Doctor Who: Every Prophecy In The Show - Explained
8. The Prophecy Of Pompeii
The Tenth Doctor's final run of adventures was chock-full of prophecies, kicking off with the second episode in Series 4, The Fires Of Pompeii.
Quite a few characters in this story carry the gift of prophecy, mainly thanks to the presence of fiery aliens called Pyroviles, as well as a rift in time. Evelina, Lucius Petrus Dextrus, and the Sibylline Sisterhood all make various predictions, some of them contained to the episode, and some of them hinting at wider series arcs.
"I can see... a choice. Someone must make a choice. The most terrible choice."
For the latter, Lucius ominously tells the Doctor that "she is returning", and then informs Donna that there's "something on your back", both of which come true at the end of the series, when Rose Tyler returns from the parallel world she was previously trapped in, and Donna gets her own personal Time Beetle backpack.
As for the episode-centric prophecies, the Sisterhood foretold that a blue box would arrive "at the time of storms, and fire, and betrayal", a reference to the Doctor's TARDIS showing up just before the eruption of Vesuvius.
You can interpret the "betrayal" part of that prophecy in several ways, though an intriguing one is that it refers to the Tenth Doctor betraying the laws of time by saving the lives of Caecilius and his family.
Evelina then notes that a "terrible choice" must be made, accurately predicting the Doctor's awful dilemma: let the Pyroviles conquer the world, or, blow up the volcano to stop them - destroying Pompeii (and its citizens) in the process.