It's Just a Game

The day was nearing to a close, he had managed to get through classes and lunch mostly without difficulty. During assembly , standing in the auditorium with row after row of children and a voice booming over the PA system had brought a cold sweat to his skin and tremors to his hands but he resisted the urge to run. He had managed to answer the questions in class and the few students that spoke to him he answered with more than just a blank stare.

The next to last class of the day was physical education. The teacher was an older man with a paunch and balding hair and an apparent love of old earth sports. Today he was walking up and down the rows of students; spit flying as he explained the old-North American sport of football. The game had been replaced in many instances by more advanced variations or games borrowed from other planets, but in Riverside, Iowa agriculture still reigned supreme and people were at least a few decades behind if not more on a lot of fronts. Football wasn't to unfamiliar to the towns kids as a way to pass the sometimes monotonous days.

Kirk lingered in the back of the crowd, not paying attention to the coach's words or even showing any interest. He didn't want to be there, he would have crept away if he could. But that never worked out well, people couldn't understand he wanted to be alone. Either a teacher, some other student, somebody always came and then the questions started.

Was he okay? Why was he staying by himself? Didn't he want to be with the others?

But they weren't like him…none of them were. And he saw they recognized it too. He sat alone at lunch , unless some teacher had taken it upon themselves to appoint a kid to try to "interact" with him for the day. Even the adults themselves didn't realize it but they avoided him to. The quick, fake smiles and short conversations were nothing more than an attempt to make a hasty escape while still satisfying their consciences.

Great, we talked to the crazy kid now let's get away before it brushes off on us.

That thought was on all their minds. He didn't care. Right now, he was standing with everyone else and yet not, they had all moved carefully a step or two away, just far enough that he was in his own little space. Just far enough away that they could pretend he wasn't really there at all.

"Split into two teams" Around him people begin forming up. Friends jostling to stay together, kids sizing each other up. As always the smallest, and scrawniest were the last picked, but even they were picked… until it was just him. Two groups of people on either side and Kirk standing in the middle. Nobdoy wanted him on their team, nobody wanted to be around him.

One group was missing a member and Kirk found himself being ordered by the coach to that side.

He felt the seething resentment of the other kids and heard the whispers. "Great we've got him."

"Just ignore him and maybe he'll go away."

He didn't care. It was just a few minutes and then school would be over. He could handle this class, it was the best out of all his classes. Running, climbing, swimming, he could push himself until he was dripping with sweat and panting with his vision swimming dizzily, but it kept the memories at bay.

He could do the same today…

It was touch football and the coach started handing out positions There was a collective groan as the man mentioned Kirk's name for offense. Kirk didn't care.. he knew the position, and even though he wasn't interested in playing really , he moved to stand where he was told. He was fine, he could do this. It was what he kept telling himself, ignoring the memory tugging at the corner of his mind.

He kept thinking that, until the ball was set in the middle of the field. The old leather football broke through the allusions he had. In that instant his awareness split. Reality faded away drenched in the faded pieces of a memory. Past and present intermixed.

It was a dusty, almost lifeless plant beneath his feet. But there was also a grassy field with crisp blades being trampled underfoot. Skinny kids around him, watching his moves with large eyes. But he was also standing in the middle of a crowd, with sweaty teens surrounding him.

The whistle blew. People surged forward, yells were in the air. Grunts, pants, screams, swearing and a surging wave of people crashing around him. Kirk froze, unmoving as people swerved around him.

He didn't see the boy coming towards him; he was watching the scenes in his own mind. He was watching kids laughing and tumbling around each other for the ball, with scarecrow thin body.

He didn't see the boy running towards. Maybe it was an accident, maybe he just wanted to tackle somebody either way the teen crashed into him.

Kirk blinked, as the scene changed. The stained glow of an afternoon sun faded away. A football lay forgotten on the ground. Kids laughing around him, collapsed in tired heaps on alien ground and disappeared. All that vanished as a body slammed against his own. Earth didn't take its place, instead another memory surged up. This one of a set of survivors, who lived by scavenging, the dead and the living…they weren't picky. The crowd of children was replaced by a sweaty ragged group of mostly humans. He had been out scavenging food and got separated from the others. Now the group circled him, stained blades in their hands and wild looks in their eyes.

He felt hot air on his neck and knew that soon teeth would be lodged in his flesh. He had seen them already run down a young girl and rip her throat out with teeth that were human, even if the people who had them weren't anymore.

