"Everyone, over there, please. Don't ask questions, don't speak," the Doctor said, his voice filled with anger. Or was that fear?

He pulled Leslie into an alcove that was relatively away from the statues, and Leslie pressed their back against the jagged stone wall, grateful for the leather between it and them. The others followed, Octavian eyeing the Doctor with something akin to distrust. Leslie knew what he was thinking – Why didn't the Doctor, who had been described as incredible, know?

"Okay, I want you to switch off all of your torches," the Doctor said, his voice serious. Leslie stared at him in shock.

"Well, the medallion says that's dumb, so we're not going to do that," Leslie quoted, rolling their eyes at everyone's expressions. "What, do you want to prove that they can kill us by giving them the chance to kill us? No thanks."

"Oh," the Doctor said, his brow furrowing, "Yes, I see your point."

"But the real question is: do you trust us enough to take us at our word?" River asked Octavian, who swallowed, looking at the screaming statues. He nodded, and River smiled.

"Wait, so you mean to say that all of these statues are angels?" a cleric asked, and Leslie nodded.

"Oh, my god," Amy said, her accent strong in her fear, "they've moved. Like the one on the screen."

Leslie looked down the corridor to see that, even during their brief conversation, the statues had moved closer to the group. Their crumbling arms were reaching out, their fingers firm in their empty grasps.

"They're angels. All of them. You were right, Leslie," the Doctor said in shock.

"But they can't all be, it doesn't make any sense," River said, unable to, or unwilling to, believe the cold hard facts. Since when has things making sense ever mattered before?

"Clerics, keep watching them," the Doctor ordered, and the men did so, their torches shining on the statues.

The time-lord ran back towards the main cavern, the one looking out onto the narrow pathways and bridges leading to the separate rooms. Leslie followed, noting that the previously sparse statues were now in abundance, each of them reaching stubby fingers, ruined by age, towards them.

"Every statue in this maze, every single one, is a Weeping Angel," the Doctor said, stating the obvious, "They're coming after us."

Leslie's heart was beating so hard and fast, they were afraid that it would punch a hole in their ribs and fall out of their chest, despite the scientific impossibility. And when they next turned to shine the light from their wand on an angel, its jagged teeth were bared in a smile.

oOo

"But there was only one Angel on the ship. Just the one, I swear," River was saying as they hastily moved toward the wrecked ship.

"Could they have been here already?" Amy asked, thinking logically. Leslie gave her a thumbs-up and she smiled, despite the situation.

"The Aplans. What happened? How did they die out?" the Doctor asked River.

"Nobody knows," River told him, and the Doctor's face grew grim.

"We know," he said simply.

They quickened their pace, Leslie's boots scuffing against the unforgiving stone. I wonder what it would be like to be made of stone? Do they keep their conscious thought? Are they alive when they're stone? What if they're made of stone all the time? What if they're really soft when nobody is watching?

"They don't look like Angels," Octavian pointed out.

"And they're not fast. You said they were fast. They should have had us by now," Amy said, as if in accusation. Leslie nodded, impressed. Brave with the Doctor, not so much without.

"Look at them," the Doctor said, gesturing toward the statues with the beam of his torch, "They're dying, losing their form. They must have been down here for centuries, starving."

"Losing their image?" Leslie provided and the Doctor flashed a grin their way.

"And their image is their power," he finished, then his thoughts juttered to a conclusion. He halted in his tracks, Leslie stopping beside him. Finally, they thought. It seems like a longer time when you're in it.

"Power," he said with realisation, "Power!"

"Doctor?" Amy questioned.

"Don't you see?" aforementioned Doctor said excitedly, "All that radiation spilling out the drive burn. The crash of the Byzantium wasn't an accident, it was a rescue mission for the Angels. We're in the middle of an army, and it's waking up," he finished, not so excited at this point.

"We need to get out of here, fast," River provided.

"I don't know if we can," Leslie noted, "We're almost at the heart of this - if we try and escape, we'll have to go through thousands of statues."

"And they're growing more powerful every second we spend in here," the Doctor said grimly.

Leslie looked nervously at the statues surrounding the group. The Doctor was only facing five or six angels before. There are thousands in here. A Maze of the Dead. A chill ran down their spine. We're the dead.