A chill ran down his spine into his extremities. Fear was illogical – a primitive emotion that induced heightened levels of focused concentration to enable the body to avoid pain or death. Pain and death could be analyzed rationally, therefore fear was unnecessary.

He sat up and the red eyes disappeared into a swath of light that pooled from the open bathroom door.

An experience involving the apparent perception of something not present. A hallucination.

"Spock, are you still awake?" Nyota called.

"Yes," he replied, his voice low and raspy.

Her figure appeared in the doorway, naked and unintentionally seductive. Her arm draped the doorframe, and her head tilted at a playful angle. She took two long steps forward and leapt onto the bed on all fours, but he couldn't drag his eyes away from the spot on the floor where he was certain he'd seen the red eyes.

No, not certain.

Nyota nuzzled his neck and delivered a delicate kiss to his lips. It tingled.

"Are you ok?"

His mind was busy analyzing the possible explanations for the image he'd just seen. Perhaps a visit to Dr. McCoy's temporary clinic aboard Yorktown was in order.

The red eyes appeared again and he jumped, eliciting a wide-eyed glower from the naked woman curled on her haunches next to him.

"Spock?"

His eyes flew to the tinted window of the cabin. A cargo ship was coming into one of the docking ports, and red lights mounted onto the aft of the ship were reflecting off of the glass and streaming into the room at an angle.

He wasn't sure which troubled him more: having hallucinations or letting his imagination run away with him. At least hallucinations tended to have a medical basis whereas an active imagination was the product of illogical fantasy.

"You're acting weird," Nyota said, placing her hands on his shoulders. "Even for you."

She leaned forward to kiss him and this time, he reciprocated. Aside from several brief reflections, he hadn't found time to properly meditate since before departing for Altamid nearly two weeks earlier. He realized in that moment just how profoundly it was affecting his health: he wasn't sleeping well, he was restless, and on several occasions, he'd found it difficult to suppress feelings of agitation.

He had even laughed in front of Dr. McCoy in their travels together on Altamid. He still hadn't been able to repress that memory.

In light of Ambassador Spock's death, the loss of the Enterprise and so much of its crew, and his rekindled relationship with Nyota, he had a greater need for meditation to maintain his mental discipline. As much as he longed to remain in her company, he couldn't neglect it any longer.

He stood and as the sheet fell from his waist, he watched Nyota's eyes shift in his direction and scroll along the lines of his body. She looked at him the way he looked at her, which was as arousing as it was comforting.

"We should get going or we won't have time for breakfast," she moaned, rolling off the edge of the bed with lithe grace.

"Breakfast?"

"Yes?"

She pulled her mouth into a frown, narrowing her eyes to consider him. "You know, that meal people eat in the morning?"

They had returned from their evening meal on the plaza at 2021, mated twice, and fell asleep for a brief interval. By his estimation, it couldn't be later than 2300.

"Computer, what is the time?" he asked.

"Current Federation Standard Time is 0622 hours," the computer droned.

How could he have slept so long?

Nyota's face contorted into an expression of inquisitiveness and derision as she stepped into a pair of white underwear.

He had been suffering from acute bouts of insomnia lately, so the fact he'd been able to sleep through the night was surprising, yet he did not feel as though he'd had a full period of rest.

It also troubled him that he could not account for approximately seven hours of his life. Losing one's sense of time was a well-documented phenomenon aboard starships and space stations when working irregular shifts. Environmental controls automatically adjusted light intensity and temperature to correspond to a standard planetary cycle, but Spock's body had never relied on any of these tricks to regulate his internal clock.

He was wasting time.

He would need to return to his quarters to shave and acquire a duty uniform, and it was a four-minute walk to his cabin on the deck above, and his morning hygiene routine took eleven minutes. He allotted six minutes to travel to the dining facility, ten minutes to wait in line for the morning meal, and another four minutes to travel from the dining faculty to his temporary office, which left only seven minutes to eat.

He had shed his clothing at the foot of the bed the night before, but when he turned his body in that direction, he found only a bare floor. Nyota was pulling her red uniform dress over her head, pausing to shake out her hair. Behind her, he noticed a blue uniform shirt draped over the back of the chair by the desk.

