built with a heart broken from the start [open to multiple]

[theoldgirl]

The TARDIS is feeling her insides burst. Something has grabbed hold of her, pulling at her with a force as violent and unpredictable as a torrent, and for some reason that she can't quite remember all her shields are offline. She is vulnerable and she is being gutted. Corridors are on fire, rooms are filling with toxic fumes, fuel is running out and choking and burning her like blood-filled lungs. As she writhes in agony, the flow of time and her dimensions twist with her, and suddenly there are creatures in her that don't belong, pained, furious things, but she has no thought to waste on them. They roam her halls unchecked, skulking in the dark and the debris and the unsteady flashes of emergency lighting, taking their clue from the destruction they were born into.

Her only thought now is to keep the Doctor safe. So she struggles to control her panic and the chaos, to hold herself together, to hold onto... something, yes, there's something she mustn't let go of, but her memory is failing her again and everything hurts. The Doctor is back now, she pushed him away but he came back to her, of course he wouldn't let her die alone. He brought someone with him and she hates them immediately, smells the greed in their minds, like scavengers eager to tear apart their prey while she's still alive. She wants them out, but the Doctor isn't listening to her and maybe that's why she pushed him away, because he can't bear to listen to her cries and she didn't want him to hear. He's talking about the girl instead, another thing she can't quite remember, though hardly surprising; there's always a girl. A hot flash of bitterness is cut short by a hotter explosion as the last fuel cell tears up her interior, and her tenuous control wavers.

She knows she's clinging to something so important, but it feels like pressing down on glass splinters, piercing and ripping her hold. She's screaming, and her  screams turn into the reverberating voice of a heavy grim bell, tolling doom throughout her structures and into the void.

Comments

[johnny_truant]

"Fuck!" Johnny falls to his knees when the creature hits him, its arm locked around him, growling like a rabid animal into his ear. Oh god it hurts, it's burning his skin, digging claws in to draw blood.

Then everything tilts, and it loses its hold and goes careening down the inclined floor. Johnny barely manages to grab onto a pillar, curling up as books and furnishings tumble around him. He hears the violent creak of as the shelf moves aside, opening up the aortic pathway. Johnny stares up at the new exit, lit red and pulsing, and he doesn't want to, he really doesn't want to, but this library is not safe and he has to keep moving.

He scrambles to his feet, motivated largely by the continued wailing and gnashing coming from the creature as it struggles to get back up toward him, and launches himself up the steep floor toward the opening.

He doesn't know where this leads, but it's better than the library, maybe.

Now that he has a moment to catch his breath, he doesn't feel any better. He still doesn't know where he is, but he knows it's not safe, and he knows it's familiar. The creature that wants to tear him apart, the architecture that doesn't obey physics... He wants to get out. Has to get out.

Where the hell does this tunnel lead?

[theoldgirl]

One of the TARDIS' more subconscious systems detects Johnny in another place he shouldn't be and the tunnel contracts, sealing off the entrance and sending ripples through the living walls. At first, they're only disgruntled shivers, but they quickly gain in intensity until the tunnel is pushing him forward, squeezing him out.

The passage ends among a few boulders in a wide open space, a picturesque hillside covered with lush grass and flowers. Some distance away there's a group of trees shading a porch swing. The usually clear blue sky is in turmoil; massive black clouds are driven across it at great speed by a vicious storm and the sweltering air is pierced by cracks of thunder, though there is no lightning or rain. The porch swing creaks loudly as the harsh wind tears at the trees and the grass. And every available surface is covered in butterflies of all shapes, sizes and colors, struggling for their lives, losing to the increasingly strong gusts of wind.

[johnny_truant]

Johnny is forced into a run by the contractions of the tunnel, stumbling and cursing and bracing himself against the rising tide of panic the entire way, as desperate to escape the undulating tunnel, so much like a throat (the house is alive and the house is hungry, it will devour me, is devouring me, no no no no no) as it is to be rid of him; until, finally, he is forced out, outside.

He stares around himself, barely having a moment to breathe for all the chaos of the world he's blundered into. Where is he?

He can't move without stepping on the desperately clinging fauna that surround him, so he doesn't move, just lowers himself delicately to the ground and holds out his hands for the little creatures to swarm onto. He can't keep them from being blown about, and for reasons difficult to pin down, seeing them like this tears at his heart.

