Personal Log - These Dreams.

Posted on 17 Apr 2013 @ 11:49pm by Lieutenant JG Kestra Orexil

976 words; about a 5 minute read

So you're lying down in some position, and your brain is running in it's usual way (although probably racing a million miles an hour as you're freaking out or feeling frustrated - no matter how many times it happens to me I never take it calmly hahaha) and you've reached a point where you are unable to move a single muscle in your body, not even a finger. You order yourself angrily to "Move! Get up!" over and over but nothing happens. It's like your brain has disconnected from your body. Generally you will lie in whatever position you're in staring blanking ahead until the catatonic spell passes (normally for me 15 minutes to an hour at the outside). Once I had it so bad I was struggling to breathe, because even that tiny action of taking air in required some sort of physical movement.

Hours, I've lain and wished - demanded - movement. My fingers flex. Exhaustion. My neck cramps; it's difficult to move my head enough to ease the discomfort. Breathing - the act of taking air - sometimes feels as though it's all I can do. It overpowers me; my breath, my heart, my organs working silently within the shell of my body. I feel as though my brain has somehow disconnected from my body - orders are not processed, movement is nearly impossible - yet I know that it is not. I know that I am here, within this laden corpse. I feel the pricks of pins to my feet. I feel the rush of air against my skin as a curtain opens and closes. My eyes register light, movement, shapes - sometimes clear, sometimes not. It comes and goes. I am so bored, I wonder if I might just go back to sleep. There's nothing to do but stare. Stare and feel. There are so many feelings; waves, typhoons, hurricanes of feelings and thoughts. Disorienting. If I listen for too long, I forget which thoughts are mine. So I think. I count. I imagine the katas. I picture the seven steps of Klingon defense. I meditate. Flames. Water. Stones, smoothed by rivers.

They're always there, beating at my consciousness with tiny fists. Frustration. Anger. Love. Hunger. Need. Loneliness. Joy. Amusement. Shyness. Secretiveness. I try to turn my mind away, but I am still. Receiving. Trying to ignore the influx of information as it comes, wave by wave.

Water, I think, would be nice, and there's a nurse with a cup and a straw. Did I ask? I've no sense of what is inside of my head. What it out. Everything is in. Everything is out. There are questing massive minds in the space around us, carefully avoiding us. They can try. I sip, I swallow. I try to imagine what my voice sounded like, how I could replicate it in this newly moistened throat. I breathe past my lips, tongue, uvula, feel the air rush past my palate. Flex my tongue. That works. Sometimes. Push air out of my throat. A sound emerges, but it is nothing like speech. It is a wheeze, if anything. A rattle.

I close my eyes, grateful, and the nurse says 'you're welcome' - uneasy - and backs away. Trying to hide her discomfort physically. She forgets I hear her; I see more than she'd like. I remember a time when I could choose when to listen and when not to. Now I am as air. Weightless, weighted, wary, weary, and too wonderfully aware.

I hear a click, the slide of a hypo, and I am wandering. Walking. Bodily. Into my head once more. Out of my body.

A presence is in the room. I can feel it near my door. His door, I correct myself, identifying the man crouching beside his bed.

I go to see who it is and realize I can't move my body. I am on my back. I try to speak but I can't. Am I still awake? No, the room is different. I haven't been moved, but this is not Sickbay. This is a man's quarters. On a starship; not the Galileo. The room is too spacious for a crew cabin on a Nova.

I'm not sure if my eyes are open or not, but I see everything. The presence approaches me. No. It approaches him. I feel her touch our chest, moving up to our collarbone. She rests there, staring at us. Alert, but generally unthreatening. Her face is familiar, gaunt, with full lips partially open in a half smile. Mischievous. Her cheek bones are high; her neck is long. Her eyes are pitch black from center to the edges of her irises. She wears a white dress over a body that is slender, lanky, and unmarked. Long arms and nimble fingers. Streams of dark red hair in thick dreadlocks collapse down over her shoulders like a thickly knitted shawl.

I realize who she is.

We are terrified. Our heart starts to beat faster as we realize that there is literally nothing we can do. Our body is inert. Her fingers brush our skin on our collarbone ever so gently, then she moves her hand up our neck towards our face. We feel no immediate threat or harm, but we are beyond terrified all the same. God, please, help me. Please, merciful Lord- we see her smile, haltingly, as the commbadge on our nightstand blearily announces a call.

Panic. No one is in my quarters. You can't hurt me. You shouldn't be here. No one is in my quarters.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to- she whispers, heartbreak in her eyes. She dissipates. Our limbs slowly become his once more. Fingers. Hands. Neck. Mouth. He shouts.

I open my eyes to the Sickbay ceiling. Bad. Very bad. I shouldn't sleep again for a while.

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