Doctor Who: God Is Dead

2: The Attic

"It started with the creature."
Faith and the Doctor were settled back in the living room, the curtains open, fresh mugs of tea in their hands, the Doctor not daring to inquire as to its origin. All pretences, however falsified, had been abandoned now.
"What creature?" Finally, something the Doctor could handle.
"I don't know."
Or not.
"It spoke to us. In our minds. It said it was going to test our belief, by placing us in this realm. All we had to do was stay here; keep faith that we would one day escape. Anything would manifest itself whenever we needed it, we never aged, never died – until we gave up. If we tried to go outside, or asked to be set free, then... poof. They'd die before we even knew what happened. After long enough, everyone fell."
"Except you."
"Except me." Faith smiled despite herself. "I suppose I'm too virtuous. Or too stupid."
"It's a fine line." The Doctor looked out of the window, the TARDIS visible in the distance. "I could take you away from here, but the creature must have a strong psychic connection with you. Dematerialisation might not be enough to break it."
The Doctor fell silent, deliberating. Creatures that fed on faith? He'd met plenty, usually with symbolic horns. Except this wasn't a feeding situation; there was no transfer of energy or cognitive preparation, as far as he could tell. Besides, why keep the victims in the proverbial larder for so long? Their belief would only decrease over time. No, there wasn't a hidden meaning here, it was a test, plain and simple. But why? What creature would bother to torment a group of random humans like this?
One way to find out.
"Where is this creature now?" he asked, to a look of horror from Faith.
"Well, I don't know for certain, but... I think it's in the attic."
"Perfect." Up he stood, laying down the tea with utmost care. "Let's go."
He made it halfway down the hall before Faith could reach him, gripping his arm with such disproportionate force it was enough to make the Doctor turn. "Please," she whispered. "Don't."
The glimmer of primal terror in her eyes almost stopped him. Almost. "And why not? I'm trying to help you."
"The creature. It can't be seen."
That certainly complicated things. "Do you mean that in a metaphorical sense, or does it have a tendency to hide in cupboards?"
"It's another condition of the test. Laying eyes upon it counts as failure." Faith paused, the slightest twitch in her face. "But nobody ever dared to, even at their lowest point."
"Not a looker, then?"
"Is this a joke to you?" Faith released her grip, stepping backwards. "Are you here to help or hinder?"
"Whichever suits my mood." The Doctor took a step back of his own. "If you want me on your side, then let me solve the problems you've given me, my way, because my way works – if I'm allowed to get on with it."
His words combined with the Scottish accent went quite a way to convincing Faith. But not quite all the way yet. "I can't lay eyes on that creature without death. What makes you think you can?"
"Because it was searching for my faith, I'd have been vaporised the moment I crossed the threshold. This test is yours and yours alone. For now."
This seemed to satisfy Faith, if solely in the knowledge that the Doctor could not be stopped, and any actions were his alone. A wordless nod being her only response, she led the remaining charge, reaching the attic. Now, its initial mystery had a tinge of suspense, of dread. Exactly what the Doctor lived for.
Faith took a long stick from its home under the bed, poking the trapdoor. With a clatter, it swung open, a ladder swooping from its surface and sliding into the divots in the wood, nearly striking the Doctor's shoulder in its motion.
"Thanks." The desire for sarcasm was well-suppressed. Stretching his arms out, he took hold of the ladder, climbing up into the blackness above.

What the Doctor could make out of the attic was limited, his field of vision based entirely on the small cone of light daring to intrude from below, vision limited even more by the trapdoor slamming shut without warning.
"Faith?" he called out to no reply. "Blimey, these floors are soundproof." A quick buzz of the sonic screwdriver and the overhead bulbs flickered on, illuminating his ominous environment. "That's better. Can't get anywhere when I'm blind."
With his sight restored, he studied the attic; dust-covered, dreary, devoid of anything. Most notably, devoid of any creature. Briefly the Doctor wondered if he was being punked. He rolled the sonic in his hand, pressing down the button again and activating a scan for lifeforms. One. Him. Two. Faith. So where was the-
"Intruder."
A whisper in the dark, hissing on a draught. He wasn't alone.
"Hello?" His voice echoed through the emptiness to silence. Cautiously, he took a step forward, feet creaking on the floorboards. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, for him or for it.
"I see you." Off went the lights. The haunted-house vibe. Wonderful.
"Well, I don't see you," he retorted to thin air. "Show yourself, and let's have a proper chat."
A beat, the silence palpable, then the creature obliged, manifesting itself in a blaze of purple light and staying that way; a being of pure energy, vaguely humanoid, hints of amethyst present in its glowing form.
"Oh, you are gorgeous." The Doctor gazed upon the creature in awe. "Don't tell the wife I said that."
"Why do you trespass here?" The creature's crystal eyes blinked in and out of reality, a camera shutter taking in every detail of the Doctor's face.
"Got a bit lost on the way to the shops, you know how it is. But I stumbled across something a little more demonic than a supermarket. A being with the opinion that torture of the innocent was acceptable to test their convictions." His eyebrows rose in their natural fury. "Forgive me if I disagree."
"Then tell me what you do agree with."
Any response the Doctor could have made to this vague threat was instantly ripped from his head, replaced with something else: a hideous pain rippling through every synapse, tearing images from his brain, all the fake gods and bad gods and demigods and would-be gods he'd encountered throughout his travels, proof of something more than his petty science. The creature saw it all, saw the Doctor standing before them, saw his rejection of such majesty, and growled in bewildered, unadulterated, rage.
"None. You have seen so much evidence of those above, and you believe in none?"
"I've seen plenty of charades." All of the Doctor's will was being devoted to mental resistance and retaliation, little remaining for witty comebacks. Not to say he wasn't trying. "Nothing's ever convinced me of a higher power, and I've been around the block a few times. Hell, I built the block. You'll find nothing in my head except cold hard rationality."
"Impossible." Deeper, deeper the creature went, burrowing into every memory he'd ever made. The old gentleman, witness to religious war. The clown on a wild night out with Pope Benedict XI and her castanets. The dandy fighting a god who fed on time. The fellow with the long scarf facing figures of Egyptian mythology. The cricketeer, victim of crusade before his time. The colourful character, knowing arrogance could transform him into a demon. The strategist with faith as his weapon against ancient evil. The Edwardian relic returned to life by mystics. The warrior dreaming of a higher power to save the universe. The northerner in the church protecting the innocent from the healers of time. The incensed spaceman against the devil. The madman with his bow tie bearing witness to a solar overlord. The Scotsman defending villagers from a facsimile of Odin. All this. All denied.
"You must have faith. You must! What do you believe in, Time Lord? What do you believe in?"
The agony reached a peak, white noise in the Doctor's mind as he staggered back — then nothing. Emptiness beneath his feet as he fell, the harsh white light of the cottage rushing towards him, the creature retreating into the black as the trapdoor hinged upwards once more, sealing it in its own prison as he slammed into the hard wood, a dull throbbing in his skull rising up to replace the internal intrusion.
Dazed, the Doctor looked up at Faith, standing above him in concern. "Thanks for that."
Faith shook her head. "I didn't open it – or close it. The creature must have done it."
Strange. "Maybe it found me boring. Or maybe it was done with me. Don't care. Doesn't matter."
He sat up. "I know what your boogeyman is."

