The Mad Woman in the Mansion

## Episode

An aerial shot of the city of London can be seen before the camera rushes into an interior of a mansion where Shane can be seen getting up off the floor with no memory of how he got there, he looks up and is very confused "Oh great..." he says sarcastically, several strange noises can be heard - however things don't seem right as he gets up and just stands there for a second He attempts to use the front door however when he turns around the front door has seemingly disappeared - he sighs "Of course the door's gone" he says like he was expecting it to reappear but it doesn't. He then goes back down a hallway and finds himself walking around in circles until he sees a large painting of a man who seems familiar.

"Right...ok..." Shane begins before putting his arms out to his side "Am I supposed to know who this painting is? No? Yes? Maybe?" Shane looks at the painting for a few moments looking around the room seemingly distracted before snapping back to gazing at the painting "Now who the hell is this?" he thinks to himself.

From nowhere a noise is then heard from another room it sounds like someone crying, Shane tries to find that room only to just randomly show up in some sort of dining room that has seemingly just a massive table, it looks almost abandoned, looking down on the floor Shane sees someone sat down on the floor by the dining table holding their hands on their head . It looks like the figure is wearing some sort of gauntlet, or robotic arm. "Hmmm, this is very strange?" Shane says clearly weirded out.

Shane crouches down to look at the figure however the figure jolts towards him and instead looks straight into Shane's eyes and laughs hysterically as a pair of curtains swing wildly in a sudden gust of wind - Shane looks over to see a woman in a dress dancing by what looks like a broken window "Ok...time to go" Shane says to himself before running out of the dining room and into a hallway, as Shane runs out the room the woman turns round to reveal she has white eyes as her ginger hair flows in the sudden wind.

Shane runs down the hallway and finds a room filled with mannequins, he looks around the room as the camera starts to twist and turn, Shane walks up to a mannequin and touches it "Odd...but hey someone's got a hobby at least...I guess...at least I think it's a hobby...this place doesn't make any sense so I wouldn't be surprised if there here for some messed up reason."

Shane walks through the room, stopping briefly to look at another painting before finding himself again at where he started. A bloodcurdling scream and then a crazy laugh can be heard as the woman seen in the dining room can be seen standing at the end of the hallway as Shane backs up against the wall where the front door should be the woman advances, her white eyes not taking their gaze off him for an instant, as she advances towards him she chuckles and mutters something to herself as if she has read Shane's thoughts clearly. "I know what you're thinking, but trust me, you don't want to know."

Not really knowing what to do in this situation, Shane just responds with a slight bit of panic in his voice "I mean...I would like to know...but then again you look kind of...scary" he then gives off a nervous laugh as the white eyed woman continues to advance.

As she gets closer her grin becomes more and more evident, her teeth are seen to be fangs and those eyes still containing a sense of madness "It's alright....you can trust me." Shane responds "No offence...but I don't think I can" the woman shrugs as she goes into the mannequin room and pulls out a mannequin dressed up as a priest "Oh trust me, there's plenty you'd like to know. I can sense it but let's just say, it's probably not the best idea" Shane's face suggests he does want answers but he won't ask any questions because after all that's what the strange woman wants instead he pauses and just says "This is also not a good idea" before barging past the woman and legging it down a hallway with speed as he runs it seems the strange mansion twists and form as new hallways and rooms seemingly pop up from nowhere all the while the woman is howling with laughter as she appears to be following after him.

All of a sudden, as if fate decided it, he stops running and looks at a certain room as if its telling him to look inside - his curiosity gets the better of him and opens the door and goes into the room shutting the door behind him so the woman can't get in, he turns around to see what looks like ghosts from his past as his former teammates Lewis (who left Torchwood years ago) and Zach (who sacrificed himself to stop a secret Cyberman invasion) stand in the room with their arms folded staring daggers at him, Shane is seemingly frozen like he's experiencing some kind of paralysis, the woman from earlier (who calls herself Pandora after announcing out in the hallways that was her name in a taunting tone) appears behind him in the doorway. Lewis and Zach still stand there with their arms folded and continue to stare daggers through Shane as the woman speaks "You should never open a door if you don't know where it goes" she mockingly says showing off her fangs at the same time, her white eyes looking around the room as if she's admiring her handy work. The look of pure maliciousness and insanity is apparent as she starts to flick her wrists as if she's casting a spell, while still mocking Shane "Just think, you could have been one of us."

