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Yasmin Khan Woke Up.

Immediately, a three-toed sloth stared her down in the dimness, beady eyes gleaming.

Alone in the dark, it said.

“Ugh,” Yaz groaned, pressing her head back into the starchy, bleach-scented pillow. The darkness around her was thick and syrupy. It always was. “We’ve done this, mate.”

You’re alone, it insisted. The smell of dry grass overtook the bleach. Cool, stale breeze. No one’s coming.

“Too right,” she agreed, throwing the equally starchy duvet off. Patterned like her nani’s curtains, and about as tasteful, even in the syrupy dark. “I’m coming for them.”

She heard the sloth scrabble down the walls, the scritch of nails against tacky wallpaper as she stretched and stumbled her way to the door. There was no point in turning on the lamp. She’d walked the same route so many times it was instinct by now.

“Coming?” She glanced over her shoulder at the sloth. 

Loser, it spat in Izzy Flint’s voice.

“Right,” she said, digging the bottom of her palm into an eye as she edged out of the room. So much sleep, and so very little rest. So much waking up, and so very little going to bed. If there was an edge to her voice, she’d forgive herself. “Your days are numbered, mate. Trust me. This time I’ll get it right.”

Couldn’t even do one thing right.

She trudged onwards, barely listening. “Shut up,” she muttered anyway, out of principle. She always did. It scraped behind her as she walked, claws against carpet, a musky, damp, animal smell trailing her. “I’m gonna find her today. Tonight. This time. Whatever.” She chanced another glance over her shoulder. It stared back at her balefully, hate seeping out behind its button nose, with every squeaking, wheezing exhale. “And then she’s gonna get us out of here and probably blow you to pieces, so.”

She’d never made threats on the Doctor’s behalf, before. Something about it burned pleasantly in the pit of her stomach. The rest of her stomach, of course, dropped.

Freak, it squeaked.

Her lips flattened. 

“So over this,” she muttered, fishing in her jacket pocket for a tube of lipgloss. Not as useful as a lipstick would have been, but it was better than nothing. She left smudgy, greasy, sparkly lines of it on every corner that she turned—though by now there was hardly a point to it. There was a map of all the nearest corridors settled sharp in her head, tactical, waiting. She remembered. Two lefts, a right, a left, three more right. Down the stairs, through the maintenance cupboard. All of it looked the same, until you hit the stairs. 80s kitsch with a Hitchcock bent. Lights that were too yellow, too bright. Carpet stained and moldy. Faded, rotting grandeur, miles and miles of it, until she found Ryan where she always did. The rooms didn’t have numbers, but that didn’t matter. She could smell the smoke from three hallways away.

She kicked the door down, proper, and pressed the release on the fire extinguisher she always grabbed from the maintenance cupboard. 

“What the hell,” Ryan shrieked, like he always did, gaping as she bashed the end of the fire extinguisher into a dreg’s gnarled and knotted face. She tossed it aside and kicked the dreg in the chest, swallowing back a yawn as it teetered into the corner and fell, smouldering with the remains of the fire.

“This place really ain’t up to fire code,” she said. A new day, a new quip. Only she was running out of them, after all this time. “I’d write them up, but.”

He gaped at her some more.

“Come on,” she said, offering her hand. He took it, trembling, and she helped him to his feet, from where he’d fallen beside the bed. The smell of burning curtain filled her nose. “We don’t have much time, I need to fetch Graham. Then we need to find the Doctor. Then,” she breathed, “we need to leave.”

“Yaz, what—” he tried.

“No time,” she said, spinning on her heel and heading for the door. “I’ll explain on the way.”

“I—“ he tried again.

Idiot, the sloth said. It had slunk in behind, hooked its claws into the wallpaper. He goggled at it. 

“Ignore the sloth,” she said.

—

There was no way to keep track, was the thing. Tally marks didn’t stay on her skin. Lines etched into the wall disappeared when she woke up. By the time she’d thought to try to keep count in her own mind, it was far too late, and anyway, they blended all together. The days. Nights. Whatever. When she opened the curtains it was only ever deep space or the midland hills, taunting. 

