The Littlest Timelord: Cracks in Time

Chapter 22

"What about now? Can you feel it now?" the Doctor asked. He looked down at Elise who shook her head. He sighed and knelt down in front of her. "Concentrate. Feel the ground beneath your feet. Tap into it".

Elise closed her eyes and focused. Then it hit her. She could feel everything. The turn of the earth beneath her feet, the feeling of time slowly ticking by. Her eyes snapped open and met the Doctor's.

He smiled and kissed her forehead.

"What are you on about?" Amy asked.

"The ground doesn't feel like it should", he told her.

"It's ten years in the future. Maybe how this ground feels is how it always feels".

"Good thought, but no, it doesn't".

There was a whirring noise.

"Hear that, drill in start-up mode. Afterwaves of a recent seismological shift and blue grass". The Doctor stuck the grass in his mouth, chewed for a second and spit it out.

"Oh, please. Have you always been this disgusting?" Amy asked.

"No, that's recent. What's in..."

They entered a store room.

"Here? Hello".

"Who are you? What're you doing here?" an Indian lady asked them. She looked at Amy. "And what're you wearing?"

Amy rolled her eyes. "I dressed for Rio".

The Doctor pulled out his psychic paper and flashed it at the woman. "Ministry of Drills, Earth and Science. New Ministry, quite big, just merged. It's lot of responsibility on our shoulders. Don't like to talk about it. What are you doing?"

"None of your business".

The Doctor walked up to a couple of screens with readings on them. "Where are you getting these readings from?"

"Under the soil", the woman said.

A man entered the room as the Doctor knelt down to run some soil through his fingers. "The drill's up and running again. What's going on? Who are these people?"

"Amy, the Doctor, Elise", Amy introduced, "We're not staying, are we, Doctor?"

"Why's there a big patch of earth in the middle of your floor?" the Doctor asked.

"We don't know. It just appeared overnight", the woman said.

"Good. Right. You all need to get out of here very fast". The Doctor started typing.

"Why?"

"What's your name?"

"Nasreen Chaudhry".

"Look at the screens, Nasreen. Look at your readings. It's moving".

The man came over to them as Amy and Elise watched mist start to rise from the hole in the ground.

"What is?" Nasreen asked.

"Doctor, this steam, is that a good thing?" Amy asked.

He turned to look at it. "Shouldn't think so. It's shifting when it shouldn't be shifting".

"What shouldn't?" Nasreen asked, frustrated that the Doctor wasn't answering any of her questions.

The room started to shake and the Doctor grabbed Elise, pulling her away from the hole. "The ground, the soil, the earth, moving. But how? Why?"