Life as a timelord's daughter (Doctor Who fanfiction)

Chapter 4

--------------- Chapter Four------------

"Ow." I mumbled, pulling myself off the floor. I was in a dark cavern. How did I get there? Oh yes, that's right, the ground collapsed underneath us. I looked around, trying to find Rose and the Doctor and I finally found their shadowy figures lying on the ground a couple of metres to my left.

"Doctor! Rose!" I was scared they were dead, and so my voice became very high pitched. I crawled over to them, and was relieved to find that they were breathing.

"Katelyn?" Rose's voice was weak. "Where are we?"

"Some dark cavern." I replied. "Wait a second." I pulled my now completed sonic screwdriver out of my pocket and put it on its torch setting. It immediately lightened the room. We were in a room branching off a tunnel, the walls were made of stone and dirt, and the roof above us had closed in, there was no sign that we'd even fallen through it.

The Doctor and Rose sat up, groaning in pain and clutching their sides.

"Well, this is... weird." the Doctor stood up. He wandered over to the wall, and licked it.

"Ew." I said, as he stood there thinking.

"This tunnel was carved out of stone." he finally decided, running his finger in the dirt beneath his feet. "And there have been life forms here recently." he finished, examining the dirt on his finger.

I swung my sonic around as Rose stood beside me, examining the tunnel leading out of the room. There was an eerie red glow coming from it, like the glow of fire, and I swear I could hear the sound of footsteps, lots of them.

"Doctor....." I said slowly.

"Yes what is it?" he asked distractedly.

"Doctor I think there's someone coming!" Rose exclaimed.

The Doctor whipped around just as the footsteps came closer and large shadows appeared in the tunnel entrance. Then a crowd of people came in, all brandishing lit torches. The Doctor, Rose and I all stumbled backwards as they all poured in through the entrance.

I stared in awe at the strange people. The Doctor had been right, they were reptiles. They were short, scaly and dressed in baggy clothing. They had heads without hair, but which were more humanoid than reptillian (although framed by scales). The majority of them looked male.

One of the aliens, probably the leader, stepped forward.

"Greetings travellers." he said, in a slightly squeaky voice. "Welcome to the planet Shalron. My name is Grisom."

"Hello." Rose replied in a friendly voice. "I'm Rose and this is the Doctor and Katelyn." She indicated us. "Why did you bring us here?"

The Shalronite (trademark Katelyn Williams) smiled sheepishly. “We are sorry for surprising you and bringing you underground, but we dared not come meet you on the surface."

"Why not?" the Doctor looked distinctly curious.

The Shalronites all shifted timorously, looking scared of the answer. Their leader, Grisom, had fear in his eyes as he steeled himself to reply.

"Our colony used to live up on the surface." Grisom began hesitantly. "But over a hundred years ago monsters evolved in the mountains and came to attack our villages. We fought them off for a long time, but they kept coming back stronger. Eventually we had to retreat under the ground. It's the only place they won't go. They roam everywhere on the surface."

I exchanged a look with the Doctor and Rose.

"We didn't see any monsters when we were up there." Rose said.

"We were in a valley for most of that time, remember?" I told her.

"Yes but you'd still think-"

The Doctor interrupted us. "Shh you two." He turned back to Grisom. "Is there a way for us to get back up there?"

"Yes we can open up the ground again." Grisom answered. "But it's still too dangerous up there."

"We should be able to get back to the TARDIS though." I commented.

"We're not leaving." the Doctor said warningly. "We're going to help these people."

"Oh yes." I replied. "Sorry I didn't think."

I didn't see how we could be any help.

"You really will help us?" a small voice sounded from the crowd. We all turned to look at the little child who'd spoken. He was standing at the front of the crowd and looking up at the Doctor in awe. The Doctor immediately knelt down in front of the child and smiled kindly at him.

"What's your name?." he asked the child.

"Bayli." the child replied.

"Well Bayli," the Doctor said. "We are going to everything we can to help you. You won't have to be afraid anymore."

"Thank you." Bayli grinned at him and gave the Doctor a hug.

The Doctor hugged the child back briefly, before straightening up and turning back to Grisom.

"So you can get us back to the surface?" he asked.

"Of course I can." Grisom replied. "Follow me."

So Rose and I trailed along behind the Doctor as Grisom led us down the tunnel. After about ten minutes we found ourselves in a metal walled room completely different to the rocky tunnel we'd just emerged from. Inside this metal room were controls set in one of the walls, connected to some kind of energy converter which itself was connected to the power source in the centre of the room. Obviously this was the control centre of the underground colony.

Grisom crossed over to the controls and pulled a lever. A platform came out of the ground next to the controls, large enough to carry five people. Grisom then turned to face the Doctor

"Can I just ask sir, how are you going to defeat the monsters?" he asked.

"Well..." the Doctor scratched his neck as he thought about it.  "First we're going to go back to my ship, fly it up to the mountain where they came from, and work out how to stop them. And then I'll come back and tell you guys when it's safe to go to the surface again."

"Alright." the Shalronite leader looked confused. Then he turned back to the controls and pressed some buttons. The platform started glowing.

"If you three can just step on the platform now." Grisom motioned for us to climb on, and we obliged. "This will take you near where your ship was."

"Goodbye Grisom, we'll see you again soon." the Doctor said, nodding to Grisom.

"Thank you Doctor," Grisom replied. "and good luck."

He pulled another lever on the controls and the Doctor, Rose and I shot up into the ceiling as it pulled apart. I couldn't see anything for a moment, and then we were back on the surface, in the valley again. We all got up quickly this time, and headed towards where we knew the TARDIS was. Suddenly there was a noise behind us.

"Doctor!" Rose shrieked, pointing to the huge monster peering at us around the cliff face.

The Doctor stared at the monster for a moment. It looked just like an ordinary animal, but huge and with elongated teeth and claws. Actually it looked a bit like a mutant rabbit. I shuddered at the thought of this happening to the rabbits on Earth.

After a few moments of staring at each other, the huge rabbit began to growl and lumbered towards us, its intent obvious. It wanted to eat us.