Oh, god, thought Madison desperately,
I’m going to get smooshed to death.She blinked up at the lump of wall, and watched faintly as it grew larger and larger and came closer and closer. She realized later, that she must have looked like a paralyzed rabbit that was staring down the headlights of a car. It wasn’t a comforting thought.
Somewhere far behind her, Ryan staggered to his feet. He was still sobbing uncontrollably and, as he stumbled forward, he swung his head through the smoke searching for the face he vaguely remembered through his grief stricken state.
‘M-Mad?’ he gulped.
The ground lurched again and sent him sprawling. From somewhere buried in the depths of the smoke he heard a muffled scream and, for a fleeting moment, he thought it was Sarah…
Hardly sure why he was doing it, Ryan pulled himself upright and staggered forward again, but it was not long before he was gasping for breath and chocking as he sucked in lungfulls of hot smoke. Falling to his knees, he coughed violently and wiped away his streaming eyes with his hand. Through the dust, he could vaguely make out the flickering inferno of the fire.
Somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind he was dimly aware that through the confusion and his semi-conscious state, he must have wandered towards the burning gate. However, before he could come to any more conclusions, he saw something that made his heart race in panic.
Directly ahead of him, he could see a strange dark shape from within the smoke and, even as he squinted at it, he realized it was that of a human figure. It was standing perfectly still, head tilted upwards, and staring at the large blocks of rubble and masonry that were plunging down towards them. Ryan coughed again, even through the haze; he could recognize Madison’s proud and upright form.
‘Mad…’ Ryan croaked, but his voice was barely audible above the cackling flames. As much as he felt it was somehow wrong, he found that he could not keep his eyes upon her. He could not watch someone he knew be killed.
With a snarl of effort, he pulled himself up and screamed her name.
*****
Oh, god… I’m going to get smooshed to death…
Somewhere far behind her, Madison could hear Ryan shouting and shrieking. She wasn’t even aware of him staggering towards her blurry form, wasn’t even aware that she was putting others in danger. As she blinked stupidly up at the growing rubble like a constipated Alkoden, she wasn’t even aware of her own internal thought track that went something like this:
Oh, god… I’m going to get smooshed to death…
That’s a real bugger…
If I had any sense, I would try to run…
I’m not going to, am I…?
No… that would be far too intelligent…
And I apparently have the same number of brain cells as an Erreep…
Or worse, as an ameba...
Or worse, as an ameba sat on an Erreep…
Of course, this train of thought meant nothing to Madison, as all she could do was stand mutely and stare up at the large, grey lumps of distorted rock as they plummeted towards her.
It was at this point, that a pleasant and unexpected incident occurred. With a sudden, heavy force hitting her from behind, Madison felt Ryan plummet into the back of her. Both bodies jolted forward and landed heavily, entangled in the dust.
‘Get up!’ a voice shouted at her.
Madison remained sprawled in the dust slowly opening and closing her mouth. Her body was still in the midst of pointedly ignoring her brain, and she found she could not move. Though in answering aid to her shock and confusion, she felt strong hands grip under her arms, and her body being forcibly lifted.
‘Move,’ Ryan said, ‘now.’
His voice had a strange blend of urgency, and complete calm that were tightly mixed together in an authoritative tone. It penetrated through the foggy bewilderment of Madison’s head, and she began to respond. As she struggled upright, she looked up, and came face to face with someone who was very clearly, under no uncertainty, and without a single doubt not Ryan.
The Doctor’s eyes stared back at her, glassy from the smoke and ash, and screwed up in a forcible look of determination. Without waiting for a response, he gripped her arm and pulled her through the smoke. From behind, there was a loud rumble and more of the city wall began to fall.
‘Run! Run!’
Madison screwed up her eyes and stumbled after the strange man. He seemed to know where he was going and she was to bewildered to argue. But before long, the thick, heavy ash had begun to cling to the inside of her lungs and she began to choke. The Doctor puller her harder and they stumbled through the impenetrable dust-cloud.
After what seemed like an age, the man leading her stopped and allowed her to drop heavily to the ground. With her head hanging limp, and barely supported by her arms and knees, Madison coughed and swallowed huge lungfulls of fresh, sweet air. The Doctor stood above her, wiping his soot filled eyes and very slowly took a deep breath – the first one he had had in over five minutes.
On a collapsed pillar someway behind, sat Fyffe, and by her feet lay the unconscious body of Ryan. The Doctor turned to look at her, as she slumped quietly over her knees staring at the ground.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
Fyffe looked up, smiled, nodded, and replied in a slightly hoarse voice: ‘that’s the first time that I have ever had hot ash and smoke circling through my respiratory system.’
The Doctor gave her a half hearted smile and nodded towards the unconscious man at her feet. ‘You pulled him out of the smoke on your own?’
Fyffe smiled but offered no explanation as to how she managed it. Once again, the Doctor felt that irritated pang of wanting to know more about the girl, but once again, he held himself back, remembering the warning look she had given him.
