Domina had been floating
through space her whole life, or so it seemed. An eternity of darkness that was
consumed soundlessly in nothing, where time and space seemingly failed to
exist, where only she, within her mind existed. Her dreamlike state of semi
consciousness echoed around her as the silence pulsated in her ears and seeped
into the darkest corners of her mind, fracturing, splintering the little girl
she used to be in an attempt to force her into womanhood and age her fast
beyond her mental years.
She was broken on the inside. Torn apart by
the years she had suffered in solitude, locked in prison of unbreakable chains
in a soundproof room made up of layers of dimensional fractures in time. If she
screamed, the chaos it would cause would echo through the past, present and
future of every dimension, dispersing itself through space and time as it
rolled on forever until it could be heard no more and the threat of the
nightmare child became minimal.
She was unlike any and every other child
because she was much more intelligent than all the children on Gallifrey as she
was made up of something else, something not quite known.
It took some time, some
training, some practice and patience in order to perform the task she set
herself at the tender age of 5. It took 5 years in fact to do what her captors
hoped would be impossible as they dare not imagine the pain she could bring,
but she managed to train her voice, to exact her screams and concentrate them
at the right tone and pitch so that it not only broke her chains as she set
herself free, but burst the ear drums of those standing guard over her, and
when more had come running, when the alarm had been raised, they were stopped
in their tracks as they fell to the floor screaming in agony at the images flashing
through their minds. Their children, their wives, their mothers, tortured,
bleeding, dying in terrible agonising ways. Their minds broken by the
nightmares the child forced into their heads so that she could make her escape.
She had hidden for days. Scared and alone
she secluded herself in a broken TARDIS and hoped no one would find her until
she could work out what to do, but they had and she had been banished for all
eternity.
For many, many years she had been floating
through space. It could be 100’s, it could be 1000’s, time had stopped and all
there was, was nothing. She spent the Years hibernating, sleeping away the pain
of her childhood as her body grew and changed, and as she healed herself
mentally, physically the TARDIS healed itself from her touch. An incubator
keeping them both alive as it fed from her, pulling her life force into its
circuits, forging a bond between them so that they would become one and exist
together.
She awoke at the age of 20, when her time
machine had restored itself and she was able to control herself, for when she
screamed, she shook the world and she had found herself on a world she would
eventually call home, a place she would find peace, knowledge and truth about
her parents, a place she would not want to destroy, a new planet called Earth.
The TARDIS materialised next to a grassy
bank on a river on a very hot and humid August afternoon and disguised itself
as a narrow boat to fit in with its surroundings. Domina checked the readings
on the scanner and thought hard for a few moments as she tried to imagine how
long she had been in exile. The year on Earth was 2594 and she had come from a
year on Gallifrey that was billions of light years from that but that didn’t
mean to say that was how long she had been inside the TARDIS because time spent
in the time vortex could be no time at all and she wasn’t sure if Earth was in
Gallifrey past, present or future.
It would be strange and
exciting on the new world, and she would need to know the human race that lives
here if she was to fit in unnoticed and begin her quest to find the renegade
Time Lord known as The Doctor. Her TARDIS pulled her here because of the Huon
particle residue from his TARDIS, but as she discovered when she had scanned
the planet for him, it seemed that he hadn’t been on Earth for at least 6 years
which meant she would for now, have to wait for his return.
As she stepped out of the time machine
narrow boat for the first time in what seemed forever, she blinked hard as the
sun blinded her for a few moments and shaded her eyes with her hand as she
moved onto the river bank to look around. Earth would take some getting used
to, the blue skies and the green grass were no match for Gallifrey’s golden,
red and burnt orange hues, but any planet would pale in comparison but every
aspect of her life would be better from now on. She would make sure of that!
As she decided on which direction to start
walking to explore her new home, a man’s voice echoed out from the darkness of
a tunnel behind her causing her to turn sharply, frowning at his words as he
stepped into the light looking terrified as he glanced briefly up to the sky.
“Laura? Is that you? I thought you’d been
sent to Ordifica. What are you doing back here?”
He ran towards her,
grabbed her roughly by the arm and dragged her back into the safety of the damp
dark tunnel before she had a chance to speak, staring at him intently as his
nervousness got the better of him.
“What the hell are you doing in broad
daylight, what if “they” see you?” He pointed towards the sky. “Laura, why are
you here?”
There was a roar above them so loud it made
her jump and she staggered backwards, pressing herself against the cold stone
wall of the tunnel. The man covered his ears and moved past her, pushing against
the wall so it gave way and a door opened. He disappeared through, waiting for
her to follow him and she stood and watched and wondered what to do. Go back
outside, back to her TARDIS and scan whatever it was that was making that
noise, or follow the man for answers, find out who he was and why he thought
her name was Laura!
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