Do you See What I See

Posted on Sun Jan 26th, 2025 @ 8:30pm by Lieutenant Amelia Fox & Lieutenant JG Toareth Rouen (née Darqa)

1,282 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Fortuna
Location: Xavhara
Timeline: Current

ON:

[From "The Enemy Within"]

Amelia was running on pure adrenaline. She had no idea where she was going. She spotted a small dwelling off to her left and made a beeline for it. The door was not locked and inside it was strangely quiet, like it had been abandoned. Spotting the replicator inside, she realised she was incredibly thirsty.

"Water. Cold." she barked and the replicator worked and soon there was a glass of water in her hand. She took a large draught but halfway through she thought to herself the taste was off. She paused to look at the glass.

It was full of blood.

She shrieked as the glass fell to the ground and shattered. Looking again, there was only water now among the broken shards on the ground.

It was not long before a set of footfalls brought another upon her location. There came, with that, the regular bells and whistles of a tricorder working away at full capacity; scanning. For what? For her. Obviously.

Through the unlocked door, came a familiar face. At least Toareth hoped it would be familiar, that it would appear familiar.

"Amelia," Toareth said as she approached the frightened Amelia. She did not get too close but stayed outside of arm's reach. "It's me. It's Toareth. You know me." And there was still that unquenchable thought in her mind that somehow Amelia knew her better than Toareth could possibly imagine. She did not seek answers however, she only sought hope that this would benefit the situation. "Amelia," Toareth said her name again. She hoped that a familiar face and a familiar voice would be enough to aid her calm and vanquish anxiety. "Tell me. What is going on?"

Amelia was shaking again from the sight of the now vanished blood. "I keep seeing things...." She started, trying to keep herself from hyperventilating but also trying to keep herself lucid. "Things that I know aren't there but... They're so real. Like you.." For the first time, she really looked at Toar for a moment and smiled warmly. "I remember when we first met. San Francisco, 2 years ago. You haven't changed a bit. How do you do that?"

Toareth had questions but decided against asking any regarding that. She just went with it. "Well, I have lived a long time. I am El-Aurian you see. I age an average of 1 human year to every 7...as the Earth revolves that is. In 2 years does not even equate to 2 months for me." Toareth ended with a smile. "Now, how about we see about getting you back to the ship?"

She suddenly buried her face in her hands and sobbed which transformed into hysterical laughing. She stopped herself abruptly by suddenly slapping herself hard across the face as if to focus herself. "No! Stop that! We can't go back to the ship! We'd risk infecting all onbaord!" She looked around wildly for an instant and then fixed Toar with a look that was bordering on manic. "Time has been fractured!" She started rambling in a low voice, words spilling out of her faster and faster as if she were losing her grip on reality "Can't you see it? What once was, must be again. The star will explode, the Empire will burn, Spock will be lost, Melody will find the whales."

Toareth felt a little uneasy to her stomach as Amelia spoke. She had heard, many times, about how El-Aurians could feel something called Time Sickness in the event someone were to speak the same words to them that were spoken to them in the past...or the future. Given that Toareth felt she somehow knew Amelia already even though she knew she had never met the girl before only a few days ago, Toareth felt something was wrong with time, at least the time in regards to Amelia. Though Toareth, long ago, denied even the possibility of time displacement as utter nonsense, she could not help but to feel something was really off now. Still, there was a fully reasonable explanation of what Amelia was seeing.

"Thelon radiation," she said. "You are suffering from thelon radiation exposure. Not that theoretical theleron radiation however. This is thelon radiation. It is this planet's sun's rays impacting an increased concentration of oxygen in Xachara's atmosphere. Thelon radiation effects your visual cortex...makes you see things that are not there. Think of it like a dream being juxtaposed over your waking vision. Starfleet inoculates us all against thelon exposure, but since we detect it so infrequently, they are floating the idea of doing away with the inoculations within the next 10 years with treatments being given out on a case by case basis. You must have missed this year's treatment. Here."

Toareth fished around in her satchel and found her hypospray. She adjusted the medication to inject the inoculation for thelon exposure treatment. She added a little bit of a sedative on top of it. "This is not going to have immediate effect. Your visions should normalize in about 2 hours." She slowed reached forward and pressed the hypospray against Amelia's neck, depressed the button and sent the medication forward. "Let's say we get you to that hospital in town."

Amelia suddenly took a deep breath and emerged out of where she had been. Toareth held her arm and guided her. Amelia looked at her friend. "Toar, something is very wrong here. I'm.... I'm scared. And you know it takes a lot to scare me."

"Yes, I do know that." Toareth, in truth, did not know that but went with it anyway. Too many times now, did Amelia say something that sounded futuristic, as though Amelia knew her...but in the future. "And you are right. Something is very wrong here. You are more right than you may know."

Amelia allowed herself to smile as she took Toar's hand. "You're a good friend. You're a lot like Melody. You know we were going to meet up next month? on Earth. She was bringing Sansa and her boys with her. She said she was looking forward to seeing you so she already knows you somehow, she must have met you before I did."

There was that discussion of 'Melody' again. Toareth originally thought Amelia was speaking of a musical number but was now convinced that was not the case. She already knew someone aboard the Britannic was time displaced. With the way Amelia was speaking...Toareth would have to research into the possibility of Amelia likewise being time displaced later. For now though, "Yes, I am looking forward to that," she said. "And I do try to be a good friend." Toareth continued to guide Amelia away from the vacant home and back in the direction of the hospital. "And you are a good friend too Amelia." They rounded another home and, down the street, the heart of the colony came into view. Therein stood the central governance centre, the hospital, the space port, all complemented by the presence of a large column of smoke billowing into the air.

Toareth stopped in her tracks; maintaining her hold on, "Amelia. Um...do you see what I see?"

The sight of smoke was like a splash of cold water on Amelia's face that seemed to focus her. "That's not good. We better find the others... And possibly find out what the hell is wrong with me" she added with a wry smile.

"Yes," said Toareth. "I do not mean for this to sound haunting in the least but it seems like something in you has awakened and it refusing to let go."

Both Toareth's and Amelia's commbadges sounded to life.

[Return to "The Enemy Within"]

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