Chapter Four: The Last of the Spirits

The figure that Picard saw was dressed all in black. The figure was a slim, bald female humanoid with an extremely pale complexion and mechanical tubes coming out of the back of her head like a bun of hair, and she stood over Picard, draping him in the figure's shadow.

"Are you the ghost of Christmas Future?" Picard asked.

The spirit nodded its head.

"Please speak to me." Picard requested. "What will happen to Joshua Riker?"

The spirit pointed several feet away where the Riker family was. Deanna was standing there solemnly as she comforted Tommy, and Natasha stood there as well with tears streaming down her face. As they walked off, Riker stayed, holding the little crutch Joshua had used, clutching it tight, and a tear of his own falling down his face. He then set it near the tombstone and sprinkled some dirt on the grave as Picard understood what had happened.

"Oh no, dear heaven let it not be." Picard said as he felt for his poor clerk. "Spirit, I didn't mean for this to happen. Tell me these events can still be changed."

Suddenly, he heard two men laughing. One had dark brown hair and very young and moderately muscular while the other had black hair, a rather plain face and middle-aged.

"I've never seen a funeral like this before." The man with dark brown hair said.

"Yeah." His friend said. "No mourners. No friends to bid him farewell."

"Oh well." The first man said. "Let's rest a minute before we fill it in. He's not going anywhere."

They walked off as Picard and the spirit approached the grave.

"Whose lonely grave is this?" Picard asked nervously as the spirit pointed down, and Picard read on the tombstone his own name, "Jean-Luc Picard."

"Why yours, Jean-Luc." The spirit said with a wicked grin. "The richest man in the cemetery!"

The spirit pushed Picard in as he grabbed a tree root for dear life as the spirit only stood there smirking. When Picard looked down, the coffin opened, and red hot fire was spilling out of it.

"Oh no!" Picard called out. "No!"

Picard suddenly lost his grip on the root and fell into the coffin while the spirit laughed, and Picard screamed, "I'll change! I'LL CHANGE...!"

Then, all was darkness.


Well that was short sweet, and terrifying.