Lewis and Zach all of a sudden speak up "What kind of leader were you Shane?" Lewis berates him "What did you expect when you left us behind, when you FORGOT us, when you lead Zach to his death all for the sake of fighting endless hordes of monsters all while you played god bouncing around the multiverse?" Zach finally says something "Think what you want but what you're doing is making yourself worse than any monsters." All of a sudden a rumble of thunder can be heard and Shane suddenly breaks out of his paralysis as a stream of lightning comes down from nowhere, the mere appearance of it sees Lewis and Zach disappear like they were just copies or people impersonating them. Then the room disappears into nothingness and Shane falls back into a hallway, upon getting his bearings it's like time has stopped.

Shane shakes his head several times "Ok, I have seemed to have stopped this madness slightly, gives me time to think before this Pandora girl inevitably unfreezes everything and comes looking for me...think Shane think." Shane stands up and surveys his surroundings, it's clear the mansion has morphed into something else, it looks like some kind of medical bay.

Shane says "Ok...definitely not a mansion then, in fact this isn't even really on Earth I bet." He walks along a hallway alongside some sort of medical station complete with medical equipment, he stops as he spots a picture of what looks like the same man from earlier with the robotic arm in the other room, he appears to have aged considerably though - "Looks like Pandora has been keeping him, a distraction if you will" Shane thinks for a second as he walks on he is intrigued as to what the "medical bay" actually has in it, he spots a man in a white coat coming down some stairs "And here's someone who can help me." The man in the white coat pulls down his mask revealing a gaping mouth and a syringe in his hand, "Really? just really?" Shane says frustrated before looking around for things he could defend himself with, he spots a pair of scissors, he then throws the pair of scissors at the man, who manages to dodge them, but not before one of the scissor snags his coat and tears it.

The man says in a robotic voice without even moving his gaping open mouth "Please do not do that again." Shane just smirks before launching a lightning bolt at the man "Well let me try something else." The man once again dodges the bolt and pulls a lever which closes a large metal shutter behind him. He then raises his hands up defensively looking at Shane like he doesn't actually want to engage in fighting, Shane says like he's ordering the man "Looks like we're both locked in, Come on then big man...HIT ME." The man shakes his head "I don't think you realize the situation you're in." Shane pauses and then begins to rant "Well considering I've just been in a strange mansion for the past few hours with mannequins and rooms that contain ghosts from my past, NOT TO MENTION the crazy white eyed fanged girl chasing me seemingly for fun AND THEN seeing that same mansion morph into this place, I REALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION I'M IN."

The man takes a deep breath and exhales putting his mask back on making him look more human "The house. The memories. Both are actually here, in my lab. I'm helping run experiments to try to bring the dead back to life however as you can see with the irregularities with my face all that research has its side effects."

Shane says insistently "But I'm not dead." The man begins to sweat a bit "Well... technically you're sort of dead..." he pauses for a moment breathing heavily before continuing "You're friend, Kasuti, when you tricked her into falling into the multiverse...." he pauses to wipe the sweat off his brow. Shane says somewhat grief stricken "I did that to give her a better life without me in it" the man stops "I'm not talking about her, I'm talking about you... the other you... the one that did the deed."

Shane responds "What about him? the multiverse got closed off shortly after she went into it." The man pauses once again for a deep breath before speaking "He's still alive, in a place between dimensions... between life and death... between sanity and insanity... that place is called hell." Shane's face drops "Put your records up....look at his fact file and then mine and then confirm who you're talking to" the man does so and his face drops "You're....the same person?" the man quickly presses the shutter button to bring the shutter back up at a frantic pace "Stay away from me!" he shouts, Shane looks confused but then shrugs as the man tries to escape.

Shane walks after the man who pleads that he keeps away from him "I've seen what you did in that other universe you MONSTER" Shane tries to reply "Look I said me and him were the same person, I never said we shared the same mind...me and him are different in both physical appearance and even morals, if you're after him that you're gonna have to search the remains of the multiverse because I'm not him." The man breathes out a sigh of relief "Good" he replies calmly.

"NO" a screeching voice says from nowhere, Shane and the man look around for the source of the voice, it came from behind and a door that was previously shut is now open.

Shane runs ahead of the man and towards the door, the man calls out to him but is cut short when the woman calling herself Pandora, wearing a nurse's outfit shows up in front of him and sticks the syringe he was carrying into his neck, Shane shouts "NO!" as Pandora smirks as she pushes the plunger down, watching the man's face as he slowly dies.

