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fireladybuckley · 6 years

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The Nightmare Beyond

Fandom: Star Trek AOS, Mirrorverse (Reader Insert) Pairing: Leonard McCoy / Reader Word Count: 12,021 Rating/Warnings: Rated M (mature) - blood, cutting, restraints, torture, partial nudity, psychological angst, major angst in general

Summary: A transporter malfunction sends Reader and Christine Chapel to the ISS Enterprise, where they find themselves at the mercy of Leonard McCoy’s evil clone.

Author’s note: This fic was inspired by a nightmare and is a lot darker than most fics I usually write... if you like angst and/or whump, you’ll love this. Enjoy. Also, for interest’s sake, the uniforms I was envisioning in the Mirrorverse were based on this post by @abd-illustrates because they are amazing!

* * * * * * * *

“Nurse Chapel, Nurse Y/LN, they need you planetside.”

You turned as a harassed-looking security officer hurried into the medbay, addressing you and Christine, who was working right next to you. You glanced at her as she straightened up, a small frown appearing on her face.

“What’s happened?” she asked, setting aside the tricorder she’d been calibrating and standing up. You followed suit, setting down the gloves you’d been about to pull on.

“The medical team was attacked when they beamed down. Now two of them are hurt on top of the other officers and civilians down there, and Dr. McCoy could really use your support.”

“Of course,” you said at once, already turning to grab an emergency med kit. Your heart flip-flopped in both excitement and fear at the sound of your boyfriend’s name – You knew that Leonard was a big boy and could take care of himself, but you were worried about this ‘attack’ and what it might’ve entailed.

“Right away,” Christine agreed, following you to the opposite counter to grab a second kit.

“Survival suits on, ladies,” the officer said, glancing down at his comm. “The weather is a bit rough and we don’t know if there will be another attack, so we should take precautions.”

You nodded and the two of you hurried into the back supply room to grab your survival suits. Cursing yourself for wearing the uniform dress today instead of pants, you peel off your dress and slip into the suit in a pair of short shorts and a very thin white tank top, hoping you won’t have to take off the jacket for any reason down there. Christine, who had worn pants today, merely pulled the suit over her pants. You helped each other fasten the jackets, checked to make sure everything was fitting correctly, then pulled your boots on.

“Ready?” Christine asked, slinging the med bag over her shoulder and tucking a phaser into her leg holster.

“Yup,” you replied, quickly folding your dress and stashing it on a shelf to retrieve later. Christine offered you a phaser and you took it with a nod of thanks, tucking it into your own leg holster.

“I have to say, we look awesome in these,” Christine pointed out, gesturing to your survival suit, and you grinned at her in agreement.

“Absolutely we do. Let’s go!”

The two of you hurried from the back room and joined a different security officer wearing his own survival suit who was clearly waiting for you. When he saw you were ready, he gestured for you to follow him and led you towards the transporter room.

The engineers were in a flurry of chaos once you got there; there was an alarm going off, and two engineers shouting at each other while a communications officer frantically typed at her computer.

“What’s going on?” asked the security officer, approaching the arguing engineers. “Aren’t you ready to beam us down?”

“Aye, but there’s a magnetic storm brewing, and the transporter might not be working properly.” Scotty, the head of Engineering, appeared around a large console as he spoke, looking tense. “I’m not sure if I can guarantee your safety,” he said grimly, shaking his head.

“The medical team needs us,” Christine said urgently, gesturing at the transporter pad. “We’ve got to get down there!” You nodded in agreement, worry clenching your heart as you watch Scotty frown.

“You said the storm was just starting, perhaps we can miss the worst of it if we go right away?” You asked Scotty, who still looked grim.

“It’s possible you could be right,” Scotty mused, scowl still in place. “But—”

“No buts, if it’s possible, we’re going,” the security officer interjected. He gestured for the two of you to follow him and you moved onto the transporter pad, feeling a bit guilty as an angry expression crossed Scotty’s face for a moment before the man sighed.

“Och fine, but if something bad happens, it’s not on me. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.”

“Noted,” Christine said, and you clutched the strap of your bag a little harder, now feeling a bit worried that something might actually malfunction. You took comfort in the fact that if it was very likely for something to happen, there was no way Scotty would let you go; as such, there must only be a small chance, so you focus on your breathing, getting ready for the feeling of beaming down.

“Three to beam down, then,” the security officer said, gesturing at the communications officer running the console. The communications officer glanced over at Scotty, who nodded grudgingly, before she activated her station.

“Beaming down,” she called. “In 3, 2, 1—”

“Wait!” Scotty called suddenly, staring at his own console in horror. “Don’t! The storm just—”

The communications officer, however, had hit the final button only a split second before she heard Scotty shout; too late to change anything.

“The storm just got a lot worse,” Scotty said, his voice trailing off in defeat.

They watched in fear as the two nurses and security officer disappeared as usual, but followed by many flickers, sparks and unusual sounds, indicating that something had gone horribly wrong with the transporter.

-----------

Your heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to burst from your chest as you materialized. Normally, you felt a weird tingling sensation and a bit of unease when beaming somewhere, but this time you felt like your body was receiving one long static shock, your skin prickling all over, and your sense of unease was intense. When your feet hit solid ground you stumbled a bit, feeling extremely dizzy and like you were about to fall over. You managed to right yourself and stand, shaking your head to clear it a bit, and blinked a few times before looking around.

You heard Christine gasp and felt a wave of confusion as you took in your surroundings. You had not beamed down to the planet; hell, you were still in the ship. You were on the bridge, where you’d only ever been a few times, and while there were many familiar faces staring at you in shock, they seemed somehow… wrong. In the second or so you had to look, while everyone was still taken by surprise by your sudden appearance, you realized that while many of the faces were just plain staring at you in shock, there were plenty more who were staring in anger and suspicion. You were also confused when, upon turning to look in the other direction, you saw Jim Kirk standing there, glaring at your group. You knew for a fact that the captain was down on the planet with Leonard and the others, and your heart started to pound faster as you realized very quickly that something was extremely wrong.

“Grab them!” came a shout, and you let out a small cry of surprise as someone nearby rushed at you.

“Stay back!” called your security officer, brandishing his phaser. You groped for yours and had it out so fast you surprised yourself, flicked it into stun mode and lifted it, pointing at the officer that had run forward.

“Or what?” Jim Kirk asked, smirking. His voice was very different than you were used to; it was cold and confident in a way that struck fear in you, not comfort. This could not be the actual captain. “There are three of you, and over a dozen of us.”

