The Girl of Time (Doctor Who Fan-fiction)

Chapter 37

I didn't think anything was odd when I was dragged out of my room this morning. I assumed I was off to another day of merciless initiation, or whatever they're calling it nowadays.

However, they brought me somewhere different. They brought me to a big, crowded arena, with a distressed man chained to a post in the center.

I asked one of the guards what he was doing there. He just said he was for me.

I didn't know what that meant.

It wasn't until they handed me an object - a slim, silver blade - did they finally explain.

They wanted me to kill this man.

He was just a man, they said. Nobody. Just another speck of dirt in the sandbox.

But he wasn't. He hadn't done anything. He didn't deserve to die.

I told them no. No, I was not going to kill him. This was too much.

It was one thing for them to torture me, to put my life on the line. But this?

They have messed with my memories, my thoughts. I don't even remember who I was before I was swept into all this mess, but I know murder is wrong. Murder is what's going to start this war.

I had made peace with my fate, I would never live a normal life, and things will only start to heat up once we're literally at war.

Of course, me being me, and them being morons, they dragged me into the arena, anyway. It wasn't like I could really put up much of a fight. Between the minuscule servings of food I'm given, and the countless hours of "conditioning" until I pass out from exhaustion, my frame has gotten detrimentally frail. I guess being small and brittle makes it a whole lot easier for them to throw me around like a rag doll.

I ran my finger over the blade of the knife, with just enough pressure to draw blood. I studied the flowing redness as it dripped down my hand and onto the dirt floor.

Blood doesn't scare me. Actually, after a while, I've learned to find comfort in it's sticky warmth. I made a promise a while ago, my blood will shed before anyone else's. Because my blood is tainted, it's impure, different...a bad different. There's nothing wrong with being unique, I know that. But there's a difference between being special and being a freak.

And I am a freak.

As I watched the blood dry and flake off my hand, they untied the man from the post. Then, they gave him a knife, and I finally understood the circumstances.

This was how it was going to be, my life, or his.

Of course, he deserved to live more than me, so I sat there, unfazed, as he charged toward me.

However, as I waited, something inside me changed. I felt cold. Not like temperature cold...but cold in the heart. I felt empty. A dark shadow was creeping over my soul.

You know why? Because it was too easy. This is not how I should die. No, someone like me dies choking on their own blood in a war scene, as their organs shut down, one by one. Not by a scared man who's so concerned about his own life that he's willing to take someone else's.