Glitch

There was a ringing in my ears, and my leg had an ache shooting down my thigh. As I opened my eyes the pain slowly faded away. The sun was shining straight through a gap in the clouds into my eyes. I blinked twice, slowly. I felt strange, dizzy, and not truly there. Like I had just woken up from a very long and very deep sleep and was still half in the dream world.

I was completely alone. There was nobody else around me, not the Doctor, no passing cars, nothing. I looked around, and sure enough, the police box wasn’t there either. It was like being underwater, there were echoes of sounds in my head - probably my brain filling in the silence with something it knew was always there – but it was just in the back of my mind.

As I sat there, it took me half a minute to realise why it was so silent. In the real world outside my mind, there were no birds chirping, no distant hums and mumbles from shops and houses. The only thing moving was rain, and that didn’t make any sound. It was like walking through a graveyard. In fact I think a graveyard would have been louder.

The thought gave me the shivers, so I pushed it out of my head. There was a voice, caught in that void of sound in the back of my mind. It sounded like it was talking to me, very urgently. But I couldn’t catch it. I shook my head and stood up, a little wobbly, and walked over to the road. I stepped out onto the road, looking straight ahead.

It was strange because I was so used to the look right, look left routine, but I knew there were no cars. Well, I thought I knew.

There was a loud screeching of tires on the wet road, and the surprised shout of someone. I automatically stepped backwards, taking five steps before my ankles touched the gutter. I blinked, and suddenly the world was alive again, cars going past and birds chirping and all the distant back ground noises you take for granted.

A car drove past me, the person in it looking at me worriedly. She must have thought I was fine because she drove on. The Doctor came up behind me.

“Hey!” He grabbed my shoulder and turned me around. “What are you doing? Come on!” He turned around and started walking. I ran after him.

“I don’t know. It was all quiet and then I just heard the screech of the tires.”

“Quiet?” He stopped. “I was shouting at you.”

“There was no one around and it was all quiet.” I said.

“Are you sure?” He said, frowning.

“Of course I’m sure.” I sighed. After a minute of thought, he turned around and walked back to the path.

“If it happens again, let me know.”

“But I can’t-”

“Just let me know when it happens.” He sounded very impatient. I sighed and followed him. I sort of half skipped to keep up with his long strides. I couldn’t stand him walking in front of me. But he must have been telling the truth when he said he does a lot of running – he was quite fast.

We walked, well, he walked and I ran, down a number of small alleyways, until we stopped at a dead end. There was a man standing there with brown messy hair and a long trench coat that looked like it was from World War II. The way he stood with his fierce expression, he could have been trying out for the role of superman. He could have even been superman.

“Doctor.” He said, his voice low.

“Jack.” The Doctor replied.

“You’ve changed.”

“You noticed. What’s the time?”

“Five minutes to eleven.” The other man said, checking his wrist. The Doctor made a face, as if to say ‘continue...’ The man smiled slightly. “Fifth of July, in the year 2010.” The Doctor raised his eyebrows in surprise. I knew it – we hadn’t gone in time. Something inside me suddenly felt empty.

“Well that’s odd.” He scratched his head. “I’ll have to fix that.” He said.

“Who’s this?” He nodded to me, not bothering to take his hands out of his pockets.

“Oh, she’s-” He was cut off by a low rumbling beneath us, shaking the earth. We all lost our balance and stumbled to the ground. I crawled closer to the Doctor. He tried to stand up, and fell back down.

“Doctor!” I shouted. Something silver fell out of his coat and he reached out as it rolled away, fumbling for it. The shaking made it jump and roll around like hot oil in a pan. It slipped through his fingers five times before the shaking stopped. I watched as it rolled a meter away. But he didn’t reach out to get it. Suddenly, I felt very strange, like I was floating in a world that wasn’t real. When I looked up, I realised that I was.

Everything was still again, just like before. The Doctor and the strange man had disappeared. I felt extremely empty; the stillness and silence getting under my skin. I closed my eyes tight and sat in a ball. I don’t know what made me act so weak; I think it was both the silence, the knowledge of what it was, but also the knowledge that it would soon be over. And it was.

“Oh thank God!” The Doctor exclaimed. They were covered in dust and dirt. They had a strange earthy smell. An extremely natural scent, uninvaded by exhaust fumes or clouds of smoke. “I thought you’d died.” He said. I picked up the silver thing and held my hand out. The Doctor took it out of my hand and pulled me up. I dusted myself off.

The Doctor walked a few steps and then swirled around on his heels. “Well.” He said, with a frown. “What happened there?”

“Where did you go?” I asked.

“We went on a field trip.” He said with a mischievous smile. I raised my eyebrow. “We were in a field, but according to Jack’s locator thingy we hadn’t moved an inch. So either his locator was incorrect, or we had travelled in time to before there were no buildings, no humans.” He paused, as if he was retelling a story by a fireplace, although the other man, Jack, at the time seemed quite uninterested, like the little boy who had heard it all before. “We soon found out that we had travelled time, because, well. We saw a dinosaur. It tried to eat us. I’m guessing that the earthquake wasn’t actually an earthquake, but a quiver in time. We were sent to a random time for about a minute, and then sent back here. But what’s even more interesting than that is why you didn’t come with us.”

I shrugged, “probably the same reason the TARDIS didn’t work. I mean, the same thing happened just then that happened before.”

“It happened again? That’s not good.” He looked at me, squinting. “Come with me.” He turned around and walked out towards the street again.

“Where are we going?”

“The doctors!”