“Rommie,” Beka mumbled, “what is the general cause of hearing voices, you know voices that aren’t really there?” The hologram popped up and frowned.
“Why would you want to know that?” She swallowed.
“Oh, just this holodrama I watched yesterday that I couldn’t quite understand.”
“I see. Well, the most common cause of voices, or hallucinations are schizophrenia, or manic depression.” Beka frowned.
“What are those?”
“I will download some information into a flexi for you,” Andromeda said. Beka settled down to read the information.
“Sadness, anxiety, guilt,” she mumbled. “Mood swings, difficulty functioning.” She swallowed and moved on to the one on schizophrenia. “Delusions, auditory hallucinations, disorganised thinking, lack of motivation.” She threw the flexi across the room and threw herself on the bed. The symptoms all seemed to fit, but it couldn’t be…could it? “I’m not sick,” she mumbled to herself, “I’m not sick.”
What if you’re going mad?
“I’m not,” she whimpered.
You are going mad. There’s something wrong with you. Come to think of it…there always was, wasn’t there?
“Go away.” She’d started to cry. “Just leave me alone.”
But I’m only in your head…an imagination…remember?
She gasped, realising something that could explain it. What if this voice wasn’t her imagination? What if there was someone there, hiding from her view? She stood up and looked around her frantically.
“Where are you???” she screamed. Suddenly, there was silence. She rushed up to the bookshelf she kept in her quarters and forcefully grabbed it, pushing it down onto the floor. Finding nothing there, she ran over to the cupboard where she kept glasses and ravaged that as well. After successfully destroying the entire room, she realised there really wasn’t anywhere there. Staring wide-eyed at the destruction she’d caused, she backed off into a corner and sank down, cradling her knees.
Still not going mad?
She tried to ignore the voice, but it still sippered it’s way into her mind.
Only in your mind…hallucination…because you’re going mad.
She whimpered and curled up in a ball.
****
Dylan glanced over at his crewmates on command. Nothing much had been happening all day and they were all pretty much just relaxing. There was nothing out of the ordinary at all…
He flinched. What was he thinking? Of course there was something out of the ordinary. Beka wasn’t there. He’d relieved her of duty again after she’d had a breakdown on command. He wondered for a moment whether he should have followed up on that.
“No,” he decided, “Beka would prefer to sort things out her own way without anyone interfering. Besides, some problems are to be expected after what she’s been through and they’ll go away with time, won’t they?” He decided that was right, but still felt bad for not noticing her absence. He glanced over at Harper and wondered if the younger man had noticed.
“You ok?” Harper flinched and gave him a surprised look.
“Yeah…why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well I was just thinking you might be feeling weird because Beka isn’t here…worrying about her.” The engineer looked slightly taken aback.
“Well…yeah! Course, but…she’ll bounce back. She always bounces back.”
“So you don’t think…you know, we should…I don’t know, do anything?” Harper frowned.
“I don’t think Beka’d like it if we interfered…she’ll deal with it boss. Maybe things aren’t as good as they could be right now, but she’ll deal with it and she’ll be fine again. She always is.” Dylan nodded slowly.
“Yeah,” he muttered, “I guess you’re right.”
****
She whimpered as the knife sliced through her flesh. She fought to get away, but found she couldn’t move. The blood ran down her pale arm and dripped onto the floor. She felt the knife touch her skin again; the cool blade pushing down and then slicing the skin open again.
“You deserve the pain.”
His voice, so clear in her mind almost hurt worse than the physical pain. She felt the blade cut her over and over again, blood smearing over her body, her clothes, the floor where she was sitting.
“Stop it,” she whimpered. She again tried to pull away from the knife hurting her but it followed her, the hand holding it determined not to let her go.
“Why should I? You deserve it…”
Again, she felt the blade drag across her arm, lazily now, not enough to hurt until suddenly, when she didn’t expect it, it dug in hard, so far she thought it was almost touching the bone. She let out a scream and surprisingly, the knife was withdrawn and she felt like she was falling…
She woke up with a start, breathing heavily. She’d been hoping the nightmares wouldn’t return with the pills, but this one had been different. So far, it had all been the man chasing her in the dark alley, but this time…someone had been hurting her and she’d felt the pain as if it was real. When she sat up and opened her eyes she almost had a heart attack.
Cuts on her arm, some open, some closed and crusty. Dried blood smeared over her skin. Blood on her clothes, on the bedsheets, on the floor.
It hadn’t been a dream.