There was no way to keep track. But they had all been here, she knew, grimly—well. Quite a while. 

No one else ever remembered.

“But I just woke up,” Ryan protested, trailing behind her as quickly as he could. The scrape of the sloth behind them was ever present. It was slow, but it would catch up. It always did. “I’ve never seen this place before. Did the Doctor try to take us on holiday again?”

“No,” Yaz said, turning a corner sharply. She marked it with the lipgloss. Another left, two more rights. Past the pool. “Or—I dunno, maybe. Don’t remember that bit. But this place keeps running the same day, over and over.”

Over the scrape of the sloth, she heard a distant, familiar howl. Not a howl that made any kind of sense. Thin and whistling. A cat’s yowl, a few pitches up and to the left.

“We have until it catches us,” she breathed. She swallowed. “Come on,” she said, pressing forward.

You’re weak, the sloth spat, from metres behind.

“I’ve gotta ask,” Ryan said, stumbling to match her pace, “the sloth—”

“Ignore the sloth,” she said sharply.

“And that sound—” He shuddered, latching a gentle hand onto her elbow. She smothered a smile that was fond. He always did. 

“I don’t know what it is,” she said, urging them onwards, faster, faster. The sloth scraped. Tacky, stained carpet under their feet. “I can’t describe it. But it—”

She swallowed.

“We have time,” she whispered. “We have to get Graham, and then we have to find the Doctor. I’ve been looking, every time, but I can never find her. I’ve tried—”

Every floor, she thought, gut twisting. Every room. Except that was impossible, because the rooms didn’t stop. They went on and on and on and on—

“This time,” she said. “This time I’ll get her.”

Ryan’s hand tightened around her elbow. “Not alone,” he said. “We’re here, yeah? Me and Graham.”

The pool passed them. Inside, a clown floated lazily on an inflatable lounger. There was a dreg in the corner, a pool noodle clenched in its talons. Ryan started.

“Ignore it,” she insisted, trying to drag him past. Things never ended well, when he got stuck here. “That’s the only way. Or fight it, but I don’t have the fire extinguisher anymore and we don’t have time. It can only trap you if you let it.”

“But,” he was saying, ground to a halt, and flames were starting to creep along the ceiling of the pool. The clown turned to face them lazily, spinning with the current, just beyond the glass. It presented them with a poorly made balloon dog. Its voice carried through the glass. It spoke with Ryan’s father’s voice.

“We leave people behind,” the clown said. “Don’t we, son?”

Ryan shook his head minutely, mute with horror. She dragged him past it all with greater force, wincing as he stumbled again, but he caught himself on her arm. 

“You’re with me, aren’t you?” she asked. “And really? Clowns?” She nudged him gently in the side, because she always did. 

“Birthday party when I was five,” he muttered sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. Shaken out of it. He glanced over his shoulder, frowning. “The sloth—?”

She grit her teeth. “Parents took me to the zoo when I were three. Scared me to pieces. Ignore it.”

Stupid, it spat at her back. Loser. Nobody likes you.

“Right, but—” Ryan tried, brow furrowing. He kept his hand on her elbow. “It’s proper rude. And also, y’know. Lying.”

“I know,” she said. Her teeth were still gritted. She unclenched them and looked him in the eye. He looked scared. He also looked kind. “It’s alright. When that thing catches up with us, it always eats the sloth first. Deeply satisfyin’.”

His brow furrowed even more.

“When?” 

“Don’t worry.” She clapped him on the shoulder and ground her teeth back into a grin. Animal musk and chlorine mingled in the air, but she could smell hospital in the distance. Sterile. They were close. “I’m gonna win this time.”

—

The first few times, of course, she’d been too scared to do anything useful. If she didn’t move quick enough, the shadows in her room would grow wispy and hateful, and the midlands breeze would blow the curtains open, and that forest of light and coils would grow around her, and the voices would fill her head until—

But she’d woken up. And then she’d woken up again, and again, and again, and again.

It wasn’t a hell she was familiar with. But it was a hell of a sort.

