DOCTOR [OC]: As you come into this world, something else is also born.
(Large cogwheels turn. We journey around a large stone building with leaded windows, narrow corridors, spiral staircases up tall towers, grills covering sets of large cogwheels set into the stonework, and every few yards screens hang on the walls, full of static.)
DOCTOR [OC]: You begin your life, and it begins a journey towards you. It moves slowly, but it never stops. Wherever you go, whatever path you take, it will follow. Never faster, never slower, always coming. You will run. It will walk. You will rest. It will not. One day, you will linger in the same place too long. You will sit too still or sleep too deep, and when, too late, you rise to go, you will notice a second shadow next to yours. Your life will then be over.
[Teleport chamber room]
(In a large room containing a teleport (note- not a transmat) chamber and its separate control console, a blackened hand reaches for a lever, squeezes the grip to release it, and pulls. The owner of the hand gasps and falls, cogs turn, and the hand turns to dust. Light fills the teleport chamber and the Doctor appears, coughing and gasping. The machinery slows and stops. He opens the curved perspex door of the teleport chamber and steps out, closing it behind him. He remembers the moment the Quantum Shade raven entered Clara's body, then scoops a handful of sand from the floor and lets it trickle though his fingers.)
DOCTOR: If you think because she is dead, I am weak, then you understand very little. If you were any part of killing her, and you're not afraid, then you understand nothing at all. So, for your own sake, understand this. I am the Doctor. I'm coming to find you, and I will never, ever stop.
[Tower]
(The Doctor cautiously leaves the room and goes anticlockwise along a curved corridor with deep square openings cut in the outer wall to admit light. He leans out of one to see the shadows of spokes cast on the ground far below. Then he looks up at the outside of a tall tower.)
DOCTOR: The equipment in that room is consistent with an augmented ultra long-range teleport. So, I'm not more than a single light year from where I was, and I'm in the same time zone.
(He looks up out of another opening at the sky then across a courtyard at more towers. Then he starts to walk back clockwise.)
DOCTOR: When the sun sets, I'll be able to establish an exact position by the stars. Then you'll have a choice. Come out, show yourself, or keep on hiding. Clara said I shouldn't take revenge. You should know, I don't always listen.
(He finds a spade with soil on it leaning against the inner wall.)
DOCTOR: Oh, what's this? Well, are you gardeners? I hate gardening! What sort of a person has a power complex about flowers? It's dictatorship for inadequates. Or to put it another way, it's dictatorship. Come on! Chop, chop! The Doctor will see you now! Show me what you've got! I just watched my best friend die in agony. My day can't get any worse. Let's see what we can do about yours!
(A black and white circular image forms on the screens. It is a view of him, from someone looking through a narrow slit in a wall. He looks out of the nearest opening at the wall across the courtyard. It has narrow slit openings, and there is a figure in pale grey veils standing at one of them, presumable the Veil of the cast list. He backs away and checks the view on the nearest screen. The hunchbacked figure turns away from the slit and moves along the corridor. According to the screens, the being moves slowly, as if it is dragging a leg. Each step is a thump, and they get closer. The Doctor wafts away a fly, then retreats from the approaching sounds. He runs down a narrow corridor to a wooden door, but it is locked. He is about to run back, but the being is at the other end of the bridge.)
DOCTOR: I know you. I've seen you before.
(He runs back to the door and puts both hands on it.)
DOCTOR: I used to know a trick, back when I was young and telepathic. Clearly, you can't make an actual psychic link with a door, for one very obvious reason. They're notoriously cross. I mean, imagine life as a door. People keep pushing past you. All of that knocking, but it's never for you. And you get locked up every night, so if you're just a little bit nice.
(The door unlocks.)
DOCTOR: See, Clara? Still got it.
(He opens the door to reveal a solid wall just a pace behind it. The Veil has almost arrived.)
DOCTOR: But I. Er, I can't actually see a way out of this I've finally run out of corridor. There's a life summed up. Oh, now this is new. I'm scared. I just realised that I'm actually scared of dying.