“What’s going on?” you asked the security officer quickly, your hand shaking as you attempted to hold the phaser steady. “Isn’t the Captain supposed to be down on the planet?”

“That’s not the Captain,” Christine said, her voice hard, though you could hear trepidation in it. By this point, nearly everyone on the bridge had pointed their weapons at your group, and you felt your heart skip several beats in fear. “At least, not our captain.”

“What-“ you began, but you had just seen the Captain nod, and a split second later you were ambushed. You screamed as someone grabbed you from behind, squeezing the trigger of your phaser on impulse, the beam missing its closest target by several feet. You struggled against the arms around you as a second officer ran up, grabbed your hand and twisted your wrist hard until you cried out in pain and lost your grip on the phaser, cursing as you dropped it and it hit the floor with a clatter. You heard a similar fight going on directly behind you and assumed Christine had also been grabbed. Your security officer was fighting; he’d managed to hit a couple of the officers on the bridge with a stun, but several more officers, security, command and communications alike had cornered him with his back to a console at the front of the bridge, all of their phasers pointed at him.

The man who looked like Jim Kirk strolled over almost lazily, eyeing your security officer, who was breathing heavily and looked furious at being cornered like this, his hands above his head, his phaser pointed at the ceiling.

“Did you really think you could infiltrate our ship like this?” the Kirk lookalike asked in disgust. “Only three people, and two of them women who look like they haven’t fought a day in their lives?” You struggled in your captor’s hold at these words and he twisted one of your arms behind your back until you let out an involuntary whimper of pain and stopped pulling, breathing hard. The captain, hearing this, smirked. “Thank you for proving my point,” he said smoothly, staring at you.

“We aren’t trying to infiltrate your ship, sir,” the security officer said, looking like it was difficult for him to address the Kirk imposter with respect. “Our transport system malfunctioned, we were trying to go planetside.”

“Right,” Kirk replied dryly, clearly not believing a word he was saying.

“It’s true.” Christine said, her voice still with that strangely hard tone. You’d never heard her speak so coolly before, but couldn’t blame her.

“We were trying to beam down to a planet,” you called out, wincing as your captor twisted your arm a bit more and pain shot through your wrist and shoulder. “Our medical team needs help, and-” Before you could finish your sentence, the man who looked like Kirk had strode over to you and without warning, backhanded you across the face. You let out a cry of surprise and pain as your head snapped to the side from the unexpected blow, the skin of your cheek burning. You heard Christine make a wordless noise of concern as you felt the air stinging your lower lip and blood welling up before starting to trickle down from your mouth.

“Did I ask you to speak?” Kirk asked, a cruelly amused look in his eyes at the shock on your face. Fear coursing through you, you stared at him with wide eyes and shook your head slowly, scared silent. “I didn’t think so.” He smirked at you and turned back to the security officer, who looked distressed at the blood on your face.

“Leave them alone, they’re nurses, not fighters!”

“Don’t care,” Kirk shrugged. “You have exactly 3 seconds to tell me what the fuck you’re doing on my ship. Go.”

“I told you, we weren’t trying to come here, it was a transporter malfunction!” The security guard was desperate now. “We would never have tried to take your ship, we’re peaceful—”

“Time’s up.” Kirk glowered down at the security officer from his chair’s platform. “Kill him.”

“No!” you and Christine cried at the same time, trying to lunge forward, but it was too late. Immediately, the officer directly in front of your security officer raised his phaser and fired a beam directly into his chest. The officer’s entire body lit up like the phaser beam before he disappeared into a poof of steam and smoke, vaporized.

You stood there in utter shock, breathing fast and shallow, staring at the place that the officer had just been standing. You heard Christine whisper “No!” in a cracked voice and felt her look over at you, but you couldn’t stop staring at where he’d disappeared. The guy holding your arms snickered behind you as Kirk turned to look at you and Christine, a grim amusement on his face.

“Nurses, hm?” he mused, walking up to Christine and running a finger along her jawline. She jerked her head away, a furious expression on her face, and the Captain gave a short, unpleasant laugh.

“I don’t understand,” you whispered to Christine, who was now looking in your direction, unable to stop yourself. You were freaking out, panicking over the death of the security officer and just generally feeling terrified. “Why do these people look like our crew? What is happening?” The man who looked like Kirk heard you and slowly smiled, and you noted how sinister it made him look.

“Go ahead, answer her,” He ordered Christine, gesturing to you. “I’ve just figured out exactly who you must be.” Christine shot him an angry glare before looking at you, her eyes full of sympathy. You could tell she was about to tell you something horrible, and that she was extremely sorry to do it.

“Look at their insignias. The sashes,” she told you, her voice urgent. “They are of the Terran Empire.” You stared back at her, confused for a moment, the fear you were already feeling causing your brain to put it together a lot slower than usual.

“The Terran Empire? But what is—” You cut yourself off as you suddenly remembered, and your heart instantly clenched in absolute dread. Your face must have shown your horrible understanding because Christine looked away, unable to stand the sudden terror in your eyes. You slowly looked over at the evil Kirk, trying and failing to stop yourself trembling in fear as the implications of your situation sank in. Your eyes settled on his insignia; a large sword driven through the earth, nothing at all like Starfleet’s insignia. You glanced around; every officer surrounding you had the same one on their uniforms, which were quite different than the ones you were used to, including the sashes Christine had mentioned.

“No,” you whispered, your voice barely audible. How could it be? How was it possible that this was actually real?

“Oh yes,” the evil Kirk said with relish, clearly enjoying the horrified expression on your face. “I’m not sure how things are run on your ship,” he said in a dry voice, “but on the ISS Enterprise, we do not allow nurses,” he said the word mockingly, “on the Bridge.”

You jumped as the person twisting your arms loosened their grip, untwisted your arms and then roughly shoved your hands into some kind of cuffs, securing your wrists tightly behind you. A slight gasp from Christine told you the same had happened to her, and you looked up at Kirk in fear, wondering if he was going to throw you in the brig or worse, out into space.

“Take them to the doctor,” Kirk ordered, smirking. “I’m sure he’ll have some use for them.”

Before you had time to even think about what he’d said, the officer behind you grabbed you roughly by the shoulders, spun you around and marched you off towards the door to the Bridge. You looked back towards the place where the security officer had been vaporized one last time, lamenting to yourself that you hadn’t even known his name.

They gripped you and Christine by the neck and arms and marched you down long hallways that seemed both familiar and foreign. The lighting was much dimmer on this ship, and everything seemed much darker and ominous in contrast to your ship’s bright, open corridors. You and Christine exchanged a frightened look but you could do nothing but go where they led you, the officer’s grip painful on your neck. You heard Christine gasp softly and looked over to see her security officer had grabbed a fistful of her hair and was leading her along by it.

