<USS Avalon> "Out-Running the Pain"

Note: This log comes directly after "The Lessons We
Learn - Part 6"


                                 ***Out-Running the
Pain***

                                    by Yeoman John
Forester


Cries of children in pain filled his mind, he raced to
the side of the bus as a mushroom of fire consumed it.
He saw it all in slow motion: the sleek black vehicle
skidding to avoid hitting him, the squeal of crushing
metal as it collided with a tree, the realisation that
there were children inside and that he had to do
something. He was at the side of the vehicle now,
reaching for the door. He knew even before it exploded
that something was wrong. The fireball ripped through
him, the pain was exquisite and deserving. Blackness
and death caught him and he sank down into them.


THUMP! A pillow bounced off his head and pulled him
back to the real world. Blearily, John looked around
at the untidy quarters he shared, trying to find the
source of the offending projectile. His roommate was
stood glaring at him with his arms crossed.


"You were screaming about that damn training mission
again."


"Sorry," John mumbled, scrabbling around the floor for
his blankets and that pillow, which he lobbed back at
his roomy, who easily side-stepped it.


"It was only training, you gotta let it go. No one got
hurt." He sounded so reasonable, so caring, but John
just shrugged and rolled over.


"It could have been real, you don't know what it feels
like to be responsible for the death of children."
Children, why did it have to be children?


"Look, get up, go have some breakfast and go for a run
or something. I've got some holosuite time booked, you
take it, run one of my programs for relaxing."


"Oh yeah, I know what you like to do when you relax."
A smutty grin spread across John's face as he looked
over his shoulder. "It's not my kind of thing, but
I'll steal your holo-time, no problem!"


"Yeah, you do that. Gotta run, got a shift."


With that his friend whipped out the door and it slid
closed behind him. John slipped out of bed and into
the shower. He wanted to purge his body, make it
clean, remove his sin, his failure. Those children
could have been real and if they had been, he would
have died with their deaths on his conscience.

*********

As the huge doors of the holosuite clunked open, John
realised how much he hated it here. The crap they'd
been put through made him feel sore all over just
thinking about it. He had a grudging respect for
Marksbury, the way she'd trained them, to work
together and think things through logically. He even
respected the last training, being shown what a real
mission was going to be like.


"Computer, run program Forester 5."


The blue walls disappeared to make way for a fresh,
cool forest clearing. Dawn's sun glittered through the
treetops and happy birds chattered away all around
him. The grass was still dewy from the night before
and wet pine needles scented the air. He started at a
slow jog but eased it up to a mile-eating run.


Pounding the hard-packed earth of the forest paths,
John could clear his mind of all the things that he
had been bottling up. Tears of frustration and grief
began trickling down his cheeks. He ran hard, faster,
trying to out-run the pain. You can't touch me here, I
won't let you!


Mile after mile fell to his powerful legs. He turned
right and then left, swinging around trees to make the
turns faster and neater. He could hear the familiar
sound of tinkling water up ahead and he altered his
course to rendezvous with it.


The pool was deep and blue, its surface disturbed only
by the waterfall set into a cliff. Without slowing his
pace, John dived straight into the icy waters, the
cold wetness purging the sweat and tears from his
skin. Lap after lap, round and round the small pool he
swam mindlessly. The freezing cold water stole away
the last of his nightmare.

********

He'd ran another ten miles after swimming so he was
mostly dry as he plodded back to his quarters to
change before having breakfast. The rooms were empty,
his roommate still not back, so John stripped his
sweaty jogging bottoms and t-shirt off before climbing
into the sonic shower. The last of the grime was
beaten from his body by the violent sound waves, he
felt more human, more like himself. Vaguely he
wondered what the others were doing, but he was still
too raw to seek them out. Instead he simply climbed
back into bed and tried for a little undisturbed sleep.


        
        
                
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