“Do you ever wonder why such terrible things happen, Elisa?”
The Doctor’s question took Elisa by surprise.
“But, why, Doctor, not everything is terrible – there is so much beauty in the world, i mean, Universe. But i suppose those terrible things that happen are just a product of human, or alien, nature.”
“No, no, no, i don’t mean in general, i mean… what do i mean? Take Earth for example, i’m forever trying to save you humans from scary monsters from the sky: Cybermen, Daleks, Zygons, Weeping Angels, even Time Lords. Why is it that everything happens to Earth? Why can’t i be forever nipping back and forth saving inhabitants on say… Heptious?”
“Or Pluto?”
“Or Pluto – although if i were you, if we ever went there please make sure you wrap up warm. Brrr.”
The Doctor wrapped his arms around his body and shook his head.
“What i mean”, said the Doctor, “is that the TARDIS is taking us back to Earth now for reasons i currently don’t understand, and at a time when all i want to do is to stroll through the streets of 16th Century Barcelona whilst eating fish fingers.”
“You mean, Doctor, that you aren’t flying the TARDIS to Earth right now?” Elisa was confused.
“I’m hardly ever flying the TARDIS – it seems to take me to wherever it wants me to go, never where i want to go. But anyway, we’ve landed now, let’s take a look at what Earth has in store for me this time.”
The Doctor took a quizzical look at the TARDIS controls before jumping down the stairs and to the door.
“You ready?” The Doctor asked Elisa.
“I’m never ready”
The Doctor burst through the doors of the TARDIS only to trip over the stretched out half decimated corpse of a man in his early forties. The force knocked the spectacles off of the corpse’s face.
“Oh my god, what’s happened, this is terrible.” Elisa’s face went white, and she looked towards the Doctor with eyes pleading for an answer – the answer didn’t come.
The scene on the outside of the TARDIS was one of destruction and despair. Buildings were on fire with whole fronts blown off. The debris from whole swards of office blocks were lying across the streets, and the fires filled the air with a dark grey mist. The TARDIS had landed in the middle of a roundabout in London, with the streets both to the left and right filled with scattered bits of buildings and burnt out cars. In the distant foreground London’s famous Ferris Wheel, the London Eye, could be seen breaking from its bonds and crashing down to Earth. The screech of scratching metal was only drowned out by the squeals coming from the blazing fires. Among the debris were human bodies. Arms stretched out from under walls; bodies with legs missing spread across the street; there was hardly a survivor in the vicinity.
Quietly the Doctor whispered under his breath, “this is not right.”
From the road to the left of the TARDIS could be seen a legion of Cybermen slowly making their way down the street. Red lasers were firing indiscriminately from their arms into destitute office blocks and shop windows; the last of the survivors were shot down on sight – this Cyber Unit was taking no prisoners and showing no mercy.
“This is not RIGHT!” The Doctor’s tone would normally shock Elisa, but the image around her of a City she once loved had replaced her fears with sadness and confusion.
The Doctor grabbed Elisa’s arm and pulled her back into the TARDIS just as a red bolt shot right across the space their heads had occupied just seconds before.
Inside the TARDIS Elisa collapsed, tears seemed to have escaped their inevitable fate and had lodged themselves in Elisa’s throat – for as no tears shed from Elisa, she seemed incapacitated and unable to speak.
The Doctor sternly walked to the TARDIS controls with anger in his eyes.
“Why? Why? Why? The Cybermen don’t indiscriminately kill those around them, they harvest them, THEY DON’T KILL THEM! Why did you take us here at this time? Why didn’t you take us here before the Cybermen came?”
Elisa looked at the Doctor, confused as to who he was directing his rant towards as it was only the two of them inside the TARDIS.
“This is not right.”
“Doctor…” The Doctor walked towards where Elisa had collapsed on the floor.
“Elisa, i’m sorry. I am normally here before things start to happen.”
“Can you put things right?”
“I’m so sorry. I can’t bring anyone back. I can’t take back what’s happened.”
“Can you get rid of what’s causing the devastation?”
Beforehand the Doctor’s voice seemed to carry with it regret, however, with Elisa’s last question the Doctor’s eyes seemed to had lit up and he clutched Elisa’s shoulders … “Of course i can, i’m the Doctor”… the hope seemed to flow from the Doctor’s eyes and flow straight into Elisa.