They led you down a last hallway that felt more familiar to you, and you realized you were being led into the med bay. It was a dark and gloomy place; the beds and all the equipment were dark grey or black, and the dim lighting made it seem more like an interrogation area than a medical facility. You suddenly realized just who might be here and your pulse sped up again, your heart pounding against your ribs as you looked over at Christine with fear in your eyes. Could Leonard have an evil clone as well? You feared you already knew the answer, and Christine gave you a tiny nod, knowing what you were wondering.

When you got to the med bay entrance, the officer who had been leading you handed you over to the one holding Christine, who grabbed your upper arm and held it in a vice grip while his fellow entered the med bay and disappeared for a moment. You heard a knock on a door not far away, and barely managed to hold in a gasp as the voice that answered was an intimately familiar one.

“You better have an excellent reason for interrupting me, Lieutenant.” Leonard’s voice was cold and angry, and you felt your heart go cold with fear and dread at the very sound.

“Captain’s orders, sir.”

“Then he better have a damn good reason.” Leonard’s words were practically a snarl now, and you tensed, wishing dearly that you could run as you heard a chair being pushed back and then footsteps approaching. Then he was there, in front of you, and you could do little more than gape at him.

Leonard looked at once exactly the same and horribly different. He stood tall and confident in his uniform, his shoulders and sash a direct match to Starfleet’s Sciences blue. The red Empire insignia stood out harshly against the white of the uniform coat, but the most startling change to his appearance was a harsh scar marring his left eye, from his forehead halfway down his cheek, with darkened scarring around the eye itself as well. It gave his face a hard, almost cruel appearance, and the sight of him made your blood run cold.

“Who are they?” Leonard asked in the same cold voice, gesturing carelessly at you and Christine. “Why do they look like two of my staff?”

“They beamed on board, sir. Right into the Bridge. The officer that appeared with them claims they’re nurses, so Captain Kirk thought you may have some use for them.” The officer who had led you there looked thoroughly amused by your predicament, smirking at you as he stood beside the CMO.

“Did they really?” Leonard asked, looking vaguely interested, an eyebrow raised. “And the other officer that beamed on board with them?”

“Dead, sir.”

“Excellent.” One side of Leonard’s mouth curled into a cruel smirk as your heart began to pound harder, unable to grasp how someone who looked so like your Leonard could ever speak like that about a person’s death. “Bring them into the med bay. Back room.”

The officer holding both yours and Christine’s arms started to move forward, but you were still frozen in shock, staring at Leonard, and your legs weren’t responding properly. He tugged hard on your arm as you failed to move and though you tried to get your foot out in time, you stumbled and missed. You let out a small yelp as you toppled forward and slammed hard into the floor on your side, unable to break your fall with your bound arms. You heard someone make a noise of contempt and looked up to see Leonard sneering at you.

“Pathetic. How you people survive is beyond me,” he said in disgust. “Get up, you pillock,” he snapped, and you struggled to turn yourself over. You saw Christine try to move towards you out of the corner of your eye, but the officer holding her jerked on her arm to keep her in place. You eventually managed to get yourself onto your knees, then shakily stand. The officer holding Christine grabbed your arm again and dragged you forwards, past where Leonard was still standing, watching you. The officer standing beside him, the one that had originally been leading you, suddenly stuck out his foot as you passed, and as you tried to take a step forward, your foot caught on his and you tripped. You cried out as you toppled forward again, nearly smashing your head on a bio bed but just missing, crashing to the floor once more. Leonard whirled around, looking murderous, when he noticed the officer beside him laughing, and clearly figured out what he’d done.

“Get the fuck out of here, now, before I order you into an agony booth,” Leonard snapped, and the officer sobered very quickly. He saluted Leonard, shot the other officer a look and then hurried off without further ado.

As you struggled to roll onto your side again, a hand grabbed the collar of your jacket from behind, briefly choking you as they lifted you by it, setting you roughly on your feet. You staggered a bit, leaning on the bio bed you’d almost crashed into for balance, and swallowed hard when you saw Leonard standing over you, glowering down at you.

“I think I’ll work on you first,” he said in a smooth, cool voice. “See what makes you tick.” You had no idea what “working” on you meant, but you were scared. You glanced over at Christine, who looked very worried and like she wanted to help, and you shook your head the tiniest bit at her as she opened her mouth.

“Hey, doctor,” Christine called, and your eyes widened, already wishing she would shut up. Leonard turned slowly to look at her, seemingly incredulous that anyone would dare speak up to him. “Why don’t you pick on someone of equal intelligence to yours? She’s just a simpleton.” You could tell the words were designed to get the evil Leonard to leave you alone, so you weren’t insulted by them, but you were terrified for her as he stared at her. You still couldn’t seem to make your voice work, and you watched in dread as a look of fury and then amused disbelief flickered over Leonard’s face.

“You think you’re as intelligent as me,” he repeated, his voice sharp. “You.” He stood there, appraising her coldly, a humorless smirk on his face. When Christine’s defiant expression did not waver, he gave a sharp exhale that might have been laughter and shook his head. “Alright, then.” He turned to the officer still holding Christine’s arm. “Strap her to the bed. Take off her suit first.”

Leonard reached out for you and grabbed your upper arm, squeezing it tightly as he pulled you forwards. You stumbled and tried to keep up with him as he dragged you towards the side of the bed, trying to stop yourself pulling away at his touch. It disgusted you to be touched by this evil man, but you had a feeling outright defying him would not go well for you, so you attempted to do as he said, no matter how repulsed you felt. He reached behind you and unhooked the cuffs, allowing your arms to be free.

“Take off your suit jacket,” he snapped at you, and you hesitated for only a split second, moving to obey as he glared at you. Your shaking hands slowly undid the jacket and slipped it off of your shoulders as he stared down at you. You kept your gaze cast downwards, avoiding his eyes, and jumped as he ripped the garment out of your hand once it was off, throwing it to the side. You felt exposed in your thin white tank top, your bra clearly visible through the see-through material. A quick glance upward showed you his smirk and you quickly looked away again, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Now the pants,” he ordered, pointing at them. You hesitated again, well aware that you only had a pair of boyshort style panties on underneath, and feeling very apprehensive about exposing yourself. He let out a growl and suddenly his hand was at your throat, his fingers wrapping around and squeezing tightly. You let out a squeak of terror as he applied more pressure to your throat, cutting off your airway as your eyes finally snapped up to his. He glowered down at you, but then looked to the side to see a nurse passing by and snapped at her instead.

