Night Terrors

Posted on Fri Sep 3rd, 2021 @ 6:13pm by Lieutenant Commander Shoniara T’ghann-Travis MD

Personal log
Shoniara T’ghann Dex MD

My night terrors have returned.

This morning I woke and found myself cowering in the shower Puss licking my cheek with his rough tongue.My dreams have been pretty vivid since I left DS9 in my new post as ACMO of the starship Washington, but last night I was back on Ensara, phaser in my shaking hand looking for Mark and Shasta and directing as many colonists as I could to the beam out points before the full force of the Cardassian invasion had begun.

That night had already turned me into a killer. I could smell the weapons fire and feel the destruction of the settlement as the resulting explosions hit my body, knocking it sideways like a raggedy doll. My head was bleeding and the blood ran into my eyes making it difficult to see. But last night I knew where I was and what was coming.

Every step brought me nearer to the moment I tripped and fell rolling over onto my side the breath knocked from me. The dead eyes of a young woman whose severed head lay inches away looked into mine. They had that glaze of death in them that occurs an hour or so after all life stills yet, they still seemed to be begging me to save her. I lay prone for a minute trying to regain my breath and whispered a Vulcan prayer for the dead. Just a few more minutes if I had not laid there, still I could have reached our living pod before it burst into flames then I could have saved them.

If this had been a dream maybe it would have happened as sometimes in nightmares outcomes change and life becomes life once again but, no, this was real and it always ended the same. I called out to Mark to run forward through the flames, it was the only way. I could see my baby girl in his arms as he pulled her desperately to him in inadequate protection. I see her eyes closed pressed against him, her light black hair burning. I tried to enter but the heat seared the uniform off my back and I could feel the exquisite pain melt into me as the threshold fell.
For a single moment I held Marks fingers and then…..they were gone. I could hear my baby screaming for me as she burned and the pod collapsed.

I remembered nothing for months until my addiction to alcohol and J’heek took me out of my pain. I left Starfleet as all I could think about was my own despair and I cared no longer whether I lived or died. Even until this day I refuse to have reconstructive surgery and live with the pain in remembrance and penance.

The route to my recovery was long and slow and owed in no small part to my now Bond Brother T’ghrek of the House of Okann who taught me Vulcan control and containment of those memories. I have made a new life for myself and have not had these…terrors for years. Why they should have returned I do not know. AllI know now is that I do not want to sleep. I shall have to talk to the ships counselor although I am loath do so.