Fans Fiction Stories of the Nightmare Child Chapter 5 - The Master Plan by Lady Mayhurst

 

Through time she fell, backwards, forwards, bouncing along her own timeline, reaching far beyond the beginning and the end of the known universe, thrown from era to era as she struggled to find a space in which to grow. Her heart exploding with the pain of losing a child, her mind splintered into a million fractions as she planned the arrival of the next whilst her soul was pulled apart and roughly stitched back together a thousand times over.

   She had only agreed to the breeding program when the War King approached her initially because although she was barely the human she was once born to be, she still harboured the visions of womankind and felt the need to reproduce offspring in her own image. All that she had seen, all that she had been witness to and been involved in, if she had known before Antipathy who the War King would become, maybe she could have warned the Doctor and maybe she could have saved herself and her son but instead she was torn apart by the time vortex and stitched back together as she fell through a crack in time and landed back on earth, back in her human form, back as the woman who had once been called Laura Tobin.

   How long she would stay like this was unknown as she had broken the laws of the physical and biological and rewound her DNA back to a time when it was remembered as human but because in this version of her former self, she was never human, how long she could sustain the illusion was unknown and the only thing that was known, was that she had very little time to get the job done.

   The job, the crude rudimental aggression of sexual activity that would plant a seed inside her womb and allow for a human child to grow led her to an alley way, to a seedy, filthy corner of London where night workers stalked lonely men for money enough to allow them to eat or feed their habits. The stranger in amongst the debris of life, giving herself freely to any man who wished to take her until one finally did.

   Over in moments, the hybrid side of her incubating the sperm quickly and swiftly so that the process of implantation and pregnancy began only minutes after the man had left. In those moments after, the illusion shattered and compassion once more took to time as she hid herself in the forgotten dimension inside a TARDIS, she stole from a Time Lord in a future that had not yet happened.

   Nine days was all it took to reach full term. Now fully restored as compassion but with holes in her memory banks and glitches in her system, she fed from the heart of the TARDIS and together they accelerated the pregnancy so that she became the first ever hybrid of her type to carry a human child.

   She hoped to repent the mistakes of Antipathy, she hoped to show the War King that his macabre ways of spawning an army of soldiers in her image would never come to pass and she hoped to leave the Doctor with the one thing he had lost as the Time War waged its fury on the universe, a child of his own, a child of his TARDIS, and 9 days later she fled again, hoping that she had given this child a chance and took them both to the shores of Gallifrey wanting to give her to the Doctor before her impending death that she had foreseen and laid down in the sand to die as the child was expelled from her womb, arriving years after the renegade Time Lord had already fled his home world.

 So, the Nightmare Child came to be. 

A creation of humankind, grown as a hybrid, to become her mother with the one thing she lacked, her humanity. A vision of motherhood warped by too many reincarnations that altered the DNA of the human child so that as she grew, she changed and reinvented herself with every milestone, connected to the Doctor’s TARDIS, connected to the Doctor himself, connected to time and able to control the universe.

   The Doctor knew this about Domina as he told her the story, he knew what she was and he knew that she had no idea of the power she held at her fingertips. One thing he did not know was that she was part of the master plan, or, part of the Master’s plan.

   When the War King told Compassion of his plans to dominate every race in the universe and wanted to use her as a breeding machine for a new army, he knew she would run and hide herself from him, he knew she would seek the Doctor’s help and he knew what she would do in order to breed a child she thought he could not have, yet it was he who planted the thoughts inside her head, warped her imagination and twisted her sense of belief and appeared to her back in time when she offered herself freely to the strange man in the alley way, because whilst he held Antipathy in his coma, waiting for the right time in which to unleash him back into the world, on his instruction, Compassion was breeding a machine to fight with him with, a nightmare of a child of his creation to fight alongside her brother and wage war on humanity and as time ticked on and the War King eventually became the Master, he stepped out of the shadows along the canal ready to claim his daughter, ready to tell the Doctor of what he had created of how she held every secret the Doctor had ever made and every detail of the universe that swam in and out of his head for they were both connected to the TARDIS, the very time machine he stood in but no longer recognised as his own as it warped as Domina warped through their connection for she had not hidden inside a broken TARDIS when she was a girl on the run from the Time Lords, the TARDIS had come for her and had stolen her away and the Master smiled as he waited for the nightmare to begin.

