The Last Great Time War: part III

Meanwhile...

"The lines of convergence are being drawn...a shadow is falling over creation. Something vast is stirring in the dark...because time is bleeding. shapes of things once lost are moving through the veil...and these events...threaten to destroy this future, the present, and the past."
-Ood Elder, The End of Time

The young Gallifreyan soldier crept through the dark tunnel, clinging to his rifle. He was investigating an empty Bowship that his crew found floating in space, dead. Somehow something or someone had changed history so that all the occupants had all died at various points in their histories, seemingly when they were most vulnerable. In childbirth, in battle, while sick, during a regeneration, the circumstances were innumerable. But they all had one common denominator: the deaths happened when the victims were least prepared to defend themselves, due to subtle changes earlier in the person's history.

This was a new phenomenon, and one that was increasing rapidly as the War progressed. It started as just a handful of odd cases, as was initially dismissed as the random corruption of timelines that was ever so common nowadays.
But soon, the Time Lords knew that this was different. This was not random altering or mangling of timelines, but deliberate manipulation by unseen forces lurking in the shadows.
Now, the unknown attackers were taking out entire ships worths of soldiers, sometimes including the ships themselves. The soldiers would just be carrying out their routine duties, not realizing that invisible enemies were turning their own lives into weapons against them. A slight misstep on an uneven or slippery surface would become a slightly larger misstep that would result in a broken leg. A difficult regeneration would become an improper one and result in more weaknesses.
Any risky situation would become even riskier, more unfortunate things would happen, until the accumulated results of the bad luck became fatal. Narrow escapes would be prevented; near-death experiences would just be deaths. The slightest changes early on would snowball to become catastrophic later.

All this while people were just going about their lives, not noticing the changes in their histories until it was too late. In one meta-instant, everything would be changed and the person would be dead.

The young soldier thought about this as he searched the ship. It was entirely empty, but looked like it hadn't been a moment ago. Plates of food at empty tables were still hot, unused machinery was still humming, empty showers and sinks were still running, lightswitches that no one had ever touched were flipped on. The ripple effect hadn't caught up to everything yet.
The soldier realized that he had to get off the ship before it did, or he might find himself floating in space because the ship had never been launched. He could die before it caught up to him, too, or else get caught in another timeline change like the ship being manned by a different crew. Either way, he didn't want to stick around and find out.

As he started to head back to the airlock that he boarded from, he pulled out his communicator and signaled to his comrades who were also exploring the ship.

"I'm turning back before the ripple effect catches up; we're not going to solve this one today."

No response.

"Hello? Answer me, please!"

Still just static. All his comrades had vanished; he was alone on this ghost ship.
Or was he? A feeling of dread took hold of him, the feeling of an evil presence watching him. It felt familiar, as if suddenly he had known it all his life.

He spun around, but saw no one.

"Who's there," he shouted, tightening his grip on his rifle, feeling a cold sweat drip down him. His hearts were beating so loud he could hear them, like drums. 123412341234... He looked around, wide eyed and teeth chattering, but still nothing.

"Show yourself! Leave me alone or I'll shoot!"

He felt a strange sensation of déjà vu, and the evil presence intensified. He imagined shadowy fingers reaching out from the darkness to seize and devour him.
Suddenly, he bolted, running faster that he had in his entire life, screaming all the way. He was not going to fall prey to whatever ghastly horror was lurking in the dark and stealing people's lives! He ran, desperately trying to reach the airlock so he could escape and run far, far, away from this haunted ship! Far far away where the invisible evil could never, ever reach him!

But he never made it.