Disclaimer: I don't own seaQuest or any of its characters.

Thanks to every one for the reviews! I am glad you like the story so far.

Special thanks to KatKnits00, my beta-reader !


How could he possibly get out of this one?

His heartbeat seemed to stop dead in its tracks when Lucas noticed the woman slowly raising an arm in his direction.

At the same time, he was tortured by shy, cautious footsteps approaching from the opened iron door behind him. With an inhuman effort he managed to move his eyes away from the approaching nightmare just to be relieved with the sight of Commander Jonathan Ford, standing inside the door with a puzzled look on his face. Two relatively young Ensigns were accompanying him.

"What are you doing on the floor, Lucas?" he asked without malevolence, but with pure worry for his youngest crewmember. He definitely saw the pain and fear reflecting in Lucas pale, totally blood-drawn face.

Once again Lucas took the very last bit of strength left in his body to point his finger at the shadowy figure standing in front of him.

But she wasn't there anymore.

On one side he felt unbelievably relieved, but at the same time he still felt the presence of an inexplicable force.

"I never saw this room on the seaQuest plans…"

Ford mumbled, while giving the room a quick, overall glance. The next moment he crouched beside Lucas, who was still focusing on an empty wall, with a face as pale as a sheet of paper and a shaking arm still pointing at a bare iron wall.

"Hey Lucas, I'm sorry if the storage room overcharged you. It is a total mess, isn't it?"

But his words didn't seem to reach Lucas mind and so he gently tapped him on the shoulder.

"Lucas? Are you alright?"

Finally Lucas seemed to awaken from his trance just in time to hear both Ensigns giggle about the strange behaviour he was obviously showing.

His knees were still trembling almost uncontrollably when he tried to stand up. For a moment Ford thought that Lucas would lose his balance, but in the end Lucas caught the balance by himself and took a step in the direction of the open door.

"If you don't mind…" he said, exhaustion clearly audible in his words,

"…I would prefer to repair the communication systems for Medbay."

Lucas didn't have a mind to tell the Commander anything of what he had experienced – he was surely not the right person to be talking to about creepy appearances in a hidden room.

"Of course," Ford replied somewhat confused, "it will be alright."


Lucas was glad when he finally reached MedBay, because he knew that the distance between himself and that horrible room was as big as possible. He immediately connected the terminal, switching on the screen and the loudspeakers. His heart was still racing and his mind was distracted by thousands of thoughts and emotions. The possibility to concentrate on one task seemed seductive to him. Maybe it would help him to forget what he just experienced.

When the system finally started to work he immediately began to type dozens of program lines, his fingers dancing on the keyboard as if trying to bet a new record. At least it helped him to calm down his trembling body. But his mind still couldn't find some rest and he again drifted off into visions and pictures of that horrible woman with the long black hair.

There were so many questions twisting and turning around in his mind, that he wasn't capable of thinking about the answer to one of them: Where did that woman come from, why did she disappear like a ghost and why had he been dreaming of their encounter?

Was he really going nuts and everything had been created by his own twisted mind?

Suddenly, the loudspeakers emitted a painfully high-pitched tone, which was followed by a horrible, blood-freezing…

… crackling sound.

Lucas had to fight against the wish to scream out loud. He took a step back from the terminal he had been working at, just to notice that the program lines he had been working at for more then half an hour had disappeared. Instead of them, two single words appeared on the flickering screen.

Ju On

Those words made no sense to him and the only thought that dominated his mind was to remove the connector to interrupt the power supply. Both the words on the screen and the horrible noise from the loudspeakers ceased and gave in to complete silence.

Lucas immediately turned around and left MedBay, not knowing if the presence of an unknown force or that new arisen silence was creepier. He just wished to be in a place with MANY people, where he wouldn't be alone to be tortured by those visions.

The mess seemed the ideal place if your wish is not to be alone.

He was so quick in leaving MedBay that he didn't notice the crackling sound arise again from the disconnected loudspeakers…


Sorry for this one being so short, but I thought it's a rather good moment to stop it here, keeping up the tension .