The Rose & Crown

Chapter One

Cumbria, 1212

The sound of men screaming filled the cold winter air, exhaling their final breath as their bodies fell to the last place their living matter would attend before their souls descended into the next world. Within the holy walls of the sacred monastery, a trembling man cloaked in brown robes stood in the middle of a stone-walled room, staring at the bolted wooden door before him. The unfamiliar roar of a weapon he could never even imagine was heard from far behind it as it slaughtered the men he had known and befriended his entire life. The assailant's footsteps drew closer to his location. The men whose voices he knew by heart were pleading for their lives as their executioner showed no mercy in its wake.

His shaking hands clung to a parchment of great importance to its bestower. One he never dared to read. The footsteps drew closer until they met the other side of the door and stopped. The screams of his brothers ceased, leaving him in anticipated silence of what was to come. He held his breath and prayed to his god that whatever demon was behind the door would not find him. The latch stirred under the pressure of its holder, yet did not yield at their attempt to open it. When all was quiet and still, the man let out a sigh of relief as the being appeared to have given up on their quest to enter.

Suddenly, the door burst open in a wave of horror unknown to any living man. Its shattered contents flung throughout the room in all directions. Upon the settling dust, the robed man found himself face to face with the most unlikely of spirits. As the female proceeded towards him, the frightened holy man fell to his knees in terror.

"Please," he begged, holding his message to her as an act of good faith he would be spared from the madness he found himself in.

The creature approached, her heels grinding into the crevices of the stone flooring. Her robes, unknown to his world, swayed in motion with her footsteps. The beast lowered herself to him. Her eyes pierced his soul with the vision of true hell itself. She snatched the parchment with her clawed fingers to free it from his petrified grasp. Returning to her natural stance, she pried the letter open with her sharp talons and removed its contents from within.

"Y-You... you're one of... them... aren't you," the monk stuttered in his fluent tongue and pointed towards a spot on the wall where the portrait of a familiar figure had been painted.

The creature took notice of the unusual mural bearing half a decade's worth of dust upon its mantel. The bust of a girl she knew very well inscribed with a passage only one person in the known universe could have written.

Run you clever boy, and remember.

Oh, Doctor, she thought. You hopeless romantic. The demon turned her attention to the fallen man. She glanced at the rosary draped around his neck and nearly laughed at its irony. Drawing her weapon, she aimed it at the expendable casualty in front of her.

"May God forgive you," the mortal man uttered before her instrument of execution ended his lifespan. No god of his could save him now.

Missy opened the letter and read through its contents with great anticipation. Upon examining its instructions, she frowned at its wording.

Open the door.

She raised a curious brow and thought to herself, Door? What door? Just then, an unusual banging was heard originating from the monastery's grand entrance which resonated throughout the once silent stone halls. Someone, or something, was knocking.

Bang, bang, bang!

She spun on her heel and headed towards the sound, following it through her destructive path. As she stepped over the bodies and limbs of the men she had put out of their misery, the knocking continued to call to her.

Bang, bang, bang!

The noise grew louder as she drew closer to the source's location. Working her way through her own wake of devastation, she couldn't help but realise that had the Doctor not abandoned her on Skaro, forcing her to escape to this deplorable place, the lives of these pathetic humans could have been spared from her wrath.

Bang, bang, bang!

Entering the cathedral, she discovered the doors to which the sound had been coming from. She cautiously approached, feeling a sense of exhilaration over the unknown and potentially dangerous possibilities of what could be on the other side. As she neared, the banging ceased, leaving her in silence once more. Reaching for the handle, she hesitated for only a moment and thought whatever was out there could never be quite as frightening as she. Turning the handle, she opened the door to the outside world.

To her surprise, no one was there. A part of her feared it was all in her head. That the knocking had come to replace the incessant drums that once plagued her mind and finally stopped towards the end of her last body. Had it not been for the strangely foreign noise coming from below her gaze, she simply would have closed the door and retreated behind the walls of the monastery. Peering towards her feet, she discovered an unusual woven capsule covered with quilted linens.

"A present? How thoughtful. And it isn't even my birthday," she exclaimed to no one in particular. Stepping outside, she looked around for any sign of who had left the gift, yet found nothing but the familiar sight of a dozen corpses lying in the last position she left them in. As she scanned the landscape for a caravan or transport of any kind, an unexpected whimper exhaled from inside the wicker pod. Turning her attention towards the sound, she stood perplexed by the strange object in front of her. She knelt down and hesitantly peeled back the cloth concealing its secrets within. A small gasp escaped her lips, finding herself utterly shocked by what she saw before her.