Claire Bennet stood in front of the mirror her father had used, so she could feel closer to him. She wished she could reach him through the glass. Inspiration struck. She could reach him in the death dream. She removed a sharp knife from the kitchen, returned to the mirror, and stabbed herself through the heart.
Still on Level 5, Bennet dreamed again of his Claire. He knew she had taken her own life to be with him, and it felt like someone had stabbed him, too, twisting the knife. Bennet faced his little girl calmly for her sake. “I love you so much, Baby. I’m proud of your strength, but use it for life, as well as death.”
“I will, Dad,” replied Claire. “I love…”
A shadowy death dream figure clamped its hand over Clare’s mouth, wrenching her away in blackness. As Claire watched her father’s stricken face recede, her eyes caught a blue-green glow from the teddy bear pendant around her neck. Suddenly, her father’s living dream form rushed to her, using her pendant’s glow as a beacon. The living dreamscape and the death dreamscape only partially intersect, however. Touching his dead daughter’s dream form, the living father jolted awake, leaving Claire to her captor.
Bennet plotted to save his daughter from the unknown shadow. He realized that the glow from her alien sand filled pendant likely meant a connection between her abductor and her namesake planet. If residents of that world were a factor, Bennet needed to contact the being that once rescued his baby from and named the planet for Claire. Using autohypnosis, he achieved R.E.M. state, again, and contacted the Doctor.
After an eternity or a moment, Claire’s beautiful living dream form materialized in his cell. Again, she was not alone. Father and daughter luxuriated in a big hug and little kisses, while the Doctor looked on pensively. “It was as you thought, Bennet,” confirmed the alien. With that, the Doctor projected the sequence of events within the living dreamscape, making his report.
“Once upon a time,” began the Doctor, “a special young girl from a planet called Earth fell through the Space-Time Vortex on to a new world with no atmosphere.” Images of Claire freezing, burning, and suffocating filled the room. “She was found and returned to her loved ones,” continued the Doctor, “but not before her death traumas became imprinted on the sentient, psychic sand.”
Bennet gaped, as the Doctor projected the eerie sound of the sand calling his daughter’s name, while burning and freezing blue-green death. “An atmosphere formed, life evolved, and the sentient, psychic sand granted access to the death dreamscape.”
The doctor went on: “Billions of years later, the brilliant, imperious, psychotic queen of the world the sand also called Claire decided to harness the death dreamscape. She ordered the sand to be fashioned into mirrors.”
“This is beginning to sound familiar,” decided Bennet, holding Claire even closer.
“And the middle and ending will be, too,” assured the Doctor, sorrowfully. “Queen Erzabet surrounded herself with the mirrors, systematically murdering her subjects in front of them. Her hypothesis proved correct.”
Here, the Doctor projected the likeness of the death-obsessed queen into the living dreamscape. She had hair as black as empty space, skin as white as the snow that never fell, lips as red as the blood she spilt, and a gown as blue-green as the sand of her mirrored world. She spoke: “The mirrors do reflect the deathscape of those who perish in front of them, the deathscape to which I consign them. But, why do they not still see me, worship me, once there? Why do I only see their souls and hers?”
The queen raged: ”I will brook no rival! Alive and dead, I will see her, Claire, subject to my will!”
Numbly, Bennet wondered at how this variation of his worst nightmare unfolded in such vivid colors. “Don’t worry, Dad,” said Claire, squeezing his hand. “I’m safe, now.”
The image of Queen Erzabet faded. Next, the Doctor projected one of the queen’s Chief Finder, bidding his family farewell: “Nay, Loves. This is the task I agreed to perform in exchange for your lives. I must die, hunt the deathscape, to find She of the Sand.”
“The Chief Finder did his job well, Bennet,” continued the Doctor,” and you contacted me.” The alien looked as if he’d seen too much. “I traveled to Claire, thinking your hunch was sound. The sand showed me what I’ve showed you, so far.” The Doctor projected the final events.
The Doctor watched Claire reasoning with the Chief Finder in one of the mirrors: “She can’t rule anyone here, because she’s still alive.”
“Not even if she were dead,” assured the Doctor. “To paraphrase Shakespeare, every subject’s duty is the queen’s, but every subject’s soul is his own.”
“You think so, interloper?,” stormed the queen. “I will rule everyone in death!” With those words, she pressed a blue-green button.
The images faded. Bennet could guess the rest. Claire, the planet, was gone; Claire, his world, was restored.
“I offered to take as many as I could reach with me,” said the Doctor, “but they all refused. Even if death is a kind of freedom, it’s not the kind of freedom I prefer.”
Bennet sensed the weight on them. For Claire’s sake, if nothing else, he had to try to lessen it. “Invite the Doctor back to the house, Claire-Bear. I’m sure he’ll love meeting everyone and petting the dog.” Bennet projected an image of Mr. Muggles.
“Sure, Dad,” replied Claire sadly,” and we won’t mention death at the table. I know how sensitive Mom is.”
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