He had not worn a uniform since the morning prior.

He picked up the blue shirt and noticed in the seat of a chair were his boots, resting on top of a black undershirt, a pair of uniform slacks, socks, and underwear.

"Did you procure these from my quarters?" he asked, picking up the underwear.

"Um, no?"

She rested her hands on her hips and stared at him. "What's with you? Seriously?"

He pulled his underwear on and gazed at the blue shirt on the chair. He wasn't sure how to answer her question.

"You wore your uniform here last night," she explained.

He continued to look at the clothing on the chair. She sneered, shook her head, and flopped down on the edge of the bed to put on her boots.

He finished dressing in silence, allowing his mind to run through the possibilities. She seemed completely unaware that anything was amiss, and continuing to question her would only needlessly concern her.

Nyota slid the zipper of her left boot upward and bounded to her feet. She shot him another suspicious look, and then strode to the lavatory to fix her hair. He waited for the sound of the automatic dryer before asking, "Computer, what is the current stardate?"

"The current stardate is 2263.07," said the monotonous voice.

The date was correct.

It had seemed logical to presume that if he had been so wrong in his estimation of the time, his estimation of the date could have been just as flawed.

But how to explain the clothing? He had gotten off duty yesterday at 1200 hours, changed into civilian attire to attend the captain's belated birthday celebration, and then spent the evening with Nyota. He had not returned to his quarters nor changed back into uniform. His civilian clothing was nowhere in sight, and Nyota was convinced he had worn his uniform to her quarters the night before.

There were only three logical conclusions – either he was dreaming, he was the victim of a childish practical joke, or his sense of reality was becoming distorted.

He dismissed the dream theory, as dreams tended to be rich in fantastic imagery and never followed a logical timeline or order. Nyota liked teasing and enjoyed jokes, but he had never known her to engage in human pranks. The third supposition seemed the most likely, but it was also the most unsettling.

Was he losing his mind?

He recalled briefly thinking he'd seen Krall in a crowd on the plaza the previous evening, and for a fleeting instant, he believed in the possibility of a three-headed dog with red eyes, though he would have never conceptualized such a thing had Nyota not told him the legend passed down from her foremother.

This was encouraging, since it suggested his delusions were grounded in external references and were not being internally generated. He was not truly hallucinating; he was only imagining things.

He walked into the lavatory and found Nyota placing the last of a handful of pins into a sleek, low bun. Her eyebrows danced upward when she saw him, but she said nothing, probably due to the hairpins pursed between her lips. He rinsed his mouth with mouthwash, combed his immaculate hair with his fingers, and then paused to observe his reflection in the mirror.

Nothing looked out of the ordinary, and he certainly didn't feel out of the ordinary.

But with only one frame of reference, how could he truly know if he was losing his grasp of reality?

They were quiet as they walked to the Starfleet dining facility for breakfast. They joined the queue to find the captain joking with Dr. McCoy.

"How are you this morning?" Kirk grinned.

Spock did not immediately reply, and Nyota pulled her arms over her head into a deep stretch and yawned.

"Late night, huh?" the doctor drawled, winking on the last syllable.

Nyota rolled her eyes and stood on her toes to look at the row of replicators. A lieutenant walked by with a heaping stack of strawberry pancakes and she mumbled, "That looks pretty good. I think I'm sold."

"I don't know," Kirk mused. "I have a bit of a sweet tooth this morning. I had a dream about a nice, sticky cinnamon bun."

"Not another chocolate puff?" Spock replied.

"Chocolate puff?"

"You offered high praise of the chocolate puffs served by the Ktarian food vendor on the main plaza," he reminded his captain.

"Huh?"

"Last night, when Nyota and I met you for dinner."

They both gaped at him.

"What are you talking about?" Kirk asked. "We didn't-"

"What is going on with you?" Nyota interrupted.

Spock slowed his breathing and considered the looks on their faces. He lacked Nyota's gift for social intuition, but it was apparent they were both deeply confused.

"What's what?" the doctor asked, suddenly intrigued.

"Spock's lost his mind," Nyota sighed.

Dr. McCoy delivered his signature expression of disgruntled worry, bringing the total to of three sets of anxious eyes observing him.

"I believe I am overtired," he finally explained. "That is all."