“You. Give me your agonizer,” Leonard snarled at her, and she stopped dead, fear flickering in her eyes.

“What? Why? I haven’t done anything wrong, sir,” she said, her voice an attempt at confidence. You let out a choking noise and reached up to grab at his arm, dark spots appearing in your vision as the seconds ticked by and you were still unable to breathe.

“Do as I say or I will use it on you this moment,” Leonard snarled, and the nurse, alarmed, handed over a small, triangle-shaped device from her belt. “Now get out of my sight.” The nurse did not need to be told twice and disappeared immediately from the doorway, as Leonard turned back to you. You were struggling against his hold in earnest now, though there was little use; he was very strong and you were already weakening, your vision going dark around the edges as you neared unconsciousness. He let go of your throat enough to open your airway and you gasped for breath as air flooded into your lungs, coughing as you struggled to take a few deep breaths.

“If you ever disobey a direct order I give you, I will use this on you,” he growled at you, holding up the device. “This is an agonizer. I’ll let you guess what it does.” Your eyes were wide and you stared at the device, your mind still swimming from the lack of oxygen, not really understanding what he was saying. You could feel your pulse pounding hard, reverberating against his fingers at your throat, and you felt dizzy enough to fall over if he hadn’t still been holding you up. When you didn’t really give a sign that you understood, he let out a noise of disgust.

“Do you understand what pain is, simpleton?” Leonard asked mockingly, and you nod, still too afraid to speak. “Yes,” he mused, reaching out and touching your bloody lip with his thumb, making you recoil involuntarily. “It seems someone has already begun teaching you that lesson.”

“She’s ready for you, sir,” the other officer said, and you glanced around to see Christine, in her normal uniform, lying on the only bio bed in the room, strapped to it by her wrists, ankles and a strap over her waist. Your lips parted and your face clearly showed your concern as you looked at her, because Leonard smirked as he watched you, then released his hold on you.

“Good, now leave,” Leonard told the officer, who saluted him briefly and then left with haste, clearly not wanting to be around for a second longer than he had to be. He looked back at you and narrowed his eyes. “Take those suit pants and boots off. Now.”

This time you didn’t hesitate; you’d rather be exposed than choked again, so you reached down and quickly unbuttoned your heavy survival suit pants and slid them off, avoiding his eyes again as you revealed your bare legs. You draped the pants over a nearby table and pushed the boots closer to it as well, keeping your eyes downward as you could feel him looking you over, taking in your form. He made a soft noise of approval as his eyes roved over your body and you crossed your arms over your stomach uncomfortably, wishing you were anywhere but here.

“Be a good little girl and sit there and watch,” he ordered you with a crisp, no nonsense tone, pointing at a metal, straight-backed chair nearby. “Or I will tie you down.” You gulped and slowly lowered yourself into the chair, staring in fear at Christine as the evil Leonard approached her.

“Now, do you really think you’re even close to my intelligence?” he asked, pacing around her bed as Christine stared unblinkingly at the ceiling.

“Absolutely,” she replied, her voice hard. Leonard let out a soft noise of derision, shaking his head.

“Unbelievable,” he said, turning his back on her for a moment as he retrieved something from a counter behind him. When he turned around again, he was holding a large, elegantly carved knife, with a blade that looked lethally sharp and glinted in the light from above. You gripped the arms of the chair in fear as he moved back to Christine’s bedside and loomed over her.

“We’ll see how smart you think you are, nurse, once I’ve dealt with you for a while.”

You watched in horror as he reached out with one hand and took Christine’s chin in a firm grip, controlling her head movement, then brought the knife to her face. Christine let out a gasp of pain, clenching her fists as he slid the knife along the underside of her cheekbone, a line of red welling up immediately in its wake.

“No!” you cried, standing up immediately, staring in horror as droplets of blood started to slip down Christine’s cheek. “Stop!”

“Ah, so she does speak,” the evil Leonard commented, glancing over at you with a raised eyebrow. “Sit down, simpleton, or have you forgotten our deal?” Leonard looked away from you again, clearly expecting to be obeyed, and pressed the knife to Christine’s cheek again, ready to cut a second line under the first. Christine shot you a look that clearly said she expected you to do as you were told, but you couldn’t stand to see her like this; she was your best friend, and you couldn’t just sit there while she was being hurt. So you leapt forward, despite the fear coursing through you and the voice in your head screaming that it was a bad idea. As he cut her for the second time, you ran around the edge of the table and grabbed his hand as he pulled back from her face. You tried to peel the knife out of his hand, and when that didn’t work, you attempted to twist it, like the officer had done to you to make you drop your phaser, but Leonard was not as easy to manipulate.

Leonard swept his arm back forcefully, shoving you hard enough that you stumbled and crashed into the wall behind you as he spun around, clearly furious at your daring.

“You must have a death wish,” he spat, pointing his knife at your throat as he moved closer. The tip of the knife made contact with your neck directly below your chin and you stopped moving, breathing hard. The tip of the knife was extremely sharp and you could feel it pricking your skin uncomfortably as he glowered at you.

“P-please, don’t hurt her,” you pleaded, glancing over at Christine, who was staring at you fearfully, blood now slipping from both of the cuts on her cheek.

“I will hurt her all I want,” he told you, venom lacing his tone. “And we had a deal.” Leonard reached over to his counter, never wavering in his grip of the knife he was holding to your throat, and retrieved the agonizer he’d taken from the passing nurse. “This is what real pain feels like,” he said in a low voice, before he pressed the agonizer to the bare skin just below your collarbone.

Instantly you were flooded with the worst pain you had ever felt in your life, like your entire body was being hit by a thousand lightning bolts at once. You heard yourself scream as the fire spread through you, pinned against the wall and unable to move away. Your skin burned where the agonizer was pressed, and agony spread all over your body from the point of contact. You were just wondering how long you would be able to stand this pain, crying out again, when he removed the device from your chest. Immediately the pain stopped, but you felt extremely dizzy and nauseated, and your legs were so wobbly that you slowly slid down the wall, unable to hold up your own weight anymore. You stayed on the floor in a daze, cold sweat beading over your skin as you sat there, trembling, all thought from your mind gone for a moment as you tried to catch your breath.