What is this place? Where has he gone?

He glances over his shoulder, at the passage which is still shifting and squirming like a beast, trying to understand it locationally, architecturally, when he realizes all too slowly that this is not any place in New York, and he is not outside at all.

He's still in the house.

But this is not like any house he's ever encountered, not even Will Navidson said anything about this, and that still doesn't feel like the right answer.

The butterflies are crawling up his arms and legs and he resists the kneejerk urge to brush them off, wanting instead to give them a place to stay, nestled in the folds of his clothes. He stands up again and moves forward gingerly, trying to avoid crushing anything underfoot.

The storm that hovers electric in the air, suggesting without releasing, is familiar somehow. The pulse of it, the heat, the feeling in his head. There's a tension headache forming behind his eyes. He knows this pain, there's a distinct memory that it's tapping, something circling the edge of his certitude. Has he been here before? Has he?

[theoldgirl]

A particularly strong gale disturbs the air and shakes the grass, and that together with Johnny's movement startles the terrified insects into rising all about him, mindlessly, the smaller ones being torn away immediately. The panicked fluttering cloud envelops him for a moment, a thousand tiny wings beating against him and each other. Some of the butterflies are as big as his head and startlingly blue, and those are the ones struggling for purchase on his hair and skin while the others finally flee. The panic has a domino effect on the living carpet around him and more and more of the creatures try to fly away only to be blown about like dead leaves.

[johnny_truant]

"No - no!" Johnny's cry is frantic, frustrated; he throws a hand out, a useless, instinctual gesture, as though he actually stands a chance at protecting these poor creatures from harm. He feels to blame, and he feels an innate responsibility to them, an impulse he can't possibly understand - christ, it's just a bunch of bugs - but his guilt is short-lived as the whirlwind overtakes him. He draws inward, covering his face and mouth tightly, the panic of the cluster washing over him. He can't see through the waves of brightly colored wings, all of it blurring together like some sick watercolor painting. The sensation of their tiny, papery bodies all brushing against him at once is incongruously terrifying, and for a moment he is seized with an urge to fight them off, surge forward through the swarm and never look back.

But they don't mean him harm. He knows that. They're afraid, just as afraid as he is. They don't understand what's happening. And he wants to help but he can't, he's only made it worse.

And there's that sense again: he's experienced this exact situation before. No, not with butterflies, but with something, something that scared the shit out of him, but she didn't want to hurt him, just didn't know how to stop --

The bright blue of an enormous morpho flashes past him, startling him, an unforgettable blue, sharp and alien.

"Oh," he blurts, letting his hand drop. "Oh, my god."

It seems so obvious now, though he could never have imagined what it would be like, and it doesn't even seem possible given the nature of their initial meeting; but he can't avoid the conclusion, it settles heavy and unquestionable into his heart, and he understands now why this place feels the way it does. Because he's in her - the TARDIS.

[theoldgirl]

It doesn't take long for the butterflies around him to be blown apart, and those some distance away are still more or less safely perched. For just a moment the chaos settles down, the wind eases and the air becomes quiet, like the whole space is catching a desperately need breath.

But it can't last, the TARDIS is dying bit by bit, and a deafening clap of thunder rends the air. The vibrations shake the ground without stopping, turning into a small earthquake while the wind howls like a wounded animal. Even though there's no fire or smoke, the air thickens until it's nearly impossible to breathe, it stings, smells rotten. If the TARDIS was aware that someone is still alive in this room, she would do her best to restore life support and reroute the leakage of toxic fumes, but the fuel rods are bursting and she's in agony.

[johnny_truant]

"No... no, no, no!" Johnny watches the butterflies die all around him, feeling helpless. "Are you there?!" he screams into the void. "Can you hear me? Are you...... are you okay?"

Obviously not. Moments later he's choking on the air, gone hot and rancid and deadly.

"Sh--" Johnny can't speak. He staggers, hits the ground heavy on his knees. He tries to move, to pull himself up. Has to get out of here. But it's too much of a struggle to breathe, much less to move. No, no. Not here. Not like this.

He doesn't remember hitting the ground, just the smell of burning grass and the dust of the dead butterflies that litter the ground, falling on him like snow.

"Wait," he whispers. Then he's gone.