OK, this might be a bit cracky, i dunno...hope you like it.
http://tardisinthesgc.livejournal.com/
Chapter 1/?
“What is your problem, Iliania? Why won’t you learn?” she asked furiously.
“I’m not sure, Miss.” Iliania said quietly, looking at the floor.
“You’re going to be late for your next class. Just go.” She said, turning away exasperatedly.
“Yes, miss.” Iliania said, walking out of the classroom.
She doesn’t understand. No one ever understands. Iliania thought bitterly as she walked down the hall. Suddenly there came a scream from the room she had just left. Iliania turned and ran back to the classroom. There before her stood the most horrible thing she had ever seen, even including the school lunches.
It was at least eight feet tall, green and slimy, a thin, wiry black ponytail hung from its head. Yet somehow it still looked vaguely humanoid. Its hands had horrible grey claws protruding from its stubby fingers. It was grinning horribly, and yet that wasn’t what held Iliania’s gaze. One of its horrid hands was on her teacher. And her teacher seemed to be fading into the creature. Her teacher gave one last pitiful cry before vanishing entirely. Her face then seemed to grow from the creature’s stomach, pushing through the skin. Then the creature gave a loud belch and said to the now empty room,
“She tastes like chicken!”
Iliania gave a small gasp of disgust, but she didn’t scream. She didn’t run. She didn’t move at all, but that wasn’t due to fear. She just stood there staring at the creature with disgusted interest. The creature turned toward her and said in a gravely voice,
“Well aren’t you a shrimpy little morsel.”
Iliania stepped out of the shadows into plain view and said quite calmly in a rather amused tone,
“Quite frankly, I don’t really think I’m all that tasty, sorry.”
The creature laughed throatily.
“I think I’ll be the judge of that!” it said, taking a step towards her.
“Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but what the heck are you?” Iliania asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, what do you think I am?” it asked.
“Well, seeing as you seem to have just absorbed my teacher-hi there-I suppose you must be some sort of absorber. An Absorbanite, Absorbatrix, Absorbalian, Absorbaloth. Which do you like best?” she asked conversationally.
“Absorbanite. Definitely.” It said amiably.
“Absorbanite. Great. Well, might I request that you free my teacher? This would be really hard to explain to my principal.” Iliania said calmly.
“’Fraid I can’t, sorry.”
“Can’t or won’t? There is a difference.”
“A bit of both. I can’t, but even if I could, I wouldn’t. ”
“And why not?”
“I’m hungry.”
“What, haven’t you ever heard of McDonalds?”
“Who’s that?”
“That’d be where. And the answer is just about everywhere. It’s a burger joint known and located around the world.” She explained in answer to his questioning look.
“I prefer humans.”
“I was afraid of that.” Iliania said grimly, her eyes straying to the ornate cane lying on the grown by her feet. She stooped and picked it up.
“Give that to me at once!” the Absorbanite roared, fear flashing across its face like wildfire.
“Oooh, important to you, is it?” she asked, taunting. “Big mistake there, buddy, letting me in on that little fact. Let’s see, it’s important to you, you absorb people through your skin, which must take a whole lot of power. You’d need to keep some sort of power near you at all times, but especially when you feed. So, my guess is that this is your own little generator. Am I right or am I right?” Iliania asked, looking at the thing, her eyes full of contempt and long buried pain.
“You’re wrong.”
“Of course I am.” Iliania said, rolling her eyes.
Iliania took the cane in her hands and stepped towards the Absorbanite. She raised the cane above her head as though to strike and the Absorbanite cringed in fear.
“Oh, don’t hurt me!”
“Yeah, like I’d fall for that one.” She said, rolling her eyes, but the brought the cane down anyway.
“You fool!” it roared.
At that, Iliania snapped the cane in two across her knee. The Absorbanite moaned. Iliania took the broken ends and jabbed them into the Absorbanite on either end. An eerie blue light crackled all around the Absorbanite and it started shrinking. As it shrunk, Iliania could see her teacher growing, coming back. As the light subsided and the Absorbanite dissolved into the floor, a man suddenly burst into the room, his face full of energy, his eyes full of pain. As he saw the Absorbanite disappear into the floor, he looked at Iliania in confusion.
“What happened? What did you do?” he asked, bewildered.
“You were late it what happened. I had to do your job for you.” she said, rolling her eyes. She turned to her teacher. “I don’t recommend telling anyone about this because they certainly won’t believe you, and they’ll probably lock you up in the nut-house.” And with that she strode towards the door. As she reached the man, she said quietly, gently, “I’m sorry for your loss, Doctor. Rose, wasn’t it? She doesn’t want you to be sad, though. She knows you couldn’t help it.” And she left the room, leaving the Doctor standing there, and uncharacteristic look of confusion dancing across his features.
