EPILOUGE
Philip left the lounge and stepped into the corridor.
The ship was quiet, but not peaceful.
Repairs hummed in the distance.
Medics moved between decks.
Officers whispered about the Hive.
The EMH walked with new purpose.
Charlie Team walked with new resolve.
And somewhere deep in the ship, a new medic’s personnel file waited to be opened.
Charlie Team would not welcome them easily.
The EMH would struggle with her new emotions.
Philip would face the Hive again.
The Camelot would rebuild.
And the next threat was already stirring.
PHILIP’S FIRST DREAM SEQUENCE
THE BLEED THROUGH
Philip slept.
Or he thought he did.
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The darkness around him wasn’t the soft, drifting kind that came with exhaustion.
It was thick.
Heavy.
Alive.
He tried to breathe, but the air felt wrong — too warm, too close, like something was exhaling against his skin.
A pulse throbbed in the dark.
Not his heartbeat.
Not the ship.
Something older.
Something vast.
A shape emerged — not seen, but felt, like a pressure behind his eyes.
You survived.
The voice wasn’t a sound. It was a presence, sliding through his thoughts like cold fingers tracing the inside of his skull.
Philip tried to step back, but there was no ground.
No direction.
No escape.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he whispered.
You opened the door.
The darkness rippled.
A faint glow appeared — sickly green, pulsing like a wound that refused to close.
Inside the glow, he saw flashes:
? the Hive creature drifting in the void
? its fractured shell knitting itself back together
? tendrils of energy reaching outward, searching
? searching for him
Philip’s breath hitched.
“What do you want?”
The answer came like a caress and a threat intertwined.
To understand you.
The glow brightened, and suddenly he wasn’t in the void anymore.
He was standing in the Camelot’s lounge — but wrong.
Twisted.
Warped.
The plaque was there, but the names writhed like living things.
Sira’s engraving pulsed with the same sickly green light.
Philip reached for it—
—and the plaque turned, the metal bending like flesh, revealing an eye staring back at him.
He stumbled away.
The eye blinked.
You grieve your dead.
The voice was curious.
Almost gentle.
Almost.
We do not understand this.
Philip forced himself to stand. “Stay out of my mind.”
The darkness shivered with amusement.
You invited me in.
The lounge dissolved.
The void returned.
The pulse grew louder.
We will meet again.
The words wrapped around him like a promise.
And when we do… you will understand us.
The darkness surged forward—
Philip gasped awake.
His quarters were dim.
His sheets were damp with sweat.
His heart hammered against his ribs.
But the worst part wasn’t the dream.
It was the echo still lingering in his mind.
Not imagined.
Not fading.
Real.
We will meet again.
