Souls on Fire - Doctor Who - Pt. 2 of Souls Eclipsed Series

2

The sky was dark. Not because night had fallen, but because ashy smoke blanketed the atmosphere. Red flecks of burning paper flew around in the acidic wind. There were bodies on the ground, many bodies. Young and old, they lay in piles, red rivers pooling around them. 

They faded away slowly, and then I was standing on the grassy hill in front of my father's house. But it wasn't like how I remembered it, it wasn't run down or dilapidated. There was a fresh coat of robin's egg blue on the wood siding that I had only seen as rotting brown. There was a child on the porch. This must have been from before we had moved in, I didn't live there until middle school. There was something different about this child, though. Her outfit was strange. Almost like she was royalty of some kind, with a small red cape and a weird gold neck brace. 

Something was wrong. I didn't know what, but I could sense it. I was not meant to be seeing this. 

I jolted awake with a gasp, my shirt sticky with sweat, the Doctor's hands on my shoulders, holding me still.

"It was just a bad dream," he murmured, pulling me into an embrace. 

I gripped his shirt, not willing to ruin the silence, but unable to keep my thoughts at bay. Because, what if it wasn't just a bad dream? What if it was something else entirely. And then I felt it, that sudden pull deep inside my gut, and my lips were moving opposite my brain, "take me home." 

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The ring on my right hand started to feel heavy as the TARDIS shuddered to a stop. Reality was creeping back towards me, its tendrils reaching out, threatening to make me forget that any of this had happened. The tenth doctor had said I could never go home, but clearly the eleventh felt differently because we were now a few feet away from my town. The only thing standing between us being a pair of blue doors. 

"Lily I-" 

I was tuning him out, my hand already on the rough wooden door, pushing gently and hearing the metal hinges creak open. Stepping out of the TARDIS, I took in the village around me. There were cobblestone streets that wove in-between thatched houses. It was so.. tiny. And so.. wrong.

I frowned, glancing at the Doctor beside me, "where's the red grass?" 

He narrowed his eyes, "what did you say?" 

"I-" my breath hitched, it wasn't a dream, "where's the red grass? The.. the high council.." 

"We shouldn't have come here," the doctor ran a hand through his hair, grabbing mine and trying to pull me along, "come on Lily."

I glanced up at him, wavering slightly, "who am I?" 

Because it had all come back the moment I set foot on that cobblestone street. The war, the blood, being carried away and put someplace safe. I was given a gift, or a curse. I was dangerous. I was a savior. A shepherd. 

Who was I?