"Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change."
- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
~xXx~
When I woke up, it was in the middle of nowhere.
I almost thought it was a dream. The field around me was positively ethereal, bathed in a dense fog that fought to douse the light of the morning sun. My vision was limited to perhaps a half mile in any direction, although I suspected there was not much to see.
It was too cold, however, to be anything other than reality.
Decked out in nothing more than my undergarments, a pair of leggings, and a long black tee, there was little between my skin and the damp, biting chill of the morning mist. I shivered, rolling onto my side and pushing myself up. Almost immediately I crumpled again, my head spinning with a particularly nasty case of vertigo.
Exhaling slowly, I waited until the world stopped tilting before trying again. Finding myself successful I pushed a little further, rising to my feet in halting, clunky movements. A series of aches and pains were quick to make themselves known. Whether they originated from my stint on the ground or from whatever (whoever?) had brought me here, I neither knew nor cared.
All I wanted was to find... something. A phone. A building. A city. Anything that might lead to a way home. Anything that might tell me where I was and how I'd gotten here.
Perhaps it was a prank. A bit of a vicious one, if you asked me, but why else would I have fallen asleep in my own bed only to wake up in a random field? I wasn't worth kidnapping. No money, no influence, no power. I had never been known to sleepwalk. But... No one had keys to my apartment but me and the landlady.
If kindly old Mrs Jenkins was responsible for this mess, I would eat my left foot. There was just no way.
Another, more violent shiver wracked my frame and I grimaced, crossing my arms. The speculation could wait until I had found some form of civilisation. Preferably before I froze to death.
A quick glance in all directions garnered no indication of anything but more field. My lips twisted into a scowl and I squinted, determined to avoid choosing a direction blindly. A wrong choice had the potential to be... dangerous.
There! Looming in the distance, I could see just the barest hint of an outline through the haze. It was certainly not much, but it was all I had.
I cursed my bare feet as I began the trek, knowing they would be battered and bruised by the end of it. Though the grass was soft, the rocks and soil were most definitely not. Despite my best efforts to avoid them, the sharpest stones always seemed to gravitate towards me. Soon, I was leaving a small trail of crimson spots in my wake.
~xXx~
It felt like an eternity before I made any sort of real headway towards the structure. My aches grew to near-unbearable levels, my body now covered in a thick layer of sweat and grime. And my feet- oh my poor, poor feet- were a bloody, painful mess. Still I moved forward, trudging over hills and across what appeared to be dirt paths.
Now I seemed to be no more than a mile away, the top of some tall structure just barely visible just over the hills in front of me. The fog was thinning as well now, the daylight growing stronger every minute.
I scrambled up the mound, eager to reach my destination. Desperate, even. I needed to escape this grassy expanse from hell. Needed to be done with this awful, awful morning. Once I got in there I was demanding a phone, calling the police, and hitching a ride to the nearest hospital in an ambulance. My feet were probably going to need stitch-
My whole body seized up, rigid and immovable. For the briefest of moments, I was completely and utterly still. My chest screamed in agony as my heart stuttered and my lungs froze. Darkness crept into the corners of my vision. Finally, my knees buckled, meeting the unforgiving earth in a cloud of dust.
Before my very eyes towered the beginnings of a vessel I would recognize anywhere.
The Starship Enterprise.
~xXx~
An engine purred somewhere in the distance behind me, growing steadily closer to my immobile form. Though the sound effectively broke my reverie I still did not move, trapped in a maelstrom of awe and terror. Possibilities, questions, theories- they swirled through my mind in a debilitating confusion tornado, ripping through the logic and reason that said I ought to be begging whoever it was for their phone.
It was only when the purring cut off some five feet behind me that I realized they weren't just going to pass me by.
Of course they weren't. I wasn't invisible. I was quite clearly injured and in distress- it would take a special breed of bastard to pass my sorry ass by. And if my suspicions were correct (which they weren't because I was fucking crazy oh my god this couldn't be real) then the man behind me was not that breed. He was a breed, but not that breed. A good one. Good bastard.
Fuck, I was going giddy from shock.
"Hey, are you okay?"
I slumped, suddenly so far beyond exhaustion it was amazing I was even still awake. Mere moments passed before I felt strong arms wrap around my torso, my body being gently dragged to settle atop the driver's lap. I fell against a broad chest, finding it comfortably warm after so long in the cold. A rythmic beat came from just below my cheek, lulling me closer and closer to a deep sleep.
"Hey, hey- look at me, you gotta look at me." I tried. I really, really tried, but it was just so hard. "Don't pass out, you hear me? You have to stay awake!"
Sorry, Captain. No can do.
~xXx~
And there it is! The first chapter of To Boldly Go. Hope you all enjoyed it!
This is a project I've had in mind for a while, but we'll see where it goes. I'm not super knowledgable about Star Trek- I watched a few episodes of the 1966 series as a kid, but mostly stuck to Next Gen movies. I stopped watching for quite a few years for one reason or another, but dove right back into the fandom upon the release of the 2009 version. If I make any mistakes, please feel free to point them out so I can correct them.
Thank you for reading!
Until next time,
The Ivory Quill