(The Veil has arrived, and is just reaching out with its four-fingered hands, when it stops dead, with a clang.)
DOCTOR: Something I said? What did I say?
(Even the Veil's attendant flies are frozen in the air. He flicks one away.)
DOCTOR: Why did you stop?
(There is a loud cracking and rumbling of cogs. He looks out of an opening to see a sections of the walls rotating in opposite directions with the uppermost faster than the lower ones, rather like the upper section of the Tardis time rotor does nowadays. The obstructing wall moves aside and he runs into the revealed room.)
[Bedroom]
(The cogs stop. The Doctor tests the springs in the bed then picks one of the stems of hemerocallis from a vase by the window and sniffs it. Then he sees a portrait hanging over the fireplace, it's paint and varnish old and cracked and peeling. It is, of course, a painting of Clara Oswald. He picks up a jeweller's eyeglass that is conveniently by the frame and examines the state of the oils, not noticing that the screen in the room shows him examining the painting. The Veil is arriving.)
DOCTOR: Old. Very old. Possibly very, very old.
(Then he sees a fly land on the portrait. He drops the glass from his eye and turns to face the Veil.)
DOCTOR: When I was a very little boy, there was an old lady who died. (cheek pop) They covered her in veils, but it was a hot, sunny day, and the flies came. It gave me nightmares for years. So, who's been stealing my nightmares?
(He plucks petals from the flowers.)
DOCTOR: What am I here for? You've known about me for a very long time, right?
(He puts the eyeglass back in and dodges around to see if the Veil can actually see him.)
DOCTOR: So, what is it? Is it a trap? Is it a prison? No! Is it a torture chamber? Am I right? Somebody really should know better. Anyone who can put all of this together and steal my bad dreams, they should know better.
(He lets the jeweller's eyeglass fall to the floor with a metallic clatter.)
DOCTOR: The secrets I have? No chance. No telling, not me.
(He ducks under the veiled being's arms and grabs a wooden stool to fend it off.)
DOCTOR; I told you I was scared of dying. And I wasn't lying either. Advantage, me!
(He throws the stool through a leaded window. The wind is blowing.)
DOCTOR: Because you won't see this coming!
(The Doctor dives through the broken window...)
[Tardis]
(And bursts in through the doors. He goes to the console, pushing the scanner screen aside and working controls. We get intercut shots of him plummeting ever downwards.)
DOCTOR: Sorry I'm late. Jumped out of a window. Certain death. Don't you want to know how I survived? Go on. Ask me! No, of course I had to jump! The first rule of being interrogated is that you are the only irreplaceable person in the torture chamber. The room is yours, so work it. If they're going to threaten you with death, show them who's boss. Die faster. And you've seen me do that more often than most. Isn't that right, Clara? Rule one of dying, don't. Rule two, slow down.
(The Doctor slows to almost no movement in mid-fall. There is a figure in the Tardis with her back to him.)
DOCTOR: You've got the rest of your life. The faster you think, the slower it will pass. Concentrate. Assume you're going to survive. Always assume that. Imagine you've already survived. There's a storm room in your mind. Lock the door and think. This is my storm room. I always imagine that I'm back in my Tardis, showing off, telling you how I escaped, making you laugh. That's what I'm doing right now. I am falling, Clara. I'm dying. And I am going to explain to you how I survived. I can't wait to hear what I say. I'm nothing without an audience. One hope. Salt.
(The stool smashes the window.)
DOCTOR: Thought I smelled it earlier. When I broke the window, I was sure. Salty air. This castle is standing in the sea.
(A schematic is on the scanner.)
DOCTOR: Diving into water from a great height is no guarantee of survival. I need to know exactly how far I'm going to fall, and how fast.
(Calculations are scrolling up the scanner as the top of the time rotor turns.)
DOCTOR: Why do you think I threw the stool? (breaking glass) Fall time to impact (splash) seven seconds.
DOCTOR [bedroom]: Because you won't see this coming!
