdriver failed to open the door. Deadlock seal.

"Ach..." he groaned, placing his hand on his chin, thinking hard.

"I know." Captain Tirwyl said, reaching into a satchel bag attached to his leg. He pulled out a grenade.

"What would have happened if that turret had hit that bag?" I demanded.

"Then I wouldn't have been a very healthy guy," Tirwyl said with a shrug, "now stand back."

"That ain't gonna help, mate!" The Doctor protested. "You'll only ruin the paintwork! That door's powerful."

"I know." Tirwyl said. He raised his arm, and suddenly, out of the armour attached to his left wrist, a length of grey rope shot out, with a vicious looking hook on the end. It pierced the concrete next to a first floor window on the base, and I watched in awe as instantly began to rise, pulled up by the rope. He came to a stop on the windowsill, held there safely (relatively speaking) by the grappling hook, embedded firmly in the building's brickwork. The windows were reinforced, impossible to kick through or even shoot through. A grenade, however, put right up against the glass...

Tirwyl primed the grenade, leaving it on the outside windowsill. In one swift movement, he detached the wire from the concrete and arranged his body so that he fell a controlled fall from the windowsill. He tucked his arms over his chest and lay flat as a board in midair, coming to a hard (and, no doubt, immensely painful) landing on the concrete below. His helmet, and the still intact body armour which was strapped to his back took a lot of the force of the fall, and he got to his feet, bruised but able.

The grenade went off; such was the strength of the little bomb that I felt the concrete shake beneath me. The window, indeed the concrete framework of the building around it, stood no chance. With a groaning, crumbling sound, that section of the wall fell apart, concrete blocks landing on the ground below with great, satisfying thumps. We were in.

"I expect you can 'ear me Rose," the Doctor called out, "and know this - we're coming for ya. I know your still in there, and I know you trust me. We're coming."

The six remaining soldiers readied their grapple hooks, but Tirwyl stopped them. "No. I'll go alone. You two," he said to two of them, "give your grappling hooks to the Doctor and his friend. Your guns too."

"No." The Doctor said firmly. "Like I said, they won't do nothin'. What's more, Captain, if your comin' then you aren't bringing your gun."

Captain Tirwyl shook his helmet-clad head. "But with respect sir..."

"With respect nothing." The Doctor said. "I get the horrible feeling that you might have to shoot my friend when we find her. And I can't let that happen."

Reluctantly, Tirwyl passed his rifle to one of his men. Three of them relinquished their grappling hooks, and I gave one each to me and the Doctor, a new one for Tirwyl. As one, we aimed our arms at the new hole in the face of the building.

"Clench your fist to fire the line." Tirwyl instructed. And, with a thrill of exhilaration, I did just that. Pointing my wrist at a wall, visible inside the building, I clenched my fist and felt a jolt as the line shot out, the hook passing just slightly too close to my clenched hand for comfort. I heard a distant noise as it hooked into the wall, and I screamed lightly as my feet left the ground and I flew, yes flew, up through the air, pulled along by the wire. I ducked my head as I went through the hole in the wall, and gasped in relief as I landed, somewhat uncomfortably, on the floor inside. I looked around and laughed. For we were in a shop. Not a big shop, like that in which I used to work. But a shop nonetheless. A little grocery store, selling the basics for the staff who lived in this once-hidden military outfit. I got clear of the wall as the Doctor and Captain Tirwyl came zooming in. At once, the Doctor leapt up. "Where's the control room?" He demanded.

"Up." Tirwyl said simply, pointing outside the entrance to the shop. A narrow spiral staircase stood there. "Level eight." Were were on level one. The Doctor, without waiting a moment, sprinted towards it. I raced to keep up, Tirwyl dragging along behind. I could hear him stripping off what remained of his body armour, which now served only to slow him down. I didn't look back and I didn't wait up.

"Rose!" I screamed, as I pounded up the stairs. Ahead of me, the Doctor was calling for her. I propped my glasses up against my head, for I could feel them slipping as I ran. Just as I ran past the entrance to level three, and further op, I heard an intercom come crackling into life.

"Welcome home..." said a woman's voice - Rose's voice.

"Rose?" I yelled, running faster up the stairs, so fast that my head started to spin. "Can you hear me?"

"Yep." Came the voice. "Nice place, your town. What's it called?"

"Rose!" I heard the Doctor's booming voice ahead of me. "You have to stop this! I know you can remember me, and I know ya don't want this. Give it up."

"Good. That's very good. Sorry, the Doc told me to check your memory."

"Listen to him! Give it up and let go!" I exclaimed. Suddenly, as I ran past level three, I found myself standing right against the Doctor's back. I'd caught up with him. He was larger than me, and less nimble.

"Let me go first," I said, forcing my way under his arm, and up the stairs ahead of him.

"Lynsey!" He screamed, scrabbling for my back, trying to prevent me rushing ahead. I shook him off and kept running.

