The cavern below deck was usually empty apart from two hammocks for me and my dad hanging from the ceiling alongside a single naked light. bulb, illuminating the wooden walls. In the days when my mum was still alive, we used to spend weekends away here below deck, playing board games when the sea was rough, and fishing for mackerel when not a cloud was to be seen in the sky. I treasured those days, but my father and I didn't have the heart to sail anymore. my mum's hammock had been buried with her: she was always the one who enjoyed sailing most. Today though, it was not empty; in the corner of the room, a blue box stood, nearly reaching the ceiling. It looked like a 1960s polices box, though that couldn't possibly be true: it would never fit through the trap door, even if my dad had bizarrely decided to start buying antiques. A key was in the lock. Someone had recently been here - the Doctor. I walked up to it and turned the key.
Inside was a huge room, bigger than the hold. The Doctor was standing beside a console, still looking grim. The console stretched around a towering cylinder, which was attached to the roof. Around the very top of it, three rows of strange circular symbols ringed the cylinder. The walls and ceiling were a midnight blue, and various corridors lead from the room into unseen quarters. I stared incredulouslyat it for a moment, not believing my own eyes, before staggering out.
The hold was just as I had left it. It was no bigger, but seemed grimier after the light of the blue box. Remembering it in disbelief, I twisted my body and slowly tip toed around it, making sure it had no extensions, before staring at it with a horrified fascination. I came to the conclusion that I was having hallucinations-maybe Rassilon's attack and the Doctor's hostility were getting to me. I cautiously wandered back inside the blue box.
I gasped as I saw the huge inside again. The Doctor was perched on a comfortable looking chair, his head in his hands.
"I thought I told you to go home,"he growled.
"Actually," I replied curtly, "you gave me a choice."
He looked up at me grudgingly. I thought I saw a twinkle in his eye, despite the barely disguised grimace, as he leapt up and pushed a lever towards the ceiling. Immediately , the cylinder began to pump up and down slowly. He finally turned his attention to me.
"Its a TARDIS," he said, grinning like a schoolboy. "Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Basically, its a time machine. We can go any where in time or space. Where do you want to start?"
I stared at him with my mouth open. Had he gone crazy? There was no such thing as time travel! But then again, you can't get smaller on the outside pristine police boxes either.
"Go on," the Doctor smirked. "They always say it."
"This isn't a police box," I whispered.
"Oh, yes, that's right, you're unorthodox, aren't you?!" The Doctor laughed. "Not your everyday companion, eh? Anyway, this is another dimension, hidden inside what looks like a police box. Its Time Lord science."
"What Lord?" I exclaimed. It was all too much for me.
The Doctor suddenly became serious again. "I'm a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I am 1263 years old. I am the last of my kind, the Oncoming Storm, the Bringer of Darkness," the Doctor announced stormily. His face lit up. "And I have two hearts!"
