What Dreams May Come

Posted on Mon Nov 19th, 2018 @ 11:32am by Qurban

530 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: S1E2: Half Past Dead
Location: ???
Timeline: MD 2

When dreaming, Qurban sometimes escaped the sequential events of linear existence. It was only flashes, mere fragments of a life before his fall from grace. A life when he danced between quasars, rewound supernovas so he could watch it in reverse, impersonate mortal beings in order to get a glimpse of what finite existence meant. Notions of past, present, and future held no meaning outside of dimensional integers to be manipulated at will.

All was lost.

It was truly difficult to explain the difference Qurban felt, for he did not even fully understand his own transition. Despite his natural transcendence living within the Q Continuum, in many ways, it was almost as if he had been born only 10 years ago. Then, "ago" was confusing. Being constricted to live out only one instant at a time in a forced linear path of consequential causality was a fate was than death. But, from what he knew of humanoid birthing events, that seemed an accurate enough metaphor to illustrate the pain of life.

Sometimes, when awake, he would recall the other life contained within his dreams. It was those mementos of another life that kept him going. Many of those dreams were regarding the lives of the people surrounding him, though the constant turnover at Memory Theta made even that unreliable. Mrazak was the sole exception, as the Vulcan had been a constant companion for nearly his entire time as a ward of Starfleet. Whenever he dreamed of Mrazak, it was often a recollection from his previous life. The Q were often fond of watching Memory Theta meddle with things best left in the dark.

Tonight, however, Qurban dreamed of Abadar's Gate. Remote by Federation standards, this corner of space in a galactic spiral arm held many treasures for mortal types. One star in particular was destined to be snuffed out. Qurban recalled this from an era long ago -- a pulsating star converted into a black hold by refined decalithium which the Vulcans so affectionately referred to as Red Matter. Compression at high temperatures would charge the refined decalithium to the point of critical mass, thereby punching a hole in space-time. Definitely one of the milestones on the Continuum's calendar.

Except that wasn't what Qurban dreamed. Instead, he dreamed of a lonely Defiant-class shuttle launching a volley of torpedoes, one tipped with the Red Matter, only for them to be swallowed by a femtotech abomination unleashed upon the galaxy by a rival superpower. Searing pain pierced Qurban's mind at the mere thought of them. Turning his thoughts to the star, he saw that it failed to explode when it should have. But of course. The intergalactic Malignant Matter consumed all other matter--even the Red variety.

As the dream ended and Qurban began the rapid ascent to consciousness, he came to a sudden realization.There were some timelines where Memory Theta failed to stop the galaxy's destruction at the hands of the intergalactic Malignant Matter. Almost all of them involved the failure of the Red Matter device, as he had just dreamed/foreseen/remembered.

Qurban sat up in bed, covered in cold sweat. Mortal life, it seemed, may get a whole lot shorter.

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