Escape (ON HOLD)

Chapter Six

(Zayta above)

Thankfully he did take us back to earth, but not where I had hoped to go.

I only poked my head outside before immediately coming back in and slamming the doors behind me. "Here? You had to bring me here?"

"You never said where you wanted to go and usually people want to go home after their first trip in the Tardis," the Doctor replied calmly, studying me.

"Well I don't want to be here," I snapped.

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because why?" he pressed.

"Are you really going to make me say it? Are you that thick?" He didn't answer. I sighed, not saying anything else for the longest time because the subject made me rather uncomfortable. "Fine. If I hadn't made it already painfully obvious by showing you, then I'll tell you." I paused. "The people that live in that house right out there, they... abuse me," I finished quietly.

"Oh, Zayta..." Clara said sadly, a tear rolling down her cheek. That irritated me. Why would she cry? Why would she be sad? I hardly knew either of them, but I wasn't sure I wanted to know them anymore. They had just served me up on a platter to those creatures for no apparent reason and my body was still aching beyond belief after that trip through the volcano.

The Doctor just stood there for the longest time, staring at me. He finally moved. "What is the earliest memory you have?"

"I don't know. Why?"

He walked over and grabbed my hand, pulling me to the console. Then he pushed my hands down into the weirdest feeling substance. "Concentrate on your earliest memory. Don't get distracted."

I was terribly confused, but just the mention of it brought up memories I would have rather left forgotten. I thought back to what I could remember. An orphanage, dreary and always freezing, filled to the brim with forgotten and unwanted children. One of them being me. I had been sitting in the far back of the sleeping area, hiding from a woman. But she had found me anyway and had dragged me up front to the desk where a couple sat waiting. I could remember thinking that they looked really nice, but something about them had frightened me deeply. I didn't know what it was until I went home with them, legally their child, and they had begun to do some pretty nasty things.

I opened my eyes when the Tardis made a thud, something I had come to realize was the sound of it arriving at a new place. The Doctor had Clara and I wait inside while he stepped out to investigate. He came back in looking rather grim.
"Are you sure this is the earliest memory you have?"

I nodded. "Yes. I can't remember anything before it. Why?"

"Because out there you're only four. So then why can't you remember anything else? People aren't just born four." He began pacing back and forth in front of the door, mumbling to himself.

"Doctor, what's going on?" Clara asked, having been silent the whole time. "Does this have anything to do with... what happened at the volcano?"

"I don't know and I hate not knowing, but it means Zayta here is not who she thinks she is. That much I do know."