"You're right about one thing doctor" Pandora says walking round the man's body "Our friend Shane here is a rare specimen indeed" she says mockingly as Shane stands there before running away.

Instead of running down another hallway he finds himself in what appears to be an infirmary of the "medical bay" he looks around and sees a cabinet full of syringes, most containing an unknown liquid.

"Either she's a doctor" he thinks to himself or she has connections he jokingly says to himself, he looks to the beds in the infirmary and what he sees turns himself as pale as a ghost as his former friend who he trapped in the multiverse lays there motionless, there is a bedside note written in cryptic hand writing saying "Do you want to know?" on it.

Shane says shaken "If this is anything like what I saw with Lewis and Zach this isn't real..." Shane runs away from the room, before he even realized it the man has been reanimated and had grabbed him by the arm.

Pandora walks up to the restrained Shane, her white eyes protruding from her mouth as she leans in close to Shane's face. "Don't worry, he won't die permanently" she says with a chuckle.

Shane demands "Enough of the games, you can read my mind, you're trying to use my memories and past against me...I know you want me to ask you what's going on but I'm not going to give you that satisfaction."

Pandora walks away from him with a laugh "Fine, I'll make us a drink to calm our nerves..." Whilst her back is turned, Shane stabs the reanimated man with a lightning bolt to the head, fortunately killing him once and for all. Shane watches as Pandora walks up to him, this time holding a steaming mug in her hands."Here, drink this" she offers, Shane bluntly responds with "No." Pandora raises an eyebrow "It's just tea, relax" she says. "Is it though?" Shane grabs a petri dish from a table and pours the drink into it to see if it reacts with anything "It's the same stuff in those syringes is what it is." Shane says as the petri dish becomes the same colour as the liquid in the syringes.

Pandora wasn't expecting this and slowly and sarcastically claps her hands "Well I'll be, that was original." - "You're just trying to get me to lower my defenses so you can do whatever it is you're going to do to me" Shane points out.

Shane asks "So now we know that you can't psych me out anymore, what can you do?" - "Oh a lot more than you think" Pandora says evilly, Pandora takes an odd shaped bowl off of a shelf, it looks like an upside down boat with a short stem and mast.

Shane becomes alert all of a sudden "What is that?" he asks, "This?" Pandora takes a drink from the mug and begins laughing to herself, she looks at it for a minute before evilly saying "Let's find out" before throwing it at Shane - Shane dodges it, it hits the wall and shatters into pieces. "You see what I did there, you see what I did there?" Pandora says with a laugh, Shane responds "No?" Pandora raises her hands as if shrugging "Suit yourself, you'll find out soon."

Pandora disappears and Shane wakes up in a dimly light Drunken Hound tavern as the version of himself that visited this tavern in the multiverse, . Shane feels rough yet he looks around the room. He sees a familiar purple haired girl in a green dress playing some sort of stringed instrument. She looks up at him with a smile, it is clearly Shane's friend from the multiverse Tirnel, she points at him "SHANE!!!" shouting that right into his ears. Pandora's laugh echoes but its hardly noticeable as Tirnel talks to Shane "Where have you been?" she asks him "Places" Shane responds bluntly, Tirnel shrugs "Ok..fine" Shane then confesses something "Listen Tirnel, I know you don't like me in this way but..." before he can finish Tirnel and the others he can see all of a sudden burst out in laughter.

"What?" exclaims Shane "What's so funny?" Tirnel and the others continue laughing so much so that the owner of the tavern trips and a hot poker lands on the wooden floor of the tavern causing a fire however everyone seems to be busy laughing as the fire intensifies, Pandora's voice echoes "These are your friends? were they? really?" Shane covers his ears to block out the laughing and starts begging and pleading "For the love of...can someone help me out here?" as he collapses on the floor.

Pandora appears behind him, her face is bloody and gruesome, Shane is back in his usual clothes, he jokingly remarks "You've let yourself go a bit or is this what you really look like?" while touching a bit of what appears to be congealed blood on his hand, Pandora responds by whipping her hands back and forth near his head, Shane responds "Now what are you doing?" Shane feels a huge invisible force lifting him into the air a few inches off the floor. He feels like a feather falling, he looks down and sees his feet walking as if they were following some one else's directions.