Iliania sat in science class, copying down the warm up when the Doctor strode calmly into the class and took a seat at the back of the classroom as though it was the most normal thing in the world. Iliania’s eyes flashed furiously, but she went back to copying down her work. As her teacher walked in, he noticed the Doctor sitting at the back of the room.
“And just who might you be?” he asked angrily.
Iliania wasn’t sure how or why, but she could feel energy radiating from the Doctor. She wasn’t even sure how she knew who he was, but she just did. But she could feel within the energy, she could sense that he wasn’t sure just how to go about answering the question.
“He’s the principal of a small school in Russia. He’s visiting trying to find ways to improve his school as best he can because his school isn’t doing too well due to lack of government funding. He’s sitting in on random classes in the hopes that he can gather tips for improving his school.” Iliania lied calmly, not even glancing up from her work. The entire class was staring at her now, even the Doctor.
“And just how would you know that?” her teacher asked furiously.
“Because he told me when he interviewed me about this school.” She said calmly.
“And what did you tell him?” he asked coldly.
“I told him that the schools around here are ok, but that a more
advanced curriculum, edible food, and better storage facilities would make vast improvements in the educational process.” She said, still copying down the warm up.
“Oh you did, did you?” he asked angrily.
“Yes I did. But would it be too bold to ask as to why you are
interrogating me instead of the man in question?” Iliania asked, finally looking up, one eyebrow raised, and meeting her teacher’s furious gaze.
“I-all right, you make a decent case. Is what she said true?” he asked the
Doctor argumentatively.
“Yes. Yes it is.” The Doctor said. Iliania could feel his gratitude flying
through the air on invisible currents. She shook her head and went back to her warm up.
“Well, let’s start presenting our projects on Are We Alive. Who wants to
go first?” he asked the class.
There was a murmur of unwillingness that went through the class at his
words, so Iliania raised her hand.
“I’ll go”
Well, here goes nothing. She thought bitterly as she stood up and strode to the front of the class.
“Hi. I’m Iliania and I, just like you, have to give this presentation on Are We Alive? As I’m sure all of you discovered with minimum effort, we are, in fact, alive. Congratulations to us. I, however, looked up the word homeostasis on my own and realized something. Homeostasis: a state of equilibrium or a tendency to reach equilibrium, either metabolically within a cell or organism or socially and psychologically within an individual or group. So, yeah, inside, as individuals, we are alive. Brilliant observation, huh? But, as a whole, as in each and every human being on earth together, as a group, we are far from achieving homeostasis. I mean, look at the population! We are growing out of control. There are wars, homicides, genocides, suicides, you name any bad thing and humanity’s got it. So would you say that human beings are achieving equilibrium? No. That means no homeostasis. So, as a whole, we are about as far from being alive as you can get. But what’s worse is that not only are we growing out of control, but we’re destroying our environment as we go. Humanity is a plague. We are doing more damage to the environment on our own then any other species in the history of the earth. Why, if we don’t stop now, we might even-”
“Alright, Iliania, that’s more then enough out of you. Is there anyone in here that actually did the assignment I assigned?” her teacher asked impatiently.
“Oh, I did the assignment.” Iliania said airily. “I just did a bit extra and decided to present the part that wouldn’t turn out to boringly repetitive. I’ve got the original assignment right here.” Iliania said, striding over to her teacher and handing him a small packet.
“Very well, very well. Please return to your seat. Who else wants to go now?” he asked irritably.
“Actually, I have a question for Miss Iliania. You seem to be rather anti-human. Why would that be?” The Doctor asked curiously.
“She’s always like that, don’t pay any attention to her.” Her teacher said hurriedly.
“I believe I asked Iliania, not you.” the Doctor said pleasantly. “Iliania?”
“I just wrote what I’ve learned from statistics and personal observations and experiences.” Iliania answered quietly, her eyes reflecting the pain she had held inside for far too long. Pain she didn’t even know about.
“I see.” The Doctor said calmly, his eyes the only sign of the pain and bewilderment he was experiencing.
The class went on and on, everyone presenting their reports one by one, each as boring and mundane as the one before. Iliania, however, wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention. Her mind had wandered to the mysterious Doctor that seemed to keep popping up. Who is he? What is he doing here? Why does he keep following me? But more importantly, why-how-do I know him? I’d never seen him before, yet I knew that he was there to stop the Absorbanite. I’d never seen him before, but I knew that he’d just suffered a great loss. I was practically in his head, but how? Who is he? He seems almost afraid of me, but he’s not afraid of anything. Wait, how do I know that? What’s going on here?
