Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: 24 Jan 2004 23:29:18 -0800 In: alt.startrek.creative From: daria@ameritech.net (Daria) Title: Loss Author: Daria Contact: Daria@ameritech.net Series: ENT Part: 1/8 Rating: [PG-13] Codes: Tu, R, A Summary: When an away mission goes wrong, a friendship is Archive: ASC* Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, so naturally I'm not making any money off them. Please do not link directly to this story without asking. *** It was cold. Whatever he was lying on was cold, stealing the heat from his body. He didn't know where he was, or why he was lying on some rough surface--just that he was cold. Slowly he became aware that something was very, very wrong. A high-pitched noise that was annoying him immensely. Screaming, he realized. Someone was screaming. Well, he wished they'd stop. It was getting on his nerves. It was several more seconds before he realized he was the one making the sound. As the knowledge dawned, he made an effort to silence the noise, thinking that it must be as annoying to other people as it was to him. But the sound wouldn't stop, and soon he quit trying. Not much later the world began to fade, and he willingly accepted the darkness that replaced it. *** The world came back into a blurry focus. He didn't want to come back here, back to this place where there was noise and hurt; both were present again. He tried again to make the noise go away, and this time he had some success. He was able to make the sound coming from his own mouth stop, but he could still hear screaming, somewhere in the background. It dawned on him that perhaps that noise wasn't coming from him. Well, he wished it would stop-- the noise hurt his ears, and hurt his mind. To his amazement, his wish came abruptly true. He tried to think about that, but found he couldn't. It was simply too hard to think. He was so confused, and still so very, very cold. But this time there was no escape into darkness, just more of the awful sound. Something else was bothering him. Something he should know-- it was there, but he couldn't quite bring it to the front of his mind. He was forgetting something-- something very important. Part of him knew he needed to remember, but another part told him he didn't want to know, didn't want to remember any of what had happened. That part was louder and more insistent. When he tried to focus on remembering, he was filled with terrible anxiety, a sense that whatever it was he couldn't remember was so awful it just might kill him. Trying to remember made him to break into a sweat. So he quit trying. When he turned his head to the right, and saw what his captors were doing, he couldn't bear it-- the memories came dangerously close to the surface. He closed his eyes and turned away. *** Things were happening around him, and to him, that he had no control over. Someone grabbed his arm, dragging him roughly to his feet, and pulled him down a hallway. A door opened in front of him, and he was shoved roughly into a room. He stumbled and fell to his knees as the door slammed behind him. For a moment he stayed as he was, and then slowly he began to look around. The room seemed to be made of stone. The ones beneath his knees were rough, and becoming uncomfortable. He tried to rise, but found that he couldn't quite manage it. Instead, he leaned back and sat on his butt. He continued studying the room, trying to make sense of it. It was large, with a roughly hewn wooden bench lining the far wall. There was a bucket in the far corner, and a row of windows high above the bench. Even if he stood on the bucket, he couldn't possibly see out the windows. They did, however, let in a meager amount of light-- the only source in the room. He worried, because he could tell that the light was already fading and he didn't want to be in this place, alone, in the dark. The room had a dusty, dank smell and a dampness to it; the chill was seeping into his tired and sore body. The room seemed familiar, and he suspected he had been here before. He tried again to rise to his feet, but still couldn't quite make it. He managed to crawl to the bench and pull himself onto it. Lying there he dozed, not able to get comfortable enough to truly sleep. He still felt terribly anxious, frightened by the knowledge that something really terrible had happened, but something he couldn't... wouldn't... remember. *** He was still cold. It seemed that somehow his body had lost all its heat, and would never regain it. He looked around hoping to find something, anything, to provide some warmth, but he saw nothing. He shivered with the cold. *** Another sensation was now making itself known. Hunger. He didn't know how long it had been since he'd eaten, but based on the way he felt it had to have been quite some time. He tried to gather his senses and take stock. He knew he was cold, and he knew he was hungry, but that seemed to be all he knew. What had happened? Why was he here, in this dark and cold place? And why did he hurt? He tried to determine what was working correctly. Eyes. His eyes seemed to work. And his ears. That was good. He could see and hear. And walk. He had walked to this dark, cold room, so his legs must work reasonably well. Nevermind that it had hurt to walk that short distance-- he'd been able to. He wiggled his fingers and confirmed that those, too, functioned. As he turned his head, he discovered what didn't work. His neck hurt, badly. He could turn his head, but the movement caused it to throb with a terrible ache that made it hard for him to even keep his eyes open. He was aware of a variety of sore muscles, and his ribs ached-- he suspected that several must be cracked. Worst of all, he felt so terribly weak. He remembered screaming earlier, and suspected that whatever he'd been screaming about played a large role in his current discomfort. Looking down at himself, squinting through the pain, he saw that most of his shirt was missing. The large piece that covered his torso was torn from the neck to the bottom of his ribs, and the sleeves were missing from the elbow down. 'How odd' he thought vaguely. His pants were in terrible shape as well, torn badly at the bottom. His belt was missing. His jacket... hadn't he had a jacket? Well, if he had --and he was nearly certain he had-- it was gone now. He sighed. It was so cold, he would really like to have his jacket... but it wasn't here. Exhausted, hurt, and confused, Commander Charles Tucker the Third lay on the stones of his prison cell and faded into a restless sleep. -- Stephen Ratliff ASC Stories Only Forwarding In the Pattern Buffer at: http//trekiverse.crosswinds.net/feed/ Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCL/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:ASCL-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. From ???@??? Sun Jan 25 19:34:45 2004 Status: U Return-Path: Received: from n9.grp.scd.yahoo.com ([66.218.66.93]) by skylark (EarthLink SMTP Server) with SMTP id 1aKUEOq73NZFjw0 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 2004 16:31:13 -0800 (PST) X-eGroups-Return: sentto-1977044-13006-1075077008-stephenbratliff=earthlink.net@returns.groups.yahoo.