(This is just a rough draft, as, in my opinion, it reads much too fast, but I will be rewriting it soon!)
The escape pod screamed in a fiery blaze toward the planet below. Any human watching would mistake it for a meteorite and leave it at that, and though Rosslin was aware of this, the thought barely squeezed itself to the surface where panic and terror ran wildly through her mind. Though the drive controls now lay useless, she sat rigidly clutching them as if willing them into a lifeline. The inside of this doomed vessel was much bigger on the inside and yet as the planet grew larger and larger on the scanner, every wall and bank of computers seemed to press her into a suffocating claustrophobia. But one thought dominated the rest, putting even the prospect of a painful crash-landing in hindsight. Please regenerate. Please please please regenerate! Oh, god, I don’t want to die! Every young Gallifreyan was trained for regeneration from a very early age, but when the time actually came for the first change, no amount of training could prepare one for the experience. First regenerations were usually done in one’s House of origin where a myriad of cousins would be there if any difficulties arose. Regenerating alone for the first time was a risky and dangerous affair. Anything could go wrong. The shock of attempting such a completely permanent change could kill a young Time Lord instantly. Oh, please let me regenerate! In a total state of hopelessness, Rosslin sat rigidly in the head pilot seat, bracing herself for the inevitable shock of landfall, though she knew logically slumping limply would reduce the amount of broken bones and injury in general. “Any second…” she breathed and screwed her eyes shut, ready for the pain. For an infinitesimal moment all fell silent. The very next second defied description altogether. Rosslin felt herself being jerked up, down, right, left and center all in the same second, while an ungodly shrieking filled her ears. After what seemed like an eternity of thrashing and painful noise, the wounded craft jerked to a halt on this foreign world. A cold wind swept in from somewhere and a soft hiss swirled in with the breeze. With a numbness sinking deep into her limbs and a darkness clouding over her vision Rosslin’s was quickly pulled her into a mental escape. One last thought swam past as an urgent reminder, Wait! What about regeneration? If you don’t change you’ll die! But despite the warning all went blank.
As he trudged through the gloom of the darkened forest, being slapped in the face with rain soaked branches and every now and then stepping into a deep mud puddle, Alex wasn’t sure why he had accepted the challenge. “You have to do it, man. You’re the only one who hasn’t seen it. ” The old cabin was hardly a legend, and hiking out to it in the middle of the night while friends who pretended to be pycho drug addicts most likely stocking him from just out of sight seemed so childish. They were in college for gosh sakes! Wasn’t this the time when people started to grow up? Not that he blamed them. It was all in good fun, but somehow getting soaked to the bone and just as muddy in the middle of some dark woods wasn’t his idea of an ideal adventure. He cursed as his tiny flashlight began to fade to just a faint orange glow. How far was this mysterious cabin anyway? He must’ve been walking for a good hour now without one sign of cabin-y anything! “Hey guys!” he shouted to anyone in general who happened to be out there in the dark, “My light’s going out! I’m all for this dare thing and all but I can’t go anywhere if I can’t see… Hello? Can someone give me a flashlight? One that works… Guys?” The flashlight sputtered out its last few rays then commenced its role as yet another useless gadget. “Great.” He sighed and leaned against a dripping tree as he realized two things instantaneously. First, it had started raining… again. Second, he was lost somewhere in Washington Park, the largest area of forested land near Portland. Well, isn’t that just spectacular? And I’m soaking wet! Slumping down to sit on a reasonably dry log, something so bizarre and spectacular forced Alex back to his feet. A comet-like spectacle of blue light whizzed high above his head, ripping through the trees and finally settling into a crater somewhere in the distance. Now that’s more of what I call adventure! Forget the cabin, I’m gonna check out that meteorite! Though his sore feet protested the sudden urgency, he somehow managed to summon up the energy to move them onwards. The space debris landed only about 200 yards away, so it wasn’t long before he realized the weirdness of this particular meteorite. Though Alex had never seen one of these in real life before, he didn’t imaging this one should be still growing after it landed nor should it contain much leftovers. What this one contained was not pulverized rocks, but a football shaped metal object, big enough for a person to fit into had it an opening. Strange designs of interlocking circles and sweeping lines covered its surface, like another vastly more intricate language mocking his own simple speech. The sheer