"Just hold on, Rosie," I whimpered. At the back of my mind, I was suddenly aware of a distressing error - I had no Dimension Trap. The Doctor had two. I had none. Didn't matter. I had to get to Rose.

"Great stuff," came Rose's voice, "but I don't think dream's the right word. More like...freaky virtual world constructed from your memories."

I now ignored her. Speaking took energy, energy I needed to race up this stomach-turning staircase. I felt a little like I was in a whirlpool. A nasty thought came into my head - I was in a whirlpool. But instead of being spun around, pulled underwater and drowned, I was being spun around, but pulled up, up towards a death just as nasty as drowning. Up to the Whispering. It would probably come to the same thing.

Finally, with my heart throbbing and my head spinning, I reached level eight. Below me, perhaps at level six now, I heard the Doctor. Somewhere lower than him would be Tirwyl. Backup was coming, if I could just survive a few seconds...

I pushed through the entrance to the floor, and stopped, standing stock still. Level one had been like a hospital or something- separate rooms, a little shop...but here...

It was a wide open cavern of a room. It took up the entire floor with one massive great control room. Computers lined the walls, and a screen at least four times my height hung from the wall opposite me. And up a flight of steps, standing in a circular bank of computers, a dazed look in her eye, stood Rose.

"Rose!" I screamed, leaping up the stairs and grabbing her. I had to get her away; she was controlling the missiles! She was doing it's dirty work for it. And although she wasn't herself, a look deep into those cold eyes told me all I needed to see - the knowledge of what she was doing was killing her.

So I pulled her away with all my strength, the pair of us tumbling down the stairs. I felt my back shoot up in pain, and my ankle twist, but I was sure I hadn't been badly hurt. I looked at Rose. Her eyes were staring at something above me, on the ceiling.

I looked.

And what I saw made me wish that I'd never run up here alone, forget that, made me wish I'd never even come with the Doctor at all, never exposed myself to the thrills and horrors of his life. All at once, I longed for my flat, and my boring job and my ordinary life, for such was the horror of what I saw that it made me rue the day I even met him and Rose, made me rue the day they'd been so selfish as to take all that away and ask me to come, forcing me to see such utter terrors like that which I saw now, things I'd otherwise happily lived without ever having seen.

Above me, scuttling across the ceiling towards me, was the Whispering, a millipede the length of four buses, which had been curled up in the corner, where a small yellow nest was starting to form. It must have had over a thousand legs, each one the size of a person's arm, tipped with sharp little points which made hideous tapping noises on the ceiling, like rain splattering against a window, only louder. It was emitting a dry hissing noise. It's skin was jet black, it's body a cylinder of dozens of individual, solid plates of tissue which moved side to side as it scuttled. It's head was large and round, with two empty insect's eyes leering emotionlessly down at me. It's antenna moved gently on the sides of it's head, feeling the air of the room. It detached the front quarter of it's body from the ceiling and came down towards me, the remainder of it's body still attached to the ceiling. The millipede stunk, the rich revolting smell of the Whispering overpowering me.

It's not a millipede, I reminded myself. Not really. But this isn't a disguise, this is the closest my brain can come to picturing it, as close a picture to the real thing as the glasses can form for me.

I screamed and fell to the floor, clutching Rose as the monster from beyond time and reality itself came at us. I saw it's revolting little (huge) mouth open, I saw in the corner of my eye the Doctor burst into the room and cry my name.

And then the mouth closed over me and Rose, trapping us in humid, stinking darkness.

Trapping me.

Eating me.

Drowning me.

The Doctor's Diary, Entry 1969 Part 1

We got to Locus Heights too late. It's clever. If nothing else, it's clever. Rather than hide out and eat little and often, it used the city's own weapon's against them, massacring the residents. Meat galore! With the help of the local army, headed by Captain Tirwyl, we headed to the base in which it had holed up and unleashed death on the city. It was hard, dangerous work, and four of the team didn't make it. But finally, we got there.

My friend, she's just so...brave! I don't know how she does it. She was faster than me, and she went ahead despite my warnings. She didn't even have a Dimension Trap! That was stupid, yes. But so amazingly brave. She attempted to shut down the missile system herself. But then it came for her. I don't know what she saw it as, but I saw it as a millipede. It isn't a millipede. A millipede is just the animal in this universe which happens to be most like the Whispering's true form, so that's what we see.

And it so nearly ate her. I got there just in time.

END OF CHAPTER

Author's Note: So yeah, the next chapter (twenty) will be the last of this story. Might take a few days to write, going to be a longer one. This story is indeed much shorter than Will You Come I, simply because that was a lot of companions' stories merged into one big narrative, whilst this is one story about one character (sort of). Having forty chapters for this story would end up getting boring I think, hence this is only half the length.

Answers coming in the final chapter, of course :) In the meantime, hope you all enjoy this one!