I remembered everything I thought there was to know about myself — who I was, who Evie was, what she meant to me. There were still some unexplained questions, however — what was I doing in this ruined, dead environment? Try as I might, I still couldn’t remember whatever cataclysmic event had plunged the world into its current state. All I remembered was that bright flash, and everything fading to black — then I’d woken up on that deserted street.
My newly-recovered memories didn’t explain that strange, rage-filled power I seemed to have, either. How was it possible for me to cause such destruction? It couldn’t be possible. And yet I’d seen it happen, I’d seen the results. It didn’t make any sense.
“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” came an unfamiliar voice, reverberating through my head in the darkness. I wasn’t sure if I was actually hearing it, or if it was a figment of my imagination.
“Wh– who are you?” I called, unsure where I should direct my voice. “What do you want?”
The lights were still off and, fumbling around in the darkness, I couldn’t seem to find any of the furniture in the bedroom that I’d previously seen. Perhaps I was just misjudging distances.
“Come,” said the voice. “There is much for you to consider. You have grown strong on your journey. Perhaps it is time for you to face your demons.”
I gasped. What was this strange voice talking about? Who was it? What demons?
There was a mechanical “clunk” sound and a dim red light came on in front of me. It was above an unassuming-looking metal door. The door didn’t give any indication of where it might lead, or even if it would be a good idea to step through it, but something about the tone in the strange voice suggested that I didn’t have many options.
I reached for the handle on the metallic door and it opened in front of me before I’d even touched it. Beyond was what looked like a long corridor, lit at periodic intervals by similar dim, red lights. The floor looked to be a shallow staircase leading downwards, though I couldn’t tell how far it led, as it disappeared into darkness before long, the illumination from the red lights only carrying so far.
I stepped over the threshold of the door and it slammed shut behind me. I jumped at the sound and instinctively turned around to try and open it again, but it was no use. This side of the door might as well have been a wall. There was no handle, no keyhole, no visible hinges — it was made for keeping whatever goes through it inside.
I had little choice but to begin walking down the eerie, silent corridor, my footsteps on the metallic floor the only sound to be heard. The voice, it seemed, had left me in peace for now, to discover what lay at the end of this hallway for myself. Its absence didn’t make me feel any better, but I was in no hurry to hear it again, either.
As I walked, the gentle slope of the staircase continually leading downwards for what felt like hours, I began to hear a sound. It was faint, distant at first, and I wasn’t sure what it was. It was a dull, regular thumping. As I walked ever deeper into the depths of whatever structure I was currently inside, the sound gradually grew louder until it occurred to me that what I was actually listening to was a heartbeat.
I’d heard my own heartbeat before, but this was amplified so much that it seemed to make the walls shake. It was as if a nightclub sound system was broadcasting nothing but a heartbeat with the volume turned up to the max. As I continued ever onward, ever downwards, I became acutely aware of my own heartbeat alongside that which I heard in the corridor. Being aware of the sound and of my own unease caused my breathing to quicken, and my pulse to rise. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it, but it seemed like the loud heartbeat in the corridor mirrored my own pulse, increasing in speed as my nerves frayed.
The corridor had plain metal walls ever since the start, but from where I’d got to now, faint markings started to appear. I looked at them, unsure what to make of them. They were lines drawn over the walls, seemingly at random — or possibly cracks. In the faint red light of the lamps that adorned the walls it was difficult to tell, but it was plain to see that the walls were very slowly changing the deeper I went.
Further down I continued, the patterns on the walls growing in intensity and the material from which the walls were made seeming to change, too. I didn’t look too closely, as all I wanted to do right now was to get out of this corridor.
It wasn’t until I slipped on a damp patch on the floor that I realised what was happening to the walls. Reaching out to brace myself on the wall and prevent myself from falling, my hands found not metal but something altogether more fleshy and unpleasant. I looked down at the damp patch on the floor that I’d slipped in — it didn’t look like water. I couldn’t tell for sure in the red light, but it looked suspiciously like blood. And those markings on the walls — which, now I was aware of them, seemed to be pulsating and glistening with their new-found life — looked rather like veins and arteries.
I started to panic. I’d never been great with blood, and now it looked like I was descending into the innards of… what? Someone? Something?
I began to run forwards, hoping beyond hope that this corridor would end soon, leading me to an exit that offered daylight — even the dry, barren, dead wasteland was better than this terrifying place.
Then, it was there. Up ahead of me, a door. A way out. Finally I’d be able to escape this horror.
As I hastily slammed open the door and saw what was on the other side, though, I realised that the horrors were just beginning.
I'm Not Doctor Who 