Author's note: Yes, I know - some of you have seen this fic before. Owing to technical difficulties (namely my sucky technological skills) I had to remove the previous copy I published of this fic. I saw this as an opportunity to do a little polishing here and there on the story. To those of you who have been following the story and know a little bit more of it, don't have too many sleepless nights... I'm a quick updater and you'll get a better story at the end of the day!

Now, let me quit bothering you so you can start reading!

...

Part 1

Once upon a time, there was a girl called Amelia Pond. She lived in a big, vast house all on her own. Amelia was a brave girl who wasn't scared of any strange noises or funny shadows that she saw while alone at night.

No, there was only one thing that Amelia was truly scared of.

A crack in her bedroom wall.

One evening, a strange man visited Amelia. She found him outside in her garden. That night, the strange man came to dinner. Afterwards, Amelia showed him the crack in her wall. Even though he tried to be brave, Amelia could see that the crack scared him, too.

The man then told Amelia that he would take her on an adventure. She was very by excited the prospect of this thought. The man told Amelia to wait for him, and she did.

Amelia waited for a very long time.

On a different night, Amelia awoke with a fright.

She had heard a noise. It wasn't the noise the tree branches made when the wind made them scratch her window, or the sound the stray cats outside made when they knocked over a rubbish bin. This noise was more sinister, more— alien.

Amelia immediately knew where the noise had come from, though she wished she didn't. She sat up cautiously in her bed and looked up at the crack in her wall.

Since the raggedy man had visited her, she had been even more scared to near the crack. Adults weren't supposed to be afraid of things unless they were truly dangerous, after all.

Not that the raggedy man had been entirely like the other adults, though.

The noise that woke her was still there. It was almost inaudible, but now that she was paying attention, she could hear it.

The crack was humming.

Amelia swallowed back the fear rising in her throat and put her bare feet on the floor. Pushing away the blanket she had slept under, she pushed herself into a standing position and made for the crack.

Nearing it warily, Amelia confirmed it; the humming was definitely coming from the crack. Only it wasn't humming, she abruptly realised, it was something entirely different to that.

She was hearing voices.

This prickled her curiosity and made her fear take a backseat. There were people in there. Amelia had the burning desire to determine whether the people were friendly or not.

Or whether they were people at all, for that matter.

She was so close to the crack now that she could almost make out what the people on the other side were saying, but not quite.

They were shouting; she knew that much.

"H—Hello?" She tried nervously.

There was no answer.

Amelia reached out gingerly to put her hand on the wall. She then leaned in to put her eye to the crack, trying to see what was on the other side. As soon as she did this, however, the voices were abruptly cut off.

Thinking she did something wrong, Amelia pulled back. She frowned as the crack became seemingly dormant once again.

She was just about to turn around, go back to bed and forget that this had ever happened, when something in her peripheral vision made her spin back around.

The crack was emitting a faint, golden glow.

"What in the world—?" Amelia said to herself. Then, in a flash, she was suddenly flung backwards as the glow exploded into a bright light.

She hit the opposite wall of her room with a grunt. Barely having time to recover, she became aware of something blocking out the light from the crack and casting a large, ominous shadow over her. She gave a whimper of fear and pressed herself against the wall in a desperate, if futile, act of self-preservation.

Whatever the thing was, however, it didn't make a move towards her. Instead, it chose to slump to her bedroom floor with a huge huff.

The light from the crack died away as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving Amelia to stare disbelievingly at the hulking shadow on the floor in the darkness.

For a moment, there was utter silence in the room. Not a sound escaped Amelia's lips, nor did the shadow make any attempt to speak. Her eyes adjusted slowly and Amelia became aware of the fact that the shadow was considerably smaller than she had initially thought.

Much smaller, in fact.

In the silence and the darkness, Amelia got quite a large fright when the shadow promptly decided to move. It also uttered a small, childlike whimper.

Amelia didn't know what to make of this sound. Her eyes had, by this time, adjusted fully and she could just make out a puff of light hair on top of what she could only assume was the shadow's head. She slowly started to inch towards the thing.

"Hello?" she asked, just as she had before. After a moment of silence, she prompted: "Are—are you hurt?"

So swiftly that Amelia didn't even have time to compose herself, the shadow suddenly popped into a sitting position. There, her eyes widened as she took in her surroundings.

Finally, her eyes fell on Amelia.

"Who are you?" the girl asked.

The girl was younger than her, Amelia noticed. She looked to be about five or six years old. Her hair was in messy knots on top of her head and she had wide, inquisitive eyes. She was very pale and, above all, very scared.

"Where am I?" she asked again, the panic now clear in her voice.

She was in her pyjamas.

As tears started to form in her eyes, Amelia tried to calm her. She reached out to take the frightened girl's hand. "It's alright," she told the girl, "You're going to be fine. What's your name?"

The girl opened her mouth to answer, but just as she did this, her eyes widened fearfully.

"I can't remember," she gasped.

Amelia frowned. This night was turning out to be too bizarre to be true. She had a lurking suspicion that she was dreaming.

"What do you mean you don't remember?" she asked the girl, "Where did you come from?"

The girl looked to be on the verge of tears, again. "I don't know," she whispered, "I can't remember anything. Who are you?"

"I'm Amelia," she answered.

The girl looked up at her. Seeing her, really seeing her, for the first time. Her mouth popped open into a little "o" of horror and she jumped to her feet in a flash.

"What's wrong?" Amelia asked.

The girl didn't answer; she just kept on slowly backing away towards the bedroom door. As she moved she shook her head slowly from side to side in mute horror.

"What's—" Amelia was about to ask again, but then she was stopped in her tracks.

There was a faint glow in the girl's eyes. The exact same colour the crack had glowed just before spitting her out. The glow slowly intensified and Amelia looked on as the girl stared at something that wasn't in the bedroom.

"No!" the girl shouted, reaching her arms out towards that something, "Amy, please!"

The glow died as suddenly as it came. Without another word, the girl spun on her heel and bolted out of the bedroom door.

Amelia Pond never saw the girl again.

In coming years, she would write this specific encounter off as a simple childhood nightmare.