The Piper Chronicles: Dreams of a Time Reality – Chapter 7

Chapter Seven:

Disrupted Party

Piper would never admit it, but her legs shook a little when she took the microphone and slowly stepped onto the stage. The lights turned from blue to purple, as they shined on her, her skin looking plastic tan, and her pink lips even pinker. She looked over in front of her, her bright blue eyes, scanning about the room. Everyone was looking at her. The fans that were circulating air around the room made her blue hair, slightly raise and her forehair blowing into her face. She sunk a little deeper into her leather jacket, feeling a chill go up her spine. She wanted to run away, run away and hide. But, she told herself no. She could do this. She looked over to the DJ, who was sitting with the laptop and speakers over to the left, and nodded. The DJ nodded back, as he put on the song, that Piper had picked out. She didn’t listen to many modern pop, rock, or rap songs. She prefered classical, or oldies. But there was one song, she suddenly felt in her heart, she needed to sing. The DJ put on the song. A soft, medium beat piano began to play. Piper closed her eyes. The thought of pleasing Marianna in Piper’s humiliation faded away into her subconscious as the crowd went into complete silence. With a deep breath, and a hopeful heart, she began to sing a little tune.

“You have my heart
And we’ll never be worlds apart
May be in magazines
But you’ll still be my star”

Piper opened her eyes. She couldn’t understand what was coming over her. She should have been more angry, more begrudgingly singing this, as she knew she was forced to do this. But she felt something else…something strange…something…hopeful…as if she was singing this song specifically for someone…hoping that person would hear… Her confidence began to build inside her, but she still sang softly, with a small smile, curling up her lips.

“Baby, ‘cause in the dark
You can’t see shiny cars
And that’s when you need me there
With you I’ll always share”

In that moment, she didn’t feel like herself. She felt like a completely different person. Her voice began to build louder.

“When the sun shine, we shine together
Told you I’ll be here forever
Said I’ll always be your friend
Took an oath, I’mma stick it out to the end
Now that it’s raining more than ever
Know that we’ll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella
You can stand under my umbrella
Ella, ella, eh, eh, eh
Under my umbrella
Ella, ella, eh, eh, eh”

Her voice now build into a stronger, passionate voice. She sang louder, more powerful, her heart begging for that special someone to hear her.

“These fancy things
Will never come in between
You’re part of my entity
Here for infinity
When the war has took its part
When the world has dealt its cards
If the hand is hard
Together we’ll mend your heart
Because”

“Please…If you’re out there…if you can hear me…Please come to me…I need you…I…can’t remember who you are…I just know that I miss you…! So terribly…! and I need you so badly…! Please…! Just hear me…!”

“It’s rainin’, Ooh, baby, it’s rainin’,
Baby, come here to me
Come into me
It’s rainin’, Ooh, baby, it’s rainin’,
You can always come into me
Come into me.”

She took a deep breath, refraining from letting the tears in her eyes shed down her face, as she sang the last line, back down to soft, and in a whisper:

“Come here to me
Come into me …”

Piper looked back up at the crowd. Everyone was staring at her, with shocked, pale faces. She felt her normal sense of isolation coming back over her, as she started to descend from the stage, and hand it over to Marianna, congratulating her in the successful persecution. But instead, the crowd suddenly cheered, clapping their hands, with surprised, but joyful faces. Piper was dumbfounded. How can these people…who’ve teased her…berated her for years…be cheering her on…? Perhaps the Piper they were cheering for…wasn’t the one they knew…

Raiden came rushing into the windows near the front of the house. He used the sleeve of his hoodie to wipe away the fog on the glass. As he looked down onto the bright, street-lit road, he saw an unfortunately familiar, camouflage green jeep pull up near the house. Raiden pulled himself away and ran down the stairs just as he could hear the applause coming from the living room on the left. However, he was still half-shocked to see a certain someone in the hallway, two feet from the open front door, who was being yelled at by Marianna. “Look, I don’t know who you are, mister, or what you’re going on about, but if you don’t leave in the next five seconds, I’m phoning the police!” she threatened. “Blimey! No one’s listening to me today! I’m telling you, you and your guests are in danger! You need to evacuate the house, now!” It was the Doctor. “Doctor!” Raiden exclaimed. The man with the floofy-brown hair, brown eyes, blue suit and overblown coat, turned to Raiden, his eyebrows furrowing. “Doctor, what’s going on!?” Raiden exclaimed. The Doctor walked over to him, and gripped his shoulders, tightly and tensely. “Raiden, you need to get Piper out of here, now!” he said, firmly. “H-how do you know I know Piper?” Raiden stammered. “There’s no time to explain-!” the Doctor said, anxiously, “I need you to-!”

Before the Doctor could finish, the back left corner of the living room suddenly exploded, blowing debris and dust into the house! The teens started shouting and screaming in terror. Three burly figures appeared from the smoke. They drew strange guns from their backs, and pointed them at the teens. “DOWN ON THE GROUND!” the leader shouted, “WHERE IS IT!? WHERE IS IT!? I DEMAND TO KNOW WHERE IT IS, OR WE WILL START SHOOTING!” The Doctor suddenly stepped forward, running into the middle of the room, leaving Raiden and the stunned Marianna behind. “Stop!” He shouted, raising his hands, “Stop! Don’t hurt the children! It’s me you want!” The leader lowered his gun. He took a sharp breath in, cocking his head to the side. “Doc-tor!” he hissed, “I should have known we would find you here! Where is the Gallifreyan power source!?”

