Series 1 Episode 5: The Spirits of No Mans Land

*This story continues from the events of Stories of Who Series 1 Episode 4: Battleground*

Far from the Trenches of 1916...

The Doctor strolled across the empty plain of the sands of time. It was a desolate place: A desert of nothingness that spanned as far as the eye could see, and quite possibly further. The Time Lord continued to trample through the deserts on the search for what he needed to find.

Suddenly a gate materialised in front of him, guarded by two of the white sheet headed humanoids that he had seen in the Trenches. This reminded him just how important this mission was. After all, Lydia's life was on the line. For all he knew it could already have been lost. He wasn’t completely certain of the severity of his situation.

The Doctor had been informed that these creatures were weapons, so he did not particularly want to cross them. He stood in front of them and awaited a response, but he did not receive it. They remained in silence.

“Hiya!”, The Doctor piped up, “I was just wondering if I could come through. I want to see the leaders of the operation.”

The heads of the creatures turned towards the Doctor as their horrifying faces showed. They still did not answer him. Instead, their mouths opened, releasing a toxin which knocked the Doctor to the ground.

Earlier…

The Doctor, George and Nigel stood in shock while Harold and Danny remained motionless. The remains of Lydia and George’s brother Timmy stood in front of them. The Time Lord was not too sure of what to do next.

Suddenly, another cough interrupted them. It was similar to the one that the Doctor had heard before: A cough that obviously wasn’t in the interrogation room but had originated from an outside source. The Time Lord reached for his sonic screwdriver but before he could scan the area it was disintegrated by the creatures.

“Aren’t you going to answer, Doctor?” Danny intervened with a cocky look on his face. “Lost for words, I guess.”

The Doctor remained in silence. He stared at the remains of his sonic screwdriver on the ground. He was trapped: No friends, no weapons, no defences, no way home. The Doctor decided he had no option but to speak.

“This is an interrogation room so you’re going to give me some answers,” The Doctor began, “I’ve got a lot of questions and I need you to answer them. What are those creatures? Why did you do this to Lydia, as well as George’s brother?”

Danny grinned. “We have been experimenting with the soldiers here for a long period of time. They are weapons. You saw how quickly Timmy destroyed your sonic device-I mean that power is not even of this Earth-not of this time period anyway. They shall help us to win the war. You have no idea what they’re capable of.”

The Doctor stepped forward. “This shouldn’t be happening here in the Trenches of the First World War. I mean, surely someone would have mentioned these experiments.”

“It’s complicated,” Danny smiled.

“And there was a cough, another one,” The Doctor continued, “It didn’t come from one of you and it didn’t come from inside.”

“Come on, Doctor,” Danny said in a patronising tone, “You’re clever enough to figure that out yourself.”

The Doctor searched around the room. He spotted a camera in the corner of the cell. “What is that?” The Doctor asked. Danny refused to respond. The Doctor grabbed an axe from the corner of the room.

“I’ll come back for you, Lydia, and the rest of you, don’t worry. Until then, I must dash. Sorry for the explosion.”

Danny chuckled, “What explosion?”

“This one!”

Everything faded to white for a moment. He was on the other side of the wall. He realised that someone of a higher superiority was in charge of this situation. The coughing must have originated from here. Somebody had been watching them all along.

And so there he was, lying unconscious on the floor of the sands of time. The Doctor awoke soon after and noticed he was being carried away by two of the cloth faced humanoids. He passed a number of laboratories in which people were being experimented on: Their bodies being torn apart, their faces being meddled with, being turned into creatures just like Lydia and Timmy. He also spotted sinister looking nurses and doctors wearing terrifying masks.

The creatures eventually carried him towards a lift. It took a few stops before they reached the top of the building. The doors of the lift bounced open as the creatures carried the Doctor towards a number of silhouettes. Everything was blurry to him. He was not truly aware of his surroundings.

His vision soon became clearer. He approached the silhouettes, as their identity became clear too. He recognised them vividly: It was the Gods of Ragnarok.

Elsewhere, in the Interrogation room, the others awoke following the explosion. Everything was brighter than it was beforehand, but something was missing. Harold and Danny were gone. Only George, Nigel and the two creatures remained. They struggled to regain their breath.

“How could they all have just got away like that?” George asked, “This has all been way too much.”

