I hated holograms. Well, I didn't use to, but after what we were facing at the moment I did.
To be precise, The Doctor and I were trapped in a simulations room, but even though we both got in together, the illusions seemed to be affecting us individually. At the beginning we had mere flashes in our peripheral sight, but they started to become clearer.
"Uuh, Doctor? What we are seeing are not physical beings, right?" I was looking around while trying to stay as close to The Doctor as possible. It was the safest place, even when it was her fault we were put in this situation.
"Pretty much. You heard them. They use oxytocin hormones to feed their hospitals of energy. Which it's kind of clever really. While it may not cause the same reactions in every species, it's emotions derived spectrum can be found in a hospital." While I heard The Doctor talk, I noticed she started to look at the door we were pushed through, and everywhere around the room. I hoped she would find a way out of here.
"Yeah? And what emotions can oxytocin cause in other species? Because I'm pretty sure it's the main hormone that provokes and regulates fear in humans." The shapes in my vision had started to have a more consistent form. A humanoid one.
"Well, sadness, loneliness, guilt, anger. Mostly bad ones. Oh! There're this tree lookin' nomads whom get the equivalent of the morphine's effects when exposed to oxytocin. Still not sure if it has to do with the species being half vegetal natured." She stopped looking around.
"Doctor..." I, on the other hand, had started to freak out a little because The Doctor's voice started to get muffled under what seemed to be a gathering of people, and the humanoid shapes started to look like shadow persons walking around the place.
"Don't worry Gaal, we're gonna be fine. I hope. I'm still trying to figure out how to...leave...what do you mean by that?" as if her voice getting lower wasn't bad enough, The Doctor seemed to have switched her focus on whatever she was seeing and hearing. Although it seemed she was having a conversation, not just having flashbacks as what I understood this rooms made you have.
But oh was I wrong.
When I took my eyes away from The Doctor the scene in front of me made my heart stop for a moment. The gathering and talking of people was taking place at a funeral.
'This is fake, this isn't real.' It's what I repeated to myself as I started walking to the room the coffin was supposed to be in.
'I'm going to reach the room's wall and hit my face and I will snap out of this sooner or later.' It's what made the more sense to me at that moment.
The people near the coffin were the ones who seemed more affected by the death of whoever was inside it. But as I kept walking towards it, I realized how a bad idea it was.
'This might be an illusion, but it will hurt anyway to see. To imagine. I should and try to walk into a wall.' But my body didn't react how I wanted: it kept walking, and then stayed in front of the dead person, resting inside the wooden box.
It was my best friend. Who was almost like a sibling to me. We have known each other for more than 8 years, and have kept contact even when we went to different universities and lived apart.
'This is not real. I just talked to Alex two days ago when we were at Yas' house to pick up some clothes.' Yet my eyes were watering and a lump had formed in my throat.
I looked around, and saw faces of friends in common we had. And of her family.
'They couldn't be all togheter. Liz is in a trip with the militaries and couldn't have known or arrived in time. This is fake.' But my own thoughts were being silenced when, after turning again in hopes of looking at the coffin again to prove eveverything wrong, instead of it, a table was in front of me.
People started to sit around it, talking to each other, chatting about their successful careers and lifes, and when I tried to sit, there was no chair. I tried to speak, I was talked over.
'Great. They don't care. Or they don't seem it enough.' It appeared to be at Ex-Classmates reunion, but they weren't even the whole class, these were supposed to be the ones that got along the best among each other and my friends and I. But they were ignoring me, making no effort in looking at me.
I looked outside the window, the simulation changing again, as if I was jumping channels in an old TV, and saw myself, older, crying in front of an altar. Día de Muertos.
Against my will, I walked to myself, and the pictures in it where of my parents and actual siblings. Myself and Illusion-me were both crying.
I wanted to get out if this, this nightmare of being alone. Of actually being left behind by my beloveds.
'Why isn't anyone else here with me?' As if answering my question, Illusion-me got a phone call, and I was able of hearing the voices on the other end of the mobile, except the source seemed to be the sky.
"You didn't arrived for their funeral."
'But I got there as soon as I could.'
"They wanted to visit you as a surprise. It's your fault they are gone."
'I had no control over that!'
"If you stayed in our country this wouldn't have happened"
Nonsense. That's all what I was hearing, yet it was a possibility. It could happen. I could loose them.
I blinked, trying to clean my eyes of tears that were furiously falling from them. And when I opened my eyes I was alone again.