DOCTOR: The wind resistance of the stool, the atmospheric density, (the petals falling) the strength of the local gravity. (the fall of the jeweller's glass.) Am I spoiling the magic? I work at this stuff, you know? Should hit the water in about
(The Doctor stretches out his arms into a dive.)
DOCTOR: Point zero two seconds. The chances of remaining conscious are
(Splash! The Doctor enters the water and gently floats downwards. The Tardis has gone dark, then lights up again, roundel layer by roundel layer. Someone is writing on a blackboard with chalk.)
BLACKBOARD: Question 1. What is this place?
DOCTOR: Can't I just sleep?
BLACKBOARD: Question 2. What did you say that made the creature stop?
DOCTOR: Do I have to know everything?
BLACKBOARD: How are you going to
DOCTOR: Clara, I can't always
BLACKBOARD: Win?? (with seven underlines.)
(Filtered sunlight reveals that the sea bed is covered in long humanoid skulls. Fully conscious again, the Doctor swims up to the surface and gasps for breath. A short time later he has climbed out. The castle has a central tower with four spokes coming off it on two levels, connecting to the outer circular wall. From above it looks rather like a cog wheel.
Dripping wet, he walks up a staircase into a room with a roaring log fire. There are a pair of boots in front of the hearth, and trousers, jacket, waistcoat, shirt all on a wooden clothes horse to the side. The Doctor warms himself briefly, then compares the cuff buttons on the dry jacket with his own. They are identical. He exchanges his wet clothes for the dry ones. After a brief pause he puts his wet garments back exactly where he found the dry ones, and stands both boots up.
From the drying room, he walks through the great hall - of Caerphilly Castle - with a dining table set for one in the middle and on into a...
[Storeroom]
(This storeroom with a hexagon shaped hole in the flagstones, and chalked arrows pointing in towards each side. He touches the sand in the bottom of it.)
DOCTOR: It keeps coming, Clara. Wherever I go, it follows. Why? Why does it do that?
BLACKBOARD: Wrong question.
DOCTOR: Always the teacher. What's the right question, then?
BLACKBOARD: Not why. What?
DOCTOR: It's following me. Wherever I go, it's tracking me. Slowly though. Scary lurching. Scary. These screens, everywhere. It's showing me exactly where it is all the time, how far it's got, how near. Because it's trying to scare me. Putting its breath on my neck. That's the point. That's what it's doing. This is theatre. It's all about fear. Working hypothesis. I'm in a fully automated haunted house. A mechanical maze.
(A copper pan hanging up rattles.)
DOCTOR: It's a killer puzzle box designed to scare me to death, and I'm trapped inside it. (laughs) Must be Christmas.
(Heavy doors open somewhere. The Doctor walks out into a dark corridor. Water drips somewhere. He opens a creaky door into -)
[Garden]
(The trees and shrubs look nearly dead in the near permanent shade of the tiny inner courtyard. The door slams shut behind him, making him jump. A bell is ringing somewhere. The garden is laid out with a cogwheel design to the paths. At the centre is an empty round bed with a recently dug rectangle in the middle, like a screwdriver slot. The Doctor feels the quality of the worked soil, then sees a clean spade leaning against the wall.)
DOCTOR: Another spade? Someone wants me to dig. What do you think, Clara? Is someone trying to give me a hint? What would you do?
BLACKBOARD: Same as you.
DOCTOR: Yes. Yes, of course you would.
(He takes the spade.)
DOCTOR: Which, let's be honest, is what killed you. So, someone is trying to tell me that there's something important buried in this garden. That's almost the first thing they tried to tell me. Could be a trick. Could be one of my predecessors. Because I'm not the first prisoner here, am I! All those skulls! Wonder where they all went wrong. Building this height, creature that slow, so what? An hour.
(He excavates the dug soil as the Veil and its attendant flies come closer. When one buzzes his face, he runs to a window to check the screen inside. It is a view of a piece of wood with flies on it. So he opens the door, and the Veil is there, screeching at him. The Doctor slams the door, trapping its hands, until it finally withdraws them. He jams the spade under the door handle, digging its blade into the gravel path.)