“Why are you the only one who can remember?” Ryan wondered, as she dragged him on, past the pool. The smell of hospital grew stronger.

“Because I’m the only one’s got her head on straight,” she said back, tersely. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

Coward, the sloth said, inching along behind them. 

“Maybe it likes it better that way,” she muttered. “When I remember.”

“What is it?” he asked, chancing another glance behind. A whispering, wailing howl echoed ever closer and he shuddered. The lights flickered. “What does it want?”

One more door. Her lips pressed together. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “The Doctor will. We have to find her.”

Outside the door to Graham’s room, sickly with the smell of antiseptic, Ryan paused. 

“Yaz,” he said, carefully worried. “How long you been looking?”

She held his gaze for a moment, but didn’t answer. The door to Graham’s room pushed open. Inside, a frog in a miniature parody of a nurse’s uniform was telling him he was going to die.

“Don’t listen to the frog,” she said, charging in, yanking the drip from his arm as gently and quickly as possible. Graham started, grey, shaking. 

“What—” he said.

You’re already dead, the frog said smugly with Grace’s voice. It’s what you deserve.

Yaz glared down at it, perched delicately on the bedside table, and pushed over the cart beside the bed. An assortment of nightmarish medical implements clattered to the floor.

“Shut up,” she said. “He did his best to save you, and he’s not going to die. Get up,” she said, nodding sharply in Ryan’s direction. “We’ve gotta go, fast.”

There was sweat in a sheen on his forehead. “Yaz, love, what—”

“You’re not ill, you’re fine, now get up. We have to go. We’re running out of time.”

The frog stared up at her balefully. 

He left me to die, it said. Graham shuddered beside her, still grey. Ryan struggled forward, the sloth at his heels, and helped him out of the bed.

“What the hell,” he breathed, Graham’s hands white-knuckled around his arm. “Oh, this day keeps gettin’ weirder.”

“It’s not a day,” Yaz said, still glaring at the frog. “It’s all of them. Come on, let’s go.”

She charged in front of them, kicking the sloth as she went. It squeaked in offense, and just behind it—

Whistling like the wind.

“We have to go,” she breathed, heart pounding at the base of her neck. “Come on.”

Ryan and Graham struggled behind her as she led, past the pool, two rights, three lefts, down two flights of stairs. The lift.

The sloth scraped ever behind. The frog, too. The slow-footed, water-clogged tread of the clown. Fire occasionally crept across the ceiling, until she whipped her head back around to glare.

“I know it’s hard,” she said. “But you’ve got to ignore it.” 

The whistling howl grew closer, closer. They were a flight of stairs away from the lift when it caught them. 

Slow, this time, she noted, fear flooding her throat, irritation brighter than the sun drowning it. That warbling, chattering wail, like a cat on the breeze, through a tin whistle. They’d been far, far too slow. She hadn’t even made it to the lift this time.

It slunk round the corner, warbling. The head was a tiger. The rest of it was so ugly she had a hard time looking at it. Trunk of an elephant, tail of a snake. Paws like a panther, but its torso was scaled and rotted like a lizard, sprouted with chicken feathers. It stunk worse than the sloth. Animal, ancient. And the teeth—

Ryan and Graham screamed, just a few steps in front of her. She didn’t. There wasn’t any point. She’d just have to try again. And again. And again.

Do it right this time, the sloth said, as it was devoured.

Hot, musky breath on her face—

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said evenly, as the claws found her.

Its rheumy eyes always looked so satisfied.

—

After their trip home, the whole fingers-in-ears spectacle, safe on the TARDIS—from memories and dreams and shadows alike—she’d chanced to ask.

“What were they, exactly?” She’d cornered her—well, not cornered, exactly, but every conversation with the Doctor one-on-one felt a bit like cornering her, lately—in the console room. “That bloke with the tattoos. His girlfriend.”

It wasn’t a strange question, or an unusual sort of thing to ask, after what they’d just been through. But the Doctor had paused, tensed.

