Howling Halls
PG. 06/18/2006.

There used to be a place where the dead people went. A place for people who ran out of time.

The Time Lords liked to think that all the dead people got there and stayed there, but they were a very preoccupied race. They built the infrastructure solidly but didn't necessarily keep it always maintained. There were...accidents, loopholes. Sometimes the dead people stayed right where they'd been when they were alive, and occasionally, they came back.

That was unfortunate, but manageable, and understandable.

Now the Time Lords are gone, or almost, and when they disappeared so did everything else they built.

The last Time Lord did his best, really. He pulled together spare parts from here and there and made a new place for those out of time, the most comfortable place he could manage, but....

There wasn't a lot to work with. And when the Time Lords died something irreparable happened. There was no rest, no rest, and no silence. The dead people wailed ceaselessly, and wandered, and wept. Whatever happiness that might have been made in that place was never realized, and it became a madhouse--and a prison.

Those out of time are hungry now, hungry and lonely and without comfort. Two dead people touch, and embrace, and soon there is only one of them adding his voice to their choir, while an elemental shadow darts away, and is at last silent, if no less starved.

The last Time Lord is a man without a home, never stopping, and the burden that fell on his people falls unknowingly heavy onto his shoulders. He built the infrastructure as solid as he could, and when he remembers, he maintains.

He likes to think that what he can't maintain, he retrieves and removes, and tries to repair. But he is only one very preoccupied man.

END.

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