Cold. She realised she was cold. Not why or how, but simply that she was. The sensation was alien and familiar all at once, like a far-off memory or the knowledge gleaned from skimming the pages of a book. She shouldn't be cold; ships didn't feel temperature. They didn't feel anything, and yet... There was a haze about her processors, slowing down her memory and blocking off neuropathways. Her engines sounded distant and off; there was something wrong with her interior space. No, not just her interior... her exterior, as well. And her sensors were offline. She recorded no data and saw nothing outside, but there was still sound and touch and smell--
Smell. She couldn't smell. Ships didn't smell and yet she was. Cold steel and ozone; dry, almost stale air. She took a breath she didn't realise she was holding, exhaling loudly, and snapped her eyes open. Breath. Eyes. Shaking, the TARDIS pressed at her face and the thick dark locks around her head, the fuzziness around her thoughts lifting even as she did so. Long-forgotten memories raced to the fore, thoughts she'd attributed to ghosts in the machine. An island. Flesh. Vague recollections of entrapment and a loss of self. They rushed forward and she clawed at her cheeks, suddenly terrified.
She was a ship. She was a ship. This couldn't be happening again. That had all just been a processing error, hadn't it? But no. The hands at her face said otherwise; the naked body, legs tucked beneath her -- they didn't lie. Something had happened, something far beyond her understanding at the moment, and she was powerless to stop it.
"Doctor?" she called, voice hoarse and thick as she pushed herself up on wobbly legs. She fell almost immediately and grit her teeth, dragging herself toward the wall to use it as leverage. It looked like a cargo bay on a transport ship of some sort, but the stillness was eerie. Where was the crew? Where was her pilot? "Doctor?"
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2012-03-21 04:40 am (UTC)Smell. She couldn't smell. Ships didn't smell and yet she was. Cold steel and ozone; dry, almost stale air. She took a breath she didn't realise she was holding, exhaling loudly, and snapped her eyes open. Breath. Eyes. Shaking, the TARDIS pressed at her face and the thick dark locks around her head, the fuzziness around her thoughts lifting even as she did so. Long-forgotten memories raced to the fore, thoughts she'd attributed to ghosts in the machine. An island. Flesh. Vague recollections of entrapment and a loss of self. They rushed forward and she clawed at her cheeks, suddenly terrified.
She was a ship. She was a ship. This couldn't be happening again. That had all just been a processing error, hadn't it? But no. The hands at her face said otherwise; the naked body, legs tucked beneath her -- they didn't lie. Something had happened, something far beyond her understanding at the moment, and she was powerless to stop it.
"Doctor?" she called, voice hoarse and thick as she pushed herself up on wobbly legs. She fell almost immediately and grit her teeth, dragging herself toward the wall to use it as leverage. It looked like a cargo bay on a transport ship of some sort, but the stillness was eerie. Where was the crew? Where was her pilot? "Doctor?"