The Hell of our own Making

Posted on Sat May 16th, 2020 @ 1:14pm by Lieutenant Commander Mnhei'sahe Dox & erei'Riov (Commander) Arrenhe t'Suil
Edited on on Tue May 19th, 2020 @ 12:38pm

Mission: Return to the Core
Location: The Undrheim
Timeline: 2397

The escape pod was barely any larger than a photon tube. It had a narrow window in the front, but with its power devoted exclusively to life support, the only light visible was from the two, small lit bio-readouts on the sides of the window. Outside of those readouts letting the occupant know their own vitals and where they were in space, there was no other source of light anymore.

After the first few hours, the limited power in the pod flickered and the sensors stopped functioning. The occupant still had breathable air, but the light was gone. Because out the window, the stars were also gone.

Sub Commander Arrenhe t'Suil did her best to stay conscious in the tiny tube as she hovered in nothingness for hours after her escape from the Iurret before the Warbird of her former mistress, Riov Dalia Rendal lept to warp with her prize, the Deleth Station. Running over anything she could think of to keep her mind occupied, she thought of her failure on the Iurret and how it had cost her her right eye in combat with her former commander. She thought of her time in the brig of the Warbird until a momentary power loss during combat with the Starfleet ship, the Hera, deactivated the field and allowed her to attack the guard on duty, overpower him, and make her way to an escape pod.

But there was something more. Something in the darkness, as her eyes adjusted, that t’Suil was certain was looking back at her. She strained her eyes to see anything, and after a time she thought she could see swirling shapes in the darkness. Was it her eyes playing tricks on her, or her mind? She was having a difficult time concentrating in that tiny tube with nothing to focus on except her memories and trying to not lose consciousness.

The only thing she was sure of in the silent darkness was that she needed to stay awake. As long as she was awake, whatever was out there couldn't get to her. That presence she felt couldn't hurt her. But something told her that she needed to stay awake. And for a time, she did. But before too long, exhaustion coupled with the creeping cold inside the pod to sap away what strength she had left to fight off the void, and she slept.

First, she was back on the Iurret, a sword at her eye. That's how it began for her. Again and again, she relived her duel with the women who had been everything to her. And again and again, she relived the pain of having her eye sliced out by her mistress's blade. And again and again, she remembered the even worse pain when Dalia Rendal turned her back and walked away from her, all for the crime of trying to protect her from the shadowy figure that had been giving them their orders.

The sequence repeated itself, every time attacking her from a different angle. A different way she could have failed brought to life. A different wound inflicted. But every time, the ending was the same. Her beloved mistress turning from her in disgust. The woman she would have gladly died for, abandoning her to pain and darkness and failure.

Then, the nightmares deepened. T’Suil found herself a young girl again in the slums of Iuruth on Romulus, working as a house servant to a wealthier family where she was degraded and beaten for her failures. Where she struggled to rise out of her station for years. And here, in the darkness, it felt like years all over again. She felt the blisters on her hands and knees from scrubbing the blackstone floors of the great house she served. She could smell the old leather of the whip that cut into her for dropping the family tea set when she was but nine. She remembered crying herself to sleep in the straw-lined cot she sleep in in the small room behind the kitchen, where she spent her childhood watching the great family she served. Watching as their children that she grew up beside went off to finer things, leaving her behind in the grime of her station.

Day by day, her childhood unfurled itself out for her in what felt like an impossible eternity. A nightmare that stretched time before their in an unending torment. She couldn't remember if what she was experiencing was the truth anymore, or an exaggerated marathon of pain and humility. But as she bore reliving each horrible memory as if it were the first time, she didn't care anymore. But there, even the realm of the nightmare, someone seemed to care.

It was the youngest of another noble family that came and purchased her and the other house slaves as her great house fell into ruin. And that youngest saw something in Arrenhe. Showed her mercy. Taught her to carry a blade. How to act above her station. And eventually, it was this woman. Dalia Rendal, who saved her. She was shown compassion and taught strength, and awarded a sponsorship from the family to attend the Academy of the Great Art for her efforts.

