It's a New Life for Me, and I'm Feeling Good

Posted on Sun May 9th, 2021 @ 8:59pm by Ensign Ezra Gonzalez

Mission: The Place of Skulls
Location: Ezra's quarters
Timeline: Mission Day 1 at 0830

Ezra stood at the foot of his bed, looking at the two uniforms placed on it: on one side, his brand-new commissioned officer's uniform, which he was already half-dressed in, and on the other, a freshly replicated cadet's uniform that he had originally assumed he was going to be wearing today.

As he paused to look--stare, rather--at his old uniform, thoughts and memories began to flood unbidden into his mind...memories of the last time he had taken off that uniform...

He had dropped heavily onto the edge of the biobed, his breath dragging in and out like a broom on cobblestones. He reached up to his throat, but could barely grab onto the zipper of his jacket because he was trembling so violently. His skin felt clammy and gross from days or weeks of accumulated sweat, dirt, and blood, and he felt certain he smelled like it, too. Was the blood his? He didn't know, or didn't remember. He finally got the zipper undone and slid out of the jacket, letting it fall to the floor. It looked just like he felt: torn, dirty, and stained. He slowly looked up, and his vision was filled with the face of an emergency medic, scanning him with a tricorder and asking him questions in a voice that seemed really far away. Suddenly, panic began to explode out of every pore in Ezra's body as the tricorder was replaced by the horrid spikes of that dreadful Vidiian tool, and the medic's face bubbled and melted and broke apart to form the hideous, leering face of--

"No!" Ezra yelled, instantly snapping back to reality. He clamped his eyes shut and scrunched up his face, throwing his fists up close to his nose as if he were in a boxing match. He stood there for what felt like a lifetime, rocking back and forth on his heels as he tried to fight the ghosts, doing his best to apply a meditation technique that Emni had taught him. After a few moments, the nightmarish face changed. One by one, he saw each of his siblings' faces, then his dad's face, and finally the smiling face of his mom, and he was able to relax. He picked up the old uniform and tossed it back into the replicator, feeling tremendous relief as its particles destabilized into nothingness.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled on his new uniform and zipped it up, passing his hands over the comfortable fabric and the metal pip on its chest, slightly cold to the touch. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat, then stepped in front of the mirror. He seemed older and somewhat thinner and paler than he had remembered, and his face bore a solemn expression, but behind those hard eyes he could see every science officer who had come before him, standing tall and strong and steady. Now it was his turn.

"To boldly go..." he whispered, then turned toward the door.