{Snip}
=/\= Captain Glen here. Just monitor and keep us informed. I believe it is affecting everyone to some different degree, it is merely that your patients are more susceptible, or more in tune with it… more in harmony, might be a better word. It’s only giving me a headache. I’m hoping that once we arrive things will be clearer and that there is no permanent neurological damage, but we are set firmly on this course now, for better or for worse. Glen out =/\=

“Come on mate, you gotta give me more than that” Kahu muttered. He was unaware he had spoken at all his focus concentrated on the readings in front of him. Readings that shouldn’t be possible, that were nothing like anything he had ever seen before and not on this scale either. He brought his hand up to his chin and stroked it deep in thought. Trying to put together everything, the patients all synchronizing in ways they shouldn’t be able to, shared hallucinations, talking in unison, the bizzare brief change in the environment system, and then that second pattern.

He didn’t like it, he didn’t like any of it at all, but as he looked around Sickbay and saw how frightened the people around him were, he knew he had to keep it together. Even if he had no clue what the heck was going on. The needed a leader, someone to reassure them that they could do this. He was the CMO it was his job to maintain a confident aura that they could do this. Whatever this was.

They were Starfleet. They could handle anything that came their way. There was clear evidence there was another entity somewhere that was affecting the crew, an entity that seemed to identify itself as a place. Whatever that meant. He’d ponder on it later. He wasn’t sure what its purpose was with his patients, if it was trying to control for it’s own purposes or for communication with them. He didn’t believe it was trying to posses them because of that second pattern.

He hesitated. Then made his decision, he was only a doctor from the back country, speaking with entities was beyond his experience. A second opinion could be good, provide a different opinion outside of his medical experience.

=/\= Sickybay to bridge: It’s Dr Grahams here. I think someone should come down and see this. We’ve got some strange going on’s here in Sickbay. There seems to be an entity which seems to be affecting my patients, they’re reporting hearing sounds that aren’t there and have taken great interest in looking at the bulkhead. They’ve also said that they know we are here and that it’s not a who but a place. Sir, it was a little spooky, they all just spoke in unison. =/\=

One deep breath. Then he focused back on the scans, comparing the second pattern to the patterns of the patients. Now that he knew what he assumed was the source of all these changes he wanted to isolate it, see if there was a way to break that connection so he could be prepared incase this place was hostile.

“What do they want with us?” He asked one of the patients that had spoken before, “Can you communicate with them? Say that we come in peace?”

Lt. Kahu Grahams, CMO

The moment Dr. Grahams posed the question, the atmosphere within Sickbay seemed to shift once again. Not dramatically but not enough for environmental systems to register any significant change.

Yet several officers later struggled to explain why the room suddenly felt different.

The patient Grahams had addressed remained motionless for several seconds. Around the ward, monitors continued their steady cadence of biometric readings while medical personnel exchanged uncertain glances.

Then one of the patients turned toward the same bulkhead, followed by another and another.

Within moments, every conscious patient affected by the phenomenon was staring at precisely the same section of Sickbay’s forward wall again.

Medical monitors immediately reflected the change.
Neural synchronization values climbed. Not sharply and not dangerously but unmistakably.

Several patients blinked simultaneously. A few tilted their heads by identical amounts. Then they began to speak. Not loudly or threateningly. Simply as though repeating words being translated through dozens of different voices at once.

“We hear.” A pause.

The synchronization readings rose another fraction of a percent.

“We see.”

Across Sickbay, a faint mist began to appear on exposed metal surfaces. Biobed rails, instrument housings, and even portions of the deck plating developed a thin layer of moisture.

Environmental controls immediately flagged a localized increase in atmospheric humidity. The change was impossible. No system malfunction was detected and no water source could be identified. The moisture appeared to be condensing directly from the air itself as the temperature within the ward fluctuated by less than a tenth of a degree.

Several unaffected staff members visibly stiffened while the patients continued.“Not who but place.”

“Not prison.”

“Not hunter.”

“Alone.”

The final word carried a strange weight to it. It was not sadness nor fear. Something closer to an immense span of time compressed into a single concept.

Across multiple biobeds, neural scans revealed the same secondary pattern Dr. Grahams had been studying. It was becoming clearer now and more organized. Less like interference and more like actual communication.

The waveform no longer appeared random as repeated structures began emerging with mathematical relationships. A language of resonance rather than words.

Several Merrimack displays automatically highlighted the pattern as the computer identified recurring sequences.

For the first time, the system generated a tentative classification:

ANOMALOUS SIGNAL
NON-RANDOM
PROBABILITY OF INTENTIONAL STRUCTURE: 93.7%

One of the patients slowly turned his head toward Grahams. Unlike before, only he spoke with his own voice this time. His expression was his own instead of being eerie. Yet something else seemed to be listening through him.

“We did not call you.”

The patient’s eyes shifted briefly toward the ceiling as if following something beyond the hull. “You came here.”

A sudden pulse rippled through every synchronized neural trace. It was not harmful nor invasive but almost curious.

At the same moment, environmental sensors detected a brief spike in microscopic airborne particulates throughout Sickbay. The particles appeared and vanished so quickly that the computer could not determine their composition, but they coincided perfectly with the surge in neural activity.

The patient’s gaze returned to the doctor. “You seek the silent one.”

For a moment, every monitor in Sickbay flickered.

The patient frowned as though struggling to understand a concept beyond his ability to express.
Then he quietly added: “It sleeps.”

The synchronization values immediately dropped though did not disappear entirely. They were receding.

The patients blinked. Several looked around in confusion. A few appeared to have no memory of speaking.

The unexplained moisture slowly evaporated from the surrounding equipment.

Only the lingering harmonic pattern remained on the medical displays, still repeating its impossible, deliberate structure.

And now, for the first time, it appeared to be waiting.

GM Nosferatu
Your Darkest Nightmare

“Oh man,” Kahu’s accent came through stronger than it usually did “Look mate, I’m concerned with the well being of my patients here. Anything more than that you might want to be speaking to our Captain about who is seeking what. I’m just a simple country doctor.” It felt completely ridiculous conversing with this Silent One when he couldn’t see it or even know where to direct his voice to.

He tilted his head towards a nurse, “There is definitely a spike in the neural readings when this, uh, Silent One, is using them to speak. It’s creepy but there doesn’t seem to be any negative impact on the patients coming through my readings anymore. Yet there seems to be more of an effect each time. There wasn’t any of this misty stuff when this all first happened. Can you do a number’s check for me? I want to know it is affecting more patients than it was earlier. I know when haven’t had any alerts but I’m wondering if Mister Silent One is adapting.”

Turning his attention back to the patient in front of him he asked, “Exactly, who, what, when, where, why, how is this ‘Silent One’?”

Lt. Kahu Grahams, CMO