strangeness of such an occurrence snagged his rising curiosity, “What the heck, here we go,” and once again his sore feet moved onward, this time into the crater. Before he reached the bottom however lines of silver light raced over the intricately designed object and with a slight hiss it began to expand along their shining paths. The far side of the craft (as it obviously was) released a puff of steam as a curved metal panel slid up and around the surface. Ah, a door, Alex realized scrambling back out of the crater and settling behind an uprooted fir tree, watching from a distance. And a door means there must be an occupant…An occupant from out of town apparently. Heart racing with the anticipation of witnessing an alien species and silently praying that it would be peaceful and not hell-bent on destroying the world, Alex waited for what felt like hours until finally, creeping out from his hiding place, he carefully stalked around the side of the crater for a better view. However the sight that awaited him was stranger even than a little green man with a larger head and bug eyes. The opening in the small vessel showed a vastly bigger inside than would be possible for such a small exterior, with banks of complicated controls and slowly pulsating lights on the tilted ceiling. Now and then sparks rained down from one control bank or another, and at least six seats at various stations were visible through the dim orange light that appeared to emanate from the curved walls. In one of these seats was sprawled a figure. A woman. Even in the gloom and from a distance he saw that she was badly injured. Tearing down toward the craft a stray thought jumped up to nag him and though he tried to push it back down and focus on getting this woman some help, it would not leave him alone. Why was there a normal person in a mysterious vessel from space? Boggling at the impossible dimensions, Alex climbed inside and slid down the slanted floor to where the woman sat slumped in her chair. She looked to be in her late 30s, with dark brown hair, currently wet with blood. “Okay, okay, calm down,” he chided himself realizing this situation was probably way more serious than he’d originally thought.
A few minutes later Alex had the unconscious woman over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Laying her carefully on the soggy forest floor, he attempted the first thing that came to mind. “Hello! Anyone!!! Please, we need help!!! HELLO?! ANYONE!... anyone?” No good. They were too far out. Desperate, he took his coat off and spread it out as much as possible over the injured woman. He had never been much good at all that emergency response stuff. Oh my god! What if she dies because I couldn’t remember the proper first aid procedure? “Crap!” Alex swore and paced trying to dig up all those boring days in health class, hopefully stuck somewhere in the dark recesses of his memory. “CPR? No, she’s still breathing, you idiot.” A faint murmur stopped him mid pace. It sounded like she had said “segregate” or maybe it had been “reed governs state” though what that meant he could only guess at. Crouching by her side to catch what she said, he noticed an eerie golden glow emanating just beneath her skin, pulsating through her veins like a kind of radiation running through her blood. Further investigation was cut short as the glow rapidly intensified. As a high pitched ringing filled the air, Alex was forced backward by a blinding light exploding from every patch of this bizarre alien woman’s skin, tripping on a cluster of roots and falling over as he did so. She no longer glowed; she blazed and erupted like an angry volcano goddess denied the seasonal sacrifice or a dying phoenix suddenly bursting into flames to be born anew from the ashes. Little did he know how completely appropriate that analogy would prove to be. The blast of energy swirled so violently from her now rigid form that he convinced himself that it must have killed her instantly. Shielding his eyes from the light and blasting wind, he just crouched there on the ground unable to move out of pure shock. And just as suddenly as it had started, the light abruptly faded, extinguished immediately. Though silence once again fell over the forest, the unearthly ringing still buzzed in his ears. And something was wrong. Very wrong. And as Alex sat there trying to pinpoint what had changed, the woman stirred. She was alive! But the nagging feeling pulled at him until he realized where the wrongness stemmed from. This was not the same woman. It couldn’t be. Though it was still dark, he could see enough to know that this woman was at least 10 years younger if not more. From the filtered light of early dawn he could even tell that her hair color was different as was the shape of her body. “What the—how? It can’t be.” Okay, so I’m hallucinating or dreaming or both he thought trying to shake the weird feeling beginning to rise from the pit of his stomach. Because this can not be real. The new arrival stirred again, this time blinking her eyes open as if waking from a long hibernation, and with a groan she struggled into a sitting position.