DOCTOR: Physics of a triangle. You lose.
(The door stops shaking and the Veil leaves.)
DOCTOR: So? It can set traps. That's okay. I'm good at traps.
(Nervously he checks the view on the screen. It is the storeroom with its hexagon in the floor.)
DOCTOR: So, where are you off to? Only one way in and one way out. Well, seeing as you're going.
(He retrieves the spade, jumps back into the hole and carries on digging. As night falls and crickets chirp, he is about four foot down and tired, so he pauses to look up at the dark sky.)
DOCTOR: No, no. That's not right.
(The spade hits something. Sounds like stone by the scrape. He uses his hands to clear the remaining soil so he can read what has been carved into it. I Am. He recalls the hexagon. Flies start to buzz as he uncovers. In 12. A fly buzzes in front of him, then the Veil jumps down into the grave-sized hole. The Doctor falls backwards as it reaches for him.)
[Tardis]
DOCTOR: Well, that was another close one. Or it will have been, once I've been and gone and got myself out of it. So, how am I going to do that? Come on, teacher, ask me questions!
(The back of the woman moves aside to reveal what she has written on the blackboard.)
BLACKBOARD: Tell no lies.
DOCTOR [tower]: I'm actually scared of dying.
BLACKBOARD: Question 2. What did you say that made the creature stop?
DOCTOR: The truth, yes. But not any old truth, Clara. This whole place is designed to terrify me. I'm being interrogated. It's not just truth it wants. That's not enough. It's confession. I have to tell truths I've never told before. That's the only thing that stops it. You see, the problem is, Clara, there are truths that I can never tell. Not for anything. But I'm scared and I'm alone. Alone, and very, very scared.
(He sits on the steps to the gallery.)
DOCTOR: I confess.
[Garden]
DOCTOR: I didn't leave Gallifrey because I was bored! That was a lie! It's always been a lie!
(The Veil pauses.)
DOCTOR: Not enough? You want more? I was scared! I ran because I was scared! Is that what you want me to say? Is that true enough for you?
(The Veil withdraws its hand, the castle rumbles. The Doctor climbs out of the grave to see the various floors rotating in opposite directions again. He runs inside then through to the wall on the outside of the castle, and looks out across the endless sea. A pair of skulls are dislodged from the seabed and float to the surface. The castle stops moving and they drift back down again.)
[Bedroom]
(A clock ticks, but it is actually the Doctor tapping a finger against the arm of his chair.)
DOCTOR [OC]: It's funny, the day you lose someone isn't the worst. At least you've got something to do. It's all the days they stay dead.
(The flies arrive.)
DOCTOR: Fifty seven minutes?
(He gets up and leaves just ahead of the Veil's arrival. )
(Tapping the bannister of a big staircase.)
DOCTOR [OC]: This is how my world works, Clara. I tick off the seconds as they pass. My life is a countdown.
(A door thuds. He runs down and through a long gallery to another big room.)
DOCTOR [OC]: If I draw the creature to one extreme of the castle, and I run to the other extreme, I can earn myself a maximum of eighty two minutes. Eighty two minutes to eat, sleep and work. My work is finding Room 12. (He goes through door 46) The castle wants me to. It's luring me. (He checks his notebook.) The numbering is a bit confused, (backs away from door 7) as if the rooms are all jumbled up. Maybe they move around. I saw the whole castle move, when I made the creature stop.
(Back in the garden, the grave is filled in again.)
DOCTOR [OC]: Every room, if I leave it long enough, reverts to its condition at the moment I arrive. It tidies up after itself.
(The flowers are in the bedroom vase, intact. He remembers plucking the petals.)
DOCTOR [OC]: Automated room service.
(He has a meal in the Great Hall, soup served in a pewter dish, which he eats with a pewter spoon. A metal goblet and a plate of bread rolls are also on the fabric place mat.)
DOCTOR [OC]: I think this whole place is inside a closed energy loop, constantly recycling. Or maybe I'm in Hell? That's okay. I'm not scared of Hell. It's just Heaven for bad people. But how long will I have to be here? Forever?
