By Lt. Commander Lair
80219.13
Concurrent with Triage
-=Main Engineering: USS Alchemy=-
80219.13
Concurrent with Triage
-=Main Engineering: USS Alchemy=-
The hair at the nape of her neck stood on end.
Next, there was a brilliant flash.
Her skin was tingling, and in a fragment of time too short to be measured she came to the conclusion that she was in very deep trouble.
The next thing she became aware of was that her skin was now stinging, burning. She tried to scream, but quickly found her voice was gone. She was trapped in suspended animation, unable to move or speak.
Someone was speaking to her, though. Calling her name. They were very far away.
They were saying something else too but she couldn't hear them well. The voice seemed to fade away to the point at which she couldn't even remember who it was that was speaking to her any longer, even though she did know them, somehow.
She was tired. So tired. She'd been up too late, working too long. What had she been working on? Something to do with the Alchemy, trying to. . . something. Her mind searched for answers, but could grasp hold of none.
Something was familiar about the way she felt. Wherever she was, she'd been here before. She vaguely recalled having previously visited this space of non-existence- between the everyday business of doing her job and where she currently still heard muffled words attempting to resonate in her buzzing, deafened ears.
"One. Two. Three. Four." Avery Breaux was counting chest compressions as he alternated them with breaths of air, forcing life-sustaining oxygen from his lungs into hers. "Come ON, Kellyn. Come ON."
From her remote location deep within her own mind, Kellyn tilted her head closer to the disembodied voice that was still calling her name.
She was trying to understand what he needed her to do, trying to cooperate. Trying to help him, because he sounded so frantic. But all she could make out were muffled monosyllables followed by her name every now and then.
She tried to say 'yes, I hear you, I'm still here' but her lips were numb, and simply refused to form the words.
She was just too tired to help him. She hoped someone else would step in and do it for her. Maybe if she slept for a little while. Then she could figure out what all this meant.
It was only as she allowed herself the sensation of letting go completely, of not fighting anymore of just allowing whatever was going to happen, happen, that she realized what was going on.
"Shit." She thought, suddenly angry. "I'm dead. AGAIN!"
Searing pain overtook any last attempts at coherent thought, and the blackness that had been swirling around her and threatening to suck her in changed, appearing to her as a raging wall of flames, as high as she could see and as wide as the universe itself.
She knew that if she was going to get through this, she had no choice. She would have to walk straight on, and go through the flames, into Hell itself if that was what lay beyond their fury.
If Death wanted to take her away from her family, from her crew, once again, he was going to have a hell of a fight on his hands this time.
She was not the Lair Kellyn of old, so quick to accept this end if it was her fate. She had reasons to live, she had causes to fight for, she had work left to do.
She was not resigned, she would not let go- she would not go gentle.
Not this time.
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Lt. Commander Lair Kellyn
Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity/Alchemy
Lt. Commander Lair Kellyn
Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity/Alchemy