The Doctor jumped up and threw himself towards the TARDIS console. Elisa stood up and walked after him, seemingly forgetting the human wasteland she had seen outside.
“So, could we just go back in time before this has happened and stop it?”
“No – not a word i like using, and i would love if it i could say yes, but unfortunately what has happened has happened, i’ve seen it with my own eyes now, so to consciously go back and stop it happening would mean i’d cross my own timestream and that would blow a huge hole in the Universe and destroy everything that exists and would ever exist. Now, we wouldn’t want to see any further destruction now, would we?”
“So what do we do Doctor?” Elisa felt hopeless, but with the new optimism the Doctor seem to exhibit, she clung to any possibility that might present itself.
“Well, i noticed it before we left the TARDIS, but didn’t think too much about it – well, i did, but i wanted to go outside first, you never know where to find the most excitement. But after seeing outside, i would hazard a guess that this is our best bet.”
“What’s our best bet?”
The Doctor hunched over the TARDIS controls and looked straight up at Elisa with a smug grin on his face, whilst with his left hand pointed straight at a feint purple light that was flickering in the corner of the scanner. “This”
In a dark room with only a desk light for company, a rather plump man in a black t-shirt and jeans was arched over a laptop computer – his only company. To his right there were left over take away containers with their contents long since removed. To his left were opened notebooks haphazardly placed on top of one another.
The man scratched his head, confusingly exclaiming “what” under his breath. On his screen random symbols were quickly filling up the space underneath a splattering of text on a word processor.
“What’s that light, Doctor?”
“All i know is that it is a glimmer of a signal. A little sign of hope. Well, i hope.”
“So you have no idea what’s on the other end?”
“Nope, but here’s to hope…” The Doctor yanked down a lever and the TARIDS violently shook, sending Elisa to the ground before she climbed back up again with the aid of the TARDIS console.
The Doctor started shouting, “We’re going to need more power, she’s not liking this!” – or that’s at least what Elisa thought she heard, the TARDIS was groaning louder than she had ever heard it groan before.
Back in the dark room, the man leaned back in his chair rubbing his chin. At that moment an unusual but familiar noise forced him to spin quickly around and jump out of his chair. It was a noise that he often played in his mind every day; but not one that anything in his darkened office was known to make.
Before the man’s eyes the blue outline of a 1960s Police Box started appearing and disappearing before finally finding its full form and quietly laid to rest.
The man didn’t have time to be confused as out of the door the gleaming Doctor stormed out, with Elisa poking her head around the door.
“Well, this isn’t a Cyber control room, and you” pointing straight at the man “don’t look like a Cyber Commander!”
“But, what, this can’t be… how can you be here?” The man stumbled back into his chair.
“A feint signal of hope, well, i hope it’s hope, i don’t know anymore – who are you?”
“I’m, i’m, the Writer.”
“A writer, ohh, i like writers, such weird imaginations – never liked writing much, don’t suppose i ever needed too really, my TARDIS provides me with as much imagination as i need. Anyway, a writer of what?”
“Of you, Doctor.” The words stumbled from the man’s lips as though he couldn’t believe he was really saying them.
“What do you mean of me?” The Doctor’s voice had narrowed, and an element of fear seemed to come from the Doctor’s words.
“I, i, write you. I mean, i write what happens to you.”
“Why? For what purpose do you write about what happens to me?”
“For the audiences, your fans, the production company. I write Doctor Who stories – it’s my job.”
“Doctor Who?”
“That’s what the stories are known as.”
“But i’m called the Doctor.”
“Oh, we know that, everyone knows that – are you the Doctor? Am i not hallucinating?” The Writer seemed to grow more confidence in his manner; his searching for reasoning seems to had removed what appeared to be an impossible situation from the possibilities that would explain the conversation he was having with the very person whose conversations he was being paid to write.
“You’re certainly not hallucinating. Now show me, show me what you are writing.”
The Doctor walked over to the desk, and the Writer pointed towards an outline of a script on his laptop.
“I just had an idea for a story about you turning up on Earth only to find a Cyber army had taken it over and destroyed everything. It’s a work in progress.”
On hearing this a so far mute Elisa piped up, “but Doctor, that’s happening now.”
