Fourth day, the day after the wake, opened with a rare free morning for those not on duty.
Not even PT.
Light duty and the barest assignments. That was a very good thing.
When Naero looked at herself in the mirror wall of her mist shower she screamed.
Four weird tentacles or tendrils of some kind writhed around her head, popping out of her skull. She could feel them in her hands. They felt so real, moving and waving like the snaky hair of the fabled medusa.
But like the other hallucinations, she was the only one who could see them.
Delusion. All an insane delusion.
And her crazy head ached horribly from getting drunk at the wake.
Someone had deliberately crashed a battleship or two into her skull.
Every time she attempted to move, she felt the wreckage mash together in her head.
Then she heard it. Unmistakable. A separate voice in her skull. Talking to her. It only said one word. Over and over.
You.
You, you, you, you, you…
It said it over and over again, like a low droning hum, like a chant.
This insanity was new. Now she was hearing things. In her head.
Naero did her best to ignore it. The more she ignored her insanity, the sooner it would go away.
But it was still there, humming and droning constantly. Not very loud at all, but still there deep in the background.
The luxury of a warm mist shower helped. Then pain meds and food.
Despite her new craziness, it surprised her how good she felt about the wake after it was all said and done.
It did help. She could focus more. It all didn’t weigh her down so much. She could go forward.
Strangely enough, she felt a desire to spend the day reading. Maybe even write some poetry.
After lunch, however, the rigorous Spacer training schedule snapped back into effect.
That day was weapons and small unit tactics.
Jan, being viciously clever and tricky, had a special knack for them.
Naero usually did better on her own than as a unit leader or part of a team. But she recognized that as a weakness in her nature, and struggled to overcome it. The lone wolf bit didn’t always pay off.