Doctor Who_ Empire of Death - BBC Worldwide [61]
Chapter Five
February 18, 1863
The woman is screaming, her arms beating against the chest of her attacker. He punches her in the face, her nose breaking with a resounding crack. Her screams subside Into guttural moans and sobbing, blood running sideways across her cheeks to the polished veneer of woodblock floor. Say that you love me, the man urges, bearing down on her with all his weight. Say it, Daisy, tell me that you love me. His hands caress her neck, lovingly stroking that alabaster skin.
Say you love me, he pleads. His thumbs tighten as his passion grows. Say you love me, he begs, squeezing her as hard as he could. His breath is coming so last now he doesn't hear the bones breaking. Her eyes roll back in her head and she is gone. He sits back, shocked Into silence. You try to back away and he hears you and turns, startled by your presence. What are you doing here, he demands. Who are you? He looks down at the woman's lifeless features and realises what he has done. He turns back to you. I didn't mean to hurt her. I didn't -
Nyssa was twisting herself about, desperate to escape the vision. She tried to force her eyes open, to find herself safely awake. If she could just open her eyes she wouldn't have to see these things. But instead she felt trapped between the dreaming and being awake, half in one realm and half in the other. She knew what she had just seen was a nightmare but there was something more to it than that. She had been a witness to something, a terrible secret. What was happening to her? Why was she being haunted by these visions in her sleep?
`Nyssa? Are you all right?' The Doctor's kindly voice jolted her awake.
She opened her eyes with a gasp. 'What happened?
Where am I?'
Ìn a carriage, on the way to Corra Linn,' he replied. `We should be there soon' The Doctor was sitting opposite her, watching Nyssa with concerned eyes. 'You fell asleep. You were having a nightmare'
`Worse than that,' she said. 'A vision, as if I were standing watching it happen in front of me and I was powerless to save her.'
`Save who?'
`Daisy. Her name was Daisy. A man was hurting her, murdering her. He didn't mean to kill her but he couldn't stop himself. Then he looked right at me. He was going to hurt me next!' The Doctor took Nyssa's hands in his own and held them.
`Nyssa, listen to me. You're perfectly safe now, the man in your vision - he can't harm you. You're safe, you must believe that,' he implored.
She nodded, acknowledging the truth of what the Doctor said. 'At was just so real. Lately, I've been seeing other things, other visions. Some are events that have already happened. I think that last one was from the past. Others are more like glimpses of the future. I can't make sense of them.
Once I felt myself being drawn into somebody else's dream.
That was while we were at Windsor. I thought it might have been James's dream'
'"These visions - do they only come when you're asleep?'
'So far,' Nyssa said. 'But they keep getting stronger, more vivid.'
The Doctor sat back on his side of the carriage. 'Perhaps the general was right. Perhaps it is wrong to bring you Isere.
We don't know what effect it will have on you. These visions could be related to this rift in the continuum.'
'Another mystery for us to investigate?'
'Yes. We seem to be making quite a collection,' the Doctor said wryly.
Nyssa smiled, the last shadows of her vision melting away.
'Business as usual'
Outside, Doulton's voice could be heard calling everyone to a halt. The carriage slowed and then stopped. The general appeared outside the window, the buttons on his tunic gleaming in the morning sunshine. 'Doctor, Lady Nyssa, I'm afraid I shall have to ask you both to disembark. We are approaching New Lanark and must now leave the track to find our own way to the encampment on foot'
The two passengers climbed out to find themselves on the ridge of a hill, a few stone cottages visible further back along the track. Doulton's squad