On The Other Side - Chapter Seven - The Price Of Dreams
Rose walked ahead of Martha, her hands in the pockets of her suit jacket. Occasionally she threw a backwards glance at Martha. She seemed to be made of sterner stuff than Rose had given her credit for. Together they stepped into the busy late night shopping centre and looked around. ‘What are we looking for?’ asked Rose, turning to look at Martha.
The older woman shrugged, her eyes passing over every other person in the crowd. ‘I don’t know,’ replied Martha, walking off into the crowd, her eyes scanning the many faces that passed her. ‘Maybe someone who looks vacant, or maybe not - I don’t have much experience with possession.’
‘No,’ agreed Rose, patting down her pockets until her hand fell on an object she that she had thought left behind, ‘although, if this still works it might help us locate something.’ She fished what looked like a Blackberry from her pocket and fired it up. The screen blinked to life and Rose’s eyes lit up with it, but then the machine flickered and died, Rose’s smile died with it. ‘It appears we’ll just have to us our natural ability to track this thing down.’
‘It would help if we knew what we were dealing with,’ replied Martha, pressing a finger to her ear. ‘Jack, do we have any more information on what we are dealing with?’
‘No,’ replied the American over the comm.
Martha released her finger and looked around the plaza ahead of them; she was just about to look around at Rose when a scream reached her ears. Both Rose and Martha looked up in the same direction together. ‘Of course, we could do this the old fashioned way and follow the screams,’ commented Rose, setting off at a walk towards a set of stairs that was concealed by a fire exit.
‘And then what?’ asked Martha, following Rose to the fire exit.
Rose shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘lets see what’s up there first.’
They made there way over to the first step, Rose mounted the first step, looking up the stairwell and clutching at the handrail. ‘We need to be quiet, so they won’t hear us,’ cautioned Martha, holding Rose back for a moment.
Rose looked down at Martha. ‘They already know were coming,’ she said quietly, pulling her arm free and turning away from Martha. ‘Come on.’
Martha watched Rose shakily walk up the stairs, her eyes focused on the route she was taking.
Five minutes later, the two women emerged on the top floor of the shopping mall, and for the first time, Martha flagged, shocked at the sight before them. ‘You okay?’ asked Rose, turning to steady the medic.
Before them lay a scene of carnage, that made Rose blanch as well. She held her hand to her mouth and stared around in wide eyed horror. ‘This is the price of my dreams?’ she asked.
About twenty bodies lay in the corridor, each of them drained, so they appeared of all blood and water. Martha swallowed hard behind Rose and also held her hand up to her mouth. ‘This isn’t your fault,’ said Martha as softly as she could through the hand covering her mouth.
‘It came through the Void while the Rift was open,’ said Rose, her voice was hollow with some unspoken guilt. ‘I acted too slowly and should have forced Jack to come back without me.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Martha snorted behind Rose. ‘He was never going to leave you behind Rose,’ Martha continued as Rose crouched down beside the closest body.
‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Rose, running her hand over the dried up remains. But then her hands brushed over the hair near the nape of the neck and she took a sharp inhale. She turned to look up at Martha. ‘I was wrong,’ she said, looking at the markings on the back of the neck. ‘I have seen this before.’
‘Well, that’s good, in a way,’ said Martha, looking at the purple raised markings.
‘Not really,’ replied Rose, shakily rising to her full height. ‘We saw the deaths, but never actually came face to face with whatever caused them.’ She heaved a deep sigh. ‘It killed fifty people before it disappeared. The government said it was a virus that caused severe dehydration, but it was worse than that as you can see.’
Martha looked up the corridor. ‘They left a trail,’ she said humourlessly, as she went ahead picking her way though the scattered bodies.
Rose glanced up and down before following Martha, every nerve in her was tingling with anticipation and worry.
‘What gives you the impression that whatever that gas was has ended up down there?’ Donna asked bluntly as she and the Doctor watched hordes of people run out of the street, some with looks of panic, other screaming or dialling there mobiles.
‘Come on,’ he said, grabbing Donna’s hand and breaking out into a run.