“Er,” she’d stalled. Reluctance painted in the corners of her mouth, but she was being more careful with them, after. Or trying to be, at least. In her fumbling, awkward way. “In my religion,” she’d allowed, finally, like pulling teeth, “we’d have called them gods, of a sort. But they’re not, really. Parasites, feeding off of ephemeral beings ‘cos they can’t be bothered to find better things to occupy their time. Nasty sort. Universe is full of them,” she’d muttered, turning away from Yaz to fiddle with the console. 

It hadn’t been remotely comforting, but then, the Doctor had been sort of failing on that front for a while, now. 

In hindsight, it was only helping to make certain things slightly clearer.

—

Yasmin Khan Woke Up.

The sloth hung over her smugly, eyes gleaming.

Alone in the dark, it squeaked.

Alone in the dark, she muffled a furious scream into the pillow beside her.

—

She could be efficient, or she could be kind. Those were the options. If she went straight for the lift, she could get in a full day of searching while Ryan and Graham suffered. If she went to rescue them first, she hardly ever got to the lift in time. 

What would the Doctor do? The question haunted her. The answer, she suspected, was win. 

But in all her searching, she was nowhere to be found. Why hadn’t she gotten free herself? Why hadn’t she saved them, yet? Surely she’d had enough time by now to think of something clever. Surely, even if she couldn’t remember like Yaz could, she’d know instinctively what sort of trouble they were in.

But time after time after time after time.

No one’s coming, the sloth reminded her helpfully, trudging, relentless paws in the distance. A whistle warning wail.

“I’m coming,” Yaz hissed at it.

Do it right this time, it suggested.

“Never,” she told it.

She kicked it. It squeaked.

“This time,” she said. “I’m gonna win.”

—

The eyes on the thing were so intelligent that she almost expected it could speak, but it never did. She’d been afraid of it at first, and the memory lingered. Fear never really went away. But you could decide what to do with it, decide you were tired of it. Now, despite it all, she couldn’t help but feel an odd sort of kinship, always briefly, before it tore her apart. That satisfied gaze. Rheumy, sharp eyes. 

Approval. It approved of her. Maybe that was why it always ate her last.

You and me, she thought, this time. We’re the only ones who understand the game.

“I’m still gonna win,” she told it, as it swallowed her.

—

Yasmin Khan Woke Up.

—

Quick and kind, this time. No lipgloss, no banter, no kicking of sloths.

Ryan stumbled behind her, arm twisting in her grasp as she dragged him alongside. Graham kept up, but just barely. Wheezing without complaint, grey and afraid. The frog, at his heels. 

“Yaz,” Ryan was protesting, feet digging into the carpet, flames licking above his head, crackling in time with the elevator music, “Yaz, mate, what—” and she didn’t have time—

“Keep up,” she said, breaths sharp in her throat. “I told you all the rules. Ignore the sloth, walk past the pool, and whatever you do, don’t talk to the clown. We have enough tag-alongs.”

“And the frog—”

“It’s not Grace. Ignore it. We have to find her and we don’t have much time.”

“But you said,” and he was keeping up now, at least, relenting to her unforgiving pace, “you said you’d looked everywhere.”

“I’ve checked all the rooms,” she agreed. “There’s one place I never thought to look.”

Whistling, behind them. Her grip tightened.

“Come on,” she said.

“Yaz, love.”

Graham bent to catch his breath, but only for a second, at her glare. 

“I thought you also said the rooms here don’t stop.”

“They don’t,” she said shortly. Two flights of stairs. The sloth thumped behind them, one stair at a time, claws scraping against the walls. 

“But that’s—” he said, a hand white-knuckled on the railing. One flight of stairs. Not fast enough, none of them were fast enough—

“There are an infinite number of hotel rooms,” she hissed, ducking her head behind her, ”and I have checked every single one.”

Ryan breathed out, horrified.

“I don’t think maths works like that,” he shuddered. “Yaz, I—”

“Don’t stop,” she ordered. The lift gleamed, rusted metal in the horrid lamplight. Whistling, behind them, clacking like a cat watching birds. Hot breath. No time. Never any time. Ryan’s foot caught in the carpet, and his arm twisted in her hand, something snapping under her grasp but she wouldn’t let him fall, wouldn’t let him stop, he cried out horribly and she dragged them all into the lift, that damp, animal smell closer, closer, closer—

The lift closed.

