Author's Notes.

For those of you who haven't read The Host by Stephanie Meyer.

A "Soul" is an alien parasite, like a kind of silver ribbon, inserted into the back of a host's neck and connected to its brain. It takes over the host's mind, living in its body. You can tell a Soul is living inside a host by the luminous silver ring that appears around the pupils of the eyes.

I don't own the Doctor or the Souls, but I do own my character Sarah.
There is something very special about her, as there should be with all companions. But that's a big secret.
Meanwhile, for those a little infatuated with the Doctor, here's your chance to see him in all his captivatingly evil, predatory glory. It's going to be tasty.

The Karkaras: These aliens have no legs but six arms in total, four of which are used for transportation. They are far from predatory, favouring stun guns as a choice of weapon. Their features are long and horse-like, with large burnt-orange eyes and mild expressions. They are just one of many species victim to the Souls.

1

That fatal adventure on the planet Kark, in the galaxy of Pertacore, is recorded as the most sinister and terrifying event in Universal memory.

Nobody was there to save him. Just one unlucky turn around the wrong corner.
That was all it took for the seeming downfall of the Doctor.

The last thing he saw with his own eyes was the burnt turquoise flare of a Karkaras stun gun.
The lonely spaceman, defeated at last.

The Karkaras - or rather the Souls inhabiting their bodies - fretted over the unconscious stranger.
Where had he come from? What was he? Why had he come to them, when ordinarily it was the Souls who sought out new planets to explore and master?
Had he come to conquer them? Didn't he know how impossible his task would have been?

One man against six thousand Karkaras, and trillions of Souls across the Universe.

Putting these absurd ideas aside, they carried his limp form to the laboratory, situated beneath the city, away from prying eyes.
It was time to find out the solid facts and decide what to do with him based upon the evidence.
In all likelihood, they would insert a Soul into him and send him on his way - as they did with almost all of their findings. It was just their nature.

The slightly worn tweed jacket, scarlet bow tie and pinstriped shirt hung on a makeshift hook in the operating room. The initial scan and medical assessment had begun.

The leading Soul, Melowe, suddenly recoiled as though electrocuted and dropped the stethoscope he had been holding to the Doctor's chest.

"This isn't any ordinary species." he croaked, eyeing the unconscious man with new approval, "He has two hearts. By the Mother, he has two hearts!"
"What does that mean, Melowe, Sir?" chirped a young Soul impatiently.

"It means - it means we have a Time Lord on our hands."
"Sir?"
"This man is the last of his kind. The only Time Lord left in existence that we know of."

Laine, second-in-command, glanced at Melowe warily. Their plan to turn him Host had abruptly become an uncertain one.
"Is this allowed?"

"It can't be ethical - destroying a species!" the young one spoke again. Melowe silenced him with a wave of his fifth hand.

"This man... he could lead us to success beyond our imaginations. We could use him to bring peace to the Universe... That's what he does, isn't it? This famous Doctor?"

"We'll need our strongest." Laine asserted, "Time Lords are immensely powerful, their minds are miracles. We can't afford to make a mistake."

"Bring out the new Alpha, then." Melowe said, "He can stand it. Perhaps he can even negotiate, salvage some of this Doctor's memories and intelligence."

The Souls took care not to underestimate the Doctor.
But that didn't stop him from being the most underestimated creature in the known Universe.

And it certainly did not stop them from making the biggest mistake in Intergalactic history.

Under the heaviest anaesthetic the Souls had, the Doctor didn't stir as they slit him open at the base of his skull and carefully lowered the Alpha Soul into him.

He twitched a little as the creature attached itself to his brain and settled in for its journey.
He lay still as they patched up the wound with their quick-working salves and left him to rest, ushering the younger trainees out.

But then, something began to happen.

The Doctor's fingers twitched. His arms spasmed.

And then, quite abruptly, his entire body curled up like a hedgehog's, bristling and throbbing.
"By the Mother!" Melowe cried, as the man upon the slab began to writhe and fit and frenzy like a possessed thing.