(He lets the spoon drop. From a corridor above the Great Hall he sees the Veil near the table.)
DOCTOR [OC]: It's always coming. Always closer. The countdown never stops. But the countdown to what?
[Teleport chamber room]
DOCTOR [OC]: There are two events in everybody's life that nobody remembers. Two moments experienced by every living thing, yet no one remembers anything about them. Nobody remembers being born and nobody remembers dying.
(He finds a skull with power leads attached to its temples on the floor by the control console, and picks it up. Alas, poor Yorick.)
DOCTOR [OC]: Is that why we always stare into the eye sockets of a skull?
(He removes the power leads and stands.)
DOCTOR [OC]: Because we're asking, what was it like? Does it hurt? Are you still scared?
(He sees a word written in the sand or dust.)
DOCTOR: Bird? What's bird got to do with it? Are there birds here?
(The cogs start turning and the word disappears. A piece of wall slides away to reveal the entrance to a spiral staircase.)
[Tower]
(The Doctor climbs the steps to the battlements at the top of the tower, and places Yorick in a crenellation overlooking the sea.)
DOCTOR [OC]: There's something I'm missing, Clara, and I think it's something terrible.
(He looks up at the stars. Back inside the tower, he hears a door open and close, and heads down some steps to find a door labelled 12. He opens it, but the way into the room beyond is blocked by masonry. Light streams through the gap on the left hand side.)
DOCTOR: Hello? Hello, is there someone there? Hello!
DOCTOR [OC]: It's a trap, Clara. A lure and a trap.
(The Doctor's head morphs into Yorick up on the battlements and he looks at the stars again.)
DOCTOR: I'm following breadcrumbs laid out for me. This is somebody's game, and I can't stop playing. A game everybody else has lost. I know how to move that wall, Clara, so long as I don't run out of confessions. But what I really want to know is
(Flies buzz.)
DOCTOR: Who's been playing about with the stars? They're all in the wrong places, for this time zone, anyway. I know I didn't time travel to get here. I can feel time travel.
(The Veil is coming up behind him.)
DOCTOR: If I didn't know better, I'd say I've travelled seven thousand years into the future. But I do know better. So who moved the stars?
(The Veil reaches its hands either side of his face.)
DOCTOR: The Hybrid.
(The Veil pauses and he turns around to face it.)
DOCTOR: Long before the Time War, the Time Lords knew it was coming, like a storm on the wind. There were many prophecies and stories, legends before the fact. One of them was about a creature called the Hybrid. Half Dalek, half Time Lord, the ultimate warrior. But whose side would it be on? Would it bring peace or destruction? Was it real, or a fantasy? I confess, I know the Hybrid is real. I know where it is, and what it is. I confess, I'm afraid.
(The Veil leaves and the castle reconfigures. The rumbling shakes Yorick off the battlements and it plummets into the sea to join all the other identical skulls.)
[Room 12]
(The Doctor runs back down the stairs and opens the doors. The masonry blocking the way has gone. As he enters, he slaps his fingers against his palm to count the seconds. The Veil is coming. The Doctor walks down the smooth narrow passage and puts his sonic sunglasses on. He takes them off when he reaches the wall of crystal at the far end with the word Home carved in it. But the word disappears after a few moments. A dark rectangular shape can just be made out through the crystal.)
DOCTOR: Of course. The last square on the board. What else would it be? The Tardis. One confession away.
(He puts the sunglasses back on.)
DOCTOR: Azbantium. Four hundred times harder than diamond. Twenty feet thick. The way out.
(He remembers the word in the dust in the teleport chamber room.)
DOCTOR: Bird?
[Tardis]
DOCTOR: (angry) That's when I remember! Always then. Always then. Always exactly then! I can't keep doing this, Clara! I can't! Why is it always me? Why is it never anybody else's turn?
BLACKBOARD: How are you going to win?? (seven underlines.)
DOCTOR: Can't I just lose? Just this once?
(He hides under the time rotor assembly.)