Panicked he asks her "What are you doing to me?" - "Making a point!" Pandora says. Shane looks up, he can see the wooden beams that hold up the roof of the tavern, and the fire is slowly gathering pace and heading straight for him. Shane looks at Pandora "What...are...you?" and starts crying inside, he looks around with tears in his eyes "Please help me, I don't want to die." He says almost like he is praying Shane says "No one's coming...is this it?" Pandora laughs before mockingly saying "Didn't this universe's Shane's parents die like this in this universe?" Shane's tears roll down his cheek and onto the floor "They...died...they died in this other universe...by...by my sister's hands..." He all of a sudden becomes serious "BUT THIS ISN'T MY UNIVERSE" he shouts at her before surrounding himself in lightning causing the tavern to blow up spectacularly as a bright white light engulfs both Shane and Pandora, the two wake up on the streets of London, "Guh..." is all Pandora utter as her head pulsates like a heavy bass beat, every pulse sending shock waves through her brain, Shane says "Welcome to my world, we're not in your twisted game anymore...so tell me, what was your plan?" Shane rubs his head as Pandora walks towards him, her hair covering most of her face "Honestly? I have no idea anymore. This...world is your doing isn't it?"

Shane says "I wouldn't say that, I just look after it let's say...defend it...I'm no tyrant, I'm no miracle worker and no Pandora I'm no hero...I just try to do my bit and people have tried using my past against me before so I'll ask again what was your plan?" Pandora throws a stone nowhere in particular "I don't know" she says with a lot more weariness than before Shane says "I think you do" - Shane looks at Pandora, waiting for a sign that will tell him where to take the conversation next, fortunately he doesn't have to wait too long, "Fuck you!" Pandora exclaims, Shane laughs "Not so scary now are you?" Pandora tries not to scream "I don't know if I should be scared because you've taken everything away from me or angry that you've fucked up my life so royally."

Shane tries to figure it all out in a comically toned rant "Oh I think I get it now, that was your world and all those people I encountered you integrated into it using their memories because thats what you feed off...memories and pain and loss and anger and happiness and fear and everything else but you're world was out of control hence why it kept changing on me so you needed someone with alot of memories and a multiverse traveler would be the perfect candidate for that so you chose me."

Pandora interrupts him "No, I just saw someone who had felt pain and loss and rage and wanted to use them as my vessel, I had that doctor research you and the multiverse, the only thing left to do was mentally drain you and take the shell of your body as my own." Shane shakes his head " Either way you're in the wrong."

Pandora at this point is fuming but realizes that she can't do anything, she touches her head like she has a major headache as she looks down at her hands "I have no memories, I'm forgetting it all" she exclaims "Exactly, with no multiverse anymore and you attempting to gain access to it to get to me, plus the little lightning stunt I pulled" Shane explains "Your brain can't handle it, Hope the rest of your life here is better than it was in that place I found you." Shane begins to walk off.

Pandora screams in pain as her fangs become normal teeth "SHANE...HELP...PLEASE" she pleads, Shane just looks and simply says "I am" as Pandora's eyes start to look more human "I just pressed the reset button let's say" Shane says before walking away, Pandora tries to reach for him but finds she is too weak, "Shane!" she yells out in confusion and pain before her body becomes completely human and she collapses, Shane looks back once more "I wish you well Pandora."

Following a screen fade, Shane is back in his Torchwood base underneath Lincoln City for the first time in a while and looks up Pandora to see what comes up on the Torchwood systems, After alot of searching it was revealed that Pandora was from a place called "The Middle Realm" a place sandwiched between Earth and the Multiverse, it was a very magical and peaceful place but due to its proximity to the ever expanding multiverse it was prone to expanding and collapsing frequently.

Because of this, the people of The Middle Realm gained characteristics similar to that of animals (hence the fangs and white eyes of Pandora) just to survive, it was a very interesting place but ultimately not one that could ever exist without constantly changing.

Shane searches up what Middle Realm race Pandora belonged to, the results are sketchy as not even Torchwood knows whats really in The Middle Realm - after some more searching it is found that Pandora belonged to a very unique race, they were able to survive in the Middle Realm for centuries and keep their minds in a place of complete familiarity by observing multiverse events and building mind palaces where they could retreat to, they could even trap other beings in those mind palaces for the sake of sport and sometimes knowledge.

The race itself was called the Mentiads and the Torchwood Institute believe Mentiads could easily blend in into other races so they could live amongst people on Earth and other worlds undetected.

Shane finds this all very interesting but insists to himself that work is done for the day and he must go home, Shane sighs and looks at the screen as the Torchwood logo spins round on it as Shane hopes for a normal day in the near future.

## Characters

* Shane
* Pandora