The Universe's Mixer

A couple days passed since the incident. Oswin felt lonely without Leto's company, and guilty. It was a fine line between denying what she was and forgetting. It was easier to forget, but she didn't think she'd be allowed to forget for long. And forgetting was dangerous each time she remembered.

She had to rebuild all her defenses, spending the next couple of days boarding up the door in her mind's eye that, if opened, would allow that terrible dalek voice in; the one that told her to exterminate, the one programmed only to feel hate.

She made another souffle, but like the rest, it came out of the oven in her tiny, dreamed up kitchenette burnt. She recorded messages for mother, journaling her life in The City so far while leaving out all the darker details.

By day three she was tired of seeing a blank viewing screen. The eyestalk of the dalek flickered to life, emitting a blue light. Oswin watched cars drive by on the street and people walking past the curious looking bronze statue as if there were nothing to fear at all.

Oswin sank into an imagined captain's chair with a sigh. It was, if nothing else, a distraction. Oswin was tired of talking to herself for company.