Groaning, Ross opened her eyes. She felt different somehow, like she’d been melted down and reshaped into something new. Everything seemed out of place, though a quick wiggle of fingers and toes canceled that theory. Pushing herself up she realized that she was sitting on a soggy forest floor. How had she gotten here? Where in the Void was she anyway? Her vision was still a bit of a blur, but she could still make out the figure crouched a few yards away looking as if it had just been through some considerable trauma. Fog clearing from her eyes, she saw that it was a boy staring at her as if something extremely bizzare had latched itself onto her face, just sitting there unable to move. Well, maybe he could speak and tell her where exactly she was.
“Erm… hello” strange, even my voice seems different “Um, can you tell me where we are? I just woke up here and…” In an instant a silent panic hit her. She couldn’t remember anything. How she got here. Where she’d come from. No memories of the past. Blank. All she knew was her name. I am Rosslinchaequentenoa she silently reassured herself. “ I’m sorry. Um… I don’t remember what happened. Do you know? I can’t remember anything…”
The boy jerked back to life, “Uh, uh, you can’t…? Um, no sorry, I just sort of” the boy faltered over his words in confusion. Perhaps he was just as lost. “Sorry, it’s just… listen, I just saved this woman from a crash and then she just sort of vanished and you took her place, like I don’t know, you switched places or something.” He had gotten to his feet by now pacing, trying to sort out the confusion in his mind, but mid-pace he stopped and turned back to her. “Oh, jeez. I’m babbling away and you’re sitting on the ground getting soaked. Here,” he said offering her a hand up, “I’m Alex by the way. Alex Ryder.” “Rosslinchaequentenoa,” she answered, grateful to get off the wet ferns and moss that covered the forest floor.
“Wow, long name,” Alex countered, “listen… uh, is Ross okay? You really can’t remember anything? I mean you’ve got to remember something. ”
“No, nothing. I was hoping you could tell me.” As Ross briefly took in her surrounding, she noticed the crater straight off. At the bottom lay a sort of pod, smoke curling out of its still open doors. “Was that the crash?” For some reason it was the only thing that seemed somewhat familiar. What she could see of the writing along the outside gave instructions on opening the doors and safety tips.
“Yeah, weird kind of ship though.”
“How so?”
“This is gonna sound stupid, but it’s bigger on the inside.”
“Wow.” For some reason she found this information completely normal though she could tell Alex expected some kind of resistance.
He raised his eyebrows, “…And this doesn’t surprise you?”
“Should it?”
He just looked at her again as if she were an anomaly. “Never mind,” he finally said. “Listen, we should probably get out of here. It’s raining again and I am not looking forward to growing gills or anything. It’ll be light pretty soon, so we should be able to find our way out.” He picked his coat up of the ground and offered it to her. It was only now that he noticed she was wearing the same clothing as the original woman. But it can’t be the same person! But somewhere deep inside another daring, crazy little voice had a different idea. You found her in a weird space pod that fell from the sky. Is it really that big of a stretch that this may be the same woman?
“Hang on. You’re wearing the same clothes as the other lady. Is this some kind of sick joke? Did Devin and Paul set this all up? They did, didn’t they? ” Cabin my butt! There was no cabin. This had been the plan all along. They had planned this all out just to freak him out and have a laugh about it later when he started talking about dimensionally challenged space crafts and alien women swapping bodies and such. Oh, yes, what a laugh. Ha ha.
“Sorry?” She looked genuinely confused glancing down at her apparel. “Who are they? And anyways, like I said, I don’t actually remember much past a couple of minute ago. Well, and my name.”
Alex sighed in exasperation, “Okay, well, when your memory does return perhaps you can tell me where you came from and why. But preferably somewhere warmer, yeah? With hot coffee and bagels.”
“Agreed.” She said turning a worried eye toward the sky. The rain was gathering momentum and an inevitable downpour approached from the amassing clouds.
Only an hour ago it had been dark enough that only the light of the glowing pod illuminated the surrounding area, but now, as early morning light seeped through the overcast sky and forced its way past the masses of dripping tree branches, Alex saw where he had come through.
“This way.” He pointed feeling eighty five per cent sure it was the right direction.
“Are you sure?”
“No. But I think ---”
“Good enough for me,” and without another thought she marched off in the general direction of his reckoning.
“Hang on! These woods are huge. We don’t want to get separated!” He shouted after her, running to catch up.
