Ace’s mind filled with jumbled, fleeting glimpses of those possible futures …

Travelling with the Doctor forever, growing old by his side as they fought monsters and saved worlds. Dying in an explosion, killed by her own Nitro-9 at ground zero. Laughing as she danced with Sorin – or someone who looked like Sorin. A son? No. An ancestor! Screaming at the top of her lungs as the gun in her hand punched round after round into a squad of advancing Daleks, the flames as they blew apart reflected in the mirrored lenses of her sunglasses. Standing beneath the orange skies of Gallifrey, an ornate collar shielding her face from the heat of the midday sun, her robes billowing around her as she strode towards the vast, domed city of the Time Lords. Drinking alien liquor with a dark-haired woman on board the TARDIS, flirting with a young man …

Living, dying, leaving, staying, laughing, crying … The visions came faster and faster, each revealing a different fate, each promising a different life that she could lead. With each fragmentation, the greater the possibilities, the more impossible the choice.

And yet …

With increasing frequency, a common theme started to become dominant through the disparate timelines that raced through her mind. Her own world, the Earth, slowly dying; a decaying world, orbing a decaying sun, its people broken and hungry, its surface caked with filth and pollution. A world where vile creatures rose up from the sea to prey on the living – Haemovores. Vampires.

She frowned. She knew this future. This was the future that Fenric had engineered. But she and the Doctor had changed that future, hadn’t they? How could it still be a possibility?

The only worthwhile future is one where that future stays stopped.

No sooner had the thought flashed across her mind than a dark shape suddenly appeared at the periphery of her vision. As she turned to look at it, another appeared, then another and another. Soon the bright white light around her was stained with shadows, more and more of them, circling ever closer.

The shadow figures were more distinct now, their faces clearly visible; contorted with pain and anguish, their eyes burning, their voices pleading. With sudden realisation, Ace knew that these creatures were what remained of the Wraiths.

They surged towards her, a dozen or more grasping hands reaching out, smoke-like fingers passing through her flesh. Every nerve in her body exploded with pain. Ace cried out in agony. More and more of the creatures started to surround her, the pain intensifying with each desperate attempt they made to grasp hold of her. The light was almost gone now, extinguished by the tide of blackness that engulfed her.

Something suddenly gripped her arm, substantial this time, the fingers digging hard into her flesh. Ace began to struggle as whatever had hold of her started to drag her backwards, bellowing at the top of her lungs.

‘Let me go!’