"Yeah, sure," Kirk nodded, though he looked doubtful. "I know we're on Yorktown, but it feels like the days are twice as long. I was in Commodore Paris' office until 2345 last night."

"Sir, you're up!" called a crewman over Spock's shoulder.

It was the captain's turn at the replicator. Kirk muttered his thanks and wheeled around clumsily, and soon the food replicator to his right became available.

"Ladies first," McCoy said, gesturing for Nyota to pass.

When she was safely out of earshot, the doctor leaned closer and murmured, "You feelin' ok?"

Spock looked him in the eye and hesitated. He was reluctant to admit he was experiencing illusions and lapses in his memory – the Vulcan mind was such a private place. Yet he had a duty to report a change in his medical condition to the Chief Medical Officer for the safety of himself and the crew. His relationship with the coarse and pessimistic doctor had evolved quite a bit over the years, but the events at Altamid had gone a long way in forging a unique brand of trust between them.

"Spock?"

"Do you have time available in your schedule to meet with me privately?" Spock asked.

"Sure, yeah," he nodded, crossing his arms more tightly about his chest and shifting his weight from foot to foot. "I have outprocessing all morning, but drop by any time after lunch. Assuming it's not an emergency, in which case-"

"I do not believe it is," he interrupted.

"Ok then. This afternoon."

He gave McCoy a tiny nod and proceeded to the available replicator at the far end of the line.

He sat down to a bowl of plomeek soup across from Nyota at a two-person table in the corner of the spacious eatery. Their knees touched, and the sensation of being physically close to her was gratifying.

She pushed at her fruit salad with her fork and propped her chin up on her left palm.

"I'm worried about you," she said in a soft voice.

"Worry is illogical," he replied, dipping his spoon into the warm plomeek broth.

He had a vivid recollection of the Ktarian stew, the piquant flavors and the warm sensation that traveled through his stomach and into his extremities. The traditional Vulcan soup before him seemed tasteless by comparison. It occurred to him that if he had not dined with Nyota and the captain the night before, he also could not have eaten the stew, but if that were true, how could he have such an intense memory of it?

She sat up straight and returned to picking the strawberries from her bowl. He knew she preferred them to melon, but favored pineapple above all other fruits, unless of course mango was available and of a certain ripeness.

He concentrated on eating, choosing to ignore his growing unease about the state of his mind. His focus was broken when he felt the tickle of her fingertips on his upper thigh, causing him to steal a glance in her direction.

Her eyes, which yesterday had been so alive with desire, were now dark with concern. She leaned forward and whispered, "You would tell me if something was going on, right?"

He wasn't sure what was happening, so there was nothing to tell her.

"I thought things were going so well," she added with a low sigh. "We were doing so much better."

"I believe we still are," he argued.

There was much more he wished to say to her, but they were in a crowded public place. Very crowded. He looked around, noting the bustling atmosphere and loud background noise. Since their return from Altamid, the Starfleet dining facility hadn't been operating at full capacity due to the high casualties incurred in Krall's attack.

As he turned to face Nyota, his muscles tensed and his heart began to thump. His pupils dilated and the blood rushing through his ears dampened nearby sound. Walking in their direction was Ensign Syl, completely oblivious to the fact that she was dead.

"What are you looking at?" Nyota grumbled, twisting in her chair just as the ensign passed their table.

Spock's eyes followed her closely and the ensign began to stare back at him. She offered a polite nod and a nervous grin. The muscles of his neck pivoted as she passed until he heard a clicking sound near his right ear.

"Spock!" Nyota barked, snapping her fingers in his face.

"Yes?"

"What are you looking at?" Nyota scoffed.

"I was only-" He paused, knowing it was inappropriate to gawk at people, the opposite sex in particular, and especially when sitting with one's mate.

He turned to point in the ensign's direction and explained, "I am uncertain how-"

The words stalled in his throat as he watched Ensign Syl defy laws of matter and energy and pass through two crewmen walking in the opposite direction as if she were not made of solid matter. The crewmen didn't seem to notice, and neither did Syl.

"What?" Nyota snapped.

He blinked several times and watched her fade into the crowd of the eatery and finally disappear through a support pylon.