“I know… Let me see. Can i have a read?” The Doctor leaned closer to the laptop and read the unfinished script.
“What do you mean it’s happening now?” The Writer addressed himself towards Elisa, but as she was about to answer the Doctor butted in, “it only goes up to when we get out of the TARDIS; the very moment we see what is happening around us – it even has me pulling you back into the TARDIS just as a Cyberman shot at us. Then there are just rows upon rows of weird symbols… What are they?”
“I’ve no idea. They just started appearing randomly, and then you turned up.”
“Hmm.”
“Doctor, do you think they signal us appearing here?” Elisa had by this point walked over to the laptop with the Doctor and was looking at the unfinished script.
“Maybe, let me try something…” the Doctor typed something on the keyboard and ran toward the TARDIS. Elisa and the Writer followed his movement with their eyes until he disappeared into the TARDIS. Just as he had gone in, he came out again with a plate of warm fish fingers and a huge smile across his face.
“Oh yummy, fancied fish fingers – anyone else? You wouldn’t have any custard on you would you?”
“Doctor”, Elisa exclaimed, “what did you do?”
“I wrote after those symbols that i stormed into the TARDIS to find some fish fingers waiting for me… and now look – i have fish fingers and there are more symbols appearing underneath.”
The screen was filling up with more rows of random symbols.
“So, what happens if i delete the line you’ve just written?” Elisa directed to no-one in particular whilst highlighting and removing the words the Doctor had written.
“Just look” replied the Doctor.
The Writer and Elisa looked toward the hand that carried the fish fingers, only to see the plate and the fish fingers had gone.
“So, it seems that whatever you write, Writer, happens. And do you know what that also means?” The Doctor looked between Elisa and the Writer. “What?” replied the Writer. “We can save those people after all” the Doctor said, smiling.
With this the Doctor lunged towards the laptop removing the lines of description of the Earth they had witnessed. The weird symbols changed as if adapting to the new story line that the Doctor had inertly created for himself.
“Now, Writer, can you stop writing about destruction and death on Earth…”, “But, Doctor, that’s what the audiences crave!” The Writer protested.
“Rubbish, audiences also love a good old fashioned fairy tale, something where no-one dies and everyone is happy…. Hmm, i have an audience? I love someone seeing my genius – how are my ratings?”
“Doctor, is this really appropriate? Now you’ve saved the Earth, can we just go?” Elisa tugged at the Doctors arm and beaconed him towards the TARDIS.
“Yes, i suppose” then looking at the Writer the Doctor warned “but remember like i said, leave the people of Earth alone, i’m feeling like having a nice relaxing day today; oh, and one more thing – i know where you work.”
With this the Doctor and Elisa headed back into the TARDIS, leaving the Writer gobsmacked with what had just happened; his mouth cocked opened and his hand scratching his head.
Inside the TARDIS the Doctor and Elisa walked back to the main control.
“Doctor, could i ask you something?”
“Anything”
“Why didn’t you just take the laptop away from the Writer – surely that way we could prevent terrible things that happen across the Universe?”
“Too easy. If that laptop is controlling what is happening across the Universe, and the Writer is describing life itself, then tearing his laptop away from him would halt everything that is happening and is going to happen and would end life itself. And anyway – who says he’s not actually doing good. Hopefully him writing about nice fluffy things like poodles, washed towels and cotton buds will make some of the world’s inhabiting this Universe a much safer place to live.”
“So what you’re saying is that you can’t be bothered to replace him and write out the history of the Universe?”
“I live the Universe, i don’t shape it.”
“Yeah right” whispered Elisa below her breath.
“But you know Doctor, some girls kind of like that power streak in a man. You know, knowing that the person you’re with can shape what is happening around you” Elisa moved closer to the Doctor “it’s kind of… sexy.” Elisa moved her finger up the Doctor’s arm.
“Sexy! More like delusional. The Universe should be allowed to live, not rewritten or planned – and what makes me the most suitable person to decide how the Universe should be ordered, i’m not in charge of anyone’s destiny.”
“Oh, but you could be if you wanted”, and with that Elisa jumped at the Doctor, locking her lips with his.
Shocked by the sudden advance, the Doctor grabbed Elisa’s arms and pushed her off of him.
