Escaping (Aristede's Parents)

Posted on Mon Mar 24th, 2025 @ 4:17pm by Lieutenant Aristede Steele PsyD.
Edited on on Mon Mar 24th, 2025 @ 4:18pm

1,080 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: To Boldly Go
Location: El-Aurian Home World
Timeline: During the Borg Occupation

There are blood-stains on the paper. I think they're mine. Maybe Amaya's because I remember her hitting her head when she tripped. Bled so much. I remember helping her get up and some of her blood ... weird to think that this is all I have left of her. Of any of them.

I can't wash my hands. She'll be gone then. More gone.

My hands are shaking. Adrenaline, Taariq says, but it hasn't worn off and I want to get this down. Have to get this down. Taariq says that we alter our memories over time. Soften the sharp edges. He's wrong about this. With all he knows about medicine about the way the body works, he's wrong about this. Because this ... this ... will be playing in a loop in my head for the rest of my life.

However many more minutes that will be.

I remember the eyes especially. Flat. Lifeless. Emotionless. Eyes that could make a Vulcan positively giddy and yes, I know how that sounds. I still have her blood on my hands. Washing it off seems like a betrayal somehow. Where was I. Oh right. I saw them first from the window of the nursery, or what would be the nursery, just as they grabbed Taariq's mother. I heard her scream. Heard it cut off suddenly as they injected her with something and then she was gone.

Just like that. Gone.

Aliens. They appeared suddenly and without warning. How could there be no warning? No sirens. Just aliens. One, two and then, they were ... everywhere. Humanoid monstrosities with mechanical appendages grafted on, sickly pale. There was a deadness ... about them. All the screaming. The fear. And they showed no reaction. Just took our people. Took Kestra, that dear woman. I saw the guards sacrificing themselves, trying to save all that they could, and failing.

Nightmare upon nightmare.

I remember running. I do remember that. Amaya had been in the garden putting together a bouquet and I was running toward her as she was running toward me. I remember we held hands they way he did when we were children. And it seemed as though everywhere we ran there were more of them. I saw a friend of my mother's get taken. And then, in a dark alley, a young girl, screaming, as they reached her moments before we could get there.

Technology makes nowhere safe.

We stumbled over an overturned chair in the plaza, cutting our turn too tightly, I guess. Amaya fell down, a deep cut on her forehead. I remember tearing off a bit of my hem to make a head dressing. Something Taariq had taught me.

I remember the terror and the tears as she looked at me while I wrapped the bandage around her head. "You always did," she said, "wear the biggest skirts." And that was it. The last words I heard her say because an alien was upon her and to my shame, I ran.

Hard to see with all the tears falling down my face. I kept changing direction. Bouncing off walls. Scraped my shin when I tripped on nothing. My legs moving faster than my mind could process. Lost in the city I was born in. I remember pulling off my shoes because they made too much noise. I remember creeping down a side street, my heart pounding so loudly I thought it would burst from my chest. And then, somehow, Taariq was there. He pulled me close. His arms around me felt safe. On a day when there was no safety anywhere, I felt safe for just a moment. He was magnificent. We were running through the market, using the open air stalls for cover, once I hid for what felt like forever, under a hand-woven blanket; the very same one that I had been coveting days before on a shopping trip with Kestra.

When we reached the space port, Taariq headed for the first ship he saw. The cockpit was small, cramped, the seats were stained, the stuffing jutting out through tears in the upholstery, and the engine made the most alarming noises. It was ancient and neither of us was sure it would fly. But there wasn't time and the aliens were everywhere.

Everywhere. Kestra. Amaya. My parents. Were they all in some prison cell awaiting judgement by these strangers? These aliens? If I stopped for one moment, my mind churned up horrific and horrific scenario. I didn't want to stop or to think. Keep moving.

I heard screams and sounds. Maybe their teleporters? I don't know. Taariq dropped a tool and I someone screamed. Maybe me? It was all so confusing. I know there were noises. He did things. I was useless. It was all I could do to hold myself together. When he told me to get in, I had trouble understanding the words. So, he helped me, pushed me, coaxed me, and then I was in the copilot seat. I remember pulling my knees up to my chest, trying to make of myself the smallest target I could, while tears blurred my vision. I remember holding my breath, my hands, blood-stained and dirty, pressed to my lips, trying to stop the scream forming inside of me.

Taariq was cursing in El Aurian. The language of home. I wondered if there would be anyone left to speak it other than us. Stupid thing to worry about but there it was. I remember thinking about the nursery that Amaya would never see and all our belongings. I thought about my own family. Our ancient world in the hands of those ... things.

Taariq was focused, determined. He kept doing things. Working. Trying. How could he be ummoved by all of this when all I could do was cry. Right before he turned on the engines, he looked at me and I saw everything I was feeling mirrored in his eyes. The pain. The terror. The grief. "We could," he said quietly, "stay ..."

Die with our world or live without it.

It takes courage to leave and I thought about staying. To hug them all one more time before the end. But that dear man? How could I consign him to that fate? For him, I could be strong. Had to be. I remember taking his hand in mine, pulling him into a hug, and drawing in a deep breath, fighting through the tears, so that I could whisper in his ear, "Go."

And we did.

 

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