"It's called a Fidem."
The Doctor sat slumped against the wall, still trying to shake the aftereffects of invasion from his head. Faith stood above him, concerned in an almost scientific manner, while hooked onto his every word.
"Basically, it's an alien pilgrim, seeking out the answers to life's big questions: 'is there a god,' 'what's the meaning of life,' 'why did Lost end in a church,' stuff like that. Sometimes, as part of their grand research, they'll set up little experiments with lower lifeforms, test their response to stressful situations where belief is the natural fall-back. See how long they bend before they break."
Faith's expression was one of traumatised enlightenment. "And I'm... my family and I were in one of these experiments?"
The Doctor noted her hesitation. Something was ticking away, in her head and his. "Exactly. Like Love Island, but even more pointless and with regrettably higher mortality rates."
"How do you know this? Did it tell you?"
He shook his head. "Mental prodding goes two ways. While it was forcing propaganda into my brain and leaving pamphlets on the coffee table, I was poking around in its head, flicking through everything it was trying not to think about."
The exposition was there, plain to see. Problem was now he needed to figure out an escape plan. What would such a plan need? Force? Trickery? He'd felt the Fidem; it surely had the power to slaughter Faith should she concede, him too if the mood took. Any hope of taking the TARDIS was shot. He had to think, something clever, something their religious rival would not expect-
"That's what this place is missing." The thought occurred to him out of nowhere. "There's no challenge, nothing physical. I've been in similar situations; there's always something to entice the faith, a demon, a fear. Here you're just forced to wait to death."
Faith looked at him with almost disgusted bemusement. "What on Earth do you mean? Of course there's a demon. There's the Fidem."
"No there isn't. It might be the orchestrator of all this, but It's locked up in your attic, unmoving. You could go a lifetime without seeing it, and you quite possibly have. If there's a god in the Fidem's mind, chances are, in the endless battle of good and evil, there's also a devil. Where's he?"
The idea swung around the room, floating like a Fidem, resting upon Faith with the air of an irritating parrot squawking in her ear. Because yes, it was a very good question. She couldn't remember a life outside this – was that torture? Not really. She didn't know what she was missing. Her family had reduced itself to nameless figures, no personality or backstory. All she had was herself... and the mysterious figure, promising salvation with his woven words.
This was the test. And she was ready.
With a shocking feat of strength, she grabbed the Doctor's shoulder, yanking him upright and shoving him towards the door.
"Hey!" The Doctor didn't resist, too trapped in residual pain and puzzlement. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Hell? Oh, very clever." She pulled a crucifix from the wall, waving it in the Doctor's direction. "Get away from me, you devil!"
The Doctor remained entirely unthreatened. "What's your next plan, throw garlic at me?"
"Just get out!"
Faith yelled, and the world listened, snapping to black, the void outside switching shades in an instant as the cottage fell into darkness.
Both combatants came to a standstill, the Doctor's head darting around. "Oh dear." He sprinted to the door, throwing it open to find even more nothingness than before, the TARDIS lost in the dark.
"I wonder..." Without resistance, he took the crucifix from Faith, dropping it onto the void. It fell. "Great. No way out for either of us. Unless..."
He looked back at Faith, now hesitant, lost. Nothing could be done for her now but words.
"I'm not the devil," he started. "Not to you. Nor am I a god, although I've been seen as both, I'm sure. But what I can be, if you're very, very lucky, is a saviour. I can rescue you from this place. I can stop that Fidem from hurting anybody else, send it packing to wherever it came from. But if you want my help, you need to trust me. Because it's going to require everything you've got."
At his speech, the fury faded from Faith's eyes. Her posture hardened, ready. "What do you need me to do?"
The Doctor turned to her, face grim. "You have to face the Fidem."