Monster, the sloth squeaked. It had made it in, just barely.

She kicked it, breathing heavily. 

There was time, now. Adrenaline pressed a grin to her face.

Graham helped Ryan off the floor, glancing at her warily. He was sweating with shock, mouth tight with pain.

“Yaz,” he breathed. Worried.

“Result,” she said.

Her finger found the button marked ‘basement’.

—

The basement was hot. The basement was dark. 

Yaz paused as they left the lift, but only for a moment. The chase wasn’t over yet. The game was still afoot.

“Do you hear that?” she asked, not caring much about the answer.

“No,” Graham said, a hand supporting Ryan. “Yaz, love—”

“Sounds like crying,” she said, stepping forward. “Just—faint. You don’t hear it?”

In the walls, in the floor. Echoing. 

This wasn’t anything like how she’d imagined.

“It’s just dark,” Ryan said, raspy. She felt bad for hurting him, but there was no room yet. Time, but not enough. She still had to win. “And—hot. Smells like burning.”

“That’s you,” she said, pressing forward. Everything that wasn’t shadow was tinged red. Steam whistled, lonely. Boilers. “Follow me.”

Into the dark, thick and syrupy. Sometimes, through the distant weeping, she heard children’s laughter instead. Once, she saw the whisper of a tiny silhouette, the sleeves of the small figure’s robe long and wide, dragging against the ground as they ran around the corner and disappeared.

Their feet made no noise as they walked, even though the floor was cheap lino, littered with rubbish and debris. Everything rusted and long abandoned. 

“I don’t get it,” Ryan whispered at one point, but even his voice got swallowed. The sloth hurled horrid things at her back, but the floor absorbed them, the crying drowned it out. They wouldn’t be able to hear anything coming behind them, and the thought quickened her pace, deepened her scowl. She couldn’t lose now. Not so close. 

She followed the weeping to a door at the end of a long, red-tinged hall. Just a single door, nothing around it. No number. None of them had any numbers. Countable infinities, but this hotel had a basement. 

“Result,” she whispered, even though all she could muster was dread, and pushed the door in. 

More dark. She ground to a halt, confused. That was all it was, it was just—dark. Impossible dark, even with the door open. Syrup, no stars. A dusty, sun-bleached smell. And that awful crying, like a beacon. She trailed it into nothing until she stubbed her toe on the edge of the bed and swore.

The sound faltered.

Her hand found the same edge of the bed. She followed the line of it, the cheap fabric coarse against her fingers, until she hit the table. Climbed her fingers across until they hit the lamp. She flicked the switch. 

The hotel room flooded sallow. 

“Did you never think,” she asked sharply, gazing down into eyes that were dark and wide and wet, “to turn on the light?”

—

The Doctor stared up at her, frozen, huddled under the blankets.

“Doctor,” she prompted.

“Who?”

Yaz frowned. “Doctor,” she said, kneeling.

The Doctor blinked, mouth flinching. Settling back into herself in fits and starts.

“Yaz,” she whispered, and slammed a hand to her face, swiping away the tears. “What—”

“Not much time,” she said. 

“I,” the Doctor stuttered. “I was—”

“No time at all,” Yaz said again. “Get up. We have to go.”

“But I—”

Graham shuffled forward to help untangle the blankets from her, Ryan still close. The frog hopped behind them, croaking.

“Oh,” the Doctor said, marvelling, rising up to one elbow. “You.”

You let me die, the frog accused. The Doctor’s face fell, as Graham yanked her upright.

“Never mind, wrong talking frog,” she muttered. ‘What’s goin’ on here?” she demanded blearily. “Where are we, why’s Ryan’s arm detached from some of the rest of his arm, why am I in bed with my shoes on, and why—”

She turned to face the sloth, which had taken to muttering obscenities in the meantime.

“—are you being verbally assaulted by a sloth?” She put a hand to her head. “I’m feeling very behind, here.”

