Credit for names and certain things mentioned in this oneshot go to BBC and Steven Moffat. But all other ideas are mine.


A metropolis. Twists and turns and secrets hidden in the shadows, a city like no other. A safe place, a place where troubles eased away, where the sun shined and there was hope, hope for a new tomorrow. Where hurt and pain were hidden behind laughter and smiles, and nightmares were nothing but a story to scare young children. No one ever felt heartbreak or loss and no one knew about sadness or worry. It was the city of the never experienced, and they lived in celebration for the days that would come. But what they didn't know was that when the light of the sun faded into the darkness of the night, the city was anything but safe. When the people were off in their cozy little houses, safe and sound in their beds, nobody was safe, not even the smallest of children. It was midnight. The streetlights glowing a dull orange in the darkened city, lighting the city like a lightning bug in a child's bare hand. The usual bustle of the city, quiet. Even on a normal night the sounds of the city loud and obstreperous, but tonight nothing but silence. Silence in the city. Nobody knew why it was so silent, But she knew. She was running. Melody Pond, a young girl, running for her life throughout the silent city. Horror. That was what she felt as she ran from her worst nightmare. The voices of them haunting her every dream. Their misshapen face and their grey skin, the way their eyes and mouth were sunken in and taut. Their disgusting fingers long and mischievous and the way their bodies attracted electricity. They were the very definition of fear. She never had thought they would find her again, but every worst fear came true eventually. She had been safe for a while, adapting to the city around her. She learned to smile and laugh and hide her fears behind her eyes. Even when Melody existed no longer and Mels was born, she had laughed and smiled even though the pain ate away at her. Only five years old, she smiled and walked around like she owned the place, as if she had lived there forever, when in reality she had only lived there for two years at the most. With the advent of spring came her kidnappers. The delightful interim between the time she had escaped them and now, gone as if it had never happened. She still Remembered, the horrid things she had gone through. Her kidnappers stealing her from her parents as a newborn and training her for one sole purpose. The only purpose, to kill a man named the Doctor. She had been tortured and conditioned, but through it all she still remembered the beautiful face of that man. How kind he had been to her when she was just barely a month old. He was the only thing that kept her running. She knew that what had been done to her was wrong. She knew that he had done nothing to harm anybody. She kept him running because she wanted to find that man. He was the only one who had made sense to her. She wanted to find the Doctor. She had tried. She had tried so hard to blend in. She had searched. She had searched so far for her parents but they were nowhere to be found. Amelia Pond and Rory Pond. All she knew about them were bits and pieces but she still loved them. From her captors she had learned that they were the Doctor's companions and that they traveled in a time machine called the TARDIS. But that was all. They told her cold hard facts. Nothing more and nothing less. But she recalled small bits of memory. A sweet nurturing mother with hair the color of fire and a voice so exotic. A mother telling her to be brave and that her father would save her. A father, the last Roman. The fearless man that tried to rescue her. A father that wept with joy at seeing her alive. The silence was coming. Melody could hear them, they were coming closer and closer. Their whispers surly and their words twisted. They were begging, no, pleading for her to come with them again. Their sentences long and their tirade obnoxious. She ran as fast as she could, restlessly running and frightened at the thought of stopping. She ran throughout turning buildings and ash filled lots, trying all the while not to trip and fall. Her pensive thoughts behind her as they surrounded her on all sides, except one. She turned on her heel, running the way she came, running to a run down, shoddy building having no choice otherwise. She had nowhere to go they would catch her soon. She would be in that spacesuit shooting the Doctor dead if they caught her this time, no doubt. But how would she outrun them? There was no way out. How do you outrun fear? It was impossible. She rushed up the stairs, nearly out of breath as she got to the apex of the structure, the roof. She backed up carefully to the edge as the aliens, her kidnappers, got forever closer step by step. She kept backing up, the fear of the creatures the only thing in her mind as she brushed up against the side of the roof. When the aliens were nothing but a step away she started laughing. Laughing like a mad man as she got on the ledge of the roof. Her smile bright and her laughter sprightly. She said goodbye to her nightmare, because after all a nightmare is simply a bad dream and nothing more. She spread her arms out like a bird and looked at her confused captors as she announced with glee "There is always a way out." Then she jumped off the edge, her eyes glowing as she landed inside of a blue box. Still alive and away from her past, she ran and she had been running ever since.