gorkon Ensign Mort Shinzing Halat - Darkness Comes

[Alieth]

I was revisiting some of this week's sims to get a better overall picture of the mission as a whole and I came across this sim again. It's painful, the descriptions are so colourful and bring such tangible images to my mind's eye and, at the same time, it totally puts me in Halat's half-crazed skin that it's hard to read and, at the same time, impossible to not do so. Incredible work  @Jo Marshall

 

((Sickbay, USS Gorkon)) 

 

Mort launched up onto his feet, his small hands grabbing the front of Taeval's coat as he tried, with a strength not in Denobulan bones, to pull him forward. Stubs of his fingers bled profusely, the skin protruding from beneath his undershirt like that of a banana forgotten at the bottom of the fruit bowl — withered and rotting in black and blue bruises.

 

Halat: You CANNOT GO BACK THERE! DO NOT TAKE ME BACK THERE!

 

His hands clung to his face, fingers trying and failing to dig into his cheeks, leaving only the bloodied trails behind. Out of the corner of his eye, black and gold colours lurched toward him before a hand threw out to stop them with a wall of pulsating shadow.

 

Loxley: Wait! I don’t think he’s any risk to us.

 

Fortune: No, not... right now, at any rate. Ensign, you have to know that suddenly grabbing us, that isn't the way to go about things.

 

Hands of green caught Mort's wrists as his fingers pawed at his face, clinging to the vestiges of blood and skin underneath his remaining fingernails. Pointed ears. Green eyes. Shock of dark hair. Shadows beneath it all. So many shadows clawing at the surface. Clawing at the soul. 

 

Loxley: Ensign, listen! Nobody is taking you anywhere. You’re safe here, you can heal and rest. Let us help you.

 

Fortune: ::She nodded, recalling her pointed grimace.:: A meal, a bed, and you'll feel right as a newly scrubbed ship.

 

Taeval: There’s a runabout out looking for them, we’re not headed that way. We’re not taking you back. ::Not yet, anyway. But one step at a time.:: Will you come and sit on the biobed? You must be sore, and it’s more comfortable than the floor.

 

Mort didn't answer, save for a sharp nod as the dark pools beneath the green eyes of the man with the pointed ears grew downwards, like streaks of tears flowing over cheekbones and chin. Guided to the biobed, the soul of the ghost on top of it wasn't there anymore. 

 

Loxley: I don’t know what the hell happened, but he’s in bad shape, in more ways than one. Let’s analyse the blood on the uniform and see if the combadge can tell us anything. And I really need to get a good look at his injuries.

 

Fortune: Oh! ::His combadge appeared out of her pocket.:: Here. I don't think he'll want to see it right now.

 

Loxley: I want to ask him about this ‘rift’, too, it might be useful for the away team.

 

The lights flickered. Momentary at first, but then…

 

…blackness. 

 

The pitch of it, the essence of it, the soul of pitch, the darkness runs to when the light retreats and the universe winks out of existence. The stars, the suns, the fade glimmering there in the aftermath of the nothing that was to come. In the snap of fingers, the universe would cease to proliferate and the souls of all those trapped still within the dying glow of whatever remained would be there forever. 

 

Revolving around nothing. 

 

For infinity. 

 

Taeval: Mort? Are you all right?

 

He blinked open his eyes to the light of sickbay streaming in from the dome above; tendrils of it, like the long limbs of a forgotten creature long gone from the universe but destined to remain behind in the memories of all those who stayed. A hand appeared on his arm and Mort looked down at the thrumming green of blood and bone, sinew and flesh. Emerald and on fire.

 

Fortune: What was that?

 

Loxley: I don’t know… ::He swallowed.:: Get in touch with the bridge, see if it was just us or…

 

Khunsh: ::Gruffly,:: Comms aren’t working.

 

Loxley: Okay… in that case I’ll go up and tell them myself and find out what’s up with the comms while I’m at it.

 

Mort drew his hand up toward Taeval once more, the thought in his mind that if he could just get the monster to take someone else, he could push the Romulan into the mouth of the beast, into one of the waiting tentacles. It would wrap around his form and take him up, up, up, into the ceiling and away from him… Away from him forever. 

 

Taeval: Perhaps we’d be better sending a runner through the Jefferies tubes? Or can we send a different kind of message to the bridge? We don’t deliver casualty reports over the comms.

 

Fortune: I...yes? ::She gave a small shake over head, fingertips rubbing at one temple:: Whatever that was has really rattled my head.

 

Loxley: Response

 

Then the tentacle came down from the ceiling, like a huge limb from a god flailing in the centre of the room, looking for him. Looking for him. He knew it was looking for him, seeking out his flesh to consume, or his bones to crunch in the fiery beak, or take him back to the universe and crush him one thread at a time. Mort whimpered as he cowered, pulling himself into the biobed as if it would envelop him like a glove and hold him there, tied to the Sickbay floor. 

 

But it wasn't the tentacle that grabbed hold of him. 

 

A dark hand shot out of the darkness, the eyes of crystalline blue, and the enveloping pitch only a fraction of what was to come. Fingers wrapped around his throat easily; their length only matched by their sheer strength as they squeezed. 

 

I found you at last. You're coming with me.

 

Taeval: Halat? ::A far away sound, a hand on his shoulder, the man frantic.:: Halat, can you hear me?

 

And, just like that, in the snap of the fingers, Mort fell flat onto his back.

 

 

--

Ensign Mort Shinzing Halat

Operations Officer

 

as simmed by

 

Lt. Commander Jo Marshall

First Officer

USS Gorkon, NCC-82293

G239304JM0