“What are you doing?” The Doctor pulled a face as though he took a big gulp of soured water.
“Oh come on Doctor, i know you feel it too; just, hold me!” Elisa made another lunge at the Doctor but missed him as he stepped to the side to flee her advance.
“What has gotten into you?” The Doctor ran off of the console platform. “This is not you – you’re one of the normal ones, you know, one of the ones who don’t fall for every man or alien they see.” Elisa was standing at the top of the console platform holding onto the tops of the bannisters with the stairs below her pointing straight to the Doctor.
The Doctor slapped himself. “Oh of course” and ran straight out of the TARDIS door.
“Doctor, where are you going? Come back here to me.”
Outside the TARDIS was the Writers’ room, with the Writer busy at work on the laptop.
“Oh not you again” said the Writer exasperatedly, “i promise you, i’m not writing anymore about death on Earth, i’m writing something else that might appeal to the audiences.”
“What are you writing now?” asked the Doctor.
“Exactly what you told me, something fluffy. It’s a different direction i know, but perhaps we can hit a different demographic.”
“Let me see.” The Doctor leaned over the laptop. “No, no, no, no, no, you can’t write that. Me and Elisa are not supposed to fall in love with each other, i mean, i’m the Doctor, i do all the running, no time to settle down, and especially not with her, firstly, she’s human!”
“Oh, thanks!” It was at this moment Elisa had stepped out of the TARIDS and into the Writer’s room. “What’s wrong with being human?”
“Nothing’s wrong with you being human, just, me with a human, me with anyone for that matter – it’s not who i am; it’s not who i’ve been for a very long time. And secondly, i’m too old for you!”
Elisa grimaced, “you sound like my dad.”
The Doctor turned back to the writer, “now, delete that last paragraph. There will be no kissy kissy in my TARDIS!”
“Fine, as you please.” The Writer deleted the paragraph, and as he done so Elisa fell to the floor but not before the Doctor could catch her.
“Oooow, Doctor, what happened to me…”
The Doctor whipped out his sonic screwdriver and flashed it twice up and down her body. Looking at the end of the sonic he replied, “nothing long lasting, just a bit of an emotion wipe, should ware off anytime… now.” With that Elisa jumped to her feet, as good as new.
“What happened, Doctor?” Elisa questioned.
“The Writer wrote in his story about us two falling in love.”
“Ewww, what!” Elisa looked disgusted. “Me fall in love with you?” Elisa mocked.
“What! I’m not that bad!”
“Yeah but you’re not human like me!”
“Exactly!” The Doctor barked towards the Writer.
“And you’re way too old for me!”
“See, again, exactly!” He said whilst looking at the Writer. “What did i tell you?!”
“And also you’re…”, “Yes, yes, you can stop right there”, the Doctor cut her short.
Turning back to the Writer the Doctor stated, “Look you, none of this human killing, and none of this humans falling in love with me – howabout we all stay away from the humans, and death, and love; remember what i told you, a nice relaxing stroll through 16th Century Barcelona. That’ll do me fine!”
The Doctor and Elisa headed back inside the TARDIS leaving the Writer to grumble indistinguishable words under his breath.
By the time the door closed on the TARDIS, the Doctor was already at the controls.
“So you think everything is sorted now Doctor?”
“Nothing’s ever sorted, but no point dwelling on things past – howabout we take a trip?”
Before the Doctor could play with the controls, the TARDIS had kicked into gear and was flying back through its haven of space.
Looking towards Elisa, the Doctor pondered aloud – “I wonder where she’s taking us now?”
They were only travelling for mere seconds, but they had in fact travelled millions of light years across the Universe and 34,067 years into the future. Into the depths of the Universe, in a place yet explored by the TARDIS, the Doctor and Elisa stepped through the door.
Elisa was draped in an orange suit; a helmet covering her head. The suit was more baggy than fitting, as if it had been made for someone much larger than herself.
The Doctor also had an orange suit on, but this one hugged him much more comfortably than the one Elisa was in.
“See, we can breathe, and here was you saying how you’d never been seen out in it.”
“I can breathe” replied Elisa, “but it makes my legs look half the size! I look like an alien!”
“Oi, there’s nothing wrong with aliens; and besides, in some parts of the galaxy there are whole civilisations of people who worship women with small legs! How do you know we’re not in one of them?”
