Dark Night of the Soul
The time frame of this one is VERY early in the 3-week hiatus on the ground.--Terri
Curled with her back against his front, his muscular arms wrapped around her, she watched his hand stroke the protruding mound of her belly. The baby rolled within her, making her grunt when a foot crammed itself beneath her ribs into a lung. But it also made her chuckle breathlessly. “Think he’s grumping about the exercise?” she teased.
“Nope,” the man replied in a lazy tone while his warm palm followed the roll of the baby’s behind across the top of her belly. “He’s just stretchin’ out the kinks, complaining that he hasn’t got enough room in there.”
She looked over her shoulder to smile at him, returning the soft kiss. Resting her temple against his forehead, she whispered, “Be careful out there, Danny.” The war was heating up and every day it seemed the reports were getting bloodier.
He kissed her temple, holding her tightly against his body. “Love you, baby,” he whispered.
She rolled to face him, lifting her face for his kiss. And even as she slipped her tongue between his lips, she plunged the knife between his ribs into his heart and reveled in the hot rush of blood …
Bolting upright in the bed, Tian barely managed to stifle the scream. She was clammy and wet, caught in the dream while she fought the covers to scramble out of the bed, her heart beating desperately. Unable to catch her breath, she slammed on the light to stare frantically into all corners of her bed. No blood. No blood anywhere.
Trembling, she sank to the floor on her heels, wrapping her arms around her legs. She rocked there, stifling the keening whimpers against her knees. Her dreams lately were brutal. Every dream was full of images of blood and pain. And during each of them she was the cause of it, bathing in the intense feeling of power.
The screams from the hallway were music to her ears, but it was the horrific sounds that came from the man in front of her that made her heart pump faster. Looking up to the man hanging from the wall, a feral smile curled her lips.
Chris Christian’s wrists were manacled high above, his head lolling down to his chest. The scalpel in her hand was slick with his blood, her hand covered with the substance. She reached out once more, sliding the blade across his abdomen. She watched with a visceral pleasure as his intestines spilled out in a long trail of slimy snakes.
He screamed. The sound was agonized, and she stepped close to him, ignoring the fact that she was crushing his entrails beneath her boots. Putting her nose close to the base of his throat, she whispered, “Did you really think that I’d let you hurt him?”
The scalpel played along his side while she slid her free hand inside his body. She could tell by feel alone that she was caressing a kidney. Clenching her fist around it, the man she was tormenting gagged a breath out and she murmured, “I’m looking forward to finding out what your heart tastes like.”
She’d woken from that one last night to find herself standing in her bathroom, a scalpel laying on the counter and a shallow cut up her arm. She had no idea how she’d gotten there. What the gorram hell was happening to her?
“I come at it from a different angle… what horrors would have had to be suffered to turn the man into a monster?” Shepherd Faria’s words passed through her mind and Tian sucked in a shaky breath. Had whatever she’d done or seen on the Reaver ship changed her so fundamentally that she would actually hurt someone? Or revel in the dreams of holding their life in her hands? It was what she did as a surgeon...
She could almost understand the dream about Christian. He was a threat to her son. And there was nothing more dangerous than a mother whose child was threatened. But the dreams were getting worse. Now she was dreaming about hurting people she loved.
Pushing herself slowly out of her fetal curl, Tian shakily got to her feet and went to splash her face in the sink. The light over the basin cast her features in stark relief and she looked at her own reflection. Objectively speaking, she looked like hell.
She walked back into her bedroom, drawn to the desk where she’d left a Wave to Han Zhang half finished. Seating herself there, she finished the missive and mailed it before going back to her bunk. It was barely 3am and although she doubted she’d sleep again, she at least needed the rest.
Zhang,
I’ve been thinking back to our dinner on the beach. I wish we’d had a little more time to spend together. The past weeks have not been easy, and I find that I want to ask you questions that are beyond inappropriate. Especially for a Wave. I have always felt comfortable in your presence and I really could use a friend with a common frame of reference right now. None of those I know here have ever served, and few have faced the darkness that can come of choices made in war. It’s pretty dark in my head these days, and the time that I spent with you has been a bright point. I hope that things are going well on Kerry and that you’ll forgive me for presuming on our relationship by sharing the thoughts.
Of all the things I’ve seen in the Verse—from battlefields during the wars to pandemics, I’m not sure anything has affected me quite as powerfully as a firsthand run-in with Reavers. I dream a lot right now, some about what happened and some… about what might have happened. They are powerful nightmares. Thoughts of our dinner lighten the darkness and I am occasionally forced even to laugh. Did you know that a mutual acquaintance referred to me as your ‘woman’ when I spoke with her? It took me by surprise, and I have to admit to being quite flattered. It also occurs to me to ask, did I meet your daughter? Her name struck me later and I didn’t think to ask in my last note.
--Tian
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