Nightmares

by Seven


Disclaimer:  Earth: Final Conflict and its characters are copyrighted by Tribune Entertainment Company.  All rights reserved.



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The nightmares were there. They were ALWAYS there.

Liam jerked awake, sweat beading his forehead and pasting his curly dark hair to his neck. He groped for the beaded pull that would turn on the light. Colored flashes lit his vision, making his head hurt.

He turned on the lights and stumbled to the bathroom, which smelled faintly of floral scents. He spotted Kwai Ling's bathing suit draped over the mirror, and pulled it off. His pale green eyes looked dark and hollow in his stark white face.

His stomach heaved, and he had to fight to keep his dinner where it belonged. The nightmares always gave him a surge of adrenaline, which jolted him awake and left him feeling drained and sick.

And scared.

He had dreamed of a Kimera, a fairly young Kimera, but not his father. The Kimera had been standing on the Taelon homeworld...

*... surrounded by a thousand of their kind. Their thick, ridged faces alight with fury, they lunged at him. He raised his shakarava and blasted at them, but all in vain. There were too many of them. He screamed to his people, screamed for help, screamed for veangance against the monstrous creatures that were killing him...*

Liam splashed cold water on his face. Perhaps that was the worst part, he thought tensely. Not so much experiencing what the Kimera had suffered, but experiencing it over and over and over... and the fact that it was real, it had happened, didn't help.

He shook himself and pulled a global from the bathroom counter... Augur had globals everywhere, he thought with a hint of amusement. He began to dial the secure channel to the Embassy... and stopped. What could he tell Da'an? That he had a bad dream about Atavuses slaughtering a Kimera?

No, Liam decided, shutting the global. Perhaps he could tell someone else... Augur, maybe. Augur knew how much nightmares upset him.

Liam walked back out and lay down on his bed. He left the light on. It was too bright, but he didn't want to lie there, awake, in the dark.

Liam hugged the blanket closely around himself and tried to sleep. Tried to banish the images that haunted him so. Tried to forget the dying screams of his people at the hands of the Taelons...