Fans Fiction Stories of the Nightmare Child - Chapter 4 - Antipathy by Lady Mayhurst

 

Chapter 4: Antipathy 

The Doctor could not ignore Domina’s question about her brother. Antipathy, as he had been called had waged a war across the stars and his story was not one to be told gently, for he would have to warn Domina that her fate may very well end up like his and whilst he wasn’t there to stop her brother, to help him, he could help her, he would need to help her as it was his duty to do so. He sat down and gestured an irritable Fritz to sit as well and he cast his mind back hundreds and hundreds of years to recall the memories of Domina’s mother.

   “When I first met your mother, she was on her 5th cycle, that’s to say that she had been remembered five times by then. It was a way of preserving someone by using a biomass inside a remembrance tank, so that not everything about them died. Laura kept her memories for a long time but she became warped and unstable after a while. I guess the human mind can only cope with so much. She travelled with myself and Fritz in my TARDIS, which I am sorry to say corrupted the ear piece she wore to protect her from harmful signals as all humans wore back in those times but my TARDIS was nearly destroyed in a dimensional rift and as I had interfaced her ear piece with the TARDIS, I inadvertently rewrote her biodata to make her the first and only Type 102 time ship.

   It didn’t take long for the Time Lords to find out what I had done and they came for her, wanting to breed her for their own gain, so we took her, Fritz and I, and we went on the run to hide her. She was a mistake; she was lucky to survive and I couldn’t have guaranteed the survival of every being put through that process so we did what we could to keep her safe. The problem was, she was uncontrollable, she would disappear at a moment’s notice and without my TARDIS fully intact it was impossible to track her down. She only really felt safe when Gallifrey and the Time Lords were destroyed. She came back then, helped me rebuild my TARDIS and created the ancestor cell, a memory format that contained the whole of the time vortex and she installed it into my brain. It worked for a fashion, it suppressed a lot of my memories and jumbled them around a bit which is why I tend to get things muddled up. I kind of think this is why my TARDIS has trouble locking on to exact timelines, she interfaces with me you see and goes where I tell her to, unfortunately it’s not always where we end up.” 

The Doctor laughed a little and was met by two blank faces and a slight shake of the head by Fritz who had spent many an adventure trying to help the Doctor unscramble his brain enough so he could come up with a plan to save them. His laughter was false as it hid a truth he was only just coming to realise. Clearing his throat by way of a distraction he continued his story, trying desperately how to figure out a way that would make sense.

   “Sorry, I go off on a tangent sometimes. Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, memory cell. I and I alone contain the knowledge needed to resurrect the Time Lords so that makes me very exclusively important, and very dangerous. It’s why I continue to run and why those I chase continue to run from me. Kind of a suit of armour in a way although there are some that would hunt me down and try to drain that knowledge out of me. Imagine having the whole of time and space in your head, I can’t imagine how to even start telling you what that feels like, but you already know don’t you Domina? You have the same memories as I do for some reason, that’s why you grew up knowing all about me, oh not from stories or whispers that you might have heard, but from memories, my memories and the ones of your mother. The dimensional rift caused more than an interface with my TARDIS, it caused one with me too because I am imprinted to it, so your mother took everything I had, every memory, every regeneration, every event in the past present and future and every detail contained in the memory cell and it corrupted her further, to the point where she wanted to recreate herself, to become the mothership of all type 102 TARDIS’, a god like idea to make herself immortal and she succeeded.

   I left her on Earth in 2012, so as I said, not long ago. I was hoping she would reintegrate herself back into the human race and become more like them again, maybe even help them with her vast knowledge of technology to advance them beyond their own imaginations to become energy sufficient so that when the time came in the very distant future to fight galactic wars and expand across the universe, they would know how and for a time, I was convinced she would do so, but she had played a trick on me, fooled me with my own tactics because she knew how I worked and what I would believe. By the time your brother, Antipathy was born, it was too late, she had fled earth and hidden herself from me on the home world, backwards in time in violation of the Protocols of Linearity, so that he would be born before she even existed. It was her intention to trap him there, to keep him hidden and safe because even she knew what he would become” 

“The first type 101-form, as unique as his mother, but so deadly that his cries of as a baby could set heavens on fire. I don’t know what happened to him. I heard rumours he escaped the Homeworld and went on a rampage throughout the Spiral Politic, before disappearing to another continuum. Or that he had been destroyed immediately after his birth, some even say he is comatose in the City of the Saved and is preserved for the sake of all humanity and creation.” 