He didn't waste time yelling. Instead he fought back as one of the group surged toward him. His teeth sank into the other teen's shoulder. He bit down, blood filled his mouth and his teeth sank through flesh. He wanted to chew farther. He wanted to rip and tear shreds of flesh until the hunger gnawing at him was gone.

He ignored the boy's yelling and bit down again taking a piece of flesh with him when he pulled away. The slightly sweet skin was tangy with sweat. That's how you become like them. Some voice reminded him, halting the desire to swallow. Instead he spat clearing his mouth, but he was still so hungry. But he was human, not a cannibal…not yet, not ever. Kirk fought the hunger aching in his gut. It wasn't real anyway, it was just a memory, but memories and reality had blurred. They were one and the same.

The other boy was yelling even louder. Kirk could half hear people yelling at him, but he was too far gone. Earth wasn't there. He was back; on tarsus…he had never left.

He lashed out feeling the other boy's nose break with a sickening crunch. He hit him again and again, hands were pulling at him now…He could feel fingers clawing at him and knew that as soon as they drew him away those same people would butcher him like a piece of meat.

He resisted, fighting the grasping hands tugging at him.. The boy wasn't moving now, but Kirk needed to finish him off. He wanted to kill him. , he wanted to take some of them with him. Faces loomed over him, hands pulling him back inexorably even as he tried to strangle the teen lying on the ground.

He was terrified, even though he refused to show it. He knew he would probably be alive as they slowly killed him. He would feel their teeth biting his skin, maybe even as they sliced pieces off him. It wouldn't be a quick kill because now they were mad he had hurt one of their own.

He couldn't help it…as they pulled him towards them he screamed. He might have even begged as somebody pinned his arms down. Someone was sitting on his legs. A hand tried to clamp down over his mouth and he bit down, causing a cry of pain and feeling warm blood trickle down his throat. "Give it in his leg…Hold him down…Somebody hold him down!" Voices were yelling and somebody was inching his trousers down exposing his thighs, that motion brought even more fear. Sometimes they did sick things to the people they captured before they ate them.

Tears were running down his face, his mouth choked out the words. "Just kill me." More people were surrounding him and he could barely breathe as he hyperventilated. "Kill me, kill me, kill me!" He screamed the words over and over, hoping somebody would just end it.

He tried to kick them, but they're holding his legs. He tried to move his arms but they were pinned. He bucked against the people holding him; He felt a searing pain as he dislocated his shoulder in a attempt to free himself.

"What the hell is wrong with him!"

"He took a f—king chunk out of Brody!"

"He's psycho!"

"Get back all of you."

He heard words above him, he saw faces he vaguely recognized but it didn't make sense. All he knew was any moment now, he was about to be eaten alive.

Cool metal was pressed against his thigh and he felt a cold burning sensation. The screaming, the chaos all faded away, and then his eyes closed.

XXXX XXXX

He awoke with the sensation of breaking water. He opened his eyes and tried to sit up, but his arms were restrained as were his legs. He shoulder protested at the movement, and as he stared around at what was obviously a room in a medical facility his heart quickened.

Then a voice spoke softly from somewhere next to him. "Calm down jimmy, just calm down."

He twisted around as far as his restraints allowed and saw his mother seated in a chair next to the bed he was on. He relaxed slightly at first as he saw her, but only because if she was there then he wasn't on Tarsus…at least he was pretty sure she wouldn't have looked so lifelike if she was a hallucination.

"Wh-where am I?" The words were difficult to say , and his throat was so raw from screaming it burned.

"At the hospital."

"Wh-Why?"

His mother gave helped drink a few sips of water before she answered. "We were worried about you?"

"Why am I tied down?"

She didn't answer, instead she asked. "You remember what happened?"

He shook his head, and then pulled restlessly at the restraints holding him down. They were making him feel anxious he could feel panic creeping up with each second he remained tied down.

"Take these off."

His mother didn't make an attempt to remove them instead she stared at him for a minute, almost like she was afraid….either for him or of him…he wasn't sure.

"Please."

He tried to keep his voice calm but it was starting to shake. The thick restraints were too similar to many other times.

"Please." He repeated, his voice louder and less calm.

She didn't do so. Instead she started talking, almost at him, instead of to him. "During PE at school you—you had a little situation …a boy tackled you and" She pauses and her mouth thins , he knows the expression; it means she's holding something back. Trying to protect him, is the phrase he heard her use with the counselor last week. He had wanted to laugh when he had overheard the conversation. It was too late for her to protect him, it was far too late.

