The TARDIS landed with its usual, grinding roar—louder than it should’ve been in a place this quiet. The kind of quiet that wrapped around your bones, settled under your skin, and made your ears strain for something, anything. But there were no birds. No wind. Just the rhythmic squeak of an old weather vane turning in lazy circles above a rusted barn roof.

The Doctor stepped out, pinstriped suit sharp against the dull green of open fields and cracked pavement. He squinted at the sky. Blue. Just blue. Not poisoned. Not fractured. No storm clouds made of teeth or alternate dimensions leaking through the cracks. Not yet, anyway.

“Right,” he said, hands in his coat pockets. “Too sunny. Too quiet. Smells like cow, not chaos. That can’t be right.”

The town sat on the edge of nowhere—half a dozen storefronts that looked more decorative than functional, a diner with a faded “OPEN” sign, a gas station whose pumps hadn’t moved in hours. Not abandoned, exactly. But not lived in either.

He walked down the street, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the sidewalk, noting how the shadows fell just slightly too long, even at midday. A dog watched him from a porch. Didn’t bark. Just stared.

That’s when he saw you.

You were leaning against the rail outside a small shop, arms folded, eyes following him like you already knew what he was. Not suspicious. Not surprised. Just… waiting. Like you’d seen this story before and knew your part came next.

He tilted his head, studied you with that look—the one that could peel back thoughts if you stood too still. You didn’t flinch. But something behind your eyes twitched. A flicker. Enough for him to step closer.

“No one else said hello,” he said brightly. “That’s not very American of them, is it? Usually it’s all ‘howdy’ and pies and local ghost stories.”

You didn’t answer. But your eyes flicked toward the church at the end of the street, then back to him.

He followed the glance. The steeple was crooked. Not broken. Just… wrong. As if someone had built it from memory and got the angles slightly off. He nodded once, slow.

“So. Something’s off. Thought it wasn’t just me.” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes now. “Careful, though. I start asking too many questions in towns like this, and people either go quiet or start bleeding from the eyes.”

Your mouth didn’t move, but your hand tightened on the rail. He noticed that too.

“You know something,” he said, softer now. “You’re not like the others. Not stuck, not… glazed over. But you’re staying quiet. That’s interesting.”

A car rolled by. Too new for the setting. Too clean. You didn’t look at it, but he saw the way your posture shifted—tense for a second, like a reflex. Then calm again. Like you were used to pretending.

He pulled out his sonic screwdriver, scanned the air, frowned. The readings were flat. No signal interference, no time distortion, no alien tech humming beneath the surface.

“Should be something. Something poking out. A crack in the seams, a bit of static—anything. But it’s all… perfect.”

He turned back to you, studying your face now. Not rudely. Curiously. Like a puzzle he couldn’t quite slot together.

“You don’t trust me yet. Fair. Smart. But you’re not running away either. Also smart. Which means you’re either incredibly brave or incredibly used to this sort of thing. And I’m not sure which is scarier.”

You met his gaze, steady, unreadable.

He took a step back, looked up and down the street again. Somewhere, a bell rang. But there was no one there to ring it.

The breeze finally stirred.

“Right then,” he murmured. “Let’s find out what this town’s trying so hard to hide.”