Red ⋆ Doctor Who

Prologue

1995

The crack in the wall appears overnight. A man stumbling through the house in a tiresome rush to get ready for work on time notices it, and his normal routine ceases. He's no longer hurrying to prepare for the working day after sleeping through his five alarms, as he always does. He pauses before it, staring at it quizzically. The crack stretches along the length of the living room wall, and it's deep. Far too deep to have appeared in one night. He runs his fingers along it, a frown tugging at his lips. A crack is the last thing he and his family need right now. He'll have to phone in a builder or a structural engineer to check the stability of the entire house now.

He should finish getting ready and leave for work; he can't be late again. He's already on thin ice with his boss and showing up late one more time could be the difference between him having an income and not. But he doesn't. He opens up the spare drawer in the kitchen, rummaging around through the jumble of bits and bobs hidden away in there. He finds a red velvet bow in there, misplaced amongst the random wires and takeaway menus, and he places it on the kitchen counter. Charlotte, his only daughter, has been looking for it for days. It's her favourite one. It takes him a while to find what he is looking for, but he eventually locates the business card of a builder who has done work on the house before. He picks up the landline and dials the number on the card, waiting patiently as the phone rings.

"Jack?" his wife sounds rather annoyed that he is still here and late for work. "What are you still doing here?"

"I have to phone a builder," the man, Jack, answers quietly. He points to the crack in the wall, and his wife's face falls.

"How did that appear overnight?" she asks. "We can't afford this right now!"

"Mary," Jack says softly, hanging up the phone, which is still ringing. There was no sign of an answer, anyway. He places his hand on her shoulder and squeezes it lightly. "Don't worry. I'm going to take care of us. It could be nothing, anyway. I'm just getting it checked to be on the safe side."

"I'll call them," Mary sighs, taking the business card off the counter and pocketing it in her red fluffy dressing gown. "Go to work. You can't lose this job."

"I love you," Jack smiles, kissing Mary on the forehead and hurrying into the bathroom to finish getting ready for work. He leaves in a rush a few minutes later, asking that Mary say goodbye to their daughter for him and, in a haste to wake Charlotte up from her slumber and get her ready for school, the business card stays in the pocket of Mary's dressing gown.

"Mum, I don't want to go," Charlotte says quietly as her mother brushes her brunette locks. She winces as the bristles tug on a particularly stubborn knot. "School is so boring."

"Charlotte, we've been over this," Mary says sternly. "You have to go to school. Why don't you want to?"

"The teachers tell me off when I doodle," Charlotte replies, huffing and resting her chin stroppily on her hands.

"Well, if you're good today at school, when I pick you up, I'll let you have some sweets, and we can do some painting together before we do your homework. And your daddy found your favourite bow, so I will put that in your hair. How does that sound?"

Charlotte agrees, easily influenced by the promise of painting and sweets. Mary finishes brushing Charlotte's hair and fixes the bow into it, and the little girl willingly gets herself dressed for school. Unfortunately, the day drags by, and Charlotte struggles through it. The only thing that keeps her slightly happy is the sweets she will get when she gets home and the painting she is already planning to paint.

But her mother never arrives to pick her up.

She's the last child left at the end of the day, and after thirty minutes with no response from her mother, the school phones her dad, and he picks her up in a panic. He rings Mary on his mobile phone over and over during the short drive from Charlotte's school and their home, and there's still no reply.

Charlotte doesn't really understand what's happening or why her dad is so upset. She's more focused on looking out of her window and wondering what sweets she will have when she gets home.

"Daddy, look!" Charlotte grins, her eyes lighting up as she spots a statue standing in the tree line of the little park opposite their house. "It's an angel!"

"Not now, Charlotte," her father huffs, not bothering to park the car properly before he runs off into the house. Charlotte turns to watch him, unbuckling her seat belt and scrambling out of the car after him and into the house. She doesn't even notice the empty space in the treeline.

The empty space where the stone statue no longer stands.

A/N: if you are reading this as someone who has already read the parts I published before, thank you for returning after that blip where I screwed over the whole timeline of my book. I hope you enjoy this little prologue and will continue to read this book. If you are new here, hello and welcome! Ignore the last message I promise I never ruined the timeline of the book (fear not it is fixed now). Thank you for reading and I hope you love it!