The Bizarre Adventures of Doctor Who

Rainbow In the Dark Pt. 1

An unforgiving frigid air blasted through the barren lands riddled with deep craters leading into deeper areas of the earth, left behind from a war that raged through the area some time ago.

Remnants of life scattered throughout the area, dilapidated buildings and broken streets leading into formed creeks that went through them, carrying radiated water that washed away the broken reminders of a city that once stood.

The wasteland, harsh, the radiation from the nuclear bombs permitted in areas, forever uninhabitable by man.

What remains now, factions warring for dwindling supplies, mutated creatures that wandered the wastelands, survivors caught in between, all trying to survive the irradiated world.

The crumbling ruins that once was a city, it had a name a long time ago, but it's lost to the annals of time, now it's only known as the Ruins. Few buildings survived the nuclear war, those that did, picked clean like carcasses.

Uneven terrain proved dangerous to unskillful scavengers and mutated creatures alike and it's a must for scavengers going anywhere keeping a Geiger counter on them at all time, for hotspots.

Even the safest areas of the Ruins proved dangerous.

An untouched area north of the Ruins, past what once housed people who made laws and judgement, looked like it hadn't saw the ravages of the nuclear bombs, but there's something unearthly.

Enough that even the mutated creatures wouldn't go near it, they howl and screech, fleeing the moment they get too close, afraid of some unseen force.

There's stories of a group of scavengers that went north of the Ruins and never came back, people in their camp thought they died in some other means, but there's speculation of some unseen nefarious creature lurking in the area.

Nobody's certain, but since then, rumors spread of the unusual area, and warnings going out to camps, barring scavengers from going anywhere near it.

A story ended up passing around different camps where someone claimed they saw the forbidden area from afar, across the raging river, and they said there's a pristine staircase in the center of the area, looking like it'd come out of a palace.

Thirteen redwood steps, gold railings, and a red decorative rug that draped over the steps to the bottom, it looked truly bizarre. More that when the person who regaled this story tried to see where the staircase went, his mind became fuzzy, and he passed out.

When he woke up, his group found him, and when he looked back, the staircase's gone.

His group said that he mumbled to himself constantly while he recovered, "Count them... count them..."

He didn't know the significance of it, but since then, nobody went out that way to verify his story. A warning went out that if anyone sees this mythical staircase, never look at it, never attempt to go up it.

In the central area of the Ruins, there's ghost stories of moving balls of light that appear and disappear at any point, and if anyone touched them, things happen to them.

One story said a man died from burning up, after the ball of light touched his face.

Second story said a ball of light shot through a camp one night, causing everyone's ears to pop, as it zoomed through, disappearing as quickly as it appeared.

Stories of the strange balls of light continued throughout, but no one's sure if they existed or just ghost stories people told around the burning woodpile.

A favorite among children's 'The Shadow People.'

There's a belief that the cruelest of individuals, who passed away never see the pearly gates or the burning inferno, they've been cursed to remain on the irradiated world as shadows that move among the ruins.