DOCTOR; Easy. It would be easy. It would be so easy. Just tell them. Just tell them, whoever wants to know, all about the Hybrid.
(The Doctor is sitting on the ground in a channel cut part way through the Azbantium, as the Veil arrives in room 12. In the Tardis, in his head, he comes out and runs around the console room.)
DOCTOR: I can't keep doing this. I can't! I can't always do this! It's not fair! Clara, it's just not fair! Why can't I just lose?
BLACKBOARD: No!
DOCTOR: But I can remember, Clara.You don't understand, I can remember it all. Every time. And you'll still be gone. Whatever I do, you still won't be there.
(He sits on the stairs to the lower level, distraught.)
CLARA [OC]: Doctor, you are not the only person who ever lost someone. It's the story of everybody. Get over it. Beat it. Break free.
(Her hand touches his cheek.)
CLARA: Doctor, it's time. Get up, off your arse, and win!
[Room 12]
(The Doctor stands to face the Veil as it enters the room.)
DOCTOR; Hello again. No more confessions, sorry. But I will tell you the truth.
(The Doctor punches the Azbantium wall, and cries out in pain.)
DOCTOR: The Hybrid is a very dangerous secret. A very, very dangerous secret and it needs to be kept!
(Another punch, another cry of pain.)
DOCTOR: So I'm telling you nothing. Nothing at all. Instead, I'm going to do something far worse. (punch) Argh! I'm going to get out of here, and find whoever put me here in the first place, and whatever they're trying to do, I'm going to stop it! (punch) Argh!
(The Doctor doubles over in pain.)
DOCTOR: But it might take me a little while, so do you want me to tell you a story? (punch) Argh! The Brothers Grimm, lovely fellas. They're on my darts team. (punch) Argh! According to them, there's this emperor and he asks this shepherd's boy, how many seconds in eternity?
(The Veil's scaly hands close across the Doctor's eyes and he screams as steam rises from his skin then falls to the ground. The Veil is teleported away and the screens revert to static. Silence reigns.)
[Tardis]
The Doctor's storm room slowly lights up.)
DOCTOR: People always get it wrong with Time Lords. We take forever to die. Even if we're too injured to regenerate, every cell in our bodies keeps trying. Dying properly can take days. That's why we like to die among our own kind. They know not to bury us early.
(The mortally injured Doctor drags himself up a spiral staircase.)
DOCTOR: I think, in my current condition, it'll take me about a day and a half to reach the top of the tower. I think. If I'm lucky, I have a day and a half.
(The Doctor drags himself along a corridor, leaving smears of blood behind.)
DOCTOR: I have to do this, Clara. It's the only way. I have to be strong. I should have known from the very beginning. Of course. The portrait of you, the creature from my own nightmares. This place is my own bespoke torture chamber, intended for me only. And all those skulls in the water. How could there be other prisoners in my Hell? The answer, of course, is there never were any other prisoners. And the stars, they weren't in the wrong place, and I haven't time travelled.
(He collapses onto the floor of the Tardis as he actually reaches the teleport chamber room.)
DOCTOR: I've just been here a very, very long time. Every room resets. Remember I told you that? Every room reverts to its original condition. Logically, the teleporter should do the same. Teleporter. Fancy word. Just like 3D printers, really, except they break down living matter and information, and transmit it. All you have to do is add energy. The room has reset, returned to its original condition when I arrived. That means there's a copy of me still in the hard drive. Me, exactly as I was, when I first got here, seven thousand years ago. All I have to find is some energy.
(He picks up the power cables and attaches them to his temples.)
DOCTOR: And all you need for energy is something to burn.
(It is the dying Doctor who takes hold of the lever and pulls it down, sending power into the transporter console. When he finally falls to the ground, the cogs turn, the teleporter powers up, and he writes Bird in the dust with his last ounce of strength.
DOCTOR: How long can I keep doing this, Clara? Burning the old me, to make a new one?
(The Tardis goes dark. The burnt hand turns to dust. The bloodstains on the flagstones disappear. We are back to the start of the show.)
