I

t was blinded by the searing white light, as the creature’s retinas melted.  It didn’t know what the terrible burning radiance was or where it was coming from, but the entity knew it was not good.  And then it felt pain.  Usually it would have savoured the sensation.  It brought pain to lesser creatures but rarely had a chance to delight in its exquisite taste, for the medium was to valuable to risk for such rare pleasures.  But the brilliant white light brought to the medium intense agony.  The creature the entity possessed was strong, but even its thick hide could offer no protection from the awesome power.  The radiance scalded through the scales, as if it was a heated knife melting butter. Exposed flesh peeled off the all-important medium’s burning body, as the beast writhed in torturous suffering. 

 

Suddenly the pain ceased, but it wasn’t because the light had been vanquished.  All the nerves had been destroyed, so there was no longer any indicators of the level of torment.  Yet this was the least of the entity’s worries.  As the medium’s life ebbed away, the bridge began to collapse.  Desperately, it struggled to hold on.  Tried to rebuild the connection from the formless void.  But it was no use.  For a split second, the entity clung to the primitive creature’s dying mind.  Then, as the laboured lungs brought one final heave of scorched air inward, a force even more powerful than the light joined the attack.  In an instant, the medium was obliterated.  Consumed to feed a force of nature far more powerful than the entity could ever be.  What little remained of the bridge collapsed further, and the Dimensional Entity was catapulted back to the void that made up the framework of time and space.  Back to its prison.

 

In the void there was nothing to see, hear or touch, and even if there was it had no eyes, ears or fingers to perform the tasks.  Again it was formless.  Deprived of all senses.  Whilst a few bricks of psychic power held the bridge together for a few precious moments, the entity could still feel the passing of time.  Seconds leaked across the shattered bridge, connecting it to the universe beyond.  Then these bricks fell too, and the final link with the late eighteenth century was severed.  The passing of time stopped.  Instead, all time and no time existed at once.  Immediately, things it had learnt whilst outside its prison dissolved in to nothingness.  It now had no medium’s brain to store them.  The discoveries from its possession of the living flesh were denied it while it was trapped inside the fabric of the universe.  Only the primeval feelings would remain.  And then, in a place where there is both no time and all time, the thirst would envelop it again. 

 

But now the entity found a new desire join side by side with the old thirst.  A craving almost as powerful as the yearning to consume.  A yearning for revenge.  Although the details were fast fading, it knew it had completed its part of the arrangement, but had been cheated out of its reward.  There was only one to blame.  All other facts would diminish, but it was determined to cling to the name of the Doctor.  The retribution was reserved for him alone.  At a point incalculable in a place that was both everywhere and nowhere, it would find another thinning patch in the fabric of the universe.  It would reach through and locate a new puppet.  Then it would return to the material world to quench both thirsts.  The Time Lord would pay.  Next time there will be no deals.