An hour passed with little conversation save the odd directional speculation, “Do you think this is the right way?” “Yeah, sure. I’m positive this is the way I came.” Finally Alex could no longer bury his grow number of questions.
Trying to process everything that had happened that morning, he had lagged a bit behind, but now the strain of not knowing forced him up forward to walk next to Ross. “Okay so I know you’ve supposedly lost your memory but---”
She interrupted “I have though!”
A bit annoyed, Alex continued, “Alright, so let’s say I believe you. Even so, you must know something. Like how come you swapped places with the other woman? And where is she now? And what was that spaceship or whatever? Is it government testing or something? And what about---”
Yet again Ross interrupted, and sadly not even to answer one of his questions. “Alright, listen,” she said stopping in her tracks and turning to face him, “You have lots of questions, yeah? Well guess what. So. Do. I. Whether you choose to believe me or not really doesn’t bother me right now, as I honestly have no idea what’s been happening in my life up to this point. If I knew how to answer you I would, but I’ve got some questions of my own like, for instance, where the heck am I? And where did I come from? And why is there a nagging guy in my face bombarding me with even more confusion?” She paused for a moment to glare accusingly at the worsening weather above, then finally “Sorry… I just would really like to know what’s happening, same as you. And anyways, I’m freezing. Is it very far?”
“…Erm, this way, and I don’t think it’s far now.” Alex felt a bit ashamed as he led the way. If she was telling the truth, he was an total idiot, if not, she was a great actress. “Wait a minute. If you don’t remember anything, where are you going to stay?” He wasn’t one to take in complete strangers found while tromping through the woods, but he certainly wasn’t cruel enough to leave her out on the streets of Portland overnight. Sure, it wasn’t New York or Chicago yet it still had its share of shady characters roaming the streets at night.
“Haven’t thought that far ahead, actually” she replied “… where do people normally go to get out of bad weather?”
“Well, coffee shops and book stores mostly, but I meant more along the lines of somewhere to sleep.”
“…um” Ross continued walking but no reply came.
Holy flippin’ crickey, why not? Alex thought making up his mind on the spot “Hey, don’t worry about it. You can come back to mine, and please don’t take that as a pick-up line. There’s a spare room in the flat that no one’s using at the moment. I’m sure we could fix it up for you” He cringed, waiting for an offended remark regarding the possible pick-up line, but she just turned and smiled at him in gratitude.
“Really? Thanks! I didn’t even think about it till you brought it up, but I literally won’t know where to stay.”
Hours later, after going in circles and getting even more lost, both stumbled with exhaustions toward the tell-tale sounds of distant traffic. “Well at least we know we’re headed in the right direction.” Alex mumbled, quieter and sleepier. When they finally hit a busy road, Alex waved down a car heading into town and gave the driver a general location at which to drop them off. Two minutes later Ross drifted off to sleep, head pressed up against the window of the car door. The driver smirked as he looked in his rearview mirror at her. “Had quite a night, did you?” he asked, clearly implying something else, but Alex was too tired to notice, so instead replied, “You have no idea.” The driver chuckled at this. Fifteen minutes later Alex found himself shaken awake from a sleep he didn’t remember falling into. “Oh, jeez, my bad,” he mumbled and gently roused Ross into a slightly less sleepy state. “Ummm…”she attempted, but as no logical words surfaced she gave up and just let Alex lead her out of the car and into the morning hustle and bustle of a large city. “Come on,” he urged, “it’s not far. Just a couple blocks away.” Despite practically sleep walking the whole way, Ross kept a tight grip on Alex’s hand. She had feeling she was a long way from home, and getting lost in a strange city was the least appealing thought in the universe at the moment.
A few minutes later, she realized they had arrived at the intended destination. She felt herself being lowered onto something soft and squishy, and before even arranging herself into a proper position, she was asleep. Soon strange dreams swirled into her head. Dreams of deep red landscapes and two suns. Dreams of traveling through space and time. Dreams that didn’t quite make sense, yet seemed so real that they must be true. Dreams of a rainy forest and friendships yet to be forged. Along with these also came nightmares. Nightmares that held no substance like the other dreams, only the feeling of horror and profound urgency to tell someone. Anyone… because time was running out.
