"A Doctor's Nightmare"

[Lexia 0]

Lexia had made her way from the bridge to her quarters, and then barely to her bed before falling down. Harper probably thought she was insane, or a bleeding heart. Most of the crew probably though she was a bleeding heart of late, or at least that she was a bit out of her mind. But what Harper, and probably no one else on the ship knew was the true reason behind Lexia's recent meltdown. She was not simply a bleeding heart medic who had lost a patient.

 

The Gareem/Soltan incident had served as a catalyst, sure enough, but it was not the primary cause of her current mental state. The death of crewman Burne had been a hard one, but Lexia had lost patients before. What the death of that crewman did was serve as a trauma which jarred all the rest loose. Lexis's head sank deep into the pillow and closed her eyes as salty tears stung at them.

 

Screams, shouts, agonizing cries of pain and death. She was back, again, amidst it all. Lexia blinked and looked around, surrounding her were the dead and dying. Her hands were warm, more so them usual. She looked down and saw the red tint of blood staining the surface of her hands. She screamed.

 

She was back in her quarters, in a cold sweat atop the comforter of her bed. Lexia took a few ragged, deep breaths and then rolled off the bed. She walked to the replicator and typed in her command for Lady Grey, unable to speak. The mug materialized and she wrapped her fingers around it. She sat down on her couch and stared out at the stars, trying to calm her troubled mind. The tea was soothing as it stretched down her throat and her breath slowly returned to normal.

 

She sat there for only a few moments before the exhaustion overtook her again. She laid the mug down in the floor and leaned over onto one of the throw pillows, still staring out into the stars. She should be able to handle this. Tordai had experienced many pains in the various forms the symbiont had taken…

 

Someone was grabbing her ankle; she looked down and gasped at what she saw. A crewman was holding fast to her ankle "Help me, doc...please..." the left side of his face as streaked orange with blood, the right was a bloody mess to the point of not looking human. Lexia knelt down and reached behind her for the medkit. She turned, looking for the kit and turned back after finding it. The crewman was gone.

 

She stood and looked at her hands. They were as clean as if she were about to go into surgery. She exited the cargo bay, all was silent. She walked to a turbo lift and made her way swiftly back to Sickbay. It was a ghost town; no one was in sight nor hearing range. She turned and ran to the turbolift and quickly made her way to the bridge her breath quickening with every step.

 

As she burst out onto the bridge, it too was eerily silent. She saw that someone was sitting in the command chair and ran around to it, "Captain, what is go-" she stopped short and nearly fell to her knees at what she saw. The charred remains of her captain sat in the seat, the face of the corpse frozen at the moment of death; a mask of shear terror. And it started again, moans filled the room and bodies writhed on the floor. Lexia grabbed the nearest medkit she could find and turned to start triage. A blinding light shone in her eyes.

 

Lexia bolted upright on the couch, sure her cry could be heard over the entire deck. She stood and knocked over the mug. Swearing she picked it up and put it in the replicator to be recycled. She quickly grabbed a towel from the bathroom and sopped up the mess. Drying her eyes she moved to the replicator and entered her medical clearance. She replicated a sleep aid and then administered it. The aid would not calm her dreams but it would force her to stay asleep, at least for a while. She laid back down on her bed as the medicine took effect…and it started again.

 

A scream.

[Kansas_Jones 0]

::blinks:: Da-ang! Now that's a Trill with a few interesting past lives. Nice log :-)