The doctor stood up and scanned Domina and her TARDIS console once more and looked at the readings with a furrowed brow of resignation before continuing his story. 

“Time travel is fickle. It’s so fragile and uncertain that you never really know how any one journey or step in time will affect the rest of the universe. This was one reason the Time Lords existed, to prevent disasters and control time itself but they became far too engrossed in their own importance and the rest is history, for you as well as me but if these readings are right and I’m sure they are, it means that when your mother left the home world, she was forced back into a mainstream timeline and then it would seem, she was sent backwards further to the very moment she was last human, all human without the influence of the faction paradox and my TARDIS, and then somehow, she became pregnant with you and was flung further through time to land on the shores of Gallifrey to give birth to you before finally collapsing on the shores to die. 

Somehow Domina, she died before she was born and you came before your brother which explains why you’re both so messed up. Time has fractured you both and I was right before, you’re not Gallifreyan nor a Time Lord, not in the conventional sense anyway and I did honestly think that what brought you here was your connection to Earth, but that was before I saw your TARDIS, before I really saw you and I’m sorry Domina, I really am but I think somehow, something to do with how you and your mother can interface with your ships and with me, that you might be my daughter, or to be exact, a child of my TARDIS!" 

 

 

(Author notes) 

Before his birth, Antipathy lived within the internal architecture of his mother — an infinite womb. He was Compassion's first child, an imperfect prototype never meant to live. He was psychologically damaged and defiantly hated being forced to leave her. The Great Houses tried to get rid of him by sending him on a suicide mission, but he escaped. He screamed across the universe, consumed with hate for his mother for giving birth to him.

(ref: https://factionparadox.fandom.com/wiki/Antipathy )

 

Fans Fiction Stories of the Nightmare Child - The Human TARDIS By Lady Mayhurst

The one thing Domina would come to learn about the human race during the time she would spend on Earth meeting them, was their peculiar need to shove their hand into yours and shake it by way of a greeting. She didn't understand this gesture at first and instead of offering her own hand back to the stranger in the dark, she clenched her fists and took a step backward, anticipating an attack, ready for the strike she was sure was coming her way. Yet there it was, the statement that would knock her off her sideways and unsteady her challenged mind, the introduction that she had been waiting for, the one being she had wanted to find on this planet was here before her, smiling as large as life not knowing what his presence could ever mean to her not just now but in the days to come. The renegade Time Lord known only as 'The Doctor'.

   "It's you!" She gasped, unsure of what to say to him now she had found him. "I mean really you, here, now! My TARDIS said you hadn't been on Earth for 6 years, it scanned for you, I scanned for you, I've been searching for you for years and years, my whole life it seems and here you are, suddenly, without fail in front of me the very second I land on this planet, in this spot at this exact time, telling me you know who I am, who my mother is!"

   It seemed totally unreal to her, almost planned this way and even though she was shouting at him like a frightened child so that thunder cracked in the heavens above them, shaking the ground so hard it could be felt deep within the darkness of the underground tunnel, he smiled at her sympathetically and spoke to her softly as a slight upward apprehensive glance towards the ceiling confirmed that he knew what she was capable of.

   "My TARDIS isn't here on Earth right now. It's lost on the planet Hurst in the Forgotten Dimension which is why your TARDIS couldn't find it and you couldn't find me because you're not actually Gallifreyan, nor a Time Lord despite what the elders told you, you're actually partly human, a descendant from Earth, this Earth and not that long ago"

   He scanned her with his sonic screwdriver and looked gravely at the readings, his brow etched with concern that was hidden by the shadows of the darkness.