Leonard reached down and grabbed your upper arm tightly, hoisting you to your feet and dragging you over to the chair you’d abandoned, all but throwing you down into it. You barely managed to stay on the chair; you were so unbalanced that you nearly toppled off, managing to stay up only by grabbing the arm as tightly as you could. He returned to your side and roughly manipulated you into a normal sitting position before grabbing each of your forearms in turn and tying them tightly to the arms of the chair. Still dazed, you didn’t fight him as he tied you down, staring down at your own knees as he stood up. He fisted a hand in your hair and tilted your head upwards, forcing you to look at him.

“Now sit there, silently,” he told you, his voice dangerously calm. You gave a tiny nod and he released your hair and turned away from you, leaving you sitting there, still trembling.

“What did you do to her?” Christine demanded as he returned to her side, looking at your drooped form in concern.

“Nothing she can’t bounce back from,” he said smoothly, retrieving his knife. “So, where were we?”

You watched, your brain slowly unfogging, as the evil Leonard lifted the hem of Christine’s uniform shirt, slicing it slowly down the middle until he’d cut through it all, opening the shirt and exposing Christine’s chest, leaving her in nothing but a bra from the shoulders down.

“You like what you see?” Christine asked, a defiant note in her voice as Leonard looked over her bare skin. He made a non-committal noise, then glanced over at you.

“I think I’d like her more,” he commented, a slow smile curling his lips. Though his eyes looked nothing like the real Leonard’s, his smile absolutely did and you looked away, unable to handle seeing it on this imposter’s face. Christine could obviously see the distress on your face and spoke again, and you knew she was trying to draw the attention back to her.

“Wouldn’t you rather be with someone that’s your equal?” Christine asked, drawing his gaze back to her. “I could give you a real run for your money.” Leonard snorted delicately, then, without a word, slowly drew the knife along Christine’s stomach, from the centre of her torso towards the side, watching the blood well up. Christine gasped, and you struggled against your bonds for the first time, brought back to your senses by her noise of pain. He lifted the blade and then drew it along her stomach again, making a new cut below the one he’d just made. Christine clenched her teeth, letting out a hiss of pain, and you could see she was trying her best not to cry out.

“To be my equal, you’d have to be a lot of things that you are not,” he explained, lifting the knife and watching a drop of blood slip down the blade. Christine’s chest was rising and falling a lot faster now, and you knew she was trying to breathe through the pain without making a sound. “You don’t have the stomach to do even half of what I do, for starters.”

“Sure I do,” Christine answered, and you were amazed she was able to make her voice so steady despite the trail of blood slipping down her side and dripping down to the bed below her.

“Leave her alone!” you cried, unable to stop yourself as he moved in to cut her for a third time and you saw her tense, bracing for the pain. “She’s done nothing to you!”

“I told you to stay silent,” he growled at you, and Christine shot you a desperate look. You knew what she was trying to do for you, keeping his attention diverted to her, but you couldn’t stand to see watch this, to see her getting hurt while you sat here and did nothing. You swallowed hard but met his gaze, trying to be brave and confident even in your fear, like Christine.

“I’m not just going to sit here while you torture my friend!” you shot back at him, wondering if you were making a terrible mistake but doing it anyway. Your heart skipped several beats as Leonard paused, staring at you. You gasped as, instead of coming after you, he lowered his knife to Christine again and added a third cut to her stomach, making her cry out in spite of herself. He lifted the knife and moved towards you, holding the bloody blade barely inches from your face as he spoke.

“You don’t have a choice,” he hissed at you, slapping the broad side of the blade on the back of your hand to indicate your tied wrists, making you jump with a small noise of fear. You noticed that a bit of Christine’s blood had transferred from the knife to your skin and you felt your stomach lurch as you stared at the red spot. “And if you can’t stay silent, I will silence you.” He stood up again, and an idea seemed to occur to him as he looked from you to Christine and back again.

Leonard set his knife down on the counter, moved over to the bed and began undoing the leather straps holding Christine down. She was clearly confused, watching what he was doing, but didn’t really move until he finished unstrapping her.

“Get up,” he ordered, and she did as she was told, sitting up and then swivelling so her feet hung over the edge of the table. She carefully hopped off the table and stood there while he stood over her, holding the agonizer. She eyed it warily, but made no move to run, trying to stand strong and be unafraid, ignoring your wide eyes as you feared for her.

“If you think you can stomach the things that I do,” he began, his voice so low you could barely hear it. “Then go and hit her with this.” He jerked his head towards you and held out the agonizer to her. You swallowed hard as she stared at him in disgust, clearly about to refuse. He leaned closer to her and whispered something in her ear that you couldn’t hear from this distance, and you felt a flicker of fear as her face hardened. She took the agonizer from him after a moment and after a brief hesitation, started to walk towards you.

“Christine?” you asked, your voice higher than normal and wavering. “What are you-?” You stared as she approached and leaned over you, oblivious to the blood over her stomach as you stared into her eyes. You could see a great deal of regret there, and the beginnings of tears in them as she moved her hand towards you.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and you gasped in dread a second before she put the agonizer to your chest, right beside where it had touched you the first time. You could hear yourself screaming once more as the pain coursed through you again, electrifying your body. You jerked in your seat, wrenching your wrists where they were bound, but you could go nowhere, so you twitched and struggled as you sat, the blazing hot pain racing through your veins, feeling as though every cell in your body was on fire.

The pain didn’t last very long; it was only a few seconds before Christine pulled it away, unable to bear your screams. You slumped in your chair when it was over, limp and sweaty, your hands shaking uncontrollably as you attempted to catch your breath, coughing weakly. You couldn’t believe she’d done that to you, though you knew somewhere in the back of your mind that she wouldn’t have if she’d had a choice. You were too dizzy to even raise your head, and you stared blearily at Christine’s legs as you tried to recover.

“There,” Christine said, her voice hard again, though this time you could hear a slight waver she’d been unable to banish.

“Pathetic,” Leonard scoffed, taking the agonizer from her and shoving her back towards the table. “You proved nothing.” Christine resisted getting back up on the table, but you still couldn’t lift your head enough to watch, feeling like you might pass out at any moment. A second later, you heard her scream and the shock was enough for you to raise your head briefly. Leonard had pressed the agonizer to her chest as well and held it there for many long seconds. You watched in a daze as she cried out in pain, her body twitching as she struggled to stay upright. He held it to her chest at least twice as long as he had for you; eventually he pulled the device from her skin and her knees instantly buckled, the rest of her falling to the floor with a crash. She lay there, moaning, as your own head drooped again and you felt weak and sick, both from the nausea from the pain and sick with worry for both Christine and yourself.