They soon reached the horde and Donna broke free. ‘What happened?’ she asked, looking at a young dark haired girl.
The brunette looked at Donna; her eyes were wide with horror. ‘Monsters,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘With tentacles, killing people.’
Donna nodded her head and patted the girls arm. ‘It’ll be okay now,’ she said, looking around for the Doctor, and spotting him fighting his way over to the doors of the shopping centre. She ran to join him. ‘Tentacles,’ she said as she reached his side.
The Doctor looked down at his companion. ‘That’ll be the least of our problems,’ said the Doctor as they reached the doors to the deserted mall and yanked open. Inside it was eerily quiet.
‘So much for Torchwood,’ commented Donna following the Doctor towards the stairs. He had pulled his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and was scanning the area. ‘Where are they anyway, the great protectors of Cardiff?’
‘Shouldn’t be too far away,’ replied the Doctor, pointing his sonic screwdriver towards the ceiling. ‘Upstairs,’ he announced, heading towards the still moving escalators. He ran up one, still using his sonic?? to detect the location of the alien. ‘There are two of them.’
‘Great, there are two of us,’ commented Donna, joining the Doctor and looking around, just as there was scream from an upper floor.
The Doctor looked over his shoulder at Donna. ‘Come on,’ he said, setting off at a run towards a sign that indicated the stairs.
Rose and Martha rounded the corner as they heard the second scream. ‘Eugh,’ moaned Rose as they entered the room, in front them stood a person with blanked eyes and tentacles rising from somewhere out of their back. ‘That’s, er…’ but the words died in her mouth as her eyes swept over the scene. Pushed into the corner of the room was a young woman, no older than nineteen, clawing at the wall with fear in her eyes. Rose looked over at Martha, who was still looking at the creature with her mouth open. With only a second to make a decision, Rose used the doorway to lean on before pulling one of her shoes free. ‘Oi,’ she yelled, hoping to attract the alien’s attention. ‘Pick on someone your own size.’
She threw the shoe, and watched as it seemed to arch in slow motion across the room and hit the creature over the forehead, but it still didn’t move. ‘Any other bright ideas?’ hissed Martha, watching as the tentacles suddenly became stiff.
‘Well, in an event such as this,’ said Rose, ‘with my previous experience, I would say, ah, run?’
Martha raised her eyebrows at Rose, stifling a giggle before they started backing out of the room. As they did so, the creature struck; its long tentacles piecing the girl in the corner. The spark of life was removed instantly from her eyes and she became still. The two women grabbed each other as they backed away, horrified, partly because of the scene before them, but also that they hadn’t screamed at the sight.
‘We have to stop this,’ said Martha, her voice hard and quivering as they continued to back out the room holding on to each other.
Then the creature stopped moving completely and the two women stopped, glancing at each other. ‘What’s going on?’ hissed Rose, tightening her grip on the older woman.
‘How should I know,’ replied Martha, returning the grip.
Then a single voice echoed out into the shopping centre. ‘We are the Xicatris.’
‘Well, that’s sorted that then,’ commented Rose under her breath.
‘Yes, yes, I know that,’ said the Doctor, waving a hand in dismal??, ‘but that’s not what I asked. How did you get here?’
‘We followed the light,’ the Xicatris answered, ‘it shone so brightly across the Void that we tried to inhabit her world, but then she came here, shining brighter than before. It was our beacon, guiding us out from our prison.’
‘She?’ questioned the Doctor, ‘who’s she and what do you mean the light, that doesn’t make sense.’
The Xicatris was silent for a moment, before speaking again, but not in reply to the Doctor’s question. ‘Yes, you shine so brightly in the dark.’
The Doctor raised his eyebrows and looked over at Donna. ‘Whoever they followed is also talking to them.’
‘They?’ asked Donna.
‘The Xicatris all share a mind, like the Ood, only they are malevolent. My people trapped them in the Void during the first Time War, if the Daleks had joined forces with them, well, the end of the universe would have been right there and then,’ explained the Doctor in a hushed tone, then he looked up at the Xicatris, ‘but who did they follow and more importantly, how did they open a gateway between parallel worlds,’
Donna found herself looking over the Doctor with concern. ‘That meant to be impossible, then?’ she asked.