No sound, in the Doctor’s hungry dark, but Yaz imagined hot breath behind them, a tin whistle howl.

“There’s no time,” she insisted. She held out a hand. “We have to get out of here. I thought—” Something foreign twisted in her gut. She’d grown used to relying on herself, here, but all of it had always been buoyed by the thought that once she’d found her again—

How are you going to win?

The Doctor’s face wouldn’t tell her. She put her feet on the ground only reluctantly, giving Yaz a ginger hand to hold—

And paused. The blood left her face. Her fingers tightened around Yaz’s own.

“Yaz,” she whispered, strained. “Right. With you. Only—”

“What?” she demanded, blood pounding.

“There’s something under the bed.”

Unbelievable. 

“No, there’s not,” she tried.

“Yes, there is,” the Doctor insisted, voice cracking spectacularly. Yaz could have slapped her. She glanced down, furious, afraid. 

In fairness, there was, in fact, a hand around her ankle.

“Oh, my days,” Ryan wheezed. 

“It’s not there,” Yaz said. Hot breath. She couldn’t hear it, but she could smell it, prowling closer, closer. The game. No time. She couldn’t do this again. “Ignore it. Everything here, it only traps you if you let it, so ignore it. Tell it that it’s bollocks. Sonic it, if you don’t believe me.”

“I—” The Doctor strangled the rest of it, breathlessly afraid. But with her free hand she fished the sonic clumsily from her pocket and set it hissing and spitting at the floor, shuddering. “It’s—” She squinted at the readings, swallowing. “Oh.”

“Good ‘oh’?” Graham demanded, one hand still at the ready. The frog croaked in his direction and his face twisted. 

“Psychic material. Which is good,” she blustered. “Only there’s this next bit which I think you’re not going to like very much.”

Ryan swallowed. ‘Why’s that?”

Her face twisted. “Because I really don’t like it very much.” She glanced back to Yaz, dripping in reluctance. “I think our only way out,” she admitted, “is under the bed.”

—

Under the bed it was cramped and hot and even darker, and the Doctor wouldn’t stop shaking.

“All this time,” Yaz breathed, army crawling slowly beside her, gripped by the notion that any second panther paws would rip them all out from under. “And this is what you’re scared of? Really?”

Alone in the dark, the sloth wheezed.

“Shut up,” she muttered, out of habit.

“Perfectly reasonable thing to be afraid of,” the Doctor muttered in turn, edging further in. Yaz could hear the scrape of her elbows, smell her, ozone and sweat, but she couldn’t see her. Cramped and dark and hot and close at the top of her head. Whispers that she couldn’t make out. The occasional sensation of reaching hands, grasping at her clothes, at her exposed skin.

Fine. So, under the bed was horrible.

“Nearly there,” the Doctor said, and Yaz heard the whirring of the sonic. Wondered briefly if the Doctor could see in the dark, and what, then, there was to be afraid of in it, exactly.

Ryan was on her other side, Graham close behind. They didn’t quite all fit, pressed up right against each other. She could hear the frog, and Ryan’s pained breaths. 

“Sorry,” she whispered to him. “About your arm.”

“S’okay,” he whispered back. “Better than being eaten, right?”

“Yeah,” she breathed. “That’s what I thought, anyway. Alright?”

“Will be,” he said. “You?”

“Nearly won,” she said.

The darkness grew thicker the deeper they went. Under the bed was bigger than over the bed. Yaz caught louder whispers as they drew nearer, and they must have belonged to the Doctor, because she flinched but Yaz couldn’t understand them, couldn’t hear them.

“I think,” the Doctor said, pausing in the thickest dark. “I think this might be—”

And it swallowed them and spat them out.

—

When Yaz opened her eyes, the Doctor was already up and moving, sonic arm out and brandished. She leveraged herself to her feet, then bent down to help Ryan and Graham up.

“Don’t tell me we’ve only made it to the sub-basement,” Graham said, worried.

You’re gonna die here, the frog said.

“Quiet, you,” he told it. Yaz smiled at him.