   "Your mother was washed up on the Galifreyan shore. She died giving birth to you on the sand which is why I suppose you were named Domina Mare, it means 'Lady of the sea'. Your coming was foretold and you should have been born with an unbreakable memory installed so that you would grow knowing not just who you are, but you would retain the memories of your mother's past selves also, but Time travel and the faction have messed your mind up so badly and I'm so sorry. It's ok Domina, I'll explain everything. Let's go back to your TARDIS and I'll tell you everything, give you all the answers. I promise, I'll help you remember"

   Domina listened but took nothing in. This man before her spoke about things he couldn't possibly know about her as he was a legend to her, a saviour of all, a story as she was growing up on a planet billions of light years from the one she stood on now. She knew nothing of the Faction although she had heard whispers of their order coupled with a vague memory of being told she was to be kept away from them for the sake of creation itself. She wanted to know more, she needed to know more, this was why she had come looking for The Doctor in the first place, so she nodded without words and allowed him and Fritz to follow her back out of the tunnels and into the light of the canal, calming down so that her anger passed over her and the dark clouds in the sky began to drift slowly away as she pointed towards her disguised TARDIS.

   "A narrow boat!" The Doctor exclaimed delightedly.  "AWW I love a narrow boat. One thing my TARDIS never got to be was a narrow boat. Amazing!"

She frowned at him, worried by his mannerisms, worried that she was being led into a trap by men that wanted her ship for its technology but a question burned so fiercely inside her that she felt she had no choice but to lead them on board. Inside the TARDIS it was black and unwelcoming, cold and uncaring with an air of hostility that made Fritz shudder as he crossed the dimensional field. A reflection on Domina's state of mind, fractured and dark with the only lights coming from the main console itself.

   The ship hummed softly into life as Domina boarded, welcoming her back into its lair as it cast a soft light around her, chasing away some of the internal despair.

   "Hello Domina, you have brought beings with you that will need to be scanned" The whispering voice of a woman, soft and echoing like a ghost lost in another realm filled the console room as the TARDIS spoke to her making The Doctor's eye's pop from his head and Fritz recoil in fear.

   "Your TARDIS can talk? Oh, that's brilliant, that is so brilliant. Hello, I'm the Doctor and this is Fritz. A talking TARDIS, how did you get it to do that?"

   He was fascinated and taking his sonic screwdriver from the inside pocket of his coat he waved it slowly across the central console table and then looked at the readings. "Oh, that's interesting, that's very clever, so clever in fact that this might be the only one"

   "Hello Doctor" The TARDIS replied to him whilst he scanned its circuits.

   "We have been looking for you for many years. Will you join us?"

   "Join you?" The Doctor exclaimed, "In what exactly?" He frowned slightly now, a look of concern etched across his face which made Domina feel she should ask her questions now, rather than wait until he found out the truth of why she had searched the stars for him.

   "My mother, me and the thing you said earlier, about me fading, about me being a human TARDIS? Tell me more about that, about all of it like you promised"

   Distracted for a moment, the Doctor scanned the console again and looked at the readings, an expression of understanding forming on his brow although he still felt the same fear and confusion that had spread through Fritz, who suddenly spoke with a wavering voice.

   "Sir, we should go, we have work to do and....."

   "Yes Fritz, soon" The Doctor replied and turned his attention to Domina. "Ok, Yes you're right. I knew your mother, she was a wonderful woman, born on Earth to Earth parents but she became something else, something not so wonderful, fascinating yes, oh completely brilliant and unique, first of her kind, one of a kind and you are as unique and brilliant and if I’m honest, it means biologically, you don’t have a father, you were engineered by the War King, to be carried in the eternal womb of your mother. Her pregnancy could only have been an experiment and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry but you were a mistake, you should never have been allowed to exist, surely you can see that? They should have learned their lesson from your brother, from what he did and what he became but I suppose they thought they could try again, get it right this time. You healed your TARDIS Domina, you, what lies within your DNA, you brought it back to life because that’s what you are, a living TARDIS, a human time machine just like your mother, a type 102 TARDIS biologically and physiologically which is why you can do what the TARDIS does, disappear here, reappear there and travel through time and space. You navigated your way here Domina, not to me but back home to Earth as this is where you'll find all your answers. This TARDIS is you, with your voice, your personality, your DNA, you are connected more than the Rassilon Imprimatur could ever achieve, which is probably why the Time Lords kept you locked away. They know what you can do but the question is, do you? Your mother’s name was Laura Tobin, but she was remembered as 'Compassion', she travelled with me in my 8th regeneration and she was the first ever human TARDIS created by the Faction Paradox....."

