Spock awoke with fragments of time embedded into his memory. He was cold, he did not know where he was. His voice, again and again, was whispering, where were the children? He fingered the sheet. His world felt sterile, he felt without, void, and he was beginning to grow restless but something compelled him to stay where he was.
A gruff voice entered the room, abrasive and yet kind. Dr. McCoy. Spock pressed his fingers to the stabbing pain in his head; the world was shattering at the vibrations of the doctor's mumbling.
"doctor?"
"ahh, you're awake"
"indeed. What has happened? Where is the captain?"
"He's fine, on the bridge. You, however, got pretty beat up, thank god for that green stuff in you, you would have been dead."
"what, exactly, was the mission?"
"You ask a lot of questions, Spock, get some rest, we'll talk later"
A hiss and then Spock fell, like a bird with broken wings into the blue of dreams, dreams where children surrounded him, mauled him, a horrible aching pain, where were the children. He felt as if he had been placed into a massacred version of Alice in Wonderland, he wanted, desperately, to wake.
When he did, the world was more in view, and he was warmer than he had been. Jim was there, and Spock could feel his concern edging in around his consciousness. What had happened?
Kirk was whispering his name. Whispers were like the screeching of hawks on the prowl, but better than the full and grating volume of a normal human voice. He felt surreal, he felt mystical, he felt as if there were no bottom and no top to his existence, mere walls and barriers and nothing to walk on.
Kirk whispered Spock's name. He watched his first officer come around, the dazed expression on his face, the eyebrows quirked, attempting to understand something, Kirk knew not what. Kirk shut his eyes against the memory of his first officer being attacked, mauled by tens of angry kids with dirty faces and raging eyes, calling Spock, the gentle, the kind and peaceful Spock a devil, a freak, anything they could think of as they pounded him. Spock had thrown the children off of him several times, he had made it look easy, but then, before Kirk could get there, one of them stabbed him, and then several others followed suit. A planet of children ignored by their parents, a planet of horrific children.
Spock had fallen back asleep, and as Kirk stood he leave, he was stopped by the moving of the Vulcan's lips. Where were the children? Kirk sighed, duty weighing heavily on his shoulders, the ebb and flow of Spock's breath the only consolation. He let the door slide shut after him.