Jasmine ran over to her alien friends, trying to save them from the living nightmare.

Xant’s ears stood on end while he was trying to swipe away the bugs off his snout while Rynard’s eyes were glazed over. The behemoths claws sinking into his face, ready to peel off his skin jasmine was terrified he might actually try.

“Xant! Rynard! Listen to me!” She called their attention, demanding they focus on her, “the bugs aren’t real, they’re not here, it's all a dream, do you understand me?” she spoke clearly, slowly, her commands cutting through the shock and fear.

Xant stared at the bugs crawling over his body, front and back of both hands, tickling his face, even just looking at them made him feel itchy he needed to scratch them.

“But I can FEEL THEM,” Rynard roared, driving his claws in deeper to his face, skin parting but no blood seeped from the wounds. Xant watched the bugs crawl over his friend but the patterns became erratic, they did not respond to anyone's physical reactions, like shadows upon a surface visually there but physically not.

“A nightscare..” Xant breathed slowly, gulping as he swallowed his new reality, “but we’re awake, how is that possible?”

Jasmine looked at him with tired, bloodshot eyes, the freq duel she had with Ryo had taken its toll on everyone. She didn't have an answer, more concerned with the increasingly disturbed Rynard.

“Close your eyes, they’re not there if you can’t see them…” her instructions were a plea to the veteran soldier, he listened to her command but his growl was low and stressed.

“How do we stop it, Jasmine?!” Xant shouted.

“We can't stop it!” she shouted back, “Ryo, he’s the one doing it! (he can’t control it)”

Xant understood and pulled a medipen from his white coat, the depressor he held on hand for emergencies.

This situation was a fucking emergency.

The doctor watched as Beau and Ryo struggled on the end of the deck, and then making the decision to intervene. If Ryo was like Jasmine, the single-shot of depressor would be almost instantaneous, he couldn’t send harmful freq signals if he was unconscious.

Xant ran with all his might, tail swinging violently behind him to counteract his legs throwing him forward with his newfound strength he cross the deck in seconds, sliding to a stop to jab the pen into Ryo’s leg.

The youth had stopped struggling against the soldier, his dark cloud of emotions shattered to shards of wet glass. Begging for help from a man who couldn’t understand him, but Xant could. He had known such desperation before.

“Goodnight, Ryo,” Xant said with sympathy as he administered the tranquillizer.

Beau shouted as Ryo’s body went limp in seconds.

“I had him!” Beau shouted defensively, Xant jumped back and Jasmine screamed from across the deck so Beau could hear.

“Xant it worked! The bugs and shadows have stopped!”

Beau was caught off guard, looking between Xant and Ryo’s body. Beau shook his head,

more freaky alien telepathy, he was never getting an implant.

Beau placed Ryo’s unconscious body on the couch, then walked himself behind the bar to pour Jasmine a drink.

She sat on one of the lounge chairs, shaken but trying to stay calm, Xant was beside her just the same, his ears vibrating, eyes closed still trying to comprehend the event they all witnessed.

Rynard was laying down outside, too big to fit under the bar’s cover, he opted to have his face under the shade. Patching up his exterior face wounds with some of the salve Xant carried with him. He was quite happy to take the opportunity to sleep, he wouldn't have been much help with the bulge brain discussion anyway.

“So,” Beau said, placing the glass firmly on the table in front of Jasmine, “what in the southern, sweaty hell is going on?”

Jasmine looked to Xant, who gave a little nod before she picked up the drink, she threw back the water like a shot and attempted to answer.

“The translators don't just translate language, it translates thoughts and emotions. This means you can share memories as well, Xant and I have done it a couple of times, but it required a lot of concentration.” she played with the glass in her hands, rolling it between one palm and the other with her thumbs. “When Ryo and I were arguing I could see his memories with little effort, and he saw mine, it must be easier with humans, then…” she looked over her hands, where the bugs had been, “I think he started hallucinating, and the translator projected them out to everyone-” Jasmines head shot up with sudden realisation and she looked out to the hanger, “oh god, the other engineers! if any of them were in range,” she turned her worries to Xant, who gently kept her on track.

