Scotland's Mist

Chapter 15

This story is getting very minimal reads so I might take a break after this story unless you guys want another after this. It's up to you!

Leslie pulled Rose along through long, pale hallways that seemed to appear out of nowhere. She seemed to know her way, but Rose wasn't sure how she was managing; all the hallways looked the same. Finally she was led to a door. Leslie stopped outside and glanced at Rose.

"This is where we work, Rose Tyler," Leslie said, her voice sounding hollow. She smiled at Rose, her grin wide and unnatural. "I was the one set to fetch you cause the Doctor wants to know where I am. He knows I'm missing."

"How do you know about the Doctor?" Rose asked, her brows drawing together. She resisted the urge to pull away from Leslie and bolt in the other direction, but the tension was obvious.

Without thinking, she started to pull away, just to get a step away from the girl who had the grin of a maniac on.

"Don't run, Rose Tyler!" Leslie sing-songed in Rose's ear, dancing a little where she stood. "I've got something to show you! Where we work! Where you'll work, too!"

The grip she had on Rose's hand tightened to a vice and she pulled Rose through the door.

Nothing would've prepared Rose for what was beyond that door. The Doctor had spoken of something similar, in the only moment he had mentioned Satellite 5. A woman attached to so many wires.

This was almost the same thing. People were lined up in two long, seemingly never ending rows down the middle of a long room. The rows faced each other with a hallway between them.

The people were standing stalk still, eyes wide open and plugged into several wires from their chests down to their ankles, including a wire exiting from the back of the neck. Women had their hair pulled up to avoid the wire, and what would be a kind gesture made Rose cringe at the thought of the aliens who did it.

Leslie pulled Rose along the rows of people towards the end of the road. Rose watched the people, their eyes dead and their mouths moving with words that never truly passed their lips.

Rose felt fear sink into the pit of her stomach. This is what she was about to become. She ripped her hand from Leslie's and started to tear back towards the door. She felt nothing but the blood pounding in her ears as she neared the door.

"Don't run, Rose Tyler! Stay and work!" Leslie called after her.

Rose's legs went numb, her head hit the floor, and she blacked out.

*********

The Doctor spent the morning digging through the woods, trying to find the hole again, but his little flag was gone.

"Get back and talk to me!" The Doctor shouted at the sky, angry because he had no idea who he was addressing, and angry because he didn't have Rose next to him to help him sort this out.

But the mist only fell at night, and it was determined to keep it that way. The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets, trying to calm himself down. But he couldn't, because he didn't know where Rose was, and he promised Jackie he'd keep Rose safe, and dammit, he was going to!

He wasn't near enough to panic, but he should've been, were he human. He set off trucking through the woods again.

*********

When Rose woke up, her eyes were already open, and her head didn't hurt from her fall. She still couldn't feel her legs, but she was standing. She tried to move her arm, and couldn't. She tried to move her hand, and couldn't.

She shifted her eyes and looked across from her... And saw a man standing in the exact same position there.

She wanted to gasp, but the action was impossible. Physically, well and truly, impossible.

It was that moment that she realized that she wasn't breathing.

She wanted to cry, and scream, and run, but she couldn't. Instead she felt a warm prickling sensation at the back of her neck, where she had seen the wire coming from before. The warm prickling tickled her blood down her back.

She felt her voice whisper unheard words that she could feel in her mind.

They were all sorts of wrong words, the TARDIS didn't translate them and they were certainly some sort of alien language. She could be cursing or talking about nuclear bombings for all she knew. And that was the point, she knew nothing about what was happening. This hissing that the mist was speaking in whispered through her own voice in her own head, in her own accent.

She wanted to hurt someone, she was so angry. The Doctor would certainly not approve, she knew that much. She tried to focus on moving a single body part, but she couldn't even think, not with all the words running through her head.

She wasn't even sure they were words, all stringing together in one long one, much like the Doctor sounded when he spoke Gallifreyan. She knew, though, that this was definitely not Gallifreyan. She'd heard him swear in it, and speak conversationally, but this didn't sound anything like it.

It was impossible for it to be Gallifreyan anyways, she knew that. But the longer she dried to decipher the words she was saying-or rather, hissing- she started feeling woozy and couldn't think about it anymore.

She could only think one English word as her memory started to fade just a touch.

Doctor.

Doctor.

Doctor! I'm coming to save you!

She forgot that she was probably the one that needed saving.