Scorched Earth
I was bored, so Morgyn prompted me, thusly:
Torchwood or Doctor Who, character of your choice, "The beacon on a lonely shore/And this all we shall fight for"
And umm.. this ensued. Apologies for the purple prose in advance. Completely un-beta'd and raw as anything. The odd layout is intentional, honest. I'll probably beat this into a 'proper' story at some point.
Set immediately after the funeral pyre scene in 'Last Of the Timelords'.
Character: Tenth Doctor
Rating: PG
Title: Scorched Earth
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The pyre burns behind his retinas, razing his mind until all is raw and jagged. Sand-blasted emotion bawled into a soundless, wasteland scream. Head pounding in a mockery of a four beat rhythm. Double heartbeats synchronised in a deadly dance.
Playing out the thundering call to war, shattering chaos swirling in a child's wide eyes. Blood red dreams, nothing as it seems, and fighting, and fucking, and.. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”
His mind whimpers and cowers, even as he's drowning, the tumble of thoughts raining over him. Words, sensations, equations and faces, and places, and times, and rhymes, and reasons, and.. “Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP.”
The fire lures him like a lover, calling in a broken voice he's always known better than his own.
It beckons him close. Sears his tears into burning tracks on his skin. Pulls his soul out from under him, and growls feral in his ear..“I refuse.”
Baits him, taunts him, twists the dagger deeper still.. “And spend the rest of my life imprisoned with you?”
Curls and shreds into his gut with razor sharp teeth.. “How about that? I win.”
Four hearts stutter on the yawning precipice.. “Will it stop Doctor? The drumming. Will it stop?”
..and fall.
Pity the poor physician who can't heal his own wounds. Too late for him to be fixed. To be put right. Reset. Forgiven.
Something, somewhere breaks into a trillion glittering splinters, and lies forever broken on the ground.
A mind that's never quiet is suddenly struck dumb.
The last of them.
The silence is deafening.
Alone.
“Run.”