The Doctor looked at Donna. ‘It is impossible,’ he stressed.
‘How’d you know that?’ challenged Donna, ‘try it once.’
‘Yeah,’ muttered the Doctor, as he looked away from Donna back at the Xicatris.
‘Why would they follow you?’ asked Martha, still holding onto Rose. ‘What makes you so special, to them?’
‘How should I know,’ replied Rose, ‘I’m just, well, me.’
The Xicatris stiffened again, and the two women backed off a few more steps. ‘You have seen all of Time and Space in your mind, even now, the colour of the Vortex shines in your mind.’
‘Ah,’ said Rose, in sudden understanding, ‘right, so you want a load of information that I can’t even unlock. I take it that means you want to kill me then.’
‘Your death has long since been foretold, child, by the Great Beast that resided deep in the pit of Krop Tor,’ hissed the Xicatris.
‘Yeah, well, do you want to know a secret about what the Beast said?’ shouted Rose, pulling Martha back, chancing a glance behind her to see if there was anything she could use to protect herself with, ‘it lied.’ She let go of Martha and grabbed the fire extinguisher of the wall and opened fire with the foam substance. ‘Come on, Martha, run.’ Rose threw the canister to the ground and set off at pace back out into the corridor, the young doctor behind her.
The Doctor seemed to defrost from his position of shock the moment the Xicatris before them started to scream in pain. ‘That’s my Rose,’ he said with a grin, glancing back at Donna, ‘come on.’
Donna looked after the Doctor as he hared down the corridor. ‘When did Rose come into all this?’
‘She’s the one they followed,’ the Doctor explained hastily, ‘she’s here,’ he said running his hands though his hair and looking around. ‘She’s here.’
Once in the corridor, the Doctor whipped out this sonic screwdriver and held it up. ‘Fifth floor, there’s another one upstairs,’ without another word he set off at a run towards the stairs that had brought them up.
‘You still with me, Doctor Jones,’ Rose called back as they reached the stairwell. She flicked her head back to see the still injured woman flagging a bit. She started to move back towards Martha. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
Martha’s mouth opened in reply but nothing left it as the wall behind her collapsed. She dodged out the way of the flying debris and Rose pushed herself to the wall as plaster and brick flew past her. Martha looked up at the Xicatris before starting to move towards Rose.
‘Faster,’ shouted Rose, holding her hand out to Martha as the creature stiffened as it had before killing the other woman. Then just as Martha grabbed Rose’s hand the tentacles flew out and hit the older woman in the back of the neck. ‘Martha!’ Rose shouted as her face was covered in blood.
Martha sank to the floor, Rose falling to her knees in the same motion. ‘Martha,’ she called again, cradling the medic’s head in her hands.
‘Rose,’ Martha whispered, opening her eyes slightly, ‘you have to run.’
‘I can’t leave you,’ replied Rose, tears starting to shine in the corner of her eyes.
‘But it wants you, Rose, and all that power you have,’ replied Martha, ‘you have to go, find the Doctor, he’ll be able stop this.’ Martha’s eyes slid shut and Rose bit back her tears, wiping her face, causing it to be more covered in blood.
She lay Martha down and looked up at the Xicatris. ‘What did you have to kill her for?’ The creature didn’t answer her, instead it stiffened again.
‘No where to run now,’ hissed the Xicatris once it finished arching to its full height.
Rose staggered to her feet, trying to move towards the door when she felt a pair of arms wrap around her. But she had become mesmerised by the tentacles now flying towards her, she was swung around and at the same time one arm let go of her and she caught a distinctive whine on the air, only then did she look down to see the arm that was still holding her was clad in a tan brown coat.
The next moment she found herself the other side of the door, her head strangely numb. Two hands grabbed her face and she soon found herself looking into two brown eyes that she had been scorched into her memory. ‘It just kill’d her Doctor,’ Rose mumbled, finally letting tears slide down her face.
The Doctor gave Rose a pained look back. ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ he told her softly, ‘need to get you to safety.’
