Arcadia's Family (Book THREE)

Keep Holding On

Please Don't Murder Me...

The Doctor:

As you come into this world, something else is also born. You begin your life, and it begins a journey towards you. It moves slowly, but it never stops. Wherever you go, whatever path you take, it will follow. Never faster, never slower, always coming. You will run. It will walk. You will rest. It will not. One day, you will linger in the same place too long. You will sit too still or sleep too deep, and when, too late, you rise to go, you will notice a second shadow next to yours. Your life will then be over.

I was alone, so very alone. I came out of the teleporter, and looked around, seeing some sand on the ground, before looking around, seeing my twins not here. I'd find them, I would find my children. "If you think because she is dead, I am weak, then you understand very little. If you were any part of killing her, my wife, and separating me from my children, and you're not afraid, then you understand nothing at all. So, for your own sake, understand this. I am the Doctor. I'm coming to find you, and I will never, ever stop."

So I cautiously left the room, following the anticlockwise corridor that was curved, as well as deep square windows cut into them, admitting small amounts of light. I leant out of one, finding I was in a tall tower. "The equipment in that room is consistent with an augmented ultra long-range teleport. So, I'm not more than a single light year from where I was, and I'm in the same time zone, but there's no sign of my children." I looked out of another opening at the sky, before going back, clockwise. 

"When the sun sets, I'll be able to establish an exact position by the stars. Then you'll have a choice. Come out, show yourself, or keep on hiding. Clara and Seraphina said I shouldn't take revenge. You should know, I don't always listen, not even to her."

I kept moving, later finding a spade with soil on it, leaning on the inside wall. What was the point in that being there? "Oh, what's this? Well, are you gardeners? I hate gardening! What sort of a person has a power complex about flowers? It's dictatorship for inadequates. Or to put it another way, it's dictatorship. Come on! Chop, chop! The Doctor will see you now! Show me what you've got! I just watched my best friend die in agony, then held my wife as she died the same, before my kids were teleported away from me. My day can't get any worse. Let's see what we can do about yours!"

Looking out of the nearest opening at the wall across the courtyard, I saw a pale, grey figure, standing in a veil through narrow slit openings, and backed away and checked the view on the nearest screen. The hunchbacked figure turned away from the slit and moved along the corridor. According to the screens, the being moved slowly, as if it was dragging a leg. Each step was a thump, and they got closer. I wafted away a fly, then retreated from the approaching sound, running down yet another narrow corridor to a wooden door, but it was locked. And the being was at the other end of the bridge. "I know you. I've seen you before."

Putting my hands on the door, I started begging. "I used to know a trick, back when I was young and telepathic." Well, I still was, just no where near as much as Sarah Jane. "Clearly, you can't make an actual psychic link with a door, for one very obvious reason. They're notoriously cross. I mean, imagine life as a door. People keep pushing past you. All of that knocking, but it's never for you. And you get locked up every night, so if you're just a little bit nice." And then the door unlocked. "See, Phina? Still got it."

But there was just a solid wall behind, and the creature was nearly here. "But I. Er, I can't actually see a way out of this I've finally run out of corridor. There's a life summed up. Oh, now this is new. I'm scared. I just realised that I'm actually scared of dying." And it stopped dead with a clang, four fingered hands outstretched, ready to rip away my life, to send me to be with my wife. Would that really be so bad?