A Stain of Red in the Sand (audio story)

A Stain of Red in the Sand was a 2010 Big Finish audio short story, read by David Troughton and featuring the Second Doctor and Zoe Heriot. It was notable for its highly challenging, Doctor-lite point-of-view, which left it open to many different interpretations.

Summary
Indigo lives in a world without hope, on a council estate so gloomy its residents can only manage to call it, "The Slab". On the 13th floor of The Slab lives a sculptor named Roger, a man she'd think of as her boyfriend, were he not so obsessed with his art. She returns to his flat time and time again, despite his inattentiveness, to peer out his kitchen window, and into another reality, where a man named the Doctor is fighting the Caretakers on a sandy world with two suns. These insectoid creatures have been crossing into Indigo's world and unplesantly populating The Slab.

Roger's latest creation is a girl far too innocent for his own world. Her name is Zoe, and by using the medium of "memory meat" to sculpt her, he believes he can save her. On the night he completes it, and finally allows himself to rest, the sculpture disappears. When Roger and Indigo look out the kitchen window in the morning, they see a blood stain in the sand. Roger declares that he has saved Zoe and that the Doctor has won in his struggle against the Caretakers. This seems confirmed by the fact that the Caretakers no longer inhabit The Slab. Indigo notes that the kitchen window has been left slightly ajar for her to follow, before settling down contentedly with Roger to look out the window all day onto that other world.

Characters

 * Second Doctor
 * Zoe Heriot
 * Caretakers
 * Roger
 * Indigo

Continuity
to be added

Timeline
Because Zoe and the Doctor are barely present in the story — and neither has dialogue — it's extremely difficult to reasonably assess when this story might have occurred. It could be set between any two serials featuring Zoe, except for the two separated by a cliffhanger: The Dominators and The Mind Robber. There's also the potential that it could be set during The Krotons, as the world Indigo sees through Roger's kitchen window has two suns, like the Gond world.

Furthermore, the entire play could be read as metafiction set in the real world, with Roger's kitchen window really being just a television on which the couple are watching the programme, Doctor Who.