The bell cut through the monotony like a knife, and everyone jumped. Then there was the sound of everyone scrambling to get to lunch before anyone else. Iliania just wanted to get out of there. Away from the man she knew so well yet not at all. She bolted from the classroom and only slowed when she was safely in the throng of the school hallway. As she entered the cafeteria, she made her way to her lonely table in the corner. No one ever sat with her at lunch. No one ever called her name, inviting her to sit with them. The most anyone ever did to acknowledge her existence was to shove their backpacks into all the empty seats at their table, making it painfully obvious that she was far from welcome there. But she no longer noticed. Iliania now knew that acknowledging the pain and humiliation did nothing but make it worse. So she sat by herself day after day after day, just staring off into space or occasionally reading a book. She was just sitting there, taking the occasional unenthusiastic bite of her sandwich when a voice broke through her thoughts.
“Is this seat taken?”
Iliania looked up with a start only to see the Doctor looking down at her with an unreadable expression. Recovering from her shock with as much dignity as she could muster, she said bitterly,
“Only if you don’t mind throwing away your only chance of ever being accepted here again.”
“I take it that’s a no. Brilliant.” He said amiably, sitting down.
“What do you want? Why do you insist on following me?” she asked desperately.
“What are you talking about? You’re the one who knew the impossible. This, by the way, is a characteristic I love in people. Mainly because I rarely encounter it.” He said, raising an eyebrow.
“Who are you, Doctor? Who are you?” Iliania whispered.
“You know the answer to that better then I do.” He answered just as quietly, but there was a shadow of bitterness in his tone that she couldn’t quite place, but it made her heart go out to him in a way that she couldn’t explain.
“I don’t know how I know what I do. This’ll sound crazy, but I just seem to get vibes from people. It sounds insane, like something from science fiction or fantasy, but I just seem to be able to, I dunno, feel people. It’s crazy, but I swear it’s true. Go ahead. Laugh. Chuck me in the loony bin.” Iliania said bitterly.
“So what vibes do you get from me?” he asked quietly.
“It’s hard to tell. Pain, mostly. So much pain. But, there’s more, I just can’t quite-” Iliania involuntarily put her hand on his and gasped. It was as though she was actually in his head. There was a flash and she saw a beautiful young woman, tall, blonde, Iliania knew instinctively that this was Rose. Then the Doctor jerked is hand away and the connection was broken.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to-” Iliania began apologetically, but he cut her off.
“How did you do that?” he demanded, a mixture of panic and pain ringing in his hushed tone.
“I don’t know.” Iliania said honestly. “I’ve never gotten that far. I’ve never gotten more then flashes, emotion mainly. Pain, joy, anger, depression. But never like that.”
“I’ve only ever known one person who could do that, but it’s impossible. She died long ago.” He said, his hand traveling involuntarily to his pocket, his eyes shining with the tears he had never permitted himself to shed. “Never mind. The point is, how did this happen? When?”
“I don’t know. Wait, yes I do. It started about a year ago. The day I turned thirteen.” She said quietly, wonderingly.
“The day you came of age.” He murmured, more to himself then to Iliania. “Anyway, Iliania, where do you live? Who are your parents?”
“Don’t have any. I live in an orphanage. Always have, and unless I get a full scholarship to a university, I always will.” She answered bitterly, returning to her lunch.
“Is there no one who cares about you? No one to miss you?” he asked, horrified.
“I beg your pardon?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Sorry, that really came out wrong. What I meant is-” he started, but Iliania waved his words away.
“It’s ok, I know what you meant. And no, there isn’t. You see, to them, I’m a dead-weight. The little kids get adopted really quick. But once you hit about eight, there’s almost no chance of adoption. By now, I’m so old and useless to them that if someone who was clearly an ax-murderer, bloody ax and everything showed up and said he wanted to adopt me, if he had enough money, they’d hand me over without a second thought. No one cares. No one ever cares.” Iliania said bitterly.
“You want to come with me?” he asked.
Iliania looked at him thoughtfully. “Were you anyone else, I’d report you as a kidnapping pervert. Not that they’d believe me anyways. But…” her voice trailed off.
“But?” he asked.
“But you’re different. You’re empty, broken. But not desperate or psychotic. You’re a good person. And besides-anywhere’s better then here. Anywhere’s better then here. Let’s go.” She said, smiling sadly.
“Brilliant.” The Doctor said, smiling.
As he said that, the bell rang and everyone left the cafeteria in a rush.