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Episode 14 - Part 1

Other-Terrestrial

Season 1.5, Episode 14

"Damage"

by Nolan Conrey

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Apollonia Nor was abnormally aware of her nostrils as she slowly breathed out.

She sat on the floor of her bedroom, eyes closed, legs crossed, and tried to somehow both focus and let her mind go.  There was only a simple bed and a small dresser in with her, though she always told herself that tomorrow she'd go pick out some new things.

She'd heard that you weren't supposed to meditate in your bedroom, though she didn't know why.  Maybe it didn't have a reason, it was just disrespectful . . . to someone?  Maybe yourself?  She didn't know.

She realized that her attention was drifting, and tried to bring it back to a mindful emptiness, or something.

She didn't know anything about meditation, really.  It was just something some Special People did.  The ones who had magical martial arts abilities in shows, or were just really in touch with themselves.  The people who, she realized in a moment of self-awareness, she'd always seen to be full of shit.

Maybe this ritual she had begun in the last few weeks was not really meditation, but she didn't really care.  It felt like something that she kind of needed to do.

Taking a slow breath, she felt her mind slowing from its normal, hectic pace.  At least, that was the only way she knew how to describe it.  The constant stream of thoughts and fears, idle ideas and considerations on the past trickling off.

It was a hard place to keep herself.  As soon as she realized she was there, errant thoughts popped into her mind.

An old show with a man meditating that she'd seen, where he'd had visions.  A thought of how ridiculous she'd look if someone saw her.  This was silly, she wasn't accomplishing anything, she was probably doing it wrong anyway.

Her eyes went to her tablet, sat up on her night stand.  It showed the date and hour on its face.

Sixteen days since the Relic Temple.

She'd been released from the medical wing exactly two weeks ago.  Y had wanted her under observation, even screened her visitors.

Cathal had come by, repeatedly.  Y had turned him away in her stead, and not mentioned it to her.

More than the fact that it bothered her that he had done it without even telling her, she wondered; how did he even have an idea that Cathal had done something?

She had only found out when she had checked the logs.  When she had asked him why he'd kept Cathal out, Y had simply played it off with a short, if sincere-sounding apology.

"I simply thought that in your state you would prefer not to have visitors."

But he'd let in Brooks, Jaya, and even Ann.

He was good at acting, she thought.  She knew that, but when he'd lied to her she became more aware of it, and it bothered her.

Perhaps not as much as it should-

Are you there? the thought came, unbidden.

A message into the Dark.

For a pregnant moment, she felt like she'd get some kind of response; almost fooled herself into thinking she heard something.

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But as her eyes opened, she knew she had not.

There was something there; the Embrion that had been attached to her for as long as she had been alive.  A baby Leviathan, an infant Great One, a . . . god.

Big G or little g, she didn't think it actually mattered.  It was there, it was . . . on a different level of awareness.  It even knew that she knew, though she did not know why she felt that way, and the more she dwelled on it the more confused she became.

It just wouldn't communicate with her.  That had to be possible, right?

Wasn't it better if it didn't?

Making contact with it came with risks.  She'd seen what had become of Michael Denso, and . . . and she did not want to become that.  Simply a doorway for the thing to come into this universe.

That, she felt, had been brought on by the traumatic experience of the Leviathan at Terris - its presence had disturbed and melted the minds of not just people, but perhaps even the Embrion, in a way.

But she did not know for sure.  For all she knew, if she did commune with the Embrion it would destroy her.

Or something else would.

Because she was almost never alone anymore.

At night, when the room was darkened, she had felt a presence.  She could not actually say she could identify it, but intellectually she knew.

It was Kell.  Watching over her.

He was there at all times - in some way, on some level.  He was subtle, and for a moment she realized that he was not just a thing that behaved crudely; it was skilled at everything it did.

The Shoggoth thought, deeply.  It planned.  And it had the experience of eons.

The fact that Kell would kill to protect her was something she was aware of all too keenly now.

Just like she knew that he would kill her if she became a danger to the ship.  She couldn't blame him for that.

So why had he not killed Cathal?

That seemed an obvious move, if he was worried.  But she could not even recall having seen the two interact, which was strange.

Kell was clearly holding back with regard to her, but she could not blame him for being cautious.

Dark, she should hate Cathal.  The ritual he had done, the traumatic memories . . .  Well, they ought to be traumatic, she thought.  Looking back on them, she did not feel victimized, did not feel like he had done wrong.  It didn't make any sense, and she felt like a terrible person for thinking he was blameless - she knew that what he had done was monstrous.

He had killed two people.  Their blood had somehow fed her and brought her and the Embrion to this state.

Maybe he had not finished the ritual, or he had to follow up in some way that would complete the process.  It felt like a door had been partially opened, but she could not get it the rest of the way.

Maybe she should even be happy about what had happened.  It was not something she could emotionally parse, she had just never learned how.

Since she had left the medical wing, Cathal had messaged her again, only asking how she was, and for her to come talk to him.

Sometimes she'd seen him standing at a distance, watching her.  But he did not approach.

All she had to do, she thought, was tell Brooks what had happened - the reality.

What Cathal had done.

And with those words, Brooks would have had the man arrested, confined.

She didn't know why she did not tell him.  It was not to protect him; she did not find she even wanted to do that.

She did not know what she wanted.

She knew that Pirra had been telling the truth loudly.  She had even messaged Apollonia, but she had not known what to say.  Now it had been long enough that it felt too awkward to say anything.

On top of that, she still did not want to say anything.  Almost as if she could not really contemplate it.

As if something was silencing her.

That thought was the most uncomfortable of all, but she could not even dwell on it.  It slipped away like a dream, and she forgot about it until the next time she remembered it . . .

Something had happened, something more than even she knew.  Bonds that she could not see.

It was like her own emotions had retreated from her - or been driven away.  All she could do was look at it dispassionately.

She would not talk to anyone about anything until she was ready.  That was all she knew for sure.

She realized that her alarm had been going off for several minutes.  Somehow she had not noticed it.

It was time for her to get ready for her day.

Taking a deep breath, and resolving to try again tomorrow - as she had every day since she'd started this - she rose and began to get ready.

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