THE HAUNTING OF EZRI DAX

TITLE: THE HAUNTING OF EZRI DAX
AUTHOR: Quark's Latinum Lady (aka Jennifer Whildin)
CONTACT: swashbuckler@mindspring.com
SERIES: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
CREATED: March 16, 2000
WARNINGS: Mild violence
RATING: R
DISTRIBUTION: Do not archive or distribute without the author's (Quark's Latinum Lady, aka Jennifer Whildin) permission.

DISCLAIMER: This story, THE HAUNTING OF EZRI DAX, is © Copyright 2000 Quark's Latinum Lady, aka Jennifer Whildin. All rights reserved. The characters and settings are ™, ®, and © Copyright 2000 Paramount Pictures Corporation. All rights reserved. STAR TREK and its related characters and settings are property of Paramount Pictures Corporation. No infringement or disrespect is intended.

SUMMARY: The ghost of Jadzia wants something from Ezri Dax.

NOTES: Special thanks goes to the beautiful beta babe, Cheile, for proofreading this fic for me!

Ezri awoke in the night, feeling a slight chill. Oddly, her covers were at her feet. Groggily, she pulled them up to her chest and drifted back to sleep.

A few minutes later, the chill woke her again. She found her blanket at her feet once more. Looking around the room, she saw nothing amiss, so she covered herself again and closed her eyes.

"GET UP, BITCH!" The blanket was yanked from her body. She sat up, wide awake, but still saw nothing.

"Who's there?" Ezri called into the darkness. No answer. "Hello?" Still nothing.

She noticed it was considerably colder, so she got up to retrieve her robe. She searched her quarters but no one was there.

Returning to her bedroom, she sat on the bed and wondered if she'd dreamt it all.

Suddenly, she was pulled hard onto the floor and landed with an "Oomph!"

"I SAID, GET UP!"

That voice! I know that voice! Ezri turned to see where the voice came from, and saw a shape forming. She stared in shock as an ethereal Jadzia Dax appeared.

"Jadzia?" Ezri couldn't believe her eyes.

"I can't believe they put *my* symbiont in *you*! You're such a puny thing!"

Ezri blinked several times quickly. "Th-they had to. I was the only T-Trill on b-b-board. Dax would have died!" Was she really talking to a ghost, or was she losing her mind?

"Dax would have been better off dead!"

The young woman gulped. "W-why are you here?"

The apparition, surrounded by a foggy essence, quickly moved forward until it was eye-to-eye with Ezri. "I want my symbiont back!"

Ezri stumbled backwards and fell. "Y-you're dead!"

"God, you're a bright one. Give me back my symbiont, you little twit!"

Ezri screamed and ran for the doors. Jadzia was on the other side smirking at her when the doors slid open. Ezri shrieked.

"Give it back to me!" Jadzia yelled, no longer smiling. "Give it back, you tramp!"

"I-I can't!" the smaller woman whined.

"You sleep with my husband, seduce and tease my friends, and you think you're worthy of hosting my symbiont? I don't think so!"

Ezri noticed the room was now freezing. "Wh-what are you talking about? I didn't seduce anyone! Or tease, either!"

Ghostly knuckles solidly rapped on Ezri's forehead. "KNOCK, KNOCK? Julian? Quark? HELLO?"

"B-but I didn't seduce--" SLAP!

"THE HELL YOU DIDN'T!"

Ezri collapsed to the floor, curled in a heap. She pleaded, "I *didn't*! And I don't know what you mean about Quark!"

"He's in love with you! And you act all girly, make him think you like him, and you have no intentions of being with him! How dare you hurt him that way!"

"Quark's in love with me?"

"As if you didn't know! Whore!"

Ezri tried to think. How could she get help? Why didn't anyone come when she screamed? She needed to get out of her quarters.

Just then, Jadzia grabbed and twisted Ezri's short hair, causing her to shriek in pain, and dragged her out of the bedroom. Once they were near the sofa, Jadzia released her.

"First, I want you to know what I'm going to do. I'm taking my symbiont back."

"B-but you can't! You're not alive!"

"SHUT UP!" Tapping her own chest with her index finger, she said, "I can do anything I want!"

Ezri whimpered but said nothing.

"Second, you're going to die."

Tears fell from the young Trill's face.

"Damn, you're pathetic! If it were me, I'd fight to save my life! You pose no challenge at all!"

Just as Jadzia finished her complaint, Ezri *did* try to escape. She made a dash for the exit, but the computer wouldn't respond to her commands to open the doors. She couldn't open them manually, either. She screamed for help over and over again, then turned around to see Jadzia shaking her translucent head at her. "What a pathetic baby!" she mocked. "Enough of this."

Jadzia's ghost floated towards her, a look of determination on its face. Just for fun, Jadzia made her eyes disappear so only blackness filled them. She liked scaring Ezri.

The shorter Trill slid down the doors in a whimpering, blubbering mess as the spectre descended upon her, engulfing her in its essence.


"What happened?" Dr. Bashir asked Odo.

"I was hoping you could tell me. She didn't show up for her counseling duties this morning, and Captain Sisko asked me to check on her. I found her like this," he replied.

"She's in shock. No one heard anything in the night that might give us some idea what happened?"

"No, no one heard anything."

Ezri responded to no one, but simply rocked back and forth, mumbling incoherently.

Julian put her in an isolated, padded room to make sure she didn't injure herself while he tested the blood samples he took.

As Ezri continued to rock, she heard Jadzia's evil laugh. She stopped rocking and listened. The laughter grew louder, but didn't seem to be coming from around her. She heard Jadzia's voice threaten, "I'm going to kill you, Ezri!" The ghost laughed and repeated her threat several times.

Then Ezri realized. The voice was coming from *within* her!

She noticed something strange about her symbiont. Something was wrong with it! Jadzia was trying to take it, and that would kill Ezri! She screamed in utter fear.

When Julian ran to her, she was laying in a fetal position, mumbling as he'd last seen her.

Even in her madness, Ezri realized her body wasn't being killed, nor was the symbiont; more accurately, her spirit was being ripped from her body and replaced by another. Jadzia was taking her symbiont back. The laughter echoed in her ears as she felt her soul leave her body.