The small grey cat came every day to the abandoned quarry to play.
She liked to scramble over the rocks and climb the trees to watch, and let’s be honest, to try and catch the birds.
This particular day was slightly different as there had been a lot of noise yesterday, lots of loud bangs and annoying silver things in the sky. Then the few remaining humans had left in a rush, leaving her behind.
The cat was alone, wondering where everyone had gone, and also wondering when was someone going to come back give her some food?
She couldn’t possibly be expected to fend for herself.
Walking down further into the quarry, there was still no sign of the humans. And most importantly, still no cat food.
She walked further. Everything looked like it always did, although some acrid smoke was rising from fires that weren’t there before. Probably, she thought, from all those bangs yesterday. Silly humans.
And then she noticed it. She knew the layout this quarry extremely well as she’d been visiting it every day for years, but there, right in front of her, over a ridge, was the top of a tree that she was certain hadn’t been there before.
Scrambling down the rocks, she examined the tall, mature tree.
She looked around suspiciously. Perhaps a human was tricking her. They did that sometimes.
But no, still no humans. (Nor cat food)
Circling the tree a few times at a safe distance, she didn’t take her eyes off it.
How did it get there?
Had it always been there and she’d been mistaken?
Perhaps it had grown really quickly? No, big trees didn’t do that. Trees were slow.
Wait..
What was that noise?
Some small rocks tumbled down the quarry wall, clattering and creating a cloud of dust.
There was movement from the level above, followed by a strange grinding noise like metal being dragged across stone.
Over the top of the ridge, something came into view. It was a human, dragging itself along by its arms. It was obviously injured. She hoped it was bringing cat food though.
Was it a human? This one was silver and had glowing eyes.
Humans were generally not silver.
As the silver human crawled closer, the cat instinctively realised something was wrong and froze still and making that deep “rooaaahl” noise that cats make when they’re trying to make themselves sound super scary. The silver human kept approaching.
This day was weird.
First there was a tree that wasn’t there before, now a menacing creature
The silver human extended one of its arms, and a high pitch noise started to come from it.
The cat knew this noise. It was the noise that happened just before those beams of light that caused things to explode. She jumped backwards, just as the silver human fired the explody light beam.
The ground in front of her exploded in fire as the beam hit. She was covered in dust and bits of sand.
This was not the cat food that she’d been hoping for.
Once again, there was the high pitch whine noise. This time the cat scrambled behind the tree.
There was another beam and another explosion on the ground where she had been standing seconds before.
She could hear the scraping metal noise again, but then a different noise. An unexpected click from the tree trunk, just next to where she was standing, then a creaking noise, and then completely unexpectedly, a door opened in the tree trunk.
This day was just getting more and more strange, but she could hear the metal human getting closer, and the high-pitch noise again, so deciding to take her chances in the tree, she jumped through the door. It closed behind her.
Inside, at least for the first few seconds, it was dark.
There was a distant explosion sound from outside the door, but nothing made it through.
A dim blue light started to glow in the distance, and the sound of something mechanical powering up.
The cat was beginning to think that she’d made an enormous mistake, as more lights came on she found herself in a large room with lots of lights and a big metal hexagonal table in the middle.
This tree was not like any other tree that she’d ever seen, and there was still no cat food.
As if the table could read her thoughts, there was a mechanical clunk noise and a small door opened in it’s pedestal. A bowl of cat food came out of the door on a small flat trolly.
Then another yet unfamiliar noise started, but this one was a friendly, wheezy noise. The middle of the table lit up and was now moving up and down.
The cat decided that this was ok.
There was cat food, no one was shooting at her, and now there was a reassuring noise, so today had definitely improved.
She ate the food and purred.
The TARDIS consciousness smiled internally to itself.
--=+=--
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