Soul's Shadow (Doctor Who - SI)

Part XIV (VI)

There wasn't much sleep to be found this night. Every little noise jolted me awake, making me look around to see if anyone else was up or if anything had snuck into our camp. Through my blurry sight I thought to make out the same shadows as before, silently waiting. Watching. But each time I moved a bit too much I could feel something solid in my back, not moving, not giving any sign he knew of my fears. But the Master's presence alone calmed me down enough to fall back asleep eventually.

Exhaustion must have knocked me out completely at one point, because suddenly I found myself in a long corridor, filled with a weird grey fog that obscured my view and didn't allow me to see its end. There was only a light in the far distance, pulsating from white to yellow and back again, slow and steady. As if the corridor itself was breathing.

And why wouldn't it? With all the veins that had dug their way through the old concrete, that had cracked open the rotting surface to grow and grow and grow until they wound themselves all along the walls, pulsating slowly in the same rhythm as the light at the end. A light I had to reach, to

touch

I winced and fell out of the dream, almost as if something had zapped me. But nothing was there to do that. And this time I found myself alone, although a quick look was enough to show that the Master was still nearby, something on his lap that looked like a book. And he seemed to be writing something in it.

Quickly I grabbed my glasses, sat up and had a thorough look around our camp, finding not a single one of the creepy shadow figures.

Ulkta hadn't come back.

Everyone's mood was tense during breakfast. Bor and Darwil argued for quite some time whether or not to go looking for the missing woman, but in the end neither had a clue where to even start searching. For all we knew she could be literally everywhere. Alive maybe. But probably not.

"It feels so wrong to just go on without her," sighed Bor. "I know you're right, but..." He glared at the sky and shook his head.

"If she is still alive, she can find her way back." Darwil lay a hand on Bor's shoulder.

"When we're back, I can scan the area with my ship," said the Doctor. "Searching for life signs, heat signatures, n' stuff. You know?"

"You... what?" Darwil glared at the other man. "You have technology like that and yet you let us stumble around and have us in danger!?"

"Oi! He's not responsible for those things," called Donna. "Can't have known, can he?"

"You could have scanned the place!" shouted Darwil, stabbing a finger at the Doctor's chest. "You could have spotted those creatures and could have warned us!"

The Doctor shot his hands up in defence, stammering some technical nonsense that no one even understood and made Darwil even angrier. The man tried to lash out, wanting to hit the Doctor or maybe more than that. But his fist hit nothing. Instead it got caught mid swing, losing all its strength in a single moment as the Master caught it with his hand, pushing the other man backwards with a force that was truly... inhuman.

"Keep your hands away," growled the Master. "If you want to keep them." He shot hot glares around and at everyone who dared to cross his eyes. "Our ship is broken. We came with you in the hopes to find something here that can help fix it. Before that's done none of us can enter without getting poisoned."

"Th... that's what I was... uh... trying to say," spluttered the Doctor, catching up with the lie quickly.

"Then use words that people can understand, idiot," growled the Master and stepped away, not regarding anyone with another glance. He walked back to the piece of debris he had sat on previously and picked the book from the ground, stuffing it inside his backpack.