The Doctor and Dodo looked around the room.  It was small and the rough hewn stone walls felt like scorched polystyrene, soft and brittle.  The Doctor tried the door but it was locked.  He started to empty his jacket pockets.  The first item he removed was a magnifying glass.  Eventually however he produced a lock pick from his pocket and set about trying to spring the mechanism.  “If only I had some sort of screwdriver.”

Dodo sat back down.  There wasn’t much else to do.  “I wonder who brought us here.”

“A very good question.”  The Doctor replied.  “Yes a very good question indeed.  I wonder, hmph, yes I wonder.”

There was no stopping them, they were hoping all their questions would be answered.

The door opened and the Doctor gestured for Dodo to go first. “Sometimes I even out do myself, child.”

Dodo cautiously popped her head through the door.  “There’s just a corridor.”

“Things are looking up then.”  The Doctor offered Dodo his arm.  “Corridors have to lead somewhere now, don’t they?  Now come along, yes, don’t dawdle so.”

The main attractions in a freak side show the exhibits were rats in the maze of life only here the cheese ate you.

“As I said to Ed Sullivan, a charming man by the way, ‘this is every interesting’ don’t you agree, my dear?”  The Doctor looked at Dodo.

“It’s another locked door.”  Dodo shrugged.

“Not just any door.”  The Doctor replied.  “This is the same door we left a while ago.”

“But we’ve been walking in a straight line.”

“Have we?”  The Doctor pondered.  “As I said, I have some very nasty suspicions.”

They did their best, they did what they could, they got them ready for the enemy.

“Gabba gabba hey.”  Dodo exclaimed as a twisting, shapeless mass of blue flesh rolled down the corridor towards them.

“Hmph?”  The Doctor was busy with the door.

Dodo span the Doctor round to look at the approaching…thing.  “That…thing is going to kill us!”

“I really don’t think it means us any harm.”  The Doctor said to Dodo.  Then he saw it open a dozen mouths, each full of needle-like teeth.  “Get behind me, child, quickly.”

This was it, the end of the century.

The Doctor wielded his walking cane like an Olympic fencer.  He jabbed at the creature with his cane.  “Tty and unlock the door, child.”

Dodo fumbled with the lock picks.  It didn’t look as easy as it sounded in those spy novels she loved reading.  “How do you work these things?”

The Doctor jabbed the tip of his stick down the throat of the monster.  “You want some of this do you?”  He backed away as it bit clean through the wood.

“I don’t want to die!”  Dodo screamed.

The Doctor picked the lock picks up and managed to pick the lock in seconds.  He pushed Dodo inside before slamming it shut behind them both.  He put his weight up against the door while Dodo slid the wooden bar across, barring the portal.

“We were lucky this was here.”  She said after a few seconds to regain her wits.

In the temple of history they burned with red wisdom.

“What was that thing?”  Dodo asked.

“I have no idea.”  The Doctor sat down on the dusty floor.  “I’ve never seen anything like that before, no, nothing like that at all.”

“I was sure it would kill us both.”  Dodo kissed the Doctor on the cheek, for saving her life.

“Well we’re safe now.”  The Doctor replied.  “However we have yet to find a way out and I don’t imagine that door will hold that creature forever.”

“Doesn’t anyone here care if we live or die?”  Dodo started to cry, it was all too much for her to bear, all too much.

Understanding was the smell of purple and the colour of a laugh.  Reason was uncertain, like fog it could never be pinned down.  Logic was golden and shone like ice.

The Doctor tested the rock for handholds, but it was too friable for any grip.  Instead he used his leather shoe to break the conglomerate up into dust and try to create a new passageway for himself and Dodo to escape through.  “If only I still had my stick.  Never mind, no, never mind.”

Dodo picked herself up and started to help the Doctor.  Her own pair of psychedelic pink and green plastic shoes were altogether much more suited for the task as her three-inch heels could easily dig into the soft crumbly rock. “We might get somewhere by next week.”

The Doctor was busy putting his own shoe back on.  “Hmmm?  What was that?”  He started to use his companion’s other shoe as it made a far more useful tool.

Teeth did clash, teeth did clash, teeth did clash and stuff like that.  They couldn’t wait much longer to feast.

They broke through into a room, strong white light shone on their faces.  “I think we’ve reached somewhere.”  The Doctor handed Dodo her ruined shoe.

Dodo looked at her shoes.  “These cost me three and six.”

“A very good purchase too, not buying them would have cost us our lives.”  The Doctor stepped through into the white room.

“Wait for me.”  Dodo followed…

Step out of eternity into the void, the endless nothingness, come to us, rejoice in the moment before the banquet.

Jo looked at the Doctor.  “Are you alright?”

The Doctor tried to smile.  “I’m fine Jo.”

Jo was sure the Doctor was looking peaky. His vague half-promised cut no ice with her.  “I’ll get the Brigadier.”

“This is…unexpected.”  The Doctor collapsed to the floor.

“No!”  Jo screamed in shock as the Doctor’s face and hair suddenly changed…

Come together, right now, the violet pain flowers erupted in a fit of tears and music.  They were hungry, they were swollen pink with starvation.

Dodo looked at the stranger who was suddenly standing next to her instead of the Doctor.  “Who are you?”