Chapter 2
A flash of bright light lit up a dark corridor. Donna fell to the floor, still screaming. Her hand was still up turned as if she was still holding the object that brought her to wherever she was.
Where am I? She thought as she looked around the now gloomy corridor. It wasn't warm, wherever it was and somehow it had a kind of office feel to it. This reminded her of the office where she'd met Lance who, she found out with the Doctors help, was deliberately poisoning her for the evil spider lady whom the Doctor called a Racnoss; while making out he liked and loved her. That experience still made her tremble every time she thought about it, even now. This was also the first time she had met the Doctor. She was transported onto his ship the TARDIS, as he'd called it. She remembered that she had accused him of kidnapping her but at the time, how was she supposed to know that evil work was at play. The memory made her smile. It also made her wonder if the Doctor was here with her. Had he been taken as well and was just unconscious next to her?
"Doctor!" she whispered, trying to see where the Doctor could be but all she heard in reply was silence. Was he in the same building?
"DOCTOR, WHERE ARE YOU?" she hissed loudly, but still got no reply. Obviously not, she thought. Panic started to rise inside her chest, and the longer she stayed here the stronger it was becoming.
I have to get out of here, she thought, and made to get up onto her feet. As she did, a sudden rush of dizziness flooded her head. She felt herself begin to sway so she leant on the wall to steady herself. She closed her eyes against the ever-intensifying wave that was invading her head. The growing feeling of nausea didn't help either.
Doctor, she thought, where are you when I need you? Suddenly, she remembered the Doctor or someone anyway shouting at her but had seemed to have been pushed back by the energy the black device generated.
The phone-like thing; she remembered, it had taken her here. But, where was it now? She looked around her but there was nothing there. It must have dropped out of her hand when she got transported here.
She hoped that the Doctor had found it and could somehow use it to rescue her. That is if she could be rescued from this place. Was it still on the planet that they had just landed on? Deep inside, she hoped that whoever had control of this place was harmless, but she knew that probably wasn't the case. Hopefully, she wouldn't need to find out.
Suddenly, the sound of footsteps brought her out of her thoughts. She looked around to see where the noise was coming from but saw no one. The sounds were getting louder and closer.
Panic rose again in her chest and felt it begin to filter throughout her body. She quickly looked around looking for a way to escape. She saw an open door to what looked like an office. It was dark. As the steps drew closer she had no choice but to run so she ran towards it and rushed behind the nearest available table.
The footsteps grew louder and heavier. A strange language or noise was reverberating around the corridor. As the footsteps reached the door, Donna slowly rose to look at whatever they were.
What she saw horrified her but also amused her. What belonged to those stomps were little men that looked like trolls with coloured hair of every colour in the rainbow. She couldn't see their faces in detail but what she saw didn't make her think of happy thoughts. But they weren't alone. Donna could also hear noises of pigs but as she found out, these were not real pigs but pig-men.
The group slowly moved away from the door, and Donna began to slowly move towards the door. She caught a glimpse of the men, rounding a corner at the right end of the corridor.
Slowly, she made her way down the corridor, making sure she made no noise to alert the group. Keeping close to the wall, she reached the corner and peered around. She could still see the group moving down the corridor, and go through a large pair of double doors into what looked like a lab. That was strange, she thought to herself, she never knew any office she had been in having a lab. But what did she know.
A voice of some kind of machine suddenly cut through the silence of the corridor. It appeared to be coming from behind those doors.
"FIN-AL-LEE" it said, "BRING THEM TO ME."
She had never heard anything like it before in her life. It scared…no frightened her but she was curious as to what was producing it. She blamed the Doctor for this because before she met him, she was never the person to purposely go into danger.
She edged around the corner and slowly made her way towards the door. She quickly looked up and down the corridor to check if she wasn't being followed. Happy that she wasn't, she turned her attention once more to the door. As she reached it, she heard a snorting noise from behind her. She quickly looked around and saw one of the pig-men standing behind her. All she could do was gasp in horror before he hit her and she fell unconscious to the floor.
When she woke up again, her vision was blurry and unfocused. An even bigger tide of dizziness, which now included pain, flooded her head. She tried to move her hands and legs but she found that they were tied. She tried to scream but no sound came out due to a gag filling her mouth. She slumped and moved her head, which came into contacted with a wall. The coolness of it seemed to calm the ache in her head and a few minutes later her vision started to clear. She looked around again and saw row upon row of beds and hospital machines with pipes going here, there and everywhere.
