“Counselor to the bridge.”, was the one thing Saffiya managed to say before feeling like her own voice was getting drowned out by those around her, some fictional, some very real. Whatever was happening here, it wasn’t only affecting her – it was affecting the rest of the bridge, and perhaps the rest of the crew.

The minutes that followed seemed to stretch to hours, until finally, the doors to the turbolift hissed open.

Rob had gotten the call, and to be honest, he hadn’t been expecting a trip to the bridge. Tapping his comm badge, his reply was simple. “On my way,” he turned to head to the nearest lift. The silence that followed filled his mind as he made the trip to the bridge. The game of what if seemed to play over and over in his mind until the lift doors opened.

Stepping onto the bridge, Rob looked around. “Captain,” he stated, “reporting as ordered.” It was hard not to be formal. He’d spent the last several years in training; it was hard to ignore that.

Saffiya looked at Anderson thoughtfully for a moment, then she jutted her chin towards the view screen which, to her, looked empty. “Ensign Usher is convinced that we are flying right into a supernova. Lieutenant Yelis is sure we are facing Klingons. I don’t see either of these things, but I am seeing a deceased member of my old crew right there at the console.”

Rob had experienced plenty in his short career, but this was truly a first. A small smile crossed his face, “Well, here’s hoping we can figure out what’s going on.” he hadn’t looked at the viewscreen yet, but as he turned, a cold, familiar chill crept down his spine. Something about this moment felt oddly wrong.

“My question to you is – what do you see?”

Rob froze as the images on the screen came to life. His heart pounded, his eyes locked onto the unmistakable, jagged shapes of Borg vessels. Vessels like the ones from the attack on Starbase 1. He instinctively grabbed his wrist, pressing his finger into his flesh in a circular motion, the repetitive pressure a desperate attempt to ground himself. “It’s not real,” he muttered under his breath.

Forcing himself to look away, Rob took a sharp breath. Sweat trickled down his face as he forced his eyes shut. “It’s not real,” he repeated, louder this time. Yet the chill running down his spine told him his mind wasn’t done with him. Not yet. He felt someone touch his shoulder; Rob instinctively jumped.

Okay, Saffiya thought to herself as she carefully tried to break the Counsellor free from his hallucination. This was not the reaction I hoped for. 

“It’s not real.”, she confirmed steadily. “Look at me… good. You and I are going to find out what is happening. But for that, I need you to tell me how I tell what’s true from what’s not.”

Rob took another breath, ignoring the Captain momentarily as he attempted to gather his thoughts.

Saffiya nodded. “I need logic. Give me a rundown of why people, when they hallucinate, hallucinate certain things. Are they liked dreams caused by the sub conscience?”

“Hallucinations,” he began, his voice shaky, “are often projections of our deepest fears or memories. The subconscious plays a significant role. It pulls fragments of experiences, trauma, or even anxieties to the surface. It’s why I’m seeing… them.” He motioned toward the screen, his voice breaking slightly. “Because that attack, what I saw that day, it’s burned into my mind. And now, it’s being fed back to me. But none of it’s real.”

Saffiya nodded. “It’s not real.”
Which could be understood as a kind of reassurance for the younger officer, but was just as much for her own sake. 

“The mind has a hard time distinguishing between real and imagined threats. Hallucinations feel real because they kidnap the same senses, sight, and sound, making them almost indistinguishable from reality.”

“So what is the solution? Because if we keep this up, we are going to eject the warpcore when Engineering starts hallucinating too, and I would rather not do that.”

Rob paused, “If this is happening to the crew, we’re dealing with something external. Something is affecting our neurotransmitters. It’s amplifying our fears and manifesting them as hallucinations. We need to look for a pattern. What are the triggers? Does proximity to certain areas of the ship make it worse? Do some people seem unaffected? That will tell us where to focus.”

“I suppose we can-…”, Saffiya started, when one of the other bridge officers let out a blood curdling scream.