It doesn't matter if she lies, he can remember now…all of it. He remembers what he saw and now as he thinks about it he realizes what was and..what wasn't. It wasn't Tarsus but Earth, it wasn't a bloodthirsty human but a teenage boy.

"y-you fought him—" Bit him, hurt him, tried to kill him. He supplied the unsaid words in his mind.

Winona is still talking, her voice slightly hysterical. "You wouldn't stop and they were afraid you'd hurt yourself." Hurt somebody else more.

"So they sedated you and brought you here, to make sure you were okay." To keep you away from everyone else. Kirk turns away for her eyes. And stares at the straps on his arms, he tugs at them again, he's so close to breaking again, he can feel it. The thick material against his wrists is triggering a whole new torrent of memories that he knows will make the football field look like child's play.

He's heard suggestions from counselors and some of the doctors. Psychiatric rehab, mental facilities, he knows others have been sent there after Tarsus. One of the kid's he's sure is there. She was barely functioning on the planet, they had to all but feed her, tell her to wash; she would sit for hours staring in the distance at nothing, lost in a world of her own. She was empath and eventually as young as she was with immature shields she had burned out like a computer overloaded. She'd never survive in the real-world.

But he'll never survive locked up like some crazed animal. He knows that , and that's the only reason that keeps him from screaming and thrashing against his restraints so hard he either gets free or breaks a good portion of the bones in his body.

Winona is oblivious to how hard he is trying to maintain control. She's still talking. "Somebody from Starfleet had to come and stop the boy's parents from pressing charges and the school from expelling you. You're suspended until the counselor decides to let you go back."

"Take these off, now! " The words burst out before he can stop it. Mercifully this time she listens. He's hyperventilating, so close to losing it all when she calls the doctor in. The man seems reluctant but he releases his wrists. Kirk wills himself to be still as the man touches him. His skin crawls at the gentle fingers running a scanner over him, but he makes it through.

It's last at night before he is released from the hospital. The doctor clearly wants to keep him longer, but some nameless Starfleet official, obviously worried what will be known if he remains in the hospital longer—persuades and then threatens for release.

The doctor backs down; he'll never know the truth. He may suspect, but he won't really believe he has seen one of the nine survivors of a massacre so big it destroyed a planet and thousands of people.

He'll just think it's some kid who is obviously not sane but his mom has connections and so instead of being admitted for treatment he'll stay at home.

The air skimmer ride home is silent. Kirk watches his mother drive, but doesn't speak. She breaks the silence. "What did you think was happening? "

"What?" He knows what she's asking about but he doesn't want to answer. He just wants to forget. He wants to do better, not for his mom, but for himself. He's not crazy, he can deal with this , but he wishes they would understand …talking doesn't help. The counselors just make him remember, they're part of the problem. They cause the memories to spill over from their sessions into his everyday life.

He doesn't need to analyze what happened he just needs to forget.

His mother repeats the question again, and he knows he'll have to say something. He knows she's so close to giving up on him, and that hurts more than anything. Because if she doesn't even see him as capable of being normal than how will anybody else. He'll always be the outcast, the loner, the creep…maybe he should just accept it.

"It was football…but I wasn't there. I thought he was trying to eat me and —"

He breaks off… he knows how crazy the words sound. He can feel her eyes boring into him without him even having to look. He hears the intake of breath that means so many things including…why is he like this, how can I fix him, he's crazy.

"Jimmy—jim you-you understand he was trying to tackle you right?" She doesn't wait for him to answer and he isn't sure whether she is talking to avoid hearing his answer or to spin a more palatable story to avoid hearing what he actually saw. "It was a game and –"

He starts to refute her. "They were all around me , and I saw them—" He breaks off as he feels her tremble next to him. She doesn't want to hear, he knows that and so he gives her what she wants. A lie, easy quick and so much easier to hear. Its what she expects, even the therapists he talks with doesn't want to hear the truth. He knows because he tried to tell her, and the others before her and he knows the somber attentive looks on his face are hiding their true thoughts. He can practically feeling them judging him every time he tries to tell the truth. He's not crazy, he doesn't want to be looked at like he is. So he lets them hear what they want.

He falls silent and he lets her ask him questions about all the wrong things. The next day he does the same with the psychiatrists sitting across from him. Day after day he gets better at it. It's like a game he has to learn the rules too, and even though he's no closer to normalcy than he was a few weeks ago but he lets them think he is.

He lets them believe what they want to believe and keeps the truth to himself.