Nigel sighed, “We’re left with these creatures now. I mean, what are they? For all we know they could be weapons. That cannot be your brother, surely.”

George walked up to the figure which Danny claimed was Timmy. He touched his face, and felt a tear trickle from Timmys eyes.

“I don’t know,” George began to cry, “I don’t know how much more of this I can handle. He’s my brother. I mean-”

Nigel looked to the other side of him, and pointed to an empty void where the wall had been beforehand. He had not noticed it until now. The wall was gone, and so was the camera and everything else that had encompassed it.

Nigel was confused, “I don’t know what’s going on here. I don’t know what to do. The Doctor just vanished through the wall. Shouldn’t we do the same.”

George ran off outside of the Interrogation room. All Nigel heard from there was a gunshot. George had taken his life.

Nigel starred at the creatures that were in front of him. He was alone, and had to face this situation by himself. He noticed the axe that the Doctor had demolished the wall with on the floor, so grabbed it and entered through the void.

Inside of the top floor of the building, The Doctor walked towards the Gods of Ragnarok.

“The Land of Fiction, the Greatest Show in the Galaxy, and now this. Why are you here? Surely you must be sick to class THIS as entertainment?”

The creatures remained silent. He noticed that there were only two of them this time.

“So there’s only two of you this time?” The Doctor asked. “Come on, I’d like some answers.”

One of the Gods finally spoke, “We planted the cameras through the trenches as entertainment. Following the decimation of both the Physic Circus and the Land of Fiction, we grew hungry. We floated through the Dimension Bridge but it was crumbling away, so we found ourselves here in the sands of time. We noticed a pathway leading to the First World War, so embodied the forms of two humanoids known as Private Danny Sullivan and General Harold Copper. We needed entertainment wherever we could find it.”

The Doctor stumbled towards them, “Millions of people lost their lives in this war-it was quite a big deal back on Earth believe it or not. Don’t you show any respect?”

Another God answered, “We do not care for the lives of some petty humanoids. We only care for our survival.”

The Doctor chuckled. “Ah, so that’s how it is, is it? Another group of selfish, petty individuals who are just out for themselves.”

“...Like the Human race,” Replied one of the Gods of Ragnarok.

“Yes like the human race! But they’re different. I mean they supply entertainment over there. Why don’t you just invade one of their homes and eat chips and watch Eastenders all day.”

The Gods of Ragnarok were hungry. They required entertainment in order to survive. “You shall supply us entertainment, Doctor, or you shall die.”

Nigel wandered through the sands of time until he reached a gateway, guarded by two of the cloth faced creatures. He held his axe and approached them. Before they could knock him out with their toxins, he knocked their heads off with the weapon and entered the building. As he strolled through, he noticed the hospitals in which horrific experiments were taking place.

The screams of the patients being converted into weapons were painful to hear-he could not imagine the pain of those being experimented on. He heard the screams of one of the patients-who’s echoes of “Kill me” made Nigel shudder. He realised he had to do something-he had to save them. He entered one of the hospitals and knocked the Nurses head off her body. Suddenly, every one of the patients screamed simultaneously. It was too painful to hear. It made Nigel fall to the ground. But he could not give up. He had to save the soldiers.

He tried to lift himself off the floor, but he couldn’t. The piercing screams of the patients continued to echo through the hospital ward. Another one of the Nurses approached him, knocked him back to the ground and carried him towards a bed. He was about to become the next victim of the Hospitals experiments.

A few moments later, Nigel woke. He had been placed on one of the hospital beds. The Nurse that had attacked him came at him at a needle, and he decided that he needed to do something. As the needle swerved towards him, Nigel grabbed it and threw the Nurse to the floor. He then threatened her with the needle. The heads of the creatures turned.

“Stop these experiments,” Nigel demanded, “Your Nurse here will be the next victim if you don’t. I know you’re the promised weapons, but you all need to remember who you used to be. You all need to stop, and become you again.”

He kneeled down towards the Nurse, taking off her mask, revealing a grotesque result. In the void of her face there was just nothingness. She was an empty void. Nigel dug into her skull with the needle.

Nigel grinned, “There’s this man, called the Doctor. I’m going to find him and when I do he shall put a stop to all these experiments, and save your lives, I’m sure of it.”