The Doctor froze, his eyes widening a bit, as if realizing something bad. “I don’t know where it is,” He said, then added quickly, “But I can assure you, it’s not here!”

The burly man on the left, behind the leader, hissed, “Liar! We detected its energy readings in this human hole! It must be here!”

“Power source…Energy readings…! They’re talking about the fob watch, aren’t they!?” Raiden thought. The Doctor didn’t respond. He knew he was in trouble. Then, he reached into the pocket of his coat with one swift move, and pulled out what looked like to be a metal wand, with a blue light on the top. The wand started to buzz, the blue light glowing. Suddenly, the burly men began to fizzle out, as if they were on a television and the reception was going out. Then, the fizzling stopped. The burly men had changed into something much more horrific. They weren’t human at all! They were lizard men! They had long snouts with many teeth growing out from the mouth. Their eyes were beady yellow, and their tails long. They were armored with brown, leather uniforms, with steel shoulder plates. They were carrying overgrown, silver guns, much more futuristic, for an otherwise mythical, fantasy creature. The teens were now so scared, they got up and ran as fast as they could out the front door, bumping into Raiden as he was trying to find where Piper was amongst the crowd. But she was nowhere to be seen. Finally, in the commotion, Raiden was shoved out of the house and into the green lawn. Most of the teens ran out into the streets, where others walked backwards on the lawn, pulling out their mobile phones to call the police. But the Doctor, and the lizard-people, were left alone, in the house.

The Doctor paced himself along the stressed, wooden floor, but still keeping a safe distance from the lizard people.

“I bet your job’s gonna be a lot harder now that your shimmers have been disabled…” he guessed, calmly, “Humans know of your presence on Earth. You’ll be in danger.”

“It’s amusing that you think we would care, Doc-tor!” The leader exclaimed, his voice rattling, chuckling, “We will not simply leave this planet because a group of adolescent humans discover our little secret! Now, I will ask again-”

The lizard on the right pointed his huge gun at the Doctor. The barrel inside began to hum as it warmed up to fire.

“Where is the Gallifreyan power source?”

“Answer my question first:” said the Doctor, sternly, “Who’s paying you to do this? How did they find out about a Timelord power source hidden on Earth?”

The leader laughed, jeering at the man before them, as if he was a complete idiot. But before he could respond, one of his companions, who was previously looking behind him, out onto the road, he hissed, anxiously, and said, “Darlok! The human authorities are coming!” The leader growled, looking behind him as well. He stuck his thin, forked tongue out, wiggling it around a little, before sticking it back into his mouth. “Take the timelord. We will continue to interrogate him somewhere else.”

Meanwhile, Piper had been hiding behind the DJ booth the entire time, listening into the conversation. The man…this…Doctor…he sounded so familiar. All the terms they were using, she should have had no idea what they were talking about. But somehow, someway, she had heard those words before. Then, she looked over to the back of the speakers, and saw an open hole. She pulled a wand out of her pocket, which looked more like a metal stick than any sword of usable wand, with a red light on the top. When she heard that the lizard creatures were going to take the man, she suddenly jumped up. “Doctor! Duck!” she cried. Then, the thrusted her wand into the speaker system. The wand had somehow got the speakers sound to turn up far louder then what it could handle. Sonic booms blared into the direction of the creatures. They screeched and rattled in pain as they fell down to their knees. The Doctor had managed to duck right in the nick of time as the house started to shake, and bits of the roof started to come down. Piper turned off the speakers and started to run forward to get the stranger out to safety, but when she finally got to see what the stranger looked like, she stopped dead in her tracks.

Time stopped. The wind from outside blew into the room, sending a chill down her spine. Piper stared at the man before her. Chestnut brown hair, floofing up the front, brown eyes, thick eyebrows, one of them slightly crooked from the other, blue suit and red tie, red and white sneakers, and the big, overblown, khaki coat. It couldn’t be…! Piper’s heart raced. The breeze from outside blew through her hair, sending it flying into her face. “It can’t be him…!” she thought to herself. “He’s not real! He’s just a dream! He was always a dream…! Wasn’t he…!?” The Doctor stared back at her, not just surprised of her sudden appearance, but relief, and joy. He looked straight into her eyes, longingly, but no longer sad…only half-hearted joy, and determination. Piper found herself unable to speak for what felt like an eternity. Her mind was still running with the same questions and the same answers. “He’s not real! He was never real, Piper! You’re alone! No one can help you! No one! He’s not real!” But someone else was arguing with her, like another voice in her consciousness saying, “He’s here! He’s real! He’s here right in front of you! You don’t have to be afraid anymore, Piper! You’re not alone!” Finally, with all the courage she could possibly muster up, pushing back all the thoughts in her head away, she finally asked, with an exhale of breath: “M-Mystery Man?” The Doctor started to smile, and began to open his mouth to speak, when he realized something important. They hadn’t even began to escape the lizard-men. Suddenly, the Doctor ran over to Piper, grabbed her hand, and shouted, “RUN!” as they took off out the front door, and down into the street.