Mourning Nightmares

Posted on Sat Jun 3rd, 2023 @ 9:52pm by Captain Bethsabée Leroux

Mission: Sojurn
Location: Relea
Timeline: Day 336 03:00
731 words - 1.5 OF Standard Post Measure

Beth had been widowed for years, yet the pain of her loss was as raw as it had been at the start she felt being so far from Earth. Each night for the last week, as she closed her eyes and slipped into the realm of dreams, a recurring nightmare awaited her. It haunted her with vivid intensity, leaving her sleep-deprived if anyone cared to notice and filled with a sense of impending doom.

The nightmare would always begin in the peaceful setting of her old Corsican home, the same house she had shared with her late husband, Thomas. Beth would find herself standing in the dimly lit hallway, the air heavy with a sense of unease despite the fact she knew the home had never felt like that even in the last weeks of Thomas’ life. The house, once a sanctuary of warmth and love, now seemed cloaked in darkness and despair.

As Beth moved through the house, searching for a sign of life or comfort, she could hear distant whispers, indistinguishable to location or language but filled with malice. The walls seemed to close in on her, the once-familiar rooms morphing into sinister mazes. Doors creaked open, revealing nothing but endless corridors leading to nowhere.

In the nightmare, Beth's heart would race, and her breath would come in shallow gasps. She could feel a presence lurking behind her, a shadowy figure that followed her every move. No matter how fast she ran or where she sought refuge, it was always there, closing in on her like a predator stalking its prey.

The nightmare would take a particularly harrowing turn when Beth would stumble upon a room she had never seen before. It was a cold, sterile space with walls adorned with eerie paintings that seemed to come alive in the flickering candlelight. The paintings depicted scenes of death, sorrow, and a haunting familiarity that sent chills down Beth's spine.

As Beth approached one of the paintings, the figure in it moved, breaking free from the canvas and lunging toward her. She would wake up in a cold sweat, her heart pounding in her chest, only to realise that she had escaped the clutches of the nightmare for yet another night.

Beth had sought solace in therapy back on Earth , hoping to find some respite from the relentless nightmares. The therapist assured her that grief often manifested itself in peculiar ways, and the nightmare was merely a reflection of her inner turmoil over the loss of her spouse. They encouraged her to confront her fears, to embrace the memories of her late husband rather than let them haunt her which she had done but out there lost in space it was harder and suddenly she felt like she had taken a step back.

Beth had begun to face her nightmares head-on. She learned to recognize the distorted images and unsettling scenes for what they were: manifestations of her grief and the fear of moving forward without Thomas. Slowly but surely, the nightmares started to lose their grip on her when she had joined Earth Starfleet but being on Relea they had returned it was as though the boundary between her dreams and reality had blurred again, leaving her perpetually on edge when she had no time to be.

It was why she sat on the edge of the bed listening to the soft sounds of Michael sleeping despite how her bolting awake must have stirred him a bit. She was figuring the booze and food had played a part in his continued sleep as she stood and gathered up his tee tossing it in over herself as she ventured towards the window to watch the snow falling below. The Releaians had provided them with hotel rooms if they wanted it and Beth had not bothered until that point but the view was amazing as she lent there and tried to think through her thoughts. She was settled, she was making a move forward past a casual fling for the first time in a relationship since Thomas.

What was she going to do?

Why had the dreams returned so violently? The therapist on Earth had summed it up as her fear to move forward but now that she was looking at doing it her mind was trying to make it impossible to move forward again.

Was she ready to move on?