Clara stands, holding herself tightly by the arms. She's breathing deeply, quickly. What had she just seen? Was anything even there? She peers at the corner of the wall to her right, staring hard at where whatever it was had just been. If there was anything even there. Had there been? There is no way to know. She can't even remember for sure, and certainly not what it looked like so she could describe it to someone, to the Doctor.
But it appears again, and she remembers.
Its face has no mouth, and its eyes are huge and empty. Black ovals in its head, which is shaped almost like an upside down raindrop. Clara shivers violently and gasps without a sound, glaring as it comes closer. The creature is clothed in a pristine black suit, almost appearing as a businessman or a government official or someone else completely insufferable that dresses like a millionaire. Clara's heartrate picks up with every step toward her that it takes.
"I saw you," she tells it surely, her voice strong despite the quiver she feels throughout her entire body, "and then I forgot you." It says nothing, the creature, and she takes a step backward. She clenches her hands into fists, working hard to stop the tremor. "How does that work?"
Still yet the creature says nothing, but it has stopped moving. For a long moment it simply stares at her, seeming to drink in her appearance, everything about her. Clara feels as if she is a bug under a microscope, a specimen on display, being observed like there is something about her that is to be changed, studied, perfected. Something about the way it is so motionless as it watches her sends electricity bolting through her blood, shockwaves wracking her joints. If she could move, she would run at it, make it stay put until the Doctor comes. He would know what it is, and why it forces her to forget it. And how is that even possible? How does she forget, how does it make her forget, when it's her brain in the first place?
But Clara cannot move, cannot breathe, cannot speak anymore.
The creature folds its hands in front of it lightly, casually, and steps to the left, now half-concealed by a screen Clara had not noticed before. It inclines its head toward her once, and it is gone.
Wait... what's gone?
YOU ARE READING
The Time of Change
FanfictionThere are some people who seem destined for greatness. There are others who seem stuck on the path of failure. For most of her life, Annalise Song felt as if she was the unhappy median between the two: bound to be nothing more than mediocre and soli...