“Nothing wrong with a good old sub-basement,” the Doctor said, glancing over her shoulder at them. Taller, out of the dark. Tears wiped away. Reclaiming her role, and Yaz tried to feel reassured. “More of a cozy psychic pocket, though. This is where the magic happens.”

“And what’s—” Ryan said, arm held close to his body, twisting around in confusion.

Yaz frowned. It wasn’t easy to notice at first, because it permeated the whole room, the shadows and the red light and control panels, all crammed in to a room the size of a London studio flat, but—

It was musky and heavy and animal, under her nose. Her breath caught.

“This is where it sleeps,” the Doctor said, cringing. “Yeah, I had about that reaction, too.”

You’re gonna die here, the frog said again.

“Doc—” Graham said, tired. A hand went to his face and gently massaged one side of his temple.

“We’re here for a reason, then,” Yaz said, glancing at her. How are you going to win? “What is it?”

“A perfectly psychic environment,” and like a switch gone off, she was odd again. Eyes gleaming strangely in the dark. “The whole hotel is, but this is the epicentre. Control HQ.”

“For what?”

“Something old,” she whispered. “Something acting purely on instinct. I’ve seen this sort of thing before. What did it look like?”

“A tiger gone wrong,” Yaz said, swallowing back a shudder, filled with the urge to kick the sloth. “Snake tail, elephant trunk. Loads of teeth, still, somehow. What is it, then?”

“Might call it a baku, some cultures on Earth,” the Doctor said, moving away from them to fiddle with the wall. Red light carving her face into shadow, steam pumping into the air, the grind and squeak of boilers and water pipes filling the air, and that horrible, musky smell. “Most of them eat nightmares. Fears. Children even ask them to, sometimes. They’re part of an ecosystem of sorts. But this one,” she trailed off. 

“Well, that tracks,” Ryan said. “Eh? Nightmare fuel, this whole place.”

“No,” the Doctor said. “Some creatures like this prey on fear, or on faith. This one,” she said, delicately. “It preys on strength. It wants you to face your fears. Stand up to them, ignore them, move past them.”

Yaz stomach sunk.

“Er,” Graham ventured. “No offense, Doc,” he said. “But how exactly do you know that?”

She turned back to them, eyes gleaming. “Oh,” she said. “I’m talking to it right now, that’s how. I think maybe we’re friends now. Incoming!”

She snapped her fingers, and it burst through the door, howling. Yaz pressed herself against the wall, slamming Ryan back with her, fist tangled in his shirt. He yelped in pain and then with fright. But the Doctor didn’t move. She only bent, slightly, and offered her hand for it to sniff.

The violence of its entrance didn’t carry forward. It prowled slowly to the Doctor, grunting, reeking. Horrible to look at. Chicken feathers shed where it walked. It walked with a limp.

In the red light, it sniffed the Doctor’s hand delicately, and grunted. Knelt to the ground, until its head rested on its paws, wheezing whistling breath.

“It’s dying,” the Doctor said. “Trapped out here. No children to help. No one to save.”

Alone in the dark, the sloth creaked. 

“That’s what it does?” Yaz asked, stepping forward. “Helps children conquer their fears?”

“Once,” she said. “It’s old. The universe twisted it. Stories change.” She ran a careful hand behind its grizzly, whitened ear and scratched. “It’s just instinct, now. This is a psychic construct it built, like a house. Like a trap.  Bird-feeder. I don’t know. It didn’t mean to, it was starving out here. We must have been caught in the eddy.”

“Where’s the TARDIS?” Ryan asked.

“We’re still in it.” She smiled ruefully. “But explaining how we’re here and there at the same time involves some high-concept physics that you lot won’t stumble into for another decade or so, so—”

“It wasn’t eating you,” Yaz interrupted.

The Doctor paused. Slowly, she withdrew her hand from the creature’s head.

“No,” she said. “It was eating you. And Ryan and Graham, too, once you found them. Once you helped them. There’s a temporal component to these things, they’re four-dimensional beings. Instead of putting their leftovers in the freezer, they can just chuck their meal back to a previous temporal state and eat them again.”