You watched, still dazed, as he bent over to pick Christine up, clearly intent on putting her back onto the table. From behind, he looked just like your Leonard; the same stature, the same hair… and for a moment you tried to appeal to him, in the misplaced hope that maybe some of the goodness in your Leonard resided in this one as well, albeit very deep down.

“Leonard, please,” you croaked, forcing your head up again as you tried to implore him. “Please, leave her alone.” He froze where he stood, his back still to you, and you stupidly took it as a sign you were getting through to him. “Len, please… I know there’s some mercy in you somewhere, I’ve seen it.” You didn’t even know what you were saying anymore, just anything that came to your mind in an attempt to distract him from Christine, who was still moaning softly in his arms. He still didn’t turn around and after a few moments, he all but dropped Christine back onto the floor and slowly turned around, staring at you with an unreadable expression that slowly morphed into a smile, one that did not reach his eyes as your Leonard’s smiles did.

“Leonard?” he repeated, in a voice that suggested he was torn between being incredulous and pleased. “Len?” You felt your heart drop into your gut as he came closer to you, staring at you like you were an fascinating specimen he’d just discovered. “You care for my weak counterpart in that other universe, don’t you?” He stared at you expectantly, and you realized he was waiting for you to respond.

“N-No,” you answered, unable to keep the waver out of your voice and well aware that you sounded entirely unconvincing. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, I just-“

“Lies,” he said softly, and you tried to keep your face impassive as he crouched in front of you. “I can see it in your eyes. You love him, and it’s killing you to see me with his face,” he intoned, his voice cruelly soft, sounding so much more like your Leonard that you could barely stand it, nearly dissolving into tears. He could see the droplets welling in your eyes and smiled, knowing he was correct and victorious.

“Oh, this is a wonderful surprise,” he said, standing and rubbing his hands together. “Imagine the distress you’ll feel while I cut you, having to stare at your precious Len’s face while you scream…” He trailed off with relish and you stared back at him in horror, realizing far too late what a mistake you’d made, trying to connect with the good side of him. Clearly in this universe, he had no good side. You tried to lean away as he grabbed his knife and approached you, but he merely cut the ropes tying your wrists to the chair.

“Get up,” he ordered, and you stood shakily, your wobbly legs just barely holding you upright. “Go lie down on the bed while I deal with your friend.” You moved forward slowly, not trusting your muscles. Clearly you moved too slowly for him, because he shoved you and you gasped as you lurched forward, nearly stepping on Christine, who was still lying on the floor by the bed. You caught yourself on the edge of the bed and looked down, seeing that Christine’s face was slack and that she appeared to have passed out. Worried, you crouched at her side and reached for her neck, relieved as you felt her pulse thumping against your fingers, glad that it still seemed somewhat strong despite what she’d gone through already.

“I said on the bed,” he snapped at you and you stood again, staring at the bed. Christine’s blood had dripped onto it in several spots and you tried to climb up gingerly, avoiding them. Again, you moved too slow and he intervened, coming over and forcing you to lie down. You felt your stomach lurch again as you felt your thigh and shoulder come to rest on some of Christine’s blood and desperately tried to ignore the feeling as he strapped you down limb by limb, panic coursing through you the more trapped you became. When it came to your waist strap, he first cut your shirt down the middle like he had done Christine’s, leaving you in nothing but your bra and boyshorts on the cold metal table. He fastened the waist strap as you stared at the ceiling, determinedly not looking at him, feeling horribly exposed and scared.

You heard him moving around and then a clang of the metal chair, and you glanced over as he sat Christine into the chair and tied her there as he had done to you before. Her head was still lolled, but he slapped her once he’d gotten her settled and she woke with a start, clearly groggy. She slowly lifted her head and blinked a few times, trying to get things in focus. You could tell when she’d spotted you, strapped to the table in her stead, because her mouth fell open and there was instantly fear in her eyes.

“No, leave her, she’s-“ Christine began immediately, and Leonard rolled his eyes in irritation.

“Enough,” he growled, moving to a nearby drawer and taking out a length of cloth. “You two are nauseating.” Before Christine could say anything else, he forced the material into her mouth and tied it around the back of her head, sighing contentedly once he was done. “Ah, much better.”

Christine glowered at him but could do little else as she sat there, bound and gagged, her cuts still sluggishly oozing blood down her cheek and stomach. Leonard smiled and turned back to you, flicking a switch on the console next to your bed. There was a whirring noise and the black screen next to the bed suddenly lit up with your vitals as the bio bed came to life beneath you.

“Just so I can monitor you,” he said in a delicately mocking voice, picking up his knife again. “It’s what your ‘Len’ would do, isn’t it? Monitor you?” He leaned over you, looking down at your body as though he was trying to decide which area to carve into first. “Make sure you’re okay?”

He leaned in closer and set the knife down just below the small burns left behind by the agonizer below your collarbone, then pressed the still-bloody blade into your skin, drawing it across your flesh. You cried out in pain at the burning sensation of the cut, and heard the monitor beep faster as your heart rate sped up in response. You heard him laugh, a sharp exhale of his breath as he looked at the monitor and then back at you.

“I have to say,” he commented, looking you over once again while you tried to ignore the feeling of your blood oozing from the cut he’d made and slipping over your shoulder. “The other me at least has good taste.” You glared up at him as his eyes lingered on your body, from your legs, slowly up over your stomach and chest. He set the knife down beside your head and let his finger trail down your face, along your jawline. You turned your head but he just shifted his position, cupping your cheek in his large hand. He slowly slipped his thumb up over your chin and ran it along your lower lip, pressing on the split there as he got to it and making you wince. You tried to turn your face away again but he held fast to the side of your cheek, his fingers digging painfully into the soft flesh of the underside of your jaw and neck to keep you from moving.

He trailed his hand down your neck and over your collarbone, stroking the skin there almost lovingly as he trailed lower. Your heart was racing again, and as his hand neared your breasts, the monitor beeped, signalling the increase.

“You’re enjoying this too, then?” he asked, smirking at you. You looked away from him, trying to stop your chin shaking as you fought tears; the last thing you wanted to do was break down; he’d only take advantage of it and torture you more. Still, it was repulsive and violating to have his hands on you and you shook as he slid both of his palms down your chest and over your stomach, touching and feeling every inch of the skin you had exposed.

“It’s rare that I am blessed to have a subject with such unscarred, youthful skin,” he commented, trailing a hand from the waistline of your panties up the centre of your torso, ending at your bra. “The blood will run so smoothly down your body. May I?” he asked in a facetious tone, collecting a pair of shears from the drawer next to him and indicating your bra.

“No, you may not!” you spat at him, though your words did nothing but amuse him.

