Chapter 14

My lungs fill up with dust and I begin to cough. I am disoriented and my ears are ringing. I am on the ground and I can’t see anything at all. It’s all a blur. There are people. There are people running everywhere.

Another bomb goes off right next to me. It throws me back and here is that ringing again. I check for my blaster and it’s not there. I start feeling the ground around me in hope it may have fallen somewhere nearby. A woman holding a child runs past and suddenly she gets hit in the back and disintegrates, crumbles into dust right in front of my eyes, the child rolls out of her arms as they crumble into red dust. I see others, running and being shot.

I stay low. I can’t get up, I won’t get up. I begin to crawl as fast as I can.

I see a chunk of metal, probably part of a ship, and I crawl to it for cover. I press my whole body against it and feel the cold and the burning. I can smell death, everywhere.

I see my gun, finally, there on the ground and I reach for it. I almost get it but someone steps on my hand, crushing it with a heavy boot.

“Stay down.”

I look up and there is someone standing over me with a blaster pointed at my face.

“Any last words, you miserable piece of crap?”

I am tired. I am done. I am ready for this to be over. As I close my eyes, I brace myself and take what I imagine is my last breath when something light and fluffy begins to fall on my cheeks. What the… I open my eyes and I am covered in red dust. The man that stood over me is no more. I look past where he was standing and see the kid, the same kid the woman was carrying, with my blaster in his little hands, steaming.

The kid is in shock. Almost by instinct, I grab the blaster from his hands, pick up the kid and run.

Dust… red dust is everywhere. It covers everything as far as the eye can see. I can’t make out anything at all. I just run. Any second now a blaster will go off somewhere and I will add to the endless sea of red…

“Sef! SEF!”

Someone is shaking me back into consciousness. The scene stretches out in front of me like an anomaly and then disintegrates and then there is Ellie standing over me. Her eyes are wide open. A worried Reed is right next to her with an expression of concern. Wormhole fever. I’ve heard of it. Well, now I have experienced it too. The brain cannot take the spacetime stretch without experiencing mini-psychotic episodes of its own. If you think that sounds bad, you’re right.

I blink to clear my eyes. Try to sound nonchalant.

“I am ok.”

I look around and I am still on board the Destroyer.

“Did we make it?”

“Yes.”

I take a deep breath and fall back in my seat. I swear, I can still taste blood in my mouth.