"He's reacting to it." Laine breathed, "I can't believe it. He's rebelling against the Alpha."

The Doctor's eyes were closed but his brain was a hurricane, fighting back with unconscious strength, and the Soul inside was battling to keep a hold.

The squad rushed to his side, trying to hold him down, but his seizure was so violent that anyone who touched him was thrown backwards, off all six hands and onto their backs.

"THE EQUIPMENT! WE NEED TO GET THE ALPHA OUT OF THERE!" Laine yelled.
Souls scrambled to find scalpels and healing salve, but it was too late.

He was screeching incoherently, and the Souls could feel an awful clash raging like a storm between Alpha and Time Lord.

"What's happening to it?"
"What's happening to both of them?"

The Doctor's eyelids snapped open as he screamed deafeningly. His hands grasped at his head, tearing his own hair, trying to remove the creature inside.
No good. The fusion was starting to happen, like the melding of incompatible metals.

The two species tore, battered one another... and then unbelievably, irrefutably bonded, in an awful electrical explosion of neurons and synapse splices.

Melowe gasped as he sensed the hellish combination of Gallifreyan and Soul, like a conscious operation, like needles thrust into every part of the body.

The wild eyes looked like gaping holes in the fabric of Time itself - he choked and stuttered as the hybrid abomination took place - anger flared up like the Devil in his expression. He was the most horrifying sight they had ever beheld.

Then, he emitted one small sigh - froze - caved in on himself, and slumped down across the slab.

"Alright!" Melowe called straight away, dusting himself off and reaching for the equipment, "We need to clear this up. Removal of the Alpha. If we can't save the Time Lord it'll have to be necessary extermination."

"But, Sir... the last Time Lord -"
"I know!" Melowe snapped at the trainee, "Don't you think I know? We're going to be in the biggest Intergalactic trouble since the Falkin incident in the Rasmus nebula! But we can't have this."

He turned the Doctor over onto his stomach, and bent the scalpel towards the back of his neck.

It never reached his skin.

Instead, a furnace-hot hand shot out and grabbed the scalpel by the handle.
It was twisted out of Melowe's fingers, and in a moment that was frozen with shock and adrenaline, went plunging into his torso.

Vital organs burst with a sickening, wet pop. Clear thick liquid dribbled down onto the floor.

The Time Lord sat rigid on the edge of the operating table, eyes levelled darkly at the Karkaras he had just attacked. His arm was firm and unshaken as it swiftly slashed downwards, dragging the knife through his victim's body in one fell swoop, the hand of retribution.

The Souls stood motionless, appalled, solidified with fear.
Melowe looked down at his open belly. At the disgusting-coloured shapes that slid about, freed from their cage of skin and bone.

He lifted his face slowly, his breathing the only sound in the room, and stared straight into the eyes of the feral, unblinking monster he had created.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he whimpered.

The Karkaras body slid to the ground, soaking his clothes in the puddle that had formed there, and lay still.

The Doctor - or simply the Time Lord, as we now must refer to him - cocked his head to gaze menacingly at the rest of the Souls.
They fled. But he did not let them go.

Bent on bloodshed, he pursued closely with his crude weapon.

Two managed to escape to the upper floor, where warning bells went off, and the entire city went into emergency lock down.

Everybody else perished under the knife. Under his chill, unforgiving leer. Under his storming footsteps and the awful power of his will.

Then the Time Lord - what was left of him - fled swiftly to the only place that he recognised in the tattered remains of his mind as Safety.
The blue box opened reluctantly to him.

As he collapsed upon its leather cream chair and screamed and screamed for sheer torture of confusion and rage, the heart of the TARDIS waxed cold and timid.

It knew. And it was more afraid than it had felt in its entire existence.

The Universe was in the deadliest peril it had seen since the dawn of Time.

The Master, the Daleks, were nothing in light of this.
There had always been a hero, indomitable and everlasting, to prevent them.

... Who would prevent him?