‘You were in there a long time,’ she commented.
The Doctor shrugged. ‘Respiratory bypass system,’ he explained.
Fyffe looked mildly interested. ‘How long can you go without breathing, then?’
‘Oh…I, I don’t know. I never really wanted to find out.’
Fyffe said nothing more but wiped her sooty eyes as the Doctor had done, and indicated behind the Time Lord with her head. The Doctor frowned and then turned around to see what Fyffe had meant. Standing behind him, was Madison, who was disheveled and dirty and fixing them with a look of complete incomprehension.
‘Hello!’ said Fyffe and she waved calmly at the woman.
Madison blinked slowly and swayed slightly on the spot. The Doctor looked as though he was going to rush forward and help her, but just before he could do anything, another rally of explosions began shaking the city and everyone was thrown flat onto the ground.
*****
The earth shook; the whole world seemed to shake as Madison buried her face into her hands and preyed for the tremors to stop. She was faintly aware of the unknown man lying on the floor somewhere near her, and faintly aware that he was yelling something to the blond girl.
As the onslaught of noise and shuddering seemed to dim, she risked looking up and saw the man and girl both lifting Ryan away from the rubble. The nearby building that had once been the city bank was beginning to crack and tremble at its foundations, and Madison realized that they were trying to move him away from the danger.
She pulled herself unsteadily to her feet and began stumbling after them, so temporarily confused and bewildered, that she was almost like a lost sheep that simply follows the herd. The man who had saved her was taller than she, and had quite large, untidy hair which stuck up at odd angles and was partially coated in dried mud. His pinstripe suite that he wore also had the same layer light brown mud and was topped off with a light coating of dust and ash. Momentarily stopping, and running her eyes up and down the man, Madison wondered why he only had one shoe.
A sudden, high pitched scream broke the foggy air and penetrated itself through the dust cloud, reverberating off the remaining city wall that still stood. Madison saw the Doctor lower Ryan’s feet and spin around, searching, wide-eyed, for the source of the scream.
Inside the collapsing bank, and leaning so far out of a broken window that it looked like he would fall out, stood a pale faced and desperate looking boy. His arms were flung outwards and he was shrieking hysterically as the building lurched. Already, fire was beginning to lick its way up the outside of the red brick walls and smoke was starting to pour out of the window above the child’s head.
Madison stared in horrified shock at the boy… she recognized him. There was a faint memory somewhere in her head of that same child dashing around in a small gassy garden. And now he had lost the beauty, and had only the wrath of nature to contend with.
From behind her, The Doctor took two large strides forward and spun Madison around, gripping her shoulders.
‘Listen to me very carefully,’ he said, his brown eyes glimmering with the reflected flames, ‘go home. Don’t try and be a hero, don’t try and help, just go home or find somewhere safe to be, and stay there. Got it?’
Madison blinked at him, wondering who he was. Over his shoulder, she could see the blond haired girl slowly lower Ryan to the ground and stare at her with blank interest. The Doctor gave her a slight shake and she refocused her attention back to him.
‘Did you hear me?’ he said.
Madison nodded slowly and he let her go.
‘Go,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s not safe here. Go.’
Very slowly, she turned and began to walk away. She didn’t dare look back; there was something in the man’s eyes that had frightened her. As she began to speed up, there was another loud explosion and the ground lurched again.
‘Go on!’ came the booming echo of the man’s voice.
Madison let out a single sob of shock, as she stumbled and righted herself. Then, still without looking back, she gathered herself up, and ran.
Fyffe stood with Ryan at her feet and watched the woman sprint away. The Doctor had already dashed towards the crying boy but Fyffe could see that there was no hope for him. Amidst the dust, dirt and hollow explosions, a concentrated frown etched itself onto her face. She knew that she needed answers, specific answers, and through the Doctor and this woman, she knew she could get them.
*****
Madison flung open the door of her flat, stormed through, and slammed it shut behind her. Once she was inside she let out a deep breath, lent back and thumped her head against the wooden panels.
All she wanted to do was forget what had just happened, try to force the image of the falling masonry out of her head, and forget the utter abandonment that had poured out of Ryan’s glassy eyes… she lifted forwards her head and let it thump backwards again. As much as she wanted to, the distorted sound of her own scream, the feeling of oncoming death, and the unfamiliar, concentrated face of that unknown man… they would not vanish from her mind.
Another faint explosion echoed through the city, but it was to far away to be properly registered. Madison groaned. The accumulation of everything that had happened to her weighed her down and left her feeling sick and exhausted.
She stumbled over to her sink and plunged her face into the cold water that streamed out of the tap. When she straightened up and turned around, her already twitchy senses were pushed into overdrive as a sharp, and sudden bang shot through her flat. Spinning around and nearly dieing of a heart attack, Madison stared as her front door was violently flung open.
