Quarry Gravel Mound

The Doctor and Sarah crouch beneath a jagged overhang of gray-brown gravel that rises like a small artificial hillock, its coarse particles clinging to their clothes and skin. The sloped piles screen them from view while letting them peer through gaps at the abandoned service lane below. Cold Antarctic wind whips grit across the uneven surface, grit that coats the boot prints they’ve left in the churned mud. The space is claustrophobic yet open enough to allow a dash back down the slope once danger passes. A narrow channel at the mound’s base drains meltwater from the winter’s ice, a persistent trickle audible under the wind’s howl.