Viktor “sat” in the dimly lit room — though in reality, not really, as he knew himself and his surroundings to be nothing but part of Ravenkroft’s consciousness, walled off from the all the rest and stuck inside a corner of his mind — and nervously bit his fingernails. Well, virtual fingernails. But still.

When he had been younger, he had been a huge fan of the British sci-fi series, Doctor Who. On the show, an alien from the planet Gallifrey — who called himself simply “the Doctor” — had stolen a time-and-space traveling ship called “the TARDIS” (which stood for “Time And Relative Dimension In Space”), which was “bigger on the inside.” The Doctor always chose a human companion from Earth to accompany him on his dark and whimsical adventures through time and space, his ship somewhat unartfully disguised as a London police box. Viktor had spent many wonderful nights with Anastasia watching The Doctor’s adventures on BBC America, the two of them laughing and thrilling in equal measure to his antics, no matter which of his many regenerations or companions was onscreen.

The “room” inside his head that he found himself in was a recreation of the interior of The Doctor’s TARDIS: A large cylindrical room the size of a big kitchen or parlor, the floor made of metal grating with handrails positioned along its circumference, the walls of the lower lever covered in winking, blinking control panels full of knobs and levers; in the center stood the large, hexagonal main control column, also covered in blinking lights, knobs, levers, switches, and gauges, with a computer monitor showing him a live video feed of Ravenkroft’s point-of-view on the world — but only when Ravenkroft wanted his work seen, of course — from behind his eyes. Extending up out of the main control column was a shaft of plexiglass with neon-bright fluorescent tubes running up through it, and whenever Ravenkroft made a decision or did something significant, the tube would move up and down and the neon lights would flash, flicker, and glow brighter or darker. Atop that, where the shaft met the ceiling, were whirling concentric wheels etched with glyphs of ancient Gallifreyan. Of course, none of the controls on any of the control column’s six large, squarish panels actually worked, or affected Ravenkroft’s actions in any way. Viktor knew that they could, but that these features had been disabled. By Ravenkroft. Of course, the room itself — and him — were all just constructs of his consciousness, and this had originally been a place inside his mind that he went when things got bad, or hard, or unhappy . . . but these days, it had become his prison. Ravenkroft’s prison for him. The place that Ravenkroft stuck him whenever he was in control. The TARDIS doors remained locked. The controls remained nonfunctional. And he could see and hear every horrible thing that Ravenkroft did while in control of their body . . . and could do little to nothing to stop him.

And now, Viktor backed away from the control consoles — and that video screen that gave him a Ravenkroft’s-eye-view on the world — in stark, panicked horror. The tubular shaft at the central of the control column pulsed with light and the shaft moved up and down and he could hear that sound — as a younger man, he had always thrilled at the sound of the TARDIS in action; a wheezing, pumping noise like the gasps of an old smoker channeled through a guitar amplifier — a sound he had now come to associate with fear, terror, disgust, and most of all, regret. Here, in the labyrinth of the TARDIS’s interior, his demons could take on physical form and harm him. Here, he was alone with the monster — or rather, monsters plural — that he had created. And now, the TARDIS wheezed and warbled all around him, threatening to collapse as the room shook, as though a gigantic, enraged toddler had picked it up, thinking it a toy, and then had kicked it down the hall. Books fell off the shelves along the upper level of the room; and the chalkboard — where he sometimes wrote inspirational messages to himself, just to keep himself going — suddenly developed writing of its own accord. The piece of chalk he kept there — it never got any smaller — rose into the air and began to write out the same sentence over and over, using mathematical symbols for letters:

Late last night and the night before, Zacturean, Zarcturean, knockin’ at the door!

Over and over and over, the ominous rhyme from Stephen King’s sci-fi-horror novel The Tommyknoclers wrote itself, as though the ghost of Bart Simpson stood there writing it repeatedly as an after-school punishment. Viktor backed away from the chalkboard and the control column and grabbed the circular handrail behind him, adrenaline and terror squirting into his veins, like someone had injected him with burning-cold liquid nitrogen. Pulsating green vines — or were they the tentacles of the alien’s consciousness? — began spurting up through the metal grating of the floor, crawling down the cylinder in the center of the control column, and curling around the edges of the doors that led out and — oh how he wished! — to freedom. The vines writhed and lashed and stretched as they invaded the TARDIS, and sparks flew from the control consoles along the circular walls. The vines wrapped themselves aound every surface, crawling along the floor and the ceiling, twisting and turning as they tore through the metal and plastic and burst through the wood paneling.

