"This is ( Tate's) Halloween"

Posted on Mon Nov 14th, 2022 @ 5:57pm by Lieutenant Tate Sullivan Ph.D.

Mission: Season 6 : Episode 1: Circinus
Location: Doctor Tate Sullivan's quarters, USS Elysian
Timeline: Concurrent with ship wide events
686 words - 1.4 OF Standard Post Measure

She didn't want to be here.

It was a sentiment she had expressed many times before they had arrived, she was sure, even though she couldn't remember the trip over. She didn't want to be here, and she would have continued to voice it, but suddenly, her mouth was dry and she couldn't bring herself to speak. It was as if someone had literally taken her voice from her. She felt like screaming, but no sounds emerged.

She'd been here before, but she knew this time was different. Instead of feeling impatient as she waited to be processed and allowed entry into the detention facility, this time she just felt uneasy. She wanted to run, but the throngs of people behind her in line continued to push her forward, into the detention facility's visitation area. The place was already dismal and intimidating with its gunmetal gray walls, forcefields and guards with stun weapons, but now it seemed even more so. The place was darker then she remembered, hazier. Holographic ghosts, monsters, and witches floated through the air. They competed with smiling floating holographic jack-o'-lanterns and scarecrows for her attention, but even these friendlier sights seemed out of character at best, ominous at worst.

She shivered as she was startled by ghostly moans and the rattling of invisible chains. Cackling sounds occasionally joined the din. She was determined not to show fear, but in truth, she didn't want to show any particular emotion. She briefly looked back at the woman behind her, who offered an encouraging nod. This latest motherly figure in her life was focused on the other happenings in the large room - the carnival games - bobbing for apples, the ring toss, and the piles of candy that we're being offered to other children like herself by guards Who were half dressed for the Halloween occasion from the waist up, even as their lower halves were dressed in the usual guard's uniform and accessories. Had she been older, she might've laughed in sarcastic derision at the ironic contradiction surrounding her - epitomized by the guard in clown make up handing out animal balloons while the rest of him appeared ready to go to war with his inmate charges – stun baton inches from reach.

She knew her surroundings were meant to be festive, to provide an opportunity, at least for a few hours, for inmates and their children to forget where they were and just celebrate Halloween together. She knew she should smile, to behave as was expected of her, but even at age 8, she knew what was authentic and what wasn't. In short, she knew when people were trying to pull the wool over her eyes, and frankly, it pissed her off royally.

"Tate? Where are you, sweetie? Please, come give your mother a hug."

The angry knot in her stomach and in her throat loosened ever so slightly. She was not one so easily fooled, but eight year old Tate so badly wanted to see her biological mother, her real mother, that suddenly, she committed to eagerly buy into whatever delusional reality the other adults around her wanted her to accept.

Now she scanned the room, the crowd of people having grown exponentially somehow since she first arrived. She could hardly breathe. Spotting what she thought were the familiar eyes of her mother in the distance, she tore through the throng, determined to make her way to her mother.

How was it possible that she could run, but with every step, somehow end up further away? The next thing she knew, she was spinning, somehow being pulled into a festive dance where an entire group locked arms and moved in a circle. Their laughter was too loud. They couldn't hear her scream or ask for her mother. The cackling of the holographic witches continued, seemingly mocking her as she was forced to spin faster and faster…

...until she was slammed to the floor of her quarters, forced awake and covered in sweat.

She will soon realize she had just traded a hellish dream state for a hellish reality that was 1 million times worse.