Meanwhile, with the Gods of Ragnarok, the Doctor was panicking.

“I know I’m not someone who should be making deals with the Gods of Ragnarok, however I’ve got one for you. If I give you the entertainment you need to survive, you shall reverse everything you have done and things will return to how they should be. If you don’t agree to this deal, I will not grant you the materials you need to survive."

The two Gods turned to each other and nodded in approval of the deal. The doors opened and three of the cloth faced humanoids entered.

The Doctor moaned, “Is there really any need for them to be here?”

“They will ensure you follow our demands,” One of the Gods answered, “You shall supply us with the entertainment and then we shall reverse everything that we have done since we arrived.”

The Doctor walked up to a computer screen located within the room, tapped on a few buttons and the screen revealed a picture. He pointed towards it.

“This is it!” The Doctor boasted, “This box here contains every single television and movie channel and platform in the whole of existence. Every single television programme, every single motion picture, here on this tiny little thing and you never even noticed.”

The Gods of Ragnarok were pleased. “Thank you, Doctor,” One of them answered, “You have been of most help. We shall reverse the events and leave here with the box.”

On the ground floor, Nigel strolled along the corridors, noticing the sheer amount of experiments taking place. He needed to find the Doctor-and quick. He spotted three of the creatures, occupied by one of the hollow nurses, walking towards a lift, so he grabbed the axe that he had held before and stumbled towards it. Inside, the creatures tried to attack him, but Nigel destroyed them before they could do so. The lift was programmed to go to the top floor, so he let it take its course.

As the lift doors opened, Nigel noticed the Doctor and two peculiar looking creatures in front of him. He attacked the three cloth faced beings first, before running towards the Gods of Ragnarok with his axe. One of the Gods pointed their finger towards him, as he was burnt to a crisp.

The Doctor stared at Nigel's body, “I’m so sorry, Nigel.” He looked back at the Gods of Ragnarok, “This doesn’t change our deal, does it?”

The Gods of Ragnarok shook their heads. The two of them connected their minds together as time began to reverse. Inside the hospitals, the experiments became normal treatments of wounds and injuries, while in the Trenches, the fighting resumed as if nothing had changed. The Doctor bowed down at the Gods of Ragnarok as they disappeared.

The Doctor noticed that the Gods had forgotten the television box. “Gods of Ragnarok? You forgot your little box contraption.”

The Gods of Ragnarok returned at their call. The Doctor smiled, before looking at the floor and seeing that Nigel was gone too.

The Gods pointed towards the television box, as it flicked on. It revealed the faces of George, his brother Timmy and Nigel, as well as Lydia. The rest of the group were unsure of who Lydia was-they had no recollection of all that had happened.

“I’ve got a question,” The Doctor began, “You said you embodied the forms of Harold and Danny? That means they must have existed so where are they now?”

“We believe they had died in conflict,” Revealed one of the Gods, “Our intentions have changed since we came here. When we arrived we only cared for our own well being but now we have learnt some important lessons. Thankyou, Doctor.”

The Doctor took a bow. He then heard his name being called by Lydia on the computer screen. He waved at her, and she waved back.

“Sorry about all this, Lydia. I guess you don’t remember any of this either.”

Lydia looked confused, “Any of what?”

The Doctor laughed. He then remembered something: He had no way of getting him and Lydia back home. The Doctor looked at the Gods of Ragnarok, “I don’t suppose you could find a way of getting me and Lydia back to Manchester.”

The Gods chuckled, “Our deal is done, Doctor. We may have changed, but our efforts with you have concluded. Our association is over.”

The Gods disappeared, for real this time. The Doctor looked towards the television screen, where all was peaceful for a moment. Suddenly, the screen was cut off. There must have been an explosion.

The Doctor hurried out of the Gods base, through the labs, through the sands of time and into the void in which he had entered, then through the Interrogation room and into the Trenches. He noticed half a dozen soldiers on the floor wounded, but there was no sign of Lydia or the others. He searched around him. They were gone.

The Doctor remained hopeless. A portal materialised nearby. There may be a chance that Lydia and the group had entered one-so the Doctor decided it was best to do the same. After all, that way there was more chance that he would find her.

He entered the portal, unsure of where he would end up…

Next Week: The UNIT Files