Growing up
Posted on Wed Dec 18th, 2024 @ 7:43pm by Lieutenant JG Elyssa Kala'myr
661 words; about a 3 minute read
Explosions shook the entire room as the young girl looked across at her playmate. Who was out there? What did they want? The grown-ups had told them nothing but she could hear them shouting to each other from the small library aboard their expeditionary vessel. The ship was landed on the side of a mountain and they had remained undisturbed for three weeks whilst the group collected readings from the binary stars of this system.
“Think it's the jem'hadar?” The boy asked nervously.
This place had been one of their outposts in the quadrant during the war but they hadn't been seen in the sector for years.
“Maybe the Cardassians?” he added.
Elyssa wrinkled her nose and furrowed her brow, there was no reason for even the most dark-hearted Cardassian to be attacking this small civilian science expedition. No, it was something else.
She got to her feet and began walking towards the door.
“Where are you going? We need to stay here.” he tried to interrupt.
“I want to find my mummy,” Elyssa replied before unlocking the door and carefully opening it. “She'll know what to do.”
Elyssa walked down the corridor, noises still rocked the ground but there were fewer voices, just the odd whine from various hand phasers going off punctuated by swearing in Bajoran. She thought she heard her Dad’s voice, but she couldn't be certain.
“Mummy!” She called out, looking around in the smoke. Something had caught fire and there was a smell of burning plastics that stung her eyes. “Mummy!”
Her feet hit something on the ground and she looked down. Part of her knew what she might see but she still screamed to see her older cousin lying prone with coils of darkened veins extending across his face. She screamed again and began to back away as she saw silhouettes in the smoke. Elyssa attempted to hide her voice with her mouth but they had heard her and two glowing eyes turned to look in her direction. The small girl backed further and further from them, too terrified to even turn and run. Something stopped her, someone. The hand on her shoulder felt reassuring but the last sensation she felt before blacking out was the burning sensation in her neck.
She had no idea how long she slept but she awoke in peace. A soft singing, a chorus of millions filled her head and she felt glorious, was this what heaven was like? She had heard stories of such things from people who had traversed the wormhole but had never known what to expect. Things here were perfect, there was order and harmony greater than anything she had ever experienced. The warmth of the halo around her head filled her with pride as she stepped forward to explore this new world. Other angels surrounded her, but as she walked she noticed they weren't anything like the stories. Of course, they were beautiful, but they took the images of automatons that barely acknowledged her as she moved. She continued to walk, along a gigantic causeway flanked by row after row of sleeping angels, she smiled internally as their halos flickered at her presence.
Ahead was a vast and polished black wall that she would need to follow to get to her place of worship. In the reflection she saw her vague outline slowly growing, something made her take a second glance, a glowing green light moved on her left side as she walked. Closer she approached and cocked her head, it was the first time she saw the monstrosity she had become and for the third time, Elyssa screamed.
She screamed until the air emptied from her lungs and the lights above her turned on, filling the small bunk room on the USS Neills Bohr with light. Lieutenant Kala'myr pushed her bright blue hair off of her sweat-soaked brow. She grabbed her anxiolytic hypospray, took a dose and tried to get back to sleep.
RSS FeedCredits | Privacy Policy