“Are we, Doctor?”
“Umm, no – they’re the other side of the Mebua Nebula. I don’t really know where we are.”
“Oh great, so i’m in a place you don’t know looking like a fool in an unfitting orange suit. So what is this place then, it looks rather, sparse.”
Around them was rock, just rock. There was no sunlight, just a low glow that was being emitted from the ground around them. The terrain was flat, only disturbed by scatterings of rock. In the distance there were remnants of what were god-like mountains – smashed away to just their rocky bases.
The air around Elisa and the Doctor was full of particles, which made it difficult for them to see far ahead of them – making the mountain bases in the far distance seem reachable with outstretched arms.
“Well, this is a bit depressing. I suppose this is a place they don’t tell you about when you agree to go travelling through time and space. What are we doing here anyway?”
The Doctor looked around him observing the landscape which appeared as devoid of life as London had been just minutes before, “I don’t know, the TARDIS took us here.”
“Do you think it’s the Writer again?” Elisa quizzed.
“Doubt it, I didn’t notice any signal on the TARDIS scanner.”
“Do you think that he really does write about everything that happens to us?”
“Probably not, we control our own destinies; and besides, what if he did control everything that happened to us? It would mean that we have no free will.”
“And wouldn’t that make him like a God?”
“A God? Hmm. No. He wasn’t all God-y for a start, you know big long white beard, words of wisdom when you meet him – when we met him he didn’t know what to say, he was stumbling; what kind of God is that?”
Elisa was confused, she was struggling to understand just who this Writer was and how he could be so controlling over whatever happened. “So who is he then?” She masked the question she wanted to ask about why the Doctor had not tried to stop him or understand more about him.
“Just somebody who had been given a huge amount of power, but didn’t know how to use it; he seemed harmless enough, just needs a bit of guidance.”
Growing in her own self-confidence from the Doctor’s lack of knowledge, Elisa finally bought herself round to ask, “why did we just leave him them?”
The Doctor just looked at her with eyebrows lowered and a look of diligence on his face. He started walking forwards into the dusty air. Bending over he took a rock from the ground and crushed it between his fingers.
“Quite fragile with a darkened centre – looks like carbon. A lack of light must mean either the nearest star is on the other side of this planet, or it is too far away from us to have much of a gravitational impact –meaning that whatever we’re on is very small, probably smaller than your average planet. The glow coming from the ground and the dust in the air means we are moving pretty fast and gravity is weak.” Jumping up with a burst of energy the Doctor addressed Elisa, “that means we must be on an asteroid.”
“What’s that over there?” The dust had started to settle and Elisa had noticed a light in the near distance.
“No idea, shall we go and have a look.”
It took the Doctor and Elisa only 20 minutes to walk towards the light. When they got there was only a castle with towers that heightened into points, at least 30 of them, with the ones towards the middle much larger than those at the sides. There did not appear to be any structure other than the towers, with them all converging together to create a thick girth with just one door that rose high above the Doctor and Elisa. The towers were dark, but were emitting a glow that allowed Elisa to spot the castle from where the TARIDS was parked.
“Shall we go in then?” The Doctor asked Elisa.
“Shouldn’t we knock first?”
The Doctor walked towards the door and put his ear to it. His eyes opened up as he listened inside, “I don’t think they’d hear us if we knocked.” With that the Doctor pushed the door open to be greeted by a screeching warning siren, a flashing purple light, and hundreds upon hundreds of creatures Elisa would describe as a mix between crabs and humans running around.
“Never say I don’t take you anywhere exciting!”
“What’s going on, Doctor?”
“Let’s go and find out.”
The Doctor ran up to the first creature he could stop and grabbed their arm – “what’s going on around here?”
“Run, run, it’s no use, no use! Nothing worked” With that the creature ran off in hysterics.
“What did it mean, Doctor?”
“It means we have to find whoevers in charge around here.”
The Doctor and Elisa ran through corridors grabbing anyone who would stop to speak to them for more than a few seconds to find directions toward whoever was in charge before they ran away again in hysterics. As they ran down corridors the flashing purple continued, flooding the room with light. The sirens also continued with no hint of slowing down.
They had finally found the door to what they believed was the Empirical Room, the base for the lead command for the castle. Smashing through the door they were greeted by a group of creatures bundled around a table with their heads in their hands.