She saw no sign of anything, no pig-men, no troll- like people but only heard the hum of working machines. Suddenly, something started to move towards her, big and large. She tried to move away from it but found she couldn't as it moved closer towards her.
Another humanoid being moved towards her, dressed in a white coat. Why was it that wherever she went, doctors always wore white coats? Well, the Doctor was the exception. He never wore a white coat. She remembered the Doctor had said that white coats didn't suit him. This woman or what looked like a woman bent closer towards Donna and brandished an instrument at her. It moved up and down as well as shining it into Donna's eyes, almost blinding her. The woman finally stopped and then seemed to check it.
"WHAT IS THE DIAGNOSIS?" said the metallic voice.
"She's not badly harmed,' replied the woman, who got up and turned towards the machine.
"GET HER READY FOR Questioning" replied the metal voice.
"She needs rest before she is questioned, she has concussion" replied the woman.
"GET HER READY" insisted the being.
"I insist she needs rest!" exclaimed the woman.
Donna admired this woman's determination, although she was part of whatever had captured her. She heard some sort of mechanical movement. She still couldn't see what was generating it but by the look on the woman's face, it was scary.
A few moments the silence between the two was broken by the same metallic voice,
"VERY WELL, TAKE HER BUT MAKE SURE SHE IS READY FOR QUESTIONING"
"Yes, my lord, thank you," replied the woman, the relief was evident.
The entity that made the voice seemed to be moving away and for a split second Donna saw what it looked like.
It was black, with an angled lower body with humped panels. In the middle, there seemed to be two metal arms (one looking like a long plunger) and a head with a long metal pipe with a black kitchen knob looking thing at the end, which she supposed acted as some kind of eye stalk allowing the creature to see. It was crowned with two objects that looked like lights and when moving it didn't seem to role but glide. That was the freakiest bit of it. It stopped suddenly and turned its head to look at her. Its eyestalk moved up and down, like it was seizing her up. It seemed to be trying to figure out who she really was or how and with whom she came with. She knew it wasn't good and she hoped that the Doctor would come soon.
Instantly, she was grabbed by the pig-men and bundled out of the room. The strange machine watched her go and then moved away but Donna couldn't see as the door obscured her view. They forced her down the same corridor she had arrived in sometime earlier. She didn't know where they were taking her. She just hoped it was somewhere decent.
Half an hour later, Donna was taken through another set of double doors. The room beyond was white and shiny, like the lab she was just in. Although, this looked a lot shabbier, which was a surprise.
"Take her to bed eight" commanded the white-coated woman.
"Get off me!" shouted Donna, trying to struggle but found it was no use.
"You need to rest," said the woman, "you will be alright."
"Thanks for your concern! But, you should have thought of that before one of those pig-men hit me!" exclaimed Donna.
"I'm sorry about that but you are an intruder and so you needed to be stopped!" replied the woman.
"Then if I am such a dangerous intruder, why are you looking after me?" asked Donna.
The woman ignored her and was busy with a machine nearby.
"What is this place? A hospital?" asked Donna, as she was placed in a chair next to some sort of bed.
"No… well I suppose it sort of is… its some kind of lab but with wards" replied the woman.
"What's going on here?" asked Donna.
"I can't really say" replied the woman, who gave Donna a reassuring smile.
Surprise, surprise, thought Donna. Something going on and it's a secret. Definitely not a good thing, whatever it was.
"This is your bed. You need to rest," said the woman, indicating to the bed beside Donna.
"Do you have anyone that knows you're here?"
"No, no one" replied Donna, who secretly hoped the Doctor would find her.
"Oh, ok, well rest up and I'll see you in a while," replied the woman and she left, leaving Donna alone.
"What's going to happen to me?" shouted Donna, but the lady didn't reply.
"Hey!" exclaimed Donna, but the woman had left the ward.
Panic started to escalate within Donna. She remembered the Doctor words, he spoke before "They want you for something and what ever they want you for its not good!" He had spoken them while trying to rescue her from a runaway taxi and still now, he had a point but where could she go? He had also told her before they left the TARDIS to touch nothing, go near nothing and keep to him but what had she done? She had touched that transporter-phone thing, gone near it and left the Doctor. She didn't think and now she had paid the price and been taken by that thing with no way of escaping. She knew that the Doctor would kill her and be angry but a little part of her knew that he would try and get to her. Or she hoped anyway.
But, she felt that she needed to get herself out and find the TARDIS and warn the Doctor, but how was she going to do that? She had to think and she knew that at this moment she was too dizzy to go anywhere. Hopefully she would be ok soon then at some point she would make her escape. She had brought herself into this mess; she had to somehow get herself out of it!