[Teleport chamber room]
(The Doctor gasps and coughs in the teleport chamber. The cogs stop turning and he gets out, closing the door behind him before scooping up dust and letting it run through his fingers.)
DOCTOR: If you think because she's dead, I am weak, then you understand very little. If you were any part of killing her and you're not afraid, then you understand nothing at all. So, for your own sake, understand this. I'm the Doctor. I'm coming to find you, and I will never, ever stop.
(After he leaves the room, the camera sweeps across the word Bird to the skull with power leads attached. Then the Doctor is throwing the stool through the window.)
DOCTOR [bedroom]: Because you won't see this coming!
(He dives into the sea and sees all the skulls. He exchanges his wet clothes for the dry set and excavates the grave again. He picks up Yorick and ends up on the top of the tower with the Veil behind him.)
DOCTOR: If I didn't know better, I'd say I've travelled seven thousand years into the future.
(Yorick falls into the sea, the Doctor opens the door to room 12 and punches a few more molecules off the Azbantium wall.)
DOCTOR: Aah! How many seconds in eternity?
(He crawls back to the teleport to do it all again.)
DOCTOR [tower]: If I didn't know better, I'd say I've travelled twelve thousand years into the future.
DOCTOR [room 12]: How many seconds in eternity? And the shepherd's boy Argh!
(And again.)
DOCTOR [tower]: Six hundred thousand years into the future.
DOCTOR [room 12]: Argh! How many seconds in eternity? And the shepherd's boy says Argh!
(Digging again, dropping the spoon in the soup.)
DOCTOR [tower]: Twelve hundred thousand years into the future.
DOCTOR [room 12]: Argh! And the shepherd's boy says Argh!
DOCTOR [tower]: Two million years into the future.
DOCTOR [room 12]: And the shepherd's boy says
(And again, and again, and again, getting dizzy with the flashing excerpts...)
DOCTOR [tower]: Twenty million years into the future.
DOCTOR [room 12]: Ow! And the shepherd's boy says, there's this mountain of pure diamond. It takes an hour to climb it, and an hour to go around it!
(Even faster flashes of scenes.)
DOCTOR [tower]: 52 million years.
DOCTOR [room 12]: Every hundred years, a little bird comes and sharpens its beak on the diamond mountain.
(Faster still.)
DOCTOR [tower]: Nearly a billion years.
DOCTOR [room 12]: Argh! And when the entire mountain is chiselled away, the first second of eternity will have passed!
(Faster still.)
DOCTOR [tower]: Well over a billion years.
DOCTOR [room 12]: Argh! You must think that's a hell of a long time,
(More and more.)
DOCTOR [tower]: Two billion years.
DOCTOR [room 12]: Personally, I think that's a hell of a
(Again.)
[Room 12]
(The Doctor charges the remaining layer of crystal at the end of the twenty foot tunnel.)
DOCTOR: Aaargh!
(The Azbantium finally gives way. Bright light floods in and the Veil explodes, cogwheels and shrouds falling to the floor.)
DOCTOR: Personally, I think that's a hell of a bird.
[Planet surface]
(The Doctor walks out of the portal created by the hole in the Azbantium onto a dry planet with a golden sky. The portal closes and a small round metal object falls to the ground. The Doctor picks up a miniature of the castle surrounded by blue water. Brass cogwheels fill the space and then an engraved cover closes over it. It is his confession dial. A small boy runs up to him.)
DOCTOR: Go to the city. Find somebody important. Tell them I'm back. Tell them, I know what they did, and I'm on my way. And if they ask you who I am, tell them I came the long way round.
(The boy runs off towards a tall metallic city with a towering Citadel at its heart. The Doctor speaks to his confession dial.)
DOCTOR: You can probably still hear me, so just between ourselves, you've got the prophecy wrong. The Hybrid is not half Dalek. Nothing is half Dalek. The Daleks would never allow that. The Hybrid destined to conquer Gallifrey and stand in its ruins
(The Doctor dons his sonic sunglasses.)
DOCTOR: Is me.