“If anything happened to them I’m sure we’ll hear about it soon,” He placated “they're military units, if they couldn’t work under combat conditions I don’t think they’d be here, for now, he is more important,” Xant said pointedly to Ryo's body.

“Hallucinations,” Beau folded his arms, still only privy to Jasmine's side of the conversation, he had to work the rest out through context, “that explains a lot, before we came here every now and then his eyes would glaze over, he’d mutter at something to shut up, thought it was me a few times but,” Beau clicked his tongue, annoyed at himself he didn’t think anything of it sooner. “Guess he’s more scrambled than I first thought...” he turned his head away so the others couldn’t see, a hand over his face as he collected his thoughts.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

He should have known better.

“It was really bad,” Jasmine described to Beau, “little black bugs crawling all over us and a faceless shadow man screaming insults, right in our faces” she mimicked how close the intrusions had been with her hand, shuddering at the painfully personal abuse. Her nerves reacted, sending goosebumps all over her skin, she raised a hand over her arm and attempted to rub them away.

“Nightscares while awake,” Xant inquired incredulously “why didn’t you tell me about it sooner?”

“It's not common,” Jasmine replied defensively, “like at all, hallucinations only happen after extreme measures, almost dying, weeks without sleep, certain powerful drugs and-”

“Schizophrenia,” Beau interrupted ominously, the word hung over the humans, Jasmine became quiet but her concern was obvious.

“Do you think he has it?” she asked.

“It's a condition, isn’t it?” Xant deduced.

Jasmine nodded sadly.

“Yeah,” she returned the empty glass to a table, trying to find a way to explain the gravity of the situation, “they suffer involuntary hallucinations, eventually deteriorating to not being able to distinguish between fantasy and reality, it’s genetic and incurable, a complete shit sandwich,”

The way the humans spoke of it was as though it were a terrible and inevitable demise.

“There is no way to treat it by your standards?”

“it can be treated with medication, but there are usually awful side effects and that's if you get the right dose to begin with.” Jasmine looked to Beau who gave the nod that she was right, “A wrong dose it can make it even worse, sometimes, it's not worth it to keep trying…”

Jasmine and Beau fell into a strange silence, Xant could feel Jasmine’s words carry a weight that was lost in the finer points of translation. A deep sadness, for a friend who could not be helped.

“What medication does he need?” Xant asked, now with new determination to help in any way he could, “it shouldn’t be too hard to facilitate a reproduction?”

Jasmine shook her head hopelessly.

“We don’t know, only Ryo would know what kind of meds he would need and even then it's not like we can produce the formula, they don't have chemical composition written on the side of the packets-”

Beau let out a laugh, a surprisingly optimistic yelp.

“Ryo’s a chemist!” He exclaimed, “he knew how to work the chemical machine back on the station we were imprisoned at, he might know the formula for his own medication!”

The air of hopelessness vanished, the new information bringing a rolling excitement with it.

“He could know? Would he know?,” her heart fluttered at the possibility.

“The kids a smartass, I don’t doubt for a minute he’d know the formula,” Beau grinned.

Xant stroked his ears in thought.

“But if the medication has harmful side effects it might be prudent to inspect his translator as well,” The doctor proposed, “if the nightscares are involuntary, then it may be a miscommunication of Industrial Freq with conscious ones, we might be able to untangle them, or block them if need be,”

“Wait, so we could stop the hallucinations altogether?!” now Jasmine was grinning as wide as Beau “That's even better! But, do you think he’d let us help him?”

All three of them looked over at the sickly young man.

“He asked me for help before the lights went out” Beau sighed, “He’s been running from his problems his whole life, there ain’t nowhere else to go except to someone who can help.”

-*-

Ryo felt a small pinch.

Down near his ankle, it didn’t hurt, but he didn't like it all the same.

When he opened his eyes he wasn’t in his room.