Slipping in and out of sleep, time lost all meaning to the woman as she drifted further and further from reality. Reliving her childhood in what had to have only been hours, t'Suil barely remembered who she truly was anymore. But she refused to give up. As the air in the pod began to thin and grow stale and the heat bled off into the void of nothingness outside. t’Suil found it impossible to hold on to her already fragile grip on reality. The only thing she could focus on was the pain in her bandaged but otherwise untreated eyesocket. The cold had begun to settle in and her every move caused the broken skin to crack, so she began to purposefully wince and furrow her brow to keep the pain going.

For a brief time, it helped her wake back up in the darkness and her green blood began to pool on her face before she finally succumbed again to the nightmares. And this time, she found herself on the flagship of Senator Verelan t’Rul, the People’s Will. In the sparring chamber where her mistress rejected her after so many years and took the Starfleet traitor under her wing.

”Apprentice” she heard, echoing in the darkness, over and over. First from Riov Rendal. Then from their shadowy benefactor. Again and again, the word bit into her. The label that was once hers had been bestowed upon the soft, spoiled traitor to the Star Empire. A Romulan who denied her blood and the honor that was her namesake for the lies of the Federation. The woman who stole her place in the mind of her mistress.

”Apprentice! WAKE UP!”

The voice in the darkness snapped her to alertness, and t’Suil opened her eyes and looked around. Struggling, she was still in the pod, but there seemed to be something on the other side of the glass, watching her. Then, a bright light snapped on illuminating a figure outside of the window.

“R… Riov? My Mistress? Have you… have you come to… forgive me?” t’Suil muttered weakly in the pod, looking at the shape of a woman outside, just a few centimeters from the glass as her tired eyes tried adjusting to the light.

Standing, somehow, in the void of space, it was not Riov Rendal. It was the traitor, Mnhei’sahe Dox. But she stood, not in the colors of her child’s uniform, but in the gray and black of a Romulan SubCommander’s uniform. “N… no.” t’Suil muttered, shaking her head.

“Hello, Arrenhe.” Dox said, tilting her head slightly. “No, our mistress is not here to forgive you. She has tasked me with dealing with you, and frankly, it’s a long-overdue task I am happy to carry out.”

‘W… what do you mean? I… I don’t understand?” t’Suil said, her brow wrinkled and confusion in her eyes. “How are you here?”

“Where, here in your place? In your uniform” With your rank at our Riov’s side? This is where I belong, Arrenhe. Serving nobly at the command of my noble mistress. Serving where you failed.” Dox said looking at the tube. “Quite the coffin you’ve found yourself in, isn’t it? More, even, than you likely deserve, for betraying our mistress.”

“I did NOT betray her! I tried to SAVE her from that pretender! That shadow, playing us against the Federation! I know what it is, but she wouldn’t listen to me! She abandoned me for YOU!!!” t’Suil raged, spit dripping off the glass.

“And what are you to be worth the attention of royalty? A common sewer thural?” Dox said, leaning closer to the glass. “I am the daughter of House Rul. My blood has sat upon the senate for generations. My family matters, little slave girl. You are NOTHING!”

“I am LOYAL! I am a true and loyal daughter of Romulus!!! I tried to PROTECT my mistress! And because of YOU, she took my station. Took my EYE! Took everything from me, because of YOU!!!” T’Suil screeched into the pod, her eye gone again. Her eyesocket bleeding again as green blood trickled down her cheek in a stream.

“No, you betrayed her out of simple, base jealousy, Arrenhe.” Dox said, shaking her head judgmentally. “You were jealous of ME. Of a Starfleet officer who had walked away from my home and my responsibilities to the Star Empire.”

Blinking through the tears, t’Suil shook her head in confusion as Dox now stood in a Crimson Starfleet uniform. “You were so angry. So petty, thinking that your mistress had truly abandoned you when she only ever saw me as a tool that could be used to increase her power. You would have lost nothing had you understood that all you needed to do was support your Riov and let go of your child's envy. But you couldn’t, could you? Even here, in this dark afterlife, you still try and blame me for your failings?”

Sniffling, t’Suil shuddered in the darkness as the lights behind Dox dimmed back to nothingness. But her raspy voice continued to echo in the frigid shadows. “Welcome to Areinnye. Welcome to Hell. Perhaps here, you will finally remember who you were, SubCommander.”

In the reality of the escape pod, she tried to scream, but the tin air only allowed a ragged squeak. And again, the darkness reclaimed Arrenhe t’Suil.