Looking up, the one creature in the most elaborate dress took one look at the Doctor and Elisa and shouted, “who the hell are you!”
“Ah, hello, my name’s the Doctor, and this here is Elisa. We were just popping by for a quick visit when we noticed that there was a lot of commotion. Is it something I could help with?”
The elaborately dressed creature looked between his colleagues before standing upon his legs, clasping his hands together and addressed the Doctor, “please forgive me for my rude outburst, this is a time of crisis for the Manadrac people. My name is Ochnid, and please make yourself feel comfortable in the short time you have left here, Doctor.”
The Doctor looked confused, “why short time, what’s happening?”
“Doctor, you do not appear to be from our dominion, may I ask, how did you get here?”
“Oh that’s easy, within my TARDIS.”
“TARDIS? What may I ask is this TARDIS?”
“It’s like a space ship, but it travels both through space and time.”
Ochnid’s face lit up, and he exchanged some whispers with his colleagues. Turning back to the Doctor he spoke with more forcefulness and optimism, “Doctor, how many passengers can your TARDIS take?”
“Hundreds, thousands, the TARDIS is based across the whole of space and time, and as such there is hardly any limit to the numbers of people who can fit inside it – why are you so interested? What is happening?”
“Doctor, we are on a collision course, a collision with another world. We do not have any transportation to take us away from our damned dominion, and all the techniques our scientists have developed over the past millennia have proved fruitless in pursuit of salvation from our fate. Doctor, would you do the most kindly of exploits in saving the Manadrac people from this unfortunate fate and take us far away from this place, and possibly to a new home we can live peacefully in and without fear of damnation?”
“It would be the most greatest of pleasures to help you and your people out. All I need to know is how long we’ve got and how many of you are there?” The Doctor’s face spoke in itself of a pleasure in being able to help out a race of people without the fear of the destruction of another.
“There are 10,345 of us here; it would take around 5 minutes to get us all prepared, and around 10 minutes to get us all safely inside your ship. Impact is anticipated to be in 25 minutes, that would give us…”
“Ahh, might have a bit of a problem there… the TARDIS is 20 minutes away from this compound; we wouldn’t have enough time to get to it, get it here and save the whole of the population.”
“Doctor, I hope you are not asking us to pick who we save and who we leave.”
“Never, I would never ask that, I can tell that you are a proud people who look after each other. I would never ask you to pick and choose who is most worthy.”
“Well, Doctor,” Ochnid’s eye’s had lost the light it had previously gained, “it appears we are damned to our fate, and unless you leave soon you will be as well.”
“I’m not going to leave a whole race of people to certain death, especially when there is something like that over there.” The Doctor pointed to a wall of computer like controls behind Ochnid.
“What’s over there, Doctor?” Asked Elisa.
“Something I’ve seen a lot of today; oh, I should had seen the sign as soon as I walked into this place! Come on!” With that the Doctor ran straight from the room with Elisa following right behind. Ochnid sat back down with his colleagues, putting his head back into his hands. Their fate had appeared sealed, and their only chance of salvation has apparently just run from the room leaving the Manadrac species to face death alone.
Behind Ochnid was the wall the Doctor was pointing at, with a small, feint, purple light flashing indiscriminately amongst row upon row of forever changing numbers.
The Doctor and Elisa were running as fast as they could towards where they had left the TARDIS.
“Where are we going… we can’t leave them to die.” Elisa was breathlessly shouting towards the Doctor as she galloped alongside him.
“No-one’s going to die today!” The Doctor replied, seemingly unaffected by running across the asteroid with the weight of the orange suit and helmet upon him.
In the darkened room the Writer observed a whole new host of symbols appearing on the script in front of him.
“ARGHHH!!” he screamed, all alone in his darkened room.
Back in the TARDIS Elisa stopped for a moment to catch her breath. The Doctor was already at the TARDIS controls setting coordinates to the next destination.
“So… Doctor… where… going.” Elisa was still struggling with her words. She started taking off her orange suit, aware that she no longer needs it.
“The Writer! The purple light – the first signal I had to the Writer back on Earth. It was staring us in the face back there, the warning light – it was also on the computers behind Ochnid. It’s the Writer. Time to find out who he really is!”
