gorkon Ensign Mort Halat - Drowning in Sorrow

[Alieth]

 

Thanks @Jo Marshall , I'm definitely not going to sleep again like...ever....

 

((Sickbay, USS Gorkon)) 

 

It was in there. 

 

Mort covered his ears with his palms, pressing them into the sides of his head, and slid down the wall to his knees. Curling like a foetus, shivering, his eyes screwed shut.

 

He couldn't see it, but it was there. Lingering in the corners, just out of sight. Breathing down his ears. Creep of the gravity shift in his equilibrium when it moved. Broken mirrors. Shards of glass. Words just out of reach. Whispers curling into his brain like smoke. 

 

Taeval: Elevated blood pressure, blood sugar, and every Denobulan stress hormone there is. But no physical injuries. ::Two of them shook their heads in a blur.:: Whatever he’s been through, that blood isn’t hisssssssssssss…. It's mine. It's mine! Give it back to me!

The Vulcanoid peered down at him as the voice slithered through his body.

 

Loxley: No internal injuries detected at all. Still, I’d very much like to get him on a biobed for a neurological scan as soon as we can. ::He snarled, the words deep and guttural.:: Strap him down so he can't escape again.

 

He cracked his eyes open wide to see the smile from the Betazoid woman, growing wider at the edges until her face split at the corners of her cheeks, the smile extending ever further, and further. Bright and white. Fangs developed from the incisors as she continued her beaming, reassuring, and terrifying grin. 

 

Fortune: I'm sorry. I was crowding you, wasn't I? I'm going to kill you. I didn't mean it. But we can't possibly leave you in such a state. ::She stopped smiling; her large eyes blinked in rapid succession.:: This cannot be easy, can it? Whatever you've gone through, in a new space… so much space to get lost in.

 

Halat: Do'sani! Do'sani, yo-to aruda!1

 

It moved in the darkness, throbbed, and inched closer to him. Mort flattened himself against the wall, trembling as an icy shock of horror ran down his spine. Then it withdrew, like some unfathomable, querulous creature.

 

Taeval/Saralai: Response

 

Loxley: Taeval, send your scan results to biobed two, and I’ll get it prepped in case we manage to get him calmed down enough to drain his blood and cut off his limbs. A sample of that blood would be good, too. It belongs to someone, and there’s a lot of it. If it’s another officer, we should be able to match it to records. 

 

They know what you did, the voice whispered like a feather against the inside of his ear, as soft as a prayer, before it roared once more. Please don't leave us! Don't leave us behind! Take us with you!

 

Taeval/Saralai: Response

 

Loxley: I’m surprised he hasn’t ballooned yet, that’s the typical Denobulan response to being threatened.  

 

The Betazoid looked at him once more as Mort peered up at her, the yawning black soulless pits of her eyes gazing down upon him. Breath drew in through her, drawing his quivering soul forward, out of him, ready to gorge on his lifeless body should he die there like the Vulcans. Her eyes shifted and melded, like inkblots spreading over a wet surface.

 

Fortune: Let's focus on one thing at a time. Your shirt is soaked with blood. I could lick it clean from you…  I can't imagine that feels good. We'll get you a change of clothes, okay?

 

He shook his head violently as the inkblots grew darker, growing from the eyes into the room, and the shaking heads of the others continued their manic speed, faster and faster, blurring their facial features until one stopped to speak. 

 

Halat: No! Stay away from me!

 

Taeval/Loxley/Saralai: Response

 

Fortune: It's okay, it'll be alright. We'll get to the bottom of it, I'm sure of it. ::Barely tilting her head a bit to look to the side of her at the twisting grimace of the blurring face.:: Saralai? Would you mind getting our friend a set of clean clothes? And a bottle of water? Drown him with it.

 

The lights flickered on and off from the dome on the ceiling above them, the figure in black stood behind the distorted faces, sneering. Mort turned his gaze away from the bodies on the biobeds. The Vulcans stared up at the ceiling, devoid of humanity. Their green plasma odour lingered in the air. A person sobbed as he wandered from one end of the room to the other, his bloodied footsteps trailing behind him. Livid, slimy flesh disintegrating from bones. He grinned with horrible brutality through fanged teeth.

 

Mort looked down at his shirt, at the blood covering across him, and felt the cloying, syrup of the shirt weighing him down, the blood pulling him through the space between spaces and into the darkness. His hands wrapped in his yellow and tried to rip it from his body, fingernails cracking under the strain.

 

Halat: Get it off me! Get it off! Get it off!

 

Taeval/Loxley/Saralai/Fortune: Response

 

Mort jerked forward as loud staccato pounds blasted on the wall behind him, the strikes echoing throughout the escape pod and ringing in his ears. Hands reached out of the bulkhead toward him, features expressionless. The tremors deadened as the escape pod ejected. The pungent smell of death in his nostrils. 

 

Don't leave us here! You can't leave us here to die! 

 

The blurred faces hadn't killed him yet. He backed up toward the wall as he looked up, his hand reaching for his shoulder as he scratched with broken fingernails on the black undershirt, scalp crawling. Silvery glints sparked in his eyes as he caught sight of the badge on their chests. He had one of those. His hand delved into his pocket and he held it out with a shaking hand.

 

Taeval/Loxley/Saralai/Fortune: Response

Relieved of it, he wrapped his arms around his knees clenched tightly to his chest.

 

Halat: Don't… fall asleep. Can't fall asleep. That's where they are.

 

Don't fall asleep, mocked the whispering voice. Can't fall asleep. Don't fall asleep. We know where you are.

 

Taeval/Loxley/Saralai/Fortune: Response

 

 

1 Denobulan: Cursing wildly.

--

Ensign Mort Shinzing Halat

Operations Officer

 

as simmed by

 

Lt. Commander Jo Marshall
First Officer

USS Gorkon, NCC-82293
G239304JM0