‘What about Martha?’
The look in the Time Lord’s eyes deepened. ‘We can’t do anything for her now, Rose,’ he said, pulling the blood stained blonde into a hug. ‘She’s gone.’
The older woman shrugged, her eyes passing over every other person in the crowd. ‘I don’t know,’ replied Martha, walking off into the crowd, her eyes scanning the many faces that passed her. ‘Maybe someone who looks vacant, or maybe not - I don’t have much experience with possession.’
‘No,’ agreed Rose, patting down her pockets until her hand fell on an object she that she had thought left behind, ‘although, if this still works it might help us locate something.’ She fished what looked like a Blackberry from her pocket and fired it up. The screen blinked to life and Rose’s eyes lit up with it, but then the machine flickered and died, Rose’s smile died with it. ‘It appears we’ll just have to us our natural ability to track this thing down.’
‘It would help if we knew what we were dealing with,’ replied Martha, pressing a finger to her ear. ‘Jack, do we have any more information on what we are dealing with?’
‘No,’ replied the American over the comm.
Martha released her finger and looked around the plaza ahead of them; she was just about to look around at Rose when a scream reached her ears. Both Rose and Martha looked up in the same direction together. ‘Of course, we could do this the old fashioned way and follow the screams,’ commented Rose, setting off at a walk towards a set of stairs that was concealed by a fire exit.
‘And then what?’ asked Martha, following Rose to the fire exit.
Rose shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘lets see what’s up there first.’
They made there way over to the first step, Rose mounted the first step, looking up the stairwell and clutching at the handrail. ‘We need to be quiet, so they won’t hear us,’ cautioned Martha, holding Rose back for a moment.
Rose looked down at Martha. ‘They already know were coming,’ she said quietly, pulling her arm free and turning away from Martha. ‘Come on.’
Martha watched Rose shakily walk up the stairs, her eyes focused on the route she was taking.
Five minutes later, the two women emerged on the top floor of the shopping mall, and for the first time, Martha flagged, shocked at the sight before them. ‘You okay?’ asked Rose, turning to steady the medic.
Before them lay a scene of carnage, that made Rose blanch as well. She held her hand to her mouth and stared around in wide eyed horror. ‘This is the price of my dreams?’ she asked.
About twenty bodies lay in the corridor, each of them drained, so they appeared of all blood and water. Martha swallowed hard behind Rose and also held her hand up to her mouth. ‘This isn’t your fault,’ said Martha as softly as she could through the hand covering her mouth.
‘It came through the Void while the Rift was open,’ said Rose, her voice was hollow with some unspoken guilt. ‘I acted too slowly and should have forced Jack to come back without me.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Martha snorted behind Rose. ‘He was never going to leave you behind Rose,’ Martha continued as Rose crouched down beside the closest body.
‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Rose, running her hand over the dried up remains. But then her hands brushed over the hair near the nape of the neck and she took a sharp inhale. She turned to look up at Martha. ‘I was wrong,’ she said, looking at the markings on the back of the neck. ‘I have seen this before.’
‘Well, that’s good, in a way,’ said Martha, looking at the purple raised markings.
‘Not really,’ replied Rose, shakily rising to her full height. ‘We saw the deaths, but never actually came face to face with whatever caused them.’ She heaved a deep sigh. ‘It killed fifty people before it disappeared. The government said it was a virus that caused severe dehydration, but it was worse than that as you can see.’
Martha looked up the corridor. ‘They left a trail,’ she said humourlessly, as she went ahead picking her way though the scattered bodies.
Rose glanced up and down before following Martha, every nerve in her was tingling with anticipation and worry.
‘What gives you the impression that whatever that gas was has ended up down there?’ Donna asked bluntly as she and the Doctor watched hordes of people run out of the street, some with looks of panic, other screaming or dialling there mobiles.
‘Come on,’ he said, grabbing Donna’s hand and breaking out into a run.
They soon reached the horde and Donna broke free. ‘What happened?’ she asked, looking at a young dark haired girl.
The brunette looked at Donna; her eyes were wide with horror. ‘Monsters,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘With tentacles, killing people.’
