Lost In Time: A Doctor Who Fanfiction

Chapter 78 - Faceless Friends

Panicking, Lyssa stabbed her finger at the end call button as 'Spooky Scary Skeletons' filled the room. Silence abruptly fell as the figures in the bed sat up, turning to face her. Pure black filled the space where their eyes should have been behind the goggles, and they remained completely still as they stared at her for a long, terror-filled moment where she didn't even dare to breathe before, as silently as they had risen, they laid back down to rest.

A breath she didn't even know she had drawn escaped her, and she almost collapsed with relief, only refraining by sheer force of will. Clutching the phone tightly, the light wavering on the ground as her hand trembled, she turned to leave, praying the phone wouldn't ring again.

She was just reaching her hand to the door when the screen lit up again, and she almost dropped the phone in her haste to end the call again before it could start to fully ring, vowing to throw the device out a window the next chance she got. She glanced behind her, breathing a sigh of relief when it seemed that she'd managed to stop the call before it disturbed the sleepers again.

Not wanting to risk it happening a third time, she turned the volume off and tried to open the door again, mentally rejoicing when it opened without a creak. Slipping out into the hallway, faintly lit by a single dusty light several yards down, she shut the door noiselessly behind her and glanced around cautiously for any signs of life - or non-life, as the case may be.

But the hallway was empty, and she crept down it, unwilling to alert anyone to her presence until she was sure they were friendly - or at the very least, not hostile and/or infectious. She'd obviously ended up in the Empty Child episode, but she didn't know when she'd arrived. There were already multiple victims of the child, so clearly it was sometime after the Chula warship had fallen, but there had been almost a month between that and the Doctor showing up.

She really hoped she wouldn't have to wait that long. 

In the meantime, he clearly wasn't there yet, and she didn't know how long she'd have to wait, so she'd better find a place to bunker down that was out of sight - and out of reach. The Doctor, Rose, and Jack had hid in a storeroom last time - maybe she could find that, or something similar? She would need to get out of this hospital before she became infected, but she needed to come up with a plan and not rush into things, otherwise she risked becoming one of them. 

The hospital was lifeless as she wandered through the hallways, and she prayed that that was because it was almost time for the Doctor to show up, and not because the infected filled every room. She passed several doors that marked the entrances to more wards, and she hastened her speed as she passed them, not even wanting to find out how many beds were filled inside. 

She rubbed her arms, shivering in the cool air - she was pretty sure it was currently winter, and she didn't have a coat. Unless the TARDIS had packed her one? 

She'd really rather have a bright red 'EXIT' sign over the next doorway if she were being honest - or the vortex manipulator River had given her, although it had disappeared after the Eleventh Doctor had reset the universe; and while she was sure the TARDIS knew where it was, she currently didn't have access to it. 

Unfortunately for her.

She had just walked past another doorway, her mind still on the vortex manipulator, when she heard a floorboard creak.

"Good heavens, child, what are you doing in a place like this?"

Stifling a shriek, she swung around, the light from her phone illuminating a nearly bald old man in a doctor's white coat standing in the doorway she'd just passed - she hadn't realized it had been open, she'd been so distracted.