He whipped around in his seat to see Nyota looking behind him, trying to discover the source of his interest. She couldn't see Syl.

As far as he could gather from the short encounter, he was the only one who could. Moreover, Syl had seen him too. He began to consider the possibility of some other phenomenon at work, such as a parallel reality or mirror universe, but Nyota interrupted his hypothesizing to hiss in a low register, "What has gotten into you? You look like you've seen a ghost. You're scaring me, Spock."

Ghosts were not real – he had already explained this to her.

Yet Ensign Syl had seemed real enough, and she was dead, and what was a ghost, if not the apparition of a dead individual capable of appearing to the living? There had to be a scientific explanation.

"I hope you can find a way to snap out of it," she huffed, spearing the last of the melon in her fruit bowl. "Maybe you should go see Dr. McCoy. I know you hate going to the doctor, but if this keeps up, I'll drag you to the clinic by your pointed ears if I have to."

He gave her a tentative nod. She often had a flair for drama.

He would not have time to consume the rest of his morning meal, so they stood and returned their food and dishes to the reclaimator and proceeded out onto the plaza.

Yorktown swelled with people, moving, shouting, and buzzing in all directions. As they pushed their way through the crowds, it occurred to Spock that he was unsure where he should go.

For the past five days he'd shared a temporary office at the headquarters building with Captain Kirk while construction of the Enterprise-A got underway, but if the population of Yorktown had been suddenly restored, had Krall's attack even happened?

He continued to follow Nyota, glancing over the balcony of the plaza. The Berellian monks were nowhere in sight, but a flurry of bots and maintenance crews continued to work on the damage from the Franklin and the Swarm, so it was reasonable to conclude that at least that facet of reality remained intact.

He followed her into the central headquarters building toward a bank of turbolifts. It was crowded in the lift, and when it stopped to deposit passengers on the fourth level, he judged her expression and took a cautious step forward. This was his usual stop, and she seemed unfazed by the idea he would choose to exit here.

They nodded a professional goodbye and Spock turned left into the corridor to his temporary office. It was much quieter here, as this floor housed many transient staff officers, most of whom were often engaged in briefings or demonstrations. He stopped outside the door to 4-31CA and flinched.

The harsh overhead light in the hallway above the entrance should have cast a short, single shadow to his left. There were two shadows.

He reeled around to identify the source, but he was very much alone. He stared again at the floor, but the second shadow was gone. He moved his arms experimentally, and the lone shadow responded.

Of course it responded – that's how shadows worked.

Fear was illogical. Worry was illogical. Red-eyed canines, dead ensigns strolling through the dining facility, and shadows with no source: all illogical.

He contemplated going to visit Dr. McCoy early and was turning on his heel to do just that when he heard the office door slide open.

"Hey Spock," Kirk beamed. "This has to be a first. You're late."

"Say again?"

"It's 0701," he replied, pointing toward the overhead clock between their workstations.

"My apologies, captain. There is no excuse for my tardiness. I shall-"

"It's fine, Spock," he chuckled. "One minute late for the first time in more than five years? I think I can let it slide, just this once. Kidding aside, I thought the only way you'd ever be late for duty would be if you died."

"Died?"

"It's a joke," Kirk sighed. "Anyway, I just got a call from Scotty. He's panicking about some new warp coil design they're trying to install on the new ship, so I told him I'd meet him down at the shipyard. When I get back, can we go over next month's logistics reports?"

Spock swallowed. "Certainly."

"Are you ok? You look- I don't know… sort of pale."

"I am physically healthy," he replied.

"Ok…" the captain murmured, tucking the PADD in his hand under his arm.

He had not finished the mission reports from Altamid, let alone the logistics reports for the upcoming month. Were his mental acuity functioning normally, he might have thought to point out the illogic in the captain's request, but Captain Kirk had already turned out of sight en route to the turbolifts.

He would just have to delay his visit to sickbay. He was late for duty and behind on his reports: two things that had never happened in the entirety of his career. He had no explanation for the morning's strange occurrences, but he reasoned postponing his trip to the doctor by several hours would make little difference in the outcome of his mental health.

He sat at his terminal, closed his eyes, and attempted to center himself. Surely a sound, scientific, logical explanation could be found for all of this.