Donna nodded her head and patted the girls arm. ‘It’ll be okay now,’ she said, looking around for the Doctor, and spotting him fighting his way over to the doors of the shopping centre. She ran to join him. ‘Tentacles,’ she said as she reached his side.
The Doctor looked down at his companion. ‘That’ll be the least of our problems,’ said the Doctor as they reached the doors to the deserted mall and yanked open. Inside it was eerily quiet.
‘So much for Torchwood,’ commented Donna following the Doctor towards the stairs. He had pulled his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and was scanning the area. ‘Where are they anyway, the great protectors of Cardiff?’
‘Shouldn’t be too far away,’ replied the Doctor, pointing his sonic screwdriver towards the ceiling. ‘Upstairs,’ he announced, heading towards the still moving escalators. He ran up one, still using his sonic?? to detect the location of the alien. ‘There are two of them.’
‘Great, there are two of us,’ commented Donna, joining the Doctor and looking around, just as there was scream from an upper floor.
The Doctor looked over his shoulder at Donna. ‘Come on,’ he said, setting off at a run towards a sign that indicated the stairs.
Rose and Martha rounded the corner as they heard the second scream. ‘Eugh,’ moaned Rose as they entered the room, in front them stood a person with blanked eyes and tentacles rising from somewhere out of their back. ‘That’s, er…’ but the words died in her mouth as her eyes swept over the scene. Pushed into the corner of the room was a young woman, no older than nineteen, clawing at the wall with fear in her eyes. Rose looked over at Martha, who was still looking at the creature with her mouth open. With only a second to make a decision, Rose used the doorway to lean on before pulling one of her shoes free. ‘Oi,’ she yelled, hoping to attract the alien’s attention. ‘Pick on someone your own size.’
She threw the shoe, and watched as it seemed to arch in slow motion across the room and hit the creature over the forehead, but it still didn’t move. ‘Any other bright ideas?’ hissed Martha, watching as the tentacles suddenly became stiff.
‘Well, in an event such as this,’ said Rose, ‘with my previous experience, I would say, ah, run?’
Martha raised her eyebrows at Rose, stifling a giggle before they started backing out of the room. As they did so, the creature struck; its long tentacles piecing the girl in the corner. The spark of life was removed instantly from her eyes and she became still. The two women grabbed each other as they backed away, horrified, partly because of the scene before them, but also that they hadn’t screamed at the sight.
‘We have to stop this,’ said Martha, her voice hard and quivering as they continued to back out the room holding on to each other.
Then the creature stopped moving completely and the two women stopped, glancing at each other. ‘What’s going on?’ hissed Rose, tightening her grip on the older woman.
‘How should I know,’ replied Martha, returning the grip.
Then a single voice echoed out into the shopping centre. ‘We are the Xicatris.’
‘Well, that’s sorted that then,’ commented Rose under her breath.
‘Yes, yes, I know that,’ said the Doctor, waving a hand in dismal??, ‘but that’s not what I asked. How did you get here?’
‘We followed the light,’ the Xicatris answered, ‘it shone so brightly across the Void that we tried to inhabit her world, but then she came here, shining brighter than before. It was our beacon, guiding us out from our prison.’
‘She?’ questioned the Doctor, ‘who’s she and what do you mean the light, that doesn’t make sense.’
The Xicatris was silent for a moment, before speaking again, but not in reply to the Doctor’s question. ‘Yes, you shine so brightly in the dark.’
The Doctor raised his eyebrows and looked over at Donna. ‘Whoever they followed is also talking to them.’
‘They?’ asked Donna.
‘The Xicatris all share a mind, like the Ood, only they are malevolent. My people trapped them in the Void during the first Time War, if the Daleks had joined forces with them, well, the end of the universe would have been right there and then,’ explained the Doctor in a hushed tone, then he looked up at the Xicatris, ‘but who did they follow and more importantly, how did they open a gateway between parallel worlds,’
Donna found herself looking over the Doctor with concern. ‘That meant to be impossible, then?’ she asked.
The Doctor looked at Donna. ‘It is impossible,’ he stressed.