It was going to take a long time for the information to sink in, for it to be processed properly in order to be dealt with, but as she listened to The Doctor, only one thing caught her attention so instantly that she blurted out her response and stopped him mid-sentence.

  

   "I have a brother!"

Fans Fiction Stories of the Nightmare Child - Chapter Two - Compassion by Lady Mayhurst

The name “Laura” rang a bell, although Domina couldn’t really understand why. It had been like a whisper to her the whole time she had been inside the TARDIS, a comforting word throughout her imprisonment like a lullaby to soothe her to sleep every time she was afraid. There had been no women throughout her early life, no mother like figure had been assigned to her as she grew in her confinement to raise her as a woman, teach her about the world or offer her sympathy when she cried. All her guards were men! Big burly soldiers assigned to her to watch over her in case she escaped and brought about the end of days. Everything Domina knew and had learned about the life that was now stored inside her brain and the physical form she presented to those she would encounter, the other beings she would come across during her journey and search for the truth, she took from the TARDIS during the years she had assimilated with it in her incubation.

   She decided to follow the man, to find out what was going on, what he knew or thought he knew about her, what Ordifica was and who Laura was. A lot of questions without leading him to ask any of her, because for now, she wasn’t sure she could trust him. He led her down deep under the canal and through a heavy metal door into what looked like a small prison which he had turned into some kind of office. There were maps on the wall, tide times, sun rise and sunset, blue prints of tunnels, underground caverns, names and pictures of people stuck to the walls which Domina was sure if she scanned them, looked at them closely enough she could find some information on them, that somewhere buried deep within her memory, she would find them! A bizarre concept to know you have a certain kind of ability without really knowing who or what you are.

   The man who thought he knew her, sat down behind the large metal desk and pulled open a drawer, pulling out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses which he filled before pushing one towards her. “Still a JD girl I hope?” He asked as he took a gulp of the drink and eyed her with anticipation, as though she were a stranger to him, yet somehow a trusted friend. Domina noticed that as he drank his whiskey, his hand slid beneath the desk slowly and he seemingly pressed something, a warning trigger maybe? Some kind of button that opened a secret door? Nothing obvious happened around her and her senses picked up nothing by way of any alarm but she returned her gaze to him with more intent now, watching him a little closer, ready to attack if he tried to have her surrounded.

   “Your parents sent you away, yet here you are. You were supposed to have rendezvoused with Kristeva 5 days ago? I thought you had, Jesus, Laura we all thought you had. Our leader is going to want to talk to you, you’ll have to be ready to answer his questions if we’re ever going to have a hope of winning this war. What the hell happened? I mean yeah you look younger maybe but they can’t have cloned you, yet could they? There wasn’t enough time, unless......." he stared at her confused and questionably, his facial expressions changing slightly as the cogs in his head began to click ever so slowly into place so that he came up with what he thought, was a rational explanation.

Domina found him fascinating! He was the first being she had encountered since escaping Gallifrey and so far, had yet to determine which species he was although human, of some variant had crossed her mind several times. It was difficult to say the least, to be inside her own head the way she was, trapped in the cell of physical restraint when she had a whole universe buzzing inside her, fighting to get out and explore.

   “So, you know what year this is? Who you are? What name did they give you?” He went on, interrogating her to get to the truth. Was she a spy? Was she working for the other side now or had something gone terribly wrong and their best hope of survival was now and empty shell? That could explain it, some kind of memory loss perhaps? Understanding his intent to a degree. Domina decided to use his lack of knowledge to her advantage and took a gulp of the drink that burned the back of her throat. “Yes, she said, maybe, I don’t know. Please tell me who I am, who is Laura? I kind of have an idea but it’s all so foggy right now. Who is the leader?” He nodded and drained his glass before pouring himself another, larger drink, leaning back into his chair as he surveyed her. His thought once more trying to fix the broken jigsaw that stood innocently before him. “Yeah thought so. You’re probably the first, they like to clone the first quickly, you know, to eradicate the memories they don’t need. Maybe they sent you back to help us win this war? Tell me everything you know about the Time Lords?”