The computer's security system beeped a warning due to inactivity, so he set to work scrolling through materiel and personnel databases to compile the necessary data for his report.

"Why am I here?" he thought suddenly.

It demonstrated remarkably poor judgment to draft a logistics report in light of everything that was happening. It was utterly illogical. The more he considered it, the more surprised he became at his earlier decision to remain in the office. It was almost like he hadn't chosen it at all…

He was about to rise to his feet when the door buzzed, startling him.

He had jumped: jumped like a high-strung, human infant during a game of peek-a-boo. He was disappointed by these increasing bursts of emotionality and pushed aside a twinge of irritation.

"Enter," he called.

Nyota cruised through the door and said, "Hey, I thought you might be interested in lunch."

"We ate breakfast only twenty-four minutes ago," he responded.

"No, I don't think so."

"It is only-"

He stiffened. The tiny digital clock in the corner of his terminal read 1215.

His body grew cold and he stared at the time, completely transfixed. He referenced the clock above his head, but he already knew what it said. Five more hours of his life had completely evaporated.

"Come on, let's go," she smiled, taking several long steps toward him.

"I- I believe I should go to sickbay," he breathed.

"There's no need for that," she replied, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"No, I-"

His words were cut off when her lips met his. She began to run her hands down the inside of his trousers. He couldn't help the physical response elicited by her electric touch, but he gazed wide-eyed at the open door behind her. He started to pull away, but she grabbed his neck and leapt onto him, wrapping her legs around his waist.

"Nyota, stop," he resisted, grabbing her wrists. "Nyota, please."

She held on with unanticipated, freakish strength. He started to claw at her fingers but her hips began to rock hungrily.

Oh, how he wanted her.

He put her on the desk and ran his hands up her uniform skirt along the inside of her thighs, pushing away her soft underwear to explore her most sensitive parts. She was dripping wet.

She groaned and leaned forward to kiss him again, but he managed to snap back to his senses.

"Nyota, someone will see," he insisted, jerking his hands back. "Nyota-"

She interrupted him again with her tongue, running it across the part in his lips to slide it into his mouth. She tasted warm and sweet and the wetness of her mouth made him involuntarily shiver. He almost couldn't breathe through his intense desire for her, but with his last sliver of discipline, he twisted his face away.

When he locked eyes with her again, a sharp yelp managed to escape his lips. Her eyes were completely black, void of any life. She opened her mouth to reveal a set of long, silvery fangs, and then sunk them into the intersection of his neck and shoulder. Pain ripped through him as he tore away and gazed at her in disbelief.

She smiled, causing his green blood ooze from her mouth and run down her chin. In a series of synchronous movements, he raced for the door as she leapt onto him, tearing once again at the flesh of his neck. He flipped her over his shoulder onto the ground at his feet, leaping over her body to flee through the open door.

The corridor was pitch black. He could hear a guttural howl bellow from inside the office, and seeing no other choice, he pushed ahead into the complete darkness. He could hear the panting and scratching of claws behind him and increased his pace, but he was completely blind.

She was almost upon him when his body slammed into a solid surface. A person.

"I know you," a voice said, cutting the darkness with a cold chill.

Spock knew him too.

Krall.


Author's Note: Figuring out stardates in the new AOS series is tough for a few reasons. I ended up going with the theory on Trek Guide that proposes a standard Earth year is divided by 100, making each numeral after the decimal representative of 3.652422 days. Therefore, Kirk's 30th birthday in 2263.04 would be between January 14th and January 18th, 2263 by our modern calendar. The events of this story take place roughly two weeks after Kirk's official birthday, so a stardate of 2263.07 corresponds to a date between January 25th and January 29th, 2263 by our modern calendar.

This is problematic because they're still using a standard 24-hour clock, even though stardate days are now 3.652422 days long, which would mean they would need an 87.658128-hour clock for consistency. Wouldn't it sound really silly to say, "Oh yes, I'll see you for dinner at 7930 hours?"

I know this really seems like minutia, but it really, really bothers me because I put a lot of research into my stories and when canon is so blatantly inconsistent, part of the perfectionist in me suffers. If anyone knows of any better ideas to make it work, I'm all ears!