I looked around and found myself in the flat I rented back in the UK.
It was empty. And cold, silence filling every corner. Not even the usual traffic noise could be heard.
My head hurted from crying, yet I couldn't stop. I sat down in the floor against the flat's door, and hugged my legs and hid my head between them and my arms.
This was horrendous. I had trouble leaving the country because my head would fill with thoughts of this nature, but they wanted the best for me and encouraged me.
Now they were gone. And I was left alone, with no one at my side. No one to laugh with, to ask for advice or just a place to call home. Because home was where they were.
The idea of not being with them anymore, to not see their faces smile, or hug and feel their affection was terrifying.
They say you are never alone, because you have people who love you, but now those were gone.
It took me a while to realize the room was shaking.
'Great. Now I'm gonna die buried under debris.'
The room started to look blurry, and as I was rubbing my eyes I started to hear someone calling my name.
'Oh right, I was with The Doctor. We are in an alien hospital.' But the flat wouldn't completely fade, and I was still hurting to much to make any real effort of moving, or even thinking.
"Doctor?" I tried to call her, looking out of my arms and legs cocoon, but I couldn't see her.
She kept calling my name, and saying stuff, but nothing made it through the emotional turmoil I was in.
"Doctor...I-I can't see you, but, if you REALLY are here could you just...do something? Please, it hurts. I'm scared, I don't wanna be here any longer." I got back to my fetal position, feeling the worry of being alone crept over me again, stronger this time.
'What if she left me too? Maybe she did something and expected me to get out of this...trance, and follow her, but I'm still here."
And just as if I had said those words out loud, I felt arms surround me, but I still didn't see The Doctor, which made me more anxious over the whole situation.
Then I heard her.
"Hey, calm down. We're gonna be fine, you're gonna be fine. I'm here. I figured out a way to get out of here actually. But I need your help for that. So close your eyes and focus on breathing. I'm not going anywhere." I did as told, and while my breathing started to get steady, I tried to make The Doctor keep talking.
"How did you...regain control?"
"Oh I never lost it. I think. I mean, they were asking me things - hypothetical situations - and trying to make me feel guilty over past events. They got my attention, but when they mentioned you it's when I noticed your crying and that you were on the other side of the room." She said those things so calmly...
"But...wasn't this place's only function to make you have flashbacks?" I had started to feel the lightheadedness you get after crying, but I didn't want to open my eyes just yet.
"Oh that. Ye see, I asked, and this rooms are "resting rooms" for the families of those in the hospital or where people come to cry after their relative passes away. If they are already sad this room does nothing. IF they come here to try get their minds away from nasty thoughts, they get the opposite by coming here." Finally, The Doctor's voice sounded clear, and close.
"So...it's only function is to make sure we produce oxytocine for future use?"
"Exactly! And I can get us out of here, but I need your help, so come on, open your eyes."
So I did. I was indeed in the floor, but The Doctor was still hugging me. And we were inside this hideous room.
I sighed, because at least the 'visions' had stopped.
"What do you need me for?" I asked, while trying to clean my face with my sweater sleeves.
"Before I answer that, can I ask you what you were seeing? You still look, well, bad."
I chuckled at that, because it would be crazy if I didn't after all that crying.
"Wow thanks. But uh, basically different scenarios where different people, who are important to me, were dead. Or people just ignoring me and leaving me alone. My biggest fear I would say."
The Doctor didn't immediately reply, which made me wonder if she was listening, but then her grip around me tightened, which startled me a little.
"One of the worst fears I dare to say..." Her eyes were distant and old, as well as tired, but it didn't last long before the energetic facade took place again.
"But I assumed your biggest fear were spiders!" She started standing up, and then offered me a hand.
"I'm afraid of spiders that could kill me, not spiders in general. But my fears are not as tangible as that...Which is worst." I spaced out a little, and when I looked at her again, she was trying to take a panel off the wall near the door.
"Come on. Help me with this so we can make The TARDIS materialise here and I can get you to see your family and friends."
I blinked quite a few times after the words left The Doctor's mouth.
"What? Why? I mean yes, I'm gonna help get out of here but -"
"You seem to need a little trip to feel better." She stopped the struggling and gave a sympathetic smile.
"Yeah, I do. Thank you, Doctor."
"Oe, don't thank me until I pick you up again after that."
I gave The Doctor a small smile. This alien was the craziest yet kinder and dangerous being you had meet. And you were grateful for that.