Time Lords! There it was. The name of those who tried to kill her as a child. The race she had fled from and travelled billions of years to escape from but it seemed now that no matter how far she ran, they would always find her. A memory jogged in her head and she locked eyes with the man deep in thought as a name come to her lips. “Fritz?” The man leaned forward slightly and rested his elbows on his desk, his brow furrowed in question. “You know me?” He asked her. “No” She replied honestly, “but someone did, someone trusted you and I think maybe I can trust you too?” A question mixed with a statement of confusion. She was telling the truth. She didn’t know him yet she knew his name and that someone important to her once trusted him with their life.

   As the images of a woman started to burn their way into her consciousness, Domina heard the sound of the TARDIS engines, the screeching sounds of agony that screamed at her and she covered her ears in pain wondering what the hell was happening. And then it happened, for the first time, the only time or the first of many times. Domina was suddenly back in the console room, the TARDIS surrounding her, hazy and magical as though it was sucking her into its core. She felt drunk, like she was dreaming, blinking hard to focus as the lights blinded her so she was unable to see what was going on. And then it stopped again and she was standing where she had been, facing the man now known as Fritz who had dropped his glass and shattered whiskey all over the floor and was standing upright, staring at her opened mouthed.

   “What happened?” she asked him, wondering if he had spiked her drink and was untrustworthy after all. She had no real conception of these things as she was still fairly new born in her existence.

   “You, erm, well you kind of disappeared! There was wind, down here in the deepest of all the tunnels where there’s no light, so dark even the rats keep away, yet there was wind!” He pointed to the papers that had been on his desk which were now all over the floor. “And there was a noise, a whooshing, wheezing sound and then you kind of, faded out and were gone! Literally gone, but for a few moments, 10 seconds maybe and then you came back in the exact same way”

   They were both confused at the event, but unable to explain it, both lost in those few seconds about what to do.

   “Who are you?” Fritz asked, his toned changing as he began to fear the woman in front of him. “What did they do to you? The faction, what the bloody hell is going on Laura, I don’t understand”

   “Sit down Fritz!” The order came from behind Domina, a man’s voice softly spoken yet full of arrogance and authority, and Fritz sat down. “Yes sir” He mumbled, “But sir, she just….”

   “I know, I saw it, it’s ok, she’s fine, she’s perfectly fine”

Domina turned and faced the man who smiled widely at her. In the gloominess of the room she could just about make out his features and she let her eyes travel over the clothes he wore which she was sure did not fit the time of the planet she was on. He was out of place as she was, out of time, on the run, away from those he loved because he feared them, he was alone, he was like her but different in so many ways. A man with more secrets than she had, a man lying to Fritz whilst claiming to be his leader. He knew she was scanning him and he let her. He knew everything about her, things she herself had yet to discover and he smiled again, shaking his head softly as he drew a deep breath.

   “You’re just like your mother, Domina. Just like Laura, although by the time the order had finished with her, by the time she came to me she had been remembered 5 times and was was known as Compassion, a wonderful brave woman and like you, one of a kind with a unique ability. Hers was extrapolated to her of course, in a vain attempt to turn her into a weapon, one she fought against hence being given the name Compassion. You though, oh you were born with these abilities, the one thing the Time Lords couldn’t foresee, The    Nightmare Child”

   He was rambling like an excited child, watched in a state of confusion by Fritz and a state of fear by Domina.

   “I suppose You’re wondering why you don’t know me, why you can’t find traces of me in your memory? Well you can, just not recent ones, it’s complicated timey wimey stuff but I’ll help you figure it out. You faded by the way, just then, you kind of teleported, back to your TARDIS maybe? It’s because you kind of are a human TARDIS….wibbley, wobbley, timey, wimey but I’ll explain it all properly to you” He ran his fingers through his hair and then jumped forward, his hand out ready for her to shake as though he were apologising for not doing it sooner.

   “I’m The Doctor by the way”

Fans Fiction The Dark Doctor Stories - Chapter One "Laura" by Lady Mayhurst

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!

