Egrel stared up blankly into the seemingly endless void surrounding him. He turned his head one way and then the other. There was nothing. He attempted to lift his hand up to look at it. He had no idea if he was able to or not, unable to see even his own hand. His breath hitched in his chest as he tried to roll over to move, unable to do that either. It felt like someone or something was sitting on his chest, preventing him from moving and forcing the air out of his lungs. Whatever it was, it pushed him down harder. Egret’s breath rushed out of his body as it suddenly felt like he was falling. He tried to scream and reach out to grab something, anything. He couldn’t move still and no voice came from him as he fell.

Egrel slammed into something solid. The ground? His breath stuttered and he was finally able to breathe. He lay for a long moment before he was finally able to roll over on his hands and knees. His entire body ached. He sat back on his heels and stared into the vast nothingness. Nightmares were common to him, but not like this. He looked up sharply as he heard footsteps. It was deafening, each step assaulted his ears. Egrel let out a strangled gasp, seeing Ovoss walk towards him. The Klingon knelt down beside him and lifted a hand to touch Egrel’s cheek. Egret let out a strangled sobbing noise, reaching his arms out to touch his beloved.

Egret’s first love. He latched onto Ovoss and clutched onto him tightly, not wanting to let him go. Borg hands came out of the darkness and grabbed the Klingon, dragging him away from Egrel. Ovoss screamed and lashed out, furiously trying to fight to get back. Egret couldn’t move again. He felt hands hold him back, though he couldn’t see them. Sobs wracked Egrel’s body as he watched Ovoss get assimilated. Again.

Egret sobbed out, “No! Not again!” He tried to lash out against the invisible hands that held him, “Don’t… Not the others! Stop! STOP!” 

Mike, his second love, is a human engineer. He saw Mike kneel down beside a highly explosive tricobalt warhead. He died exactly a year later after Ovoss got assimilated. Mike met his end during a bomb diffusal gone wrong. Egrel did not see this happen, he saw the ship disintegrate from another farther away.

Mike pulled out some tools, starting to disassemble the bomb very careful, with a surgeon like steady hand and precision. The ship jostled as it was hit by a photon torpedo, launching Mike onto the bomb. The moment his body knocked into it, it detonated and exploded in a brilliant, blinding light.

Egrel didn’t even have time to process that before he saw Tev running towards him. Tev, love number three. He lost five in five years. Tev was running towards Egrel, screaming to try and tell Egrel to run away. A pack of wild animals was running after Tev, snarling and frothing at the mouth, hot on his heels. Tev’s ankle twisted adn the Andorian want down with a cry. His cry got cut off as the animals descended on him, right at Egrel’s feet.

Egrel at this point just slumped against the invisible hands that held him up. The chime at his quarter’s door jolted him out of his hellish nightmare and back to the blinding interior of his quarters. He let out a scream of pure terror and thrashed off the bed, hitting the floor with a loud thud.