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Chapter One ‘... you say, Thohum. Look, he’s coming around.’ It was a voice on the periphery of his senses. The Doctor focused, gathering his conscious thoughts together. Slowly he opened his eyes. He was pleasantly surprised by the low light that greeted him, so used was he to the bright light that usually accompanied waking up in strange places. The Doctor looked around. He was in a room made out of a cave. At the far side was a door, it had a pattern on it, a pattern imprinted in some dull metallic looking substance. The pattern struck a distant memory in the Doctor, although he couldn’t quite place it. The same pattern was repeated in a much larger form on the face of a wall opposite him. The more he looked around the more he saw of that substance. It lined the tables (made from brown stone) and the chairs. Even the people had it on their clothes. Again the Doctor had to gather his senses. Hearing and sight were the main ones that he needed at that moment, so he cancelled out the other senses, in particular the stabbing pain in his leg, and pulled his hearing and sight to the fore. The room continued to fade in and out of focus nonetheless. There were two people in the room with him, both dressed in suits made from something akin to chain mail. The taller one wore a collar made of the dull substance, while the shorter wore robes over his chain mail suit. Both had flowing white hair, hair that only grew from halfway down the back of their heads. Their heads fascinated the Doctor. He had seen many races in his time, but none that looked quite like these. Their skin was a dirty brown, with high foreheads and protruding, hairless eyebrows. The oldest of the two had a long white beard, while the younger and taller had no hair on his face whatsoever. The Doctor spoke but all that came out was a jumble of words that made no sense. He frowned, trying to bring his vocal chords into synch with his thoughts. The younger alien turned to his senior. ‘You see, he does not speak our language. We should kill him now, before he has a chance to give away our existence.’ The Doctor wanted to refute that, but he was feeling tired. His eyes were getting heavy and despite his best efforts he could not help but close them. The world around him drifted away, to be replaced by a strange dreamscape. ‘Come on, Doctor!’ The Doctor sees himself bent over, panting for breath. He glances around, recognising the familiar corridor. He is in the heart of Cyber Control on Nova Mondas. The other Doctor looks up at a Draconian who is standing some distance before him. He waves the Draconian on. ‘Run, Kostaash! I’ll keep up.’ ‘I’m not leaving you behind.’ The Doctor finds himself taking to the Draconian. Kostaash looks like the type not to give up on someone. Cyber Control shakes around them, accompanied by a sound like the rumble of thunder. The Doctor notices the look of recognition on the faces of both his other self and Kostaash. ‘The Fusion Bombs!’ Kostaash exclaims. The other Doctor is shaking his head. ‘No, it’s too soon for them! It’s something else! Run!’ He begins to run, and seeing this, Kostaash resumes his own run. The Doctor watches them for a moment. Run, Doctor, run! Stay with him. It is a voice the Doctor recognises. He looks around, but there is no one else here other than the two of him and Kostaash. He cannot place the voice, but he does indeed know it. As he runs the Doctor wonders why he is here, and why in two versions of the same incarnation? The man he is following is without doubt a slightly younger version of him, yet the Doctor does not remember these events. He remembers being on Nova Mondas during the Omnisci incident, and before that when Brad had died, but never with a Draconian. The younger Doctor comes to a sudden stop just before an intersection of the corridor. The Draconian has all ready passed through the intersection. Suddenly something comes crashing through the ceiling, bringing metal and support struts with it. The force of the crash causes the other Doctor to fall back on to the floor. The Doctor rushes over to his other self and attempts to help the younger man to his feet. Instead the Doctor’s hands pass right through him. It does not matter, though, since the younger Doctor gets to his feet himself and walks over to the now blocked intersection. The Doctor looks down at his hands and rubs them together. They are solid as they should be. He looks over at his other self and begins to realise that he is but a ghost in his own past. He just wishes he could remember when this took place. ‘Save yourself Kostaash!’ the other Doctor yells through the rubble. There is no reply. He dusts himself down and glances around for another way out. The Doctor walks up to him. ‘Can you hear me?’ Despite all the years he has lived, nothing could have prepared him for what he witnesses next. The corridor erupts into fire around him. He glances around in horror, but he feels neither heat nor flame. He reaches out, but the flames pass through him. He looks over at his other self. The man that is he stands there, for a brief moment a look of doubt passes across his face, but it is soon replaced by contentment. And in that moment the Doctor realises where he is, and when. The flames spread over the body that is, to all intents and purposes, his own. ‘Why am I here?’ the Doctor cries out in anguish, shaken by the death of his other self. Do you not understand? ‘No,’ the Doctor mutters. ‘I do not. Who are you?’ There is no answer, and the Doctor is left with no choice but to stand there and witness the death of the clone on Nova Mondas.
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