Soul's Shadow (Doctor Who - SI)

Part X (III)

Despite feeling a little anxious about being all alone in the TARDIS I slept like a log. Maybe it was only a matter of habit. Being on my own had become the new normal over the past years. Before that I had never spent a night on my own. Always had there been a family member or partner or at least a cat around. But while living on my own I came to enjoy the silence quite a lot. And in here I was fairly certain that the TARDIS herself would keep an eye on me.

The true anxiety came when I was about to be on my way back to the portal and realized I would have to make the long walk through the darkness entirely on my own.

Again did the ship prove to like me. As I stood there in the door frame, treading from one foot to the other, not daring to leave, I suddenly felt a small nudge. And when I turned around there was an old oil lamp seated on the console table.

The gesture made me smile and I mumbled a thanks while stroking one of the pillars. There even was a box with matchsticks next to the lamp so I could light it easily.

With both in hands I finally stepped outside the doors. My feet connecting with the black metal created a sound that sent chills down my spine. A sound to wake a sleeping giant.

For a moment I froze, held my breath and listened. But the monstrosity didn't stir, didn't wake, and so I continued my way to the tiny spec of light in the distance and the shrinking warm glow of the TARDIS in my back, all while my imagination haunted me with creepy images of unknown horrors that might lurk in the impenetrable darkness.

But worse than that was another feeling that crept up on me. In the TARDIS I hadn't really noticed it because the ship had kept me company, in a way, and because I had been tired. Now, however, it had caught up with me and gnawed on my insides.

A feeling of loneliness. One I hadn't experienced in a long time since there had always been someone around. Now there was no one and only darkness and an empty void around myself, filled with unknown nightmares. My guts twisted and once again I remembered the feeling of being utterly lost and all alone in the world with no one around to keep the fear away.

By the time I reached the portal my body was shaking slightly, anxiety had gripped my insides, making me wonder if anyone there even wanted to see me, willingly as they had left. They probably didn't know that it had hurt, probably didn't even have a concept for what I felt in this very moment. After all, they were aliens to me, people I didn't and couldn't belong to, no matter how hard I tried.

Even the egg was taken from me. This tiny existence that had drained my energy and would have probably taken my life sooner or later. But for it I had been important, useful. For this tiny being I had a right to exist.

Now I had nothing.

In the end I did step through the light, but only because the darkness in my back was worse than the growing fear and the spiralling thoughts.

One step and everything would be normal again. One step and... I blinked and trembled, stumbled forward and felt panic arise when the darkness stayed with me. A blanket of coldness, of knowing to be lost and utterly alone in it, the icy sting of chaos too big to, to... to...

I forced myself to stand still and slowly inhale some deep breaths to stop the world from spinning and my mind from collapsing into madness. The darkness hadn't followed me, it was simply night. The small radius of my lamp revealed the shapes of sparse furniture and in the distance the faint melody of a piano crept it's way to my ears.

I took some more slow breaths, just to calm my racing mind, while I turned off the lamp and sat it on the floor. Only then did I manage to take a few steps to the door and open it to escape into the light and dive into the notes of a merry tune.