D.A.B.D.A: Pondering Fate Bargaining- Part 3 by Lieutenant Alder Shimbrodus I looked around the vegetation of what seems to be trees. Green and full, tall and strong, piercing the skies. But as I looked at it, my mind swiftly turn to the sky, which then I became confused by the sight of the clear blue sky. Something fuzzed the image. It was grey, slowly mixing in. I tilted my head, not getting the sight before me as I stared blankly at it, how is the sky swirling like a whirlpool? But then I turned my head and saw fire. And suddenly it was a whole lot closer than I previously saw it. The heat was intense enough that I instinctively wiped the sweat from my forehead which then crystalized on my skin and slowly evaporated like sand blown from the wind. And smoke filled my nose, stinging it with the burned smell of metal. I walked towards the fire, as it pulled back further. The ground was clean...too clean, untouched and pristine as marble itself. I walked towards the fire, wanting, needing, to know...something. And then it became further. Moving faster than my eyes could process. I realized I was being pulled away from it and when I came to that realization, I began to run. To run as fast as my legs could take me. And I felt pulled back even faster as I now saw a planet, and it became smaller by the second. The stars streaked by me again, and my legs kept running. My body, my mind, wanted nothing more than to go back to that place. To see what was there, to find...someone. I didn?t know who that someone was but I had to keep running. It was the only way to get back, the only way to find out...something. The stars stopped passing me by, the nebulas became big again, and there just happened to be a sun set right next to me. But I didn?t stop, I ran. Running as fast as I could. Nothing stopped me, nothing pulled me, instead I was pushed forward this time and the next thing I knew I was looking over...my twin. His eyes shut, his face at peace. He looked asleep, and it didn?t matter what happened, he would never wake again. I was holding my twin, and it all didn?t make sense to me. And then it morphed, it went to my father, my mother, my brother, my sisters, and it morphed repeatedly until they vanished from my arms. I was kneeling, I don?t remember kneeling. I saw a skimmer, in flames, and none of it made sense. I looked down and the world started to crumble before me, and all I saw was my twin, and the sense that he was dead clouded my thoughts and became the only answer to this dream. He was dead and in my arms again. His eyes opened and looked at me, brown eyes piercing to the back of my head and as I became transfixed, I saw a ship wondering the spaceways; so far away. Away from home. Those eyes closed slowly and I knew it would never open again. I suddenly felt tired. So tired. They were gone. All of them, and I screamed. I screamed until the planet heard me, I screamed until the crumbling of this reality desolved around me, until I was heard by everyone. Anyone. The blackness engulfed me and all I could do was scream, helpless from this all. ?//\\? I opened my eyes to find myself alone in the dark. My quarters, devastated. I didn?t remember falling asleep. And I especially didn?t remember being on the couch. It was just a dream, but it was clear enough. It was still fresh in my mind, and unlike most dreams, this didn?t want to fade away quickly. It stayed with me like glue. I sat up, placing a PADD that was evidently resting on my chest onto the coffee table. If what was left of the half broken object could be called a table. I knew what the PADD had in it. It was a report of my family?s death. How it came to be, what had transpired after the accident, everything. Yet it didn?t seem to make sense to me. Maybe it was their death, or the events that led to it. I don?t know, but now I face the task of having to work through this. Deneva at this time was in a red zone when it came to vacationing. Everyone from countless of places came here to just enjoy the scenery and have a good time. Not surprising, Deneva had a desirable climate and landscape to bask in the beauty of. My family at this busy vacation times, decided to take a trip to New Singapore. New Singapore was on the other side of the Deneva?s main continent, a small enough island that had just been populated. Not many knew of it, but those who did knew the amount of back reservations it had for a visit. They were on their way to the terminal and checked out a skimmer large enough for ten people. Considering that there was less then ten, the free space was just that. They made their way. Roughly four to five hours after they left the terminal, reports of an accident on main highway 138 came in. A five skimmer crash that result in the destruction of three out of the five skimmers. One of those skimmers was my family. And the worst part was that it was caused by one person. One drunk person piloting a skimmer at velocities that were too ridiculous to believe crashed into another skimmer causing a domino effect. My family was in that domino effect. Caught right in the middle of it. After the mess that was created were cleaned up, the bodies of the five skimmers were transported to the same hospital. Because there was no one to intervene against an autopsy, the doctors conducted it and drew out a report stating that several things happened before death. The driver, the person responsible, was intoxicated beyond the safety limit. His motor functions were suspected of not even there in his already languid coherency. Authorities were questioning how he had managed to get out onto a busy highway without no one stopping him. As for my family, David died instantaneously, more then eighty-five percent of his body was burned. But it was the debris that killed him. Jake, my oldest brother, died right on impact. He was at the back of the skimmer as it toppled over and smashed him against the concrete divider that split the opposing traffic. Elana was pretty much the same- and it was discovered that she was two months pregnant. Alexia was the same way in cause of death. The only survivors that held on til the last minute and down to the second was my brother Matt, and my mom, Alicia. Both fell out of the skimmer and were the only two visible survivors of the crash. The med units tried stabilizing Matt, but he died on the way to the hospital. And my mom died in the emergency room. There...there was nothing the doctors could have done. So said the reports. They tried reviving them, hoping to get them back, but they stopped after two minutes of trying. Starfleet Command sent their condolences with the offer of linking the holoemitters from Deneva to here in order to at least be present for the funeral. They realized that no transports were heading that way, or that way in the given time span for the funeral. It was a very kind offer, one I knew I had to take- even if my entire mind wanted to run away from it, refusing to accept. I would have to send a message back as soon as possible. The news of my family?s death was almost two weeks old and the Shimbrodus family were waiting on me to make my decision, or go one without me if I didn?t make one. They should?ve taken the transporters, and why wouldn?t they? What if they took their time getting there instead of rushing? What if they postponed it until Elana had her baby? What if I was there? What if we were home sooner? Maybe things would have been different. I looked outside my window, the only lasting image in my head was the fact I was on a desolate world, barren, desolate, and alone. It was as if the black void shut me out only to redeposit me some place else. But that was all I remembered. It?s becoming a whole lot more numb. It was like a wall was preventing me from fully letting my emotions go and I was trapped within it, never to come out. It didn?t make sense. What can I do? What will I do? I looked out again, and this time, I realize my answer. But it didn?t really clarify anything, much as it was an adequate answer. It was just there. And I took it, after all, what other alternative was there? The answer was simple: nothing. There was nothing I could do... --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! - Internet access at a great low price.