“Unfortunately for you, the question was merely a formality,” he commented, opening the shears and moving closer. You squirmed as the cold metal blade of the shears settled on your stomach as he moved them upwards, ready to cut. You closed your eyes tight as he closed the shears and you felt the material of your bra give way, releasing your breasts as he cut the garment off of you. You whimpered without meaning to, turning your head away even with your eyes still closed, and he clucked his tongue in mock concern.

“Oh no, are you feeling exposed?” he asked, and you heard a soft thump as he tossed your bra aside. “Never fear, I’m not interested in you in that way,” he explained, “I’m not a monster. ” While you were glad to hear that, you didn’t exactly trust him. He crouched down beside the table so that his face was level with yours and whispered in your ear:

“I removed it so that the blood can run down your chest, unhindered by fabric or obstacle.” He smiled as your eyes opened, staring at him in disgust and fear, the monitor beeping loudly in the background. He stood again, and you felt the bed slowly tilting until it sat at an angle, your feet nearer to the floor than your head. You understood; now when he cut you, the blood would flow downwards over your skin, like some kind of sick abstract painting.

“Let’s get started then, shall we?” The evil Leonard picked up his knife again and began to cut just below the first cut he’d made, under your collarbone. You cried out, and then again as he cut another one below it, three cuts in a row that matched the ones on Christine’s stomach. You could feel the blood slowly slipping down your chest, and tried to breathe through the panic as he moved around to the other side of the bed. You cried out in pain again as he began to cut you on the other side, making three long identical cuts below your collarbone on that side too. You could hear Christine’s muffled yells but Leonard paid them no attention as he worked, methodically slicing your skin in parallel lines. Every time he sliced into your flesh, the monitor beeped in warning as your heart rate shot up, and each time he made a soft, satisfied noise, clearly pleased at your reactions.

By the time he was done with the cuts under your collarbone, your chest was rising and falling very fast, trying to deal with the pain and the panic coursing through you. Tears had slid from your eyes into your hair, unnoticed, and you were breathing extremely fast, feeling like the room was closing in on you as your heart beat wildly. Leonard looked satisfied with his work and watched the blood slipping down your skin for several long moments, clearly enjoying himself. Without your bra on, the blood was indeed leaving long, thin trails of red down your skin, flowing over the slight roundness of the edges of your breasts and slipping down between them.

After a while, once your blood had slowed to a snail’s pace, he began again, this time slowly dragging the blade in a diagonal line along your stomach, just under your breast. He did this three times on either side once more, moving agonizingly slow, and watched in satisfaction as the blood poured down your skin, watching you sob and try to keep it together. Your cries and screams seemed to be music to his ears but you couldn’t help vocalizing your pain as he sliced into your skin. None of his cuts were deep enough to cause damage to the organs or even the muscles below, but they were more than deep enough that you were pouring blood, and the pain was excruciating. You would almost have preferred the agonizer to this; at least that pain was over quickly. When he was cutting on you he took his time, and the slower he cut, the more it hurt.

You let your head flop in the other direction as he took his time to watch the blood again as though he were an artist assessing his painting, and made eye contact with Christine for the first time in a while. She had tears slipping down her cheeks as she stared back at you, and it couldn’t have been clearer how distressed she was at seeing you like this. You were too weak and in too much pain to do anything besides look back at her, at least until he took your face in his hand and forced you to turn it once more. You heard Christine yell again, but it was completely muffled through her gag and Leonard ignored her.

“I think I need to mark up that pretty face of yours,” he told you, with something akin to an excited purr in his voice. You tried to struggle against his hold but his grip was strong and he held you fast, turning your face away from him and exposing your cheek. You let out a strangled cry as he sliced along your cheekbone from near your nose towards your temple, then again beneath it, once again matching the wounds he’d given Christine. You tried to pull away again, but he held your head still, let the blood pour down your cheek, down your jawline and down your neck until it met up with the cuts below your collarbone. His face was very near yours and you shut your eyes tight, trying to avoid looking at his hideous face.

“I think I’ll give you a scar like mine,” he said after a moment of pondering, staring down at you thoughtfully. “It’ll look amazing.”

“No!” you cried, trying to pull away. “Please…” He smiled again and let go of your face for a moment, moving over to his counter and retrieving a different knife, this one with a slightly thicker blade.

“Finally you beg,” he said, inhaling deeply and then exhaling as though he was thoroughly content. “I’m honestly amazed it took you so long.” He leaned over you, holding this new knife, and you tossed your head back and forth, trying to avoid him. He grabbed your chin and squeezed tightly, then snapped at you, instantly losing his calm demeanor. “If you do not stop moving, I will cut out your eye as well,” he growled, and you swallowed hard, terrified of the prospect.

Seeing that you understood, he held your head still with the one hand and moved the knife to the unmarred side of your face. You closed your eyes, wishing for the millionth time that this was all just a terrible nightmare, as the cold blade settled above your eyebrow. You let out a soft scream as he slowly cut from your mid-forehead down into your eyebrow, skipped your eye and then cut back into your skin under it, over your cheekbone and partway down your cheek. The blood poured down your face from the wound, over your closed eye and down your cheek. He held your head sideways for a moment to admire what he’d done, and the way it was tilted directed some of the blood over your lips as it streamed towards your chin.

“Beautiful,” he whispered as you struggled to breathe without inhaling the scent of the blood or the blood itself, your whole body shaking like a leaf. You could taste your blood as a bit of it made its way between your lips and you gagged, trying to pull free for the millionth time. He laughed, and looked over at Christine, who appeared completely horrified by what he had just done. The evil Leonard’s comm suddenly went off and he paused, frowning. He let go of you and dug in his pocket for the device, cursing under his breath.

“What?” he snapped into the device. “I’m busy.”

“I need you on the Bridge, Doctor McCoy. Right now.”

“Captain, I’m busy—”

“Now.”

Leonard looked irritated as he shoved the comm back into his pocket, then looked over at you, watching the blood still streaming down your cheek from the cut over your eye. It seemed even the cruel doctor was not about to disobey a direct order from his captain, and you let out a shaky breath as he smirked at you.

“I’ll be back, don’t you worry,” he said to you, reaching out and stroking your cheek once before stalking out of the room, slamming the door behind him. You let out a large exhale and whimpered as you tried to breathe through the panic, avoiding Christine’s eyes at first. You were still shaking uncontrollably and trying to hold back sobs, tears streaming down your cheeks in his absence. You could hear Christine trying to talk, and eventually turned your head in her direction, making eye contact with her.