The TARDIS flew through the time vortex and started appearing in the darkened room that was becoming all too familiar to the Doctor.
The Writer stood up and started looking at the reappearing TARDIS. Arm in arm, he stood there with a resilience across his face – unshocked by the emergence of the TARDIS, and determined to settle the score once and for all.
The Doctor and Elisa stepped out of the TARDIS, but this time it was the Writer who spoke first, “I done exactly as you asked me, Earth is safe, the asteroid was not heading towards it.”
“But there is a whole alien species on there.” The Doctor stepped up to the Writer, his face only centimetres away from the Writer’s, “there is a whole race of alien species heading to their doom with no way of saving them. How could you do that, it’s, inhuman, it’s disgusting.”
“There is always a way of saving them!” The Writer furiously replied, “you just didn’t look hard enough!”
“But why do I even need to look – why make my life so hard and endanger thousands of innocents, just to win audience ratings? It’s sick, and whoever is watching or reading this is sick as well.” The Doctor was angry, more angry than Elisa had seen him before – it kind of excited her, not sexually, but excited that the Doctor had the drive to wrap up this whole mystery once and for all – this whole time she wondered how one person could hold so many others’ fates in their own hands, and now the Doctor was going to unravel it once and for all – forgetting the irony of her thoughts.
“Delete it.” The Doctor turned away from the Writer and repeated himself, “delete it.”
“What, again?”
“Just delete it”
“Fine, it’s going.” The Writer turned around to his laptop and removed the section he had spent tireless hours on involving the asteroid. “Okay, Doctor, it’s been done.” The Writer walked back towards the Doctor.
“Thank you. Now, who are you?” The Doctor’s voice had a streak of ruthlessness within it, he wasn’t going to give up without an answer.
“I’ve told you before, I’m the Writer…”
“Yes, yes, I know, you write my stories, blah-de-blah; but what I want to know is, who are you?”
“I’m your writer, that’s all there is to it. Without me nothing happens.”
“So what are all those symbols on that script – the TARDIS isn’t translating it, what language is it? That has to be a pretty old language for the TARDIS not to translate it.” The Doctor stepped up to the Writer again, “an ancient language, and you don’t look a day over 40.”
Stepping away from the Doctor and walking back towards the desk “Those symbols are you Doctor. I don’t write them, I don’t write you.”
“You don’t write me? You’re my writer, how do you not write me?”
“Just as I said, I don’t write you, you write yourself. I just write about your companions, the people you encounter, where your TARDIS goes, what situations you come across. You have your own free will, Doctor, I just control what happens around you for you to work yourself around. And when you make your own decisions that don’t fit into the story, these symbols appear.”
“You write about the people I encounter? But that means…” The Doctor turned around, grabbed Elisa and headed towards the TARDIS.
“Where are you taking me now?” Elisa asked.
“Back to the asteroid, I just need to check.” The Doctor had an air of urgency about him; he bashed away at the controls, doing several loops of the console in the process.
Within seconds they were back on the asteroid, just this time 20 minutes away from where they landed last time, and according to the Doctor’s calculations right where the castle they were in previously was.
The Doctor stepped out of the door – nothing. He hung his head. “They’ve gone.” The Doctor whispered. “They never existed because we just asked the Writer to delete the section, and that deleted them. What have I done?”
He ran over to the scanner to double check. “Nothing, the only lifeforms registering on this asteroid are the two of us.” On the scanner there was an outline of the asteroid with two blinking red dots where the TARDIS had landed. “Oh, and look, the asteroid is about to crash.” The Doctor looked at the scanner again. One of the dots stopped blinking.
Turning around to where Elisa was standing all he saw was the wall of the TARDIS.
“No, no, no.” The Doctor hammered away at the TARDIS, sending it back into the time vortex. The moment he had done so the asteroid slammed into the side of planet – death toll unknown.
For what the Doctor was hoping to be the last time, the TARDIS was sent spiralling away, following the coordinates for the Writer’s room. The feint purple signal had disappeared from the TARDIS scanner, but the Doctor had memorised the location due to its importance.
Stepping outside the TARDIS once it had landed the Doctor looked towards the desk where the Writer had made his home; however, all he saw was emptiness – the Writer, his laptop and therefore Elisa, were gone.
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