Fans Fiction The Dark Doctor Prologue (A Parallel Universe) by Lady Mayhurst

On a planet far away in an unknown part of the galaxy where no known human has travelled to before, a small child known as “The NightMare!” was banished into exile at the age of 10 by her own species because of a prophecy into her future that saw the beast she would become and the terror she would bestow upon creation.

Domina Mare was born during the deadly plague of Gallifrey. The only child out of 1000’s who survived during the planet’s darkest times, when an unknown virus claimed all the children and left devastated parents screaming into the darkness as they united in their grief. Her mother was a woman known to the Gallifreyan people yet one they thought had died a very long time ago until she was found capsized and unconscious on their shore in the midst of labour. They could not ask her where she had been or how she had come to be there as she never regained consciousness, yet they knew her appearance was an omen, a sign that darker days lay ahead.

The Gallifreyan monastery however originally saw the new born as a miracle, a blessing to be cherished as a good omen and the start of a new generation of Gallifreyan children, and they took her into their care to raise her in accordance to their beliefs, ignoring the whispers that she was evil as they believed their faith and prayers were all they needed to raise her as a good and kind member of their cherished society. Naming her “The lady of the sea” because she was born on the shore, it soon became apparent that Domina was no normal child.

Her screams shook the world causing quakes and eruptions. Her tantrums caused desolation as volcanoes exploded with larva, and her constant demands of attention caused her guardians to take their own lives as they were forced to see horrific visions that tore at the fabric of their minds. She was renamed “The NightMare!” at 6 months old and it was decided that she should be incarcerated for the safety of Gallifrey.

As Domina grew, she learned in her solitary confinement that she could use her abilities to get what she wanted, that she could manipulate minds and cause a great suffering on those who keep her captive, and on her 10th birthday she escaped her prison by torturing her guards with visions of their loved ones tortured and broken as they lay dying in great pain and agony. A man hunt was ordered for her recapture, but she hid herself away in an old broken TARDIS, a Gallifreyan time machine due to be scrapped for parts, where she stayed for days, trying to figure out what to do and where to go. She was scared, alone and the most powerful being on Gallifrey. If she panicked, the world was likely to implode.

Her whereabouts became known to the elders of Gallifrey, those known as Time Lords and they decided to banish Domina in the TARDIS, and send her hurtling into outer space, hoping the broken TARDIS would engulf and swallow her whole therefore evicting her in a banishment that’s would last for eternity. The Nightmare quickly became out of control, wanting to consume everything like a hungry child. The high Gallifreyan leader Rassillon, lured her to the gates of Elysium where he planned to destroy her before Gallifrey was swallowed by the Nightmare Child’s rage. The Child and the TARDIS fell through the gates, and as they closed, she disappeared behind them, screaming her revenge into the abyss.

Dominas ability’s however were underestimated and she was strong enough to connect to the TARDIS using the ancient power of the Rassilon Imprimature, the legendary ability that a Time Lord shares with his TARDIS in the form of a symbiotic link with it and she managed to heal the ship that would become her home and placed it and herself into hibernation as it began its healing process and she learned to harness the powers she was born with. For 10 years she focused her mind, trained her mentality to link herself back to Gallifrey so she could interact with the elements without them knowing. She caused fires, tsunamis, earthquakes and lightning storms that struck at the ground causing explosions as she reigned devastation down onto the Time Lords. She opened their defences, blocked their weapons systems and exposed them to their enemies as the time war began and destroyed the planet as she fulfilled the prophecy of her birth.

The TARDIS eventually homed in on a small planet called Earth and landed there, disguising itself as a blue police box once used by the human race during the 1960’s. Domina had searched the TARDIS databases as she researched Earth’s history and found that a Time Lord known as The Doctor had also taken refuge there which was why her TARDIS had not only locked in on his, but had cloaked itself like his to blend in, so she would leave it that way, a place to hide from humanity whilst she searched for him because he was a saviour to mankind, a hero who had lost his home planet and come to save theirs, but to Domina he was a reminder of everything she had suffered and she would hunt him down, find out why he escaped and force him to tell her who her mother was, and who she was because even though she had only been a child and imprisoned away from civilisation, she had heard whispers of him, the rouge time lord who stole a TARDIS and ran away, the man who knew everything, the man who tried to stop the war, the man who fought Daleks and cyber men. If anyone could help her, it would be him.

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