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This was worse than the alien vines in that old Netflix show, Stranger Things. Normally, referring to the pop culture of his younger days brought Viktor comfort in times of trouble; clinging to nostalgia for the past was one way he kept himself calm when things got bad. But now, his mind’s immediate reference to the show frightened him. The vines in that show had belonged to a similar alien horror. One bent on conquest, just like this one was. And Ravenkroft was going to help it bring down Humanity . . . and the Vines crept inward, still invading the TARDIS . . .

Then, the shaking stopped. The shaft in the center of the control console stopped pulsing and moving. The wheezing stopped as well. The vines halted their invasion.

All was quiet, save for the “sound” of his own mental-construct heartbeat thundering in his mental-construct eardrums.

“Oh God,” he said, as he sank down onto his haunches, and then sat down on a clear spot on the floor, and sobbed. “Oh God, what do I do now?”

He was well and truly trapped. Trapped within the mind of a madman, a mind now merged with that of an alien monster. It was now two against one. Jesus, this was serious. But what could he do? Ravenkroft was in control. All he could do was watch, sickened, as the craven evil genius carried out his will upon the world. Watch through this damned view-screen as Ravenkroft wreaked havoc, and he took the blame. And as Ravenkroft laid down on that table and allowed an alien creature to invade his body. No. His body!

God in Heaven, he had never wanted any of this! Then again, he had never believed in God. His atheism was stronger now than it ever had been. No merciful god could allow a creature like Ravenkroft to exist and to torment someone the way Ravenkroft tormented him. Here he was — Dr. Viktor Arkenvalen, a caged animal, a prisoner within his own mind! How could any “god” allow such a fate to befall anyone? He thought of Anastasia, trapped in her cryo-stasis tomb. Would he ever see her again, now? Would she ever live again? How could he save her, trapped in here, and with his body now host to an alien parasite? Dear God . . . No, not dear God. There was no God. There was no mercy, no destiny, no justice in the world. There was only the cruel whim of chance and chaos. Eris unleashed. Ravenkroft unleashed. And now, the Ravenkroft-Alien Hybrid. Unleashed upon the world. And it was all his fault . . .

He closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing, his heartbeat, the racing thoughts in his mind. That’s it . . . nice and slow . . . you can do this, Viktor. Calm yourself. Calm down. Calm . . . down. Think of . . . think of the time you and Anastasia went to the first FantazmagoriCon together. Remember how she stumbled into the room drunk at 3 A.M.? And you asked where she’d been? And she looked at you with those big, round eyes of hers and said simply, “Playing a Half-Orc?” And you laughed? Yes . . . that’s it . . . calm down . . .

He reopened his eyes.

Okay, first things first. The control panels. Maybe . . . maybe he could do something with them. Maybe. Perhaps — just perhaps — Ravenkroft had made a mistake locking him in here. Maybe there was a way out. Or at least a way to influence things from in here. There simply had to be. This room had been his mental refuge for as long as he could remember. It was his creation, not Ravenkroft’s. So if that was the case, then there was wiring beneath the control column, and it lead somewhere. It did something. If he wanted it to. He simply had to want it badly enough. And right now, he wanted it very badly. He had never wanted anything more in his life, except perhaps a way to bring Anastasia back. But even that, he reasoned, was second to this desire . . . because unless he could regain some control over his body, or at least some psychic leverage over Ravenkroft, there was no hope of that ever happening. So yes. He wanted this more than anything.

He put his fingers to his temples and stared at the hexagonal control column as hard as he could, and focused all his will upon it. DO something, he commanded. DO something. DO something . . . He repeated the mantra over and over, and began to mutter it aloud after a few times. Finally, once he zoned-out, he caught himself, and shook himself to snap himself out of it.

Viktor got up from where he sat, and — careful to avoid stepping on the green, pulsating vines that had grown everywhere — he walked the three steps to the control column, and knelt down beside it. He removed the metal panel on the side of the column, and looked inside. Ah, excellent! Inside the panel was a maze of wires and tubes, and complex circuit boards stuffed with every imaginable kind of component, all connected together in labyrinthine fashion. And he knew which wires and hoses did what. If he simply reconnected the phase inverter to the polarity reverser and the scalar oscillator, and then routed the circuit he created through the manual override switch, he could create a polarized feedback loop that would, when he threw the switch, overload the alien’s — and Ravenkroft’s — lock-out of the control consoles! Of course! Why hadn’t he thought of this before!

Hurriedly, and looking over his shoulder frantically — he did not know if or when Ravenkroft would manifest some personal demon of his to torment him or harass him — Viktor began rewiring his mind.