His body was wrecked, he was so tired, he swore under his breath while staring up at the unfamiliar ceiling.

“Hey, it's okay,” Jasmine's voice was quiet, she sounded just as tired as he did, “take it slow…”

Her aura wasn't as fluorescent as her personality usually suggested, but then he wasn’t as dark either.

Like the world had been muted.

“The depressor would have had you unconscious for hours, but the stim should have you in a reasonable condition soon,” the alien stated, the doctor called Xant, the one who had tranquillized him.

Ryo rolled his head.

Everyone was at his bedside, well, couchside.

Beau and Jasmine had that look in their eyes.

Pity.

They knew about his condition.

The moments before his involuntary incapacitation came roaring back.

They knew because he had told, or rather, shown them.

“So,” his mind’s voice asked, no longer able to hide it, “now what?”

“You’re not in any physical pain are you?” Xant asked him with a tone of concern he wasn’t expecting “Your companion was handling you rather roughly,”

Ryo wasn’t used to Xant’s bedside manner, it almost made him seem human.

“No, but, I do feel exhausted…” he answered truthfully.

“Don’t worry mate, I’m in the same boat,” Jasmine laughed tiredly, slumped over in the matching suit chair. She looked how he felt, drained.

“You both exerted an incredible amount of military-grade Freq, I suspect we will be visited by a Commander of some description very shortly,” Xant mused, talking to Ryo as though they were more than just acquaintances, “letting off such a blast inside the engineer’s wing would be breaking a few protocols, I will handle the explanations where I can.”

Beau walked up to Ryo, a glass of ice water in his hand.

“Do you think you can sit up for us?”

Ryo reluctantly righted his position and once his feet touched the floor, Beau insistently handed him the water. Even the smalls sips soothed Ryo’s parched throat.

Beau took a step back, leaning up against Jasmine’s chair, as Xant took the footstool.

“How long have you been seeing them?” Beau asked once Ryo had finished the water.

“Do you mean how long since I was abducted or since they started?” Ryo’s mind asked but was weak, he answered his question with his own voice so Beau could hear. “A year,”

Beau nodded his head, accepting the simple answer.

“And you’ve been taking meds since then?”

There was a hesitation, the urge to lie and cover-up the truth returned for a brief moment, but that had done nothing to help him so far.

“Yeah…” was the answer.

“Have they always been that bad?” Jasmine asked concerned, genuine worry like his mother used to do.

“Without the meds they are,” Ryo looked over his left hand, where the scar had been, “with them it blocks out the voices, I still have to second guess which shadows and bugs are real though…”

“Even with the medication? The doctors couldn’t find you a better fit?” she pressed.

The hesitation was longer this time.

“... A doctor, didn’t prescribe it to me.” Ryo shifted in his seat, there wasn’t a way to give an answer without them asking more questions, he had to tell them the truth, “My mum had the same condition, I had a container from before she was… institutionalised. When I ran away from home I had the capsule with me,”

“I know this is a long shot but,” Beau took a piece of paper and pen from the bar and handed them to Ryo, “Do you know the chemical composition to your medication?”

Ryo blinked looking up at his audience.

“Beau informed us of your education,” Xant explained, “if you indeed know the chemical composition we can recreate it for you,”

“Like the machine back on the station,” Ryo understood, “it won’t be exact, the company copyrighted the exact formula, but I can get close…”

“We can also, calibrate your translator,” Jasmine offered gently, “We can try to block out the hallucinations entirely.”

Ryo frowned, eyeing Jasmine and Xant suspiciously.

“Humans are unique among the galactic community in that their ‘Industrial frequency’ and their consciousness haven't been separated. Jasmine can only render Industrial Freq when she is asleep, if your brain triggers while still conscious we might be able to filter out those Freq signals entirely at the cost of you never ‘dreaming’ again.”

Ryo nearly dropped the pen.

He was silent for a long time, pondering the decision while drawing out the long and complicated hex formula for his medication.

He handed the page to Xant.

“If I never dream again, it will be too soon,”