“So, all this time,” Yaz breathed, a slow crawl of something horrible up the back of her neck, “I’ve been—”

“Very brave,” the Doctor said firmly. “And incredibly strong.”

“But I—” Her heart pounded in her neck, her ears. “I’ve just been feeding it, this whole time, I’ve been—”

“Where would we be,” the Doctor demanded, “if you hadn’t? Trapped in the dark, all of us. You can face your fears, and do it again and again and again, or you can be—”

She faltered. Blinked.

“—swallowed by them,” she finished, weakly. “You conquered your fears every time, Yaz. You told them to sod off, every time. Don’t you see that’s incredible?”

“Not every time,” she whispered.

“Countable infinities,” the Doctor whispered back.

The creature let out a low, discontented rumble. A whistling breath. They glanced at it, Yaz uneasy, the Doctor strange again, dark-eyed.

“You were a good meal,” she said, crouching until she was eye-level with it, one hand coming to rest on its cheek. “And a good game. But for such a creature,” she whispered, looking into its eyes. “Death would be a mercy.”

Her other hand came up, to its other cheek. More firmly, on either side of its great, monstrous head.

“Don’t look,” she said, softly.

And maybe Yaz was braver than she’d thought, but there were still some things she didn’t care to see. She averted her eyes, meeting Ryan’s, Graham’s, where they were still pressed across the wall.

There was a sickening crack, and reality gave way.

—

“I won’t say it’s not gonna hurt, ‘cos it will,” the Doctor was saying to Ryan, his arm held gently in her hands. “But it’s okay. I’ll count to five. One, two—”

On two, there was a crack that made Yaz’s stomach twist, and a muffled shriek of pain.

“There we are,” the Doctor said, smiling. 

“What happened to five?” Ryan wheezed, eyes watering.

The Doctor pressed a gel into his free hand, and a glass of water she’d spirited up from somewhere. “Take that, sleep it off, come back when you can be interesting again.”

He met Yaz’s gaze over the Doctor’s head. She smiled at him, ruefully. He nodded. They were alright. She kept her eyes on his back as he left, yawning, muttering to Graham something about making himself useful and throwing together some sandwiches. Even though the Doctor was still there, in the dimness, the console room felt absent. Empty space.

Alone in the dark, but there was nothing there to say it. No one’s coming.

“Doctor,” she breathed. “What would have happened? If I hadn’t come.”

The Doctor had moved to the other side of the console, fiddling. 

“Not sure,” she said, and Yaz was pretty sure she wasn’t lying. “It would have starved to death, eventually. We might have been spat out into the TARDIS.” A beat. “Or we might have died in its weird brain place and never gotten out,” she muttered, quickly.

“You would have figured it out,” Yaz said. “Eventually.”

The Doctor averted her gaze. “Thank you,” she said, quietly. Eventually. “For turning on the light.”

“It’s fine.”

“Yaz,” the Doctor said, brow furrowed. An odd, odd look in her eyes, still. 

She paused, reluctant.

“I’m alright,” Yaz said, so she didn’t have to say it. The Doctor was bad at this sort of thing, lately. But she still cared. “Promise. I’ve already forgotten so much. Like it won’t all fit.”

“And the sloth?” Tentative. “Bit rude, that one.”

Yaz smiled. “Kicked. And I’ll keep kicking. But if I ever need another foot, I’ll let you know.”

The Doctor smiled too, secret, sad. 

“I’m not—” she hesitated. “I know I don’t always say it right, but you’re brilliant, Yasmin Khan.”

“I know,” Yaz said, finding something gleaming in her eyes as their gazes met. Fear, flitting like a fish through reeds, dreadfully human. Uncertainty. 

Approval. 

“I know I am,” she said, something burning in the pit of her stomach. Those eyes would swallow her whole.

“Yaz.” Strange again. “How many seconds,” the Doctor asked softly, “in eternity?”

Yaz held her gaze. She didn’t understand the question, but she knew the answer, somehow. 

Instinctively.

“Enough,” she said.