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Her earliest memory was of shadows. Shadows and darkness and loneliness. Oh, was she lonely. It was only her in that big empty house. Her and a man not quite right.
Her room was small. The only room that offered any light, any comfort. Photos lined her drawers and pictures hung on the wall. But shadows were always there. Hiding the monsters she saw at night. The monsters that plagued her dreams.
She lived in an orphanage, but she didn’t understand. An orphanage had children, didn’t it? Not just one lone child. Not just her.
But every day for all her young life, not a single child crossed that threshold. Neither in nor out.
XX
Melody ran up the stairs, glancing over her shoulder with a grin and a laugh. She reached the top, jumping the last two steps and swivelling around. Poking her tongue out, she laughed happily. “Can’t catch me!”
She took off, running down the hall with thundering steps. The floor creaked beneath her, the old wood shifted with her weight as she ran in to her room. She pushed the door shut, backing herself in to the corner and biting her lip, stifling her giggles. She watched the door with wide eyes, watching the door knob and waiting. She waited, and she waited. Growing bored, she stood, slowly etching her way closer to the door and pulling it open slightly. She looked through the crack she’d made, her blue eyes scanning the hall outside before she opened the door fully and stepped outside.
“You were supposed to come looking for me.” She pouted, crossing her arms over her chest and staring at the space in front of her. “But we were playing a game!”
Melody rolled her eyes, huffing a sigh and shaking her head. “Okay, fine.” She stalked off, holding her hand out to thin air and clasping something in her head. “Let’s go then.”
XX
The space man came one day. Melody was all alone, the man who looked after her was sitting in his chair, in his office, staring at his wall. Melody was downstairs, spinning around the room and laughing happily. The sun was out today, and she’d drawn the tattered curtains back. There’s weren’t any shadows now!
But there was a knock.
She froze, turning her head to the door so quickly that she felt a shot of pain run down her spine. Slowly, Melody inched her way across the floor, her eyes trained on the door as another knock echoed through the house. She glanced up the stairs, waiting for the man to come down and answer it, but he never came.
Melody gripped the brass handle, swallowing the fear and curiosity she felt churning inside her, and pulled the door open. No-one was there… But a box was. She stepped outside, wrapping her arms around her stomach as a strange cold washed over her. Staring at the box, she tapped it with her foot.
Dragging it inside had been a chore. She underestimated just how heavy it was. Setting it down inside the living room, Melody watched sat cross legged in front of the box, watching it for hours. The sky turned dark and the shadows returned, and still Melody sat, watching the box and waiting.
She did that a lot… Waited.
She sat up straighter, a strange feeling settling in the pit of her stomach. She felt odd… As if someone was watching her. Melody looked around, but no one was in sight. Turning back to the box, she sat up on her knees and grasped the edge, pulling it towards her. Tearing at the tape, she wrenched open the top folds and peered inside.
White. All she could see was white.
The feeling returned, crawling up her back and freezing at the base of her neck. Slowly, Melody raised her eyes, tilting her head back and staring up at the roof.
And she screamed.
XX
The suit was uncomfortable. It was tight around her ribs, digging in to her stomach and keeping her confined. The screen was dark, the shadows more present than ever. And the monsters were always there.
Everywhere, all the time. She wasn’t alone any more… But she’d rather be. She ran, or she tried to. She begged and she pleaded, and yet they stayed. She wrote on walls and she broke everything in sight. Still… they stayed.
A woman appeared with them. Telling her stories and showing her pictures. She spoke of a man. A man in a blue box who was bad. He had taken her parents!
She’d never known her parents. But the woman told her all about them. And she didn’t like the bad man. She’d didn’t like The Doctor.
The stories were the only thing she had liked about her new ‘friends’. Before, she’d had to make up her own, from what she could imagine and what she played pretend.
The suit, the stories, The Silence, and the shadows.
XX
Her earliest memories were of shadows. Of loneliness and emptiness and a darkness that plagued her dreams.
Her last memory was of shadows too. But she wasn’t alone this time. She wasn’t empty. And the darkness had withered when The Doctor came running.
Because she learnt something. The Doctor wasn’t a bad man.
No… He was a mad man, and he had a blue box. He saved the universe and he saved his friends.
And he saved her.