Black gives way to purple and pink as eyes open. Sore. Painful. Unfamiliar tension on the right cheek as stiffened gauze pulls taut.
...Beep...Beep...Kathunkchuchuchuchu...Beep...
A cold rush through the nose. Oxygen. Eyes open wide. Sight returns in a slow transition of oozing colour to solid definition. A room, a medical bay, drowned in the hues of a world outside. The colours reflect off the metallic white surfaces of the ceiling and floor.
Sound returns. With a vengeance the cacophony crescendos from silence to roaring thunder. The pings of monitoring machinery. The wet thumps of pumps providing painkiller fluids and nourishment. The humming din of the station's operation. The piercing whine of tinitus.
A woman's body on a bed clad in a light blue patterned medical gown. Their arms lay by their sides, sleeveless to the shoulder, to allow for bracing at the elbow. Tubes at the wrist. Their flesh was a tapestry of bruised yellow and purples and black. It's familiar. Her... body? Pain piercingly pounces; a pinch at the neck that cascases into a chorus of aching, damaged muscle. Everywhere cried out to be heard.
She could see her flightsuit. Rather, she could see what remains of it. A collection of cut , cindered and torn leather pieces bundled into a see-through bag. Sitting on a wheeled table it wasn't alone. Her PDA with screen splintered and casing cracked. An oval gemstone, purple cased in gold. Cheap at a crafts fare on the station. A piece of folded paper. It looked pristine and couldn't be hers. A note?
A pained groan escaped Catherine's lips as she lays her head back down and rolls it to the side. Nothing to do but gaze out the glazed, vacuum sealed window at the ice cloud and try to recall how she came to be here. The presence in her mind. The chase around Toledo. The presence in her mind. The blue-white ocean of an unfamiliar system. The presence in her mind. The fight alongside an Order agent. The presence in her mi- canopy cracking, vacuum venting, freely floating. Darkness.
Solemn. A name thrown into consciousness from a part of her mind previously subdued. A part of her mind ignored. Instinctual self-preservation bottled up by the demands of a conscious will. Hawkins. Empress. Overcome this influence and get help. How? Her PDA was broken. She couldn't move. Her fingers couldn't find an alert button. No one was here. None of them knows she's here.
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Her mind, already weakened by sedatives, began slipping away, falling into a painless — but welcome sleep. The hum of medical machinery and the lingering scent of antiseptic slowly gave way to a profound silence. Darkness, an absence of everything.
But it wasn't quite sleep that gripped her. The very same alien that had led her to her current state was methodically burrowing into her mind. It was child's play — the pathways were already well-established through repeated, extensive contact. It had grown accustomed to connecting with this psyche.
In the recesses of the alien's recollection, an image surfaced — Catherine White's body adrift in a Ghoul's shattered cockpit canopy. It was a natural consequence of preceding events, but an untenable situation. Human life was so very feeble, so easy to snuff out. If this individual was to be of any use, the events of that day could not be allowed to repeat. The dangers of direct contact were too severe.
The Nomad's work was nearly complete. All of the woman's sensory pathways were firmly under its control. She would see what it wanted her to see. Smell what it wanted her to smell. Hear what it wanted her to hear.
Catherine felt a gentle nudge against her side. The tiny nose of a small, squirrel-like creature was poking into her flank. She awoke, reaching out to determine the cause of that strange feeling. Frightened by the sudden motion, the small animal skittered away, its luminescent markings leaving trails of light in the air as it disappeared into the underbrush of the surrounding forest.
The lush carpet of the forest floor cradled her. A familiar feeling. She'd been here before. In this glade, in this forest. The Nomad had brought her here only a few days ago. It was a place constructed by the alien mind, either from its imagination or, perhaps, from memory. The small lake in the center of the forest clearing mirrored the stars above, a tranquil reflection of the night sky.
In the mindscape, Catherine's corporeal woes didn't affect her, leaving her senses keen and sharp. She heard it again — that familiar, rhythmic drumming of tiger-like paws connecting with the foliage-covered soil. By now, she knew what this meant: her host announcing its presence.
The sudden clarity was refreshing. Akin to standing on the balcony of her family home on Erie with snow covering the landscape, hot flask of coffee in her hands. The memory brought comfort, as did the familiar landscape in this realm. Was it a real place brought back to life? Was it a work of fiction? Was it malicious, an attempt to disarm her with a realm consutrcted to appeal to her likes?
Catherine pushes the thoughts aside just as she pushes herself up from her sleeping repose. Despite why it was here, she did truly find it a wonderful and magical illusion. did these creatures really exist once? They were so beautiful. Her chests rises and falls with pain. Her eyes close and open, blinking as if in her true self. With each blink she sees that ghosting image of herself in the shattered cockpit, and a spark of panic and fear. Get out of this pl- Perhaps her autonomic nervous system still dealing with the trauma of a broken body. Do such things bleed into these visions?
"This is a dangerous act. If you are near to the Freeport, you put both of us at risk."
Across the lake, at the clearing's edge, the source of the footfalls revealed itself. A creature, an embodiment of feline grace and avian elegance, almost mythical in its presence. Piercing blue eyes locked onto Catherine's, as if contemplating her words. It tilted its hawk-like visage, crowned by antlers, and emitted a loud, shrieking call.
And the forest responded. The sound traversed the lake, parting the water in its wake. The grass-like groundcover swayed along the unseen trail, as if a gentle breeze had pushed it aside. The reverberation stopped just short of Catherine, at a nearby plant, its leaves gently separating to unveil a small, purplish-blue fruit.
Catherine finds her eyes locked onto the magnificent creature's blue eyes. She watches it intently as it makes it's call into the lush hungle-scape around them. Her ears ring with the call as the forest reciprocates whatever power the creature had unleashed. Her gaze follows the cutting wake of the sound across the water to where she takes in the sight of this fruit that had been revealed from the plant's leaves.
She steps towards it, slowly and cautiously, as her mind races in it's attempt to interpret. To understand. To decypher. Cat reaches out, fingers delicately stroking the fruit's unusually coloured skin. She registers it's texture, the mindscape's clarity heightening her senses.
Swiftly, she looks to the creature with mouth aghast and eyes wide. "I see, I think." It didn't need to be said. To say anything more of it may reveal the sudden pang of fear she felt. A rush of concern that had her heart beating quicker. Even docked, even in the safety of a medical bay, she may not find seclusion. Get ou-
Swallowing, Catherine turns to face the elegant creature. She dips her head a little in fear in respect. "How is it I am on the freeport? Is... was the experience in the freeport real or... another layer. Another vision? Am I truly there?"