‘How’d you know that?’ challenged Donna, ‘try it once.’
‘Yeah,’ muttered the Doctor, as he looked away from Donna back at the Xicatris.
‘Why would they follow you?’ asked Martha, still holding onto Rose. ‘What makes you so special, to them?’
‘How should I know,’ replied Rose, ‘I’m just, well, me.’
The Xicatris stiffened again, and the two women backed off a few more steps. ‘You have seen all of Time and Space in your mind, even now, the colour of the Vortex shines in your mind.’
‘Ah,’ said Rose, in sudden understanding, ‘right, so you want a load of information that I can’t even unlock. I take it that means you want to kill me then.’
‘Your death has long since been foretold, child, by the Great Beast that resided deep in the pit of Krop Tor,’ hissed the Xicatris.
‘Yeah, well, do you want to know a secret about what the Beast said?’ shouted Rose, pulling Martha back, chancing a glance behind her to see if there was anything she could use to protect herself with, ‘it lied.’ She let go of Martha and grabbed the fire extinguisher of the wall and opened fire with the foam substance. ‘Come on, Martha, run.’ Rose threw the canister to the ground and set off at pace back out into the corridor, the young doctor behind her.
The Doctor seemed to defrost from his position of shock the moment the Xicatris before them started to scream in pain. ‘That’s my Rose,’ he said with a grin, glancing back at Donna, ‘come on.’
Donna looked after the Doctor as he hared down the corridor. ‘When did Rose come into all this?’
‘She’s the one they followed,’ the Doctor explained hastily, ‘she’s here,’ he said running his hands though his hair and looking around. ‘She’s here.’
Once in the corridor, the Doctor whipped out this sonic screwdriver and held it up. ‘Fifth floor, there’s another one upstairs,’ without another word he set off at a run towards the stairs that had brought them up.
‘You still with me, Doctor Jones,’ Rose called back as they reached the stairwell. She flicked her head back to see the still injured woman flagging a bit. She started to move back towards Martha. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
Martha’s mouth opened in reply but nothing left it as the wall behind her collapsed. She dodged out the way of the flying debris and Rose pushed herself to the wall as plaster and brick flew past her. Martha looked up at the Xicatris before starting to move towards Rose.
‘Faster,’ shouted Rose, holding her hand out to Martha as the creature stiffened as it had before killing the other woman. Then just as Martha grabbed Rose’s hand the tentacles flew out and hit the older woman in the back of the neck. ‘Martha!’ Rose shouted as her face was covered in blood.
Martha sank to the floor, Rose falling to her knees in the same motion. ‘Martha,’ she called again, cradling the medic’s head in her hands.
‘Rose,’ Martha whispered, opening her eyes slightly, ‘you have to run.’
‘I can’t leave you,’ replied Rose, tears starting to shine in the corner of her eyes.
‘But it wants you, Rose, and all that power you have,’ replied Martha, ‘you have to go, find the Doctor, he’ll be able stop this.’ Martha’s eyes slid shut and Rose bit back her tears, wiping her face, causing it to be more covered in blood.
She lay Martha down and looked up at the Xicatris. ‘What did you have to kill her for?’ The creature didn’t answer her, instead it stiffened again.
‘No where to run now,’ hissed the Xicatris once it finished arching to its full height.
Rose staggered to her feet, trying to move towards the door when she felt a pair of arms wrap around her. But she had become mesmerised by the tentacles now flying towards her, she was swung around and at the same time one arm let go of her and she caught a distinctive whine on the air, only then did she look down to see the arm that was still holding her was clad in a tan brown coat.
The next moment she found herself the other side of the door, her head strangely numb. Two hands grabbed her face and she soon found herself looking into two brown eyes that she had been scorched into her memory. ‘It just kill’d her Doctor,’ Rose mumbled, finally letting tears slide down her face.
The Doctor gave Rose a pained look back. ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ he told her softly, ‘need to get you to safety.’
‘What about Martha?’
The look in the Time Lord’s eyes deepened. ‘We can’t do anything for her now, Rose,’ he said, pulling the blood stained blonde into a hug. ‘She’s gone.’