“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” you asked her, your voice hoarse and trembling with the tears. “Can they even find us in an alternate universe?!” Speaking made you taste the blood in your mouth more and you turned your head away from Christine for a minute and spat, trying to get the taste out of your mouth.

When you looked back, Christine was nodding, trying to reassure you. She spoke as slowly and enunciated as clearly as she could through her gag, and though you weren’t sure, you thought she was trying to say ‘they’ll come for us’. You didn’t know if you could believe her and shook your head a bit, chin wavering as you continued to cry.

“Are you okay?” you asked her after a moment, looking over at her as best as you could. You were pretty sure her cuts had stopped bleeding, but you were worried about her after having the agonizer pressed to her skin for so long; you could see the ugly pink burn it had left behind on her skin. Christine nodded in answer, then jerked her head at you and made a sound that you took to mean ‘you?’. You couldn’t help but shake your head; the pain was incredible and the longer you lay there, the more the wounds ached. You felt very dizzy even while lying here, like the room was spinning around you, and your stomach was greatly unsettled, waves of nausea rolling over you periodically. Christine’s wide eyes showed her concern and worry for you, but there was nothing either of you could do.

After a few moments you let your head rest back down on the bed, staring up at the dark ceiling as your heart slowly returned to a slightly less-frantic place. A few minutes later, you began to feel cold; it was very cool in the room, and in the absence of the adrenaline flooding you while the evil Leonard worked on you, you were really feeling the chill. Christine at least still had her bra and the cut-open Starfleet shirt on, as well as her normal uniform pants; you were strapped to the table in nothing but your underwear, and goosebumps began to form on your skin as you lay there, shivering. The regular beeping of the monitor lulled you into something of a trance, your exhaustion catching up with you, and eventually you fell into a state somewhere between unconsciousness and wakefulness, both aware and unaware of what was going on around you.

You didn’t know how long it had been since he had left; the time stretched on and felt like hours. You had no reference for the passage of time in the room, and when a noise somewhere nearby startled you out of your twilight sleep, you had no idea if it had been minutes or hours that had passed. For the first time, you looked around the room properly and realized it was a carbon copy of one of the operating rooms in the Enterprise. All of the furniture was exactly the same, albeit darker, and everything was arranged in the same way. Far from bringing you comfort, you heard the beeping of your monitor increase as the familiarity creeped you out more, making you wonder if something like this could even have happened on your own ship, in your own operating room.

Just when you were starting to wonder if you had been completely forgotten about, there was a thump just outside the room and both you and Christine jumped, your heart rate speeding up exponentially as you anticipated him stalking back into the room, but you couldn’t help but feel a flicker of hope, wondering if it could be possible that rescue was on its way. A second later the door swung open, and you craned your neck to see, praying you were about to see a rescue team.

“Did you miss me?” asked this universe’s Leonard as he sauntered back into the room, smirking at the look on your face. You let your head drop back to the table, defeated, and you heard him laugh at your reaction.

“What, did you really think you were going to be rescued?” he asked mockingly, as he strode over to the counter and picked up one of his knives again, the one streaked with your and Christine’s blood. He moved to your side and leaned down next to your face, which you turned away from him, dread gnawing at the pit of your stomach. “No one is ever going to rescue you,” he whispered, and you fought to control your panic as his lips brushed your ear. “You’re mine, now.”

He smiled cruelly as he stood up, and you kept your face turned away, trying desperately to control your panic at his words. Your chest was heaving as you tried to breathe, and your fists were clenched so tightly your knuckles were turning white.

He didn’t speak again, and you didn’t know what he was doing until he took hold of your fist and pried your grip apart, holding onto your fingers. Without warning, he cut across the back of your hand, prompting a scream of pain from you as he drew the knife slowly across your flesh. You could feel blood already pouring from the wound and down your fingers, and you cried out from the stinging pain of the cut.

“Wonderful,” he murmured, and you glanced over just long enough to see him raptly watching the blood pouring out, an almost manic look on his face.

“Stop,” you moaned, as he let go of your hand and you felt him move up your arm. “No more, please…” The wetness coating your fingers had kicked your nausea into overdrive and you moaned again, turning your head away.

Seconds later you felt the blade again, this time on your upper forearm, and another scream escape you as he began his slow stroke across your flesh. However, before he’d had a chance to finish this cut, the door crashed open, scaring the shit out of Christine and snapping you out of the pain of the wound he was inflicting just enough to lift your head, staring towards the door.

“Drop your weapon!” a familiar voice yelled and you blinked, hardly daring to believe your eyes as the real Captain Kirk stormed into the room with his phaser pointed at Leonard’s doppelgänger. Kirk was quickly following by several security officers, Mr. Chekov, and – your heart thudded anxiously in your chest at the sight of him – the real Leonard McCoy.

Evil Leonard whirled around from where he was cutting your arm to face the mob, and you heard a murmur of horror go through the officers at the sight of you, exposed and covered in blood. The evil Leonard’s eyes found the actual Leonard and smirked at him, glancing over at you and back at him. You could see fury in your Leonard’s eyes, and he stepped forward until he was shoulder to shoulder with Jim, holding out his own phaser.

“You’re going to pay for what you did to her, you son of a bitch,” Leonard snarled, and his angry voice was so like the evil Leonard’s regular voice that you winced and turned away, wishing this would all just stop. The evil Leonard looked over at you, laughing cruelly at the pain on your face, then looked back at the real Leonard with an almost gleeful expression.

“You may have gotten her back,” the evil Leonard said, eyes on his counterpart. “But good luck getting her to trust you ever again, when you look just like me…”

With those crushing words, the evil Leonard let out a yell and brought down the knife that he still held, driving it into your chest, just below your ribcage. As he was plunging it downwards, several phasers beams shot out and hit him, but not before he’d successfully driven it into you. A scream of agony tore your throat as the evil Leonard stumbled, pulling the knife out again. A split second later, he vanished in a poof of smoke and steam, vaporized just like the security guard had been earlier.

You could barely understand anything that happened after that, however, as the excruciating pain from the stab wound took over your mind. Blood was pouring down your stomach from the wound and there was a general cacophony of panic as several people rushed to your side. You cried out in agony as someone pushed against the stab wound; somewhere in the back of your mind you knew they were trying to stop the blood, but all you could feel was more pain and you kept moaning and crying out, begging them to stop, your words slurred.

Leonard was the one pressing on your wound and he could hardly bear to look at you as you lay there, moaning. He was beyond enraged at what had been done to you, and beyond heartbroken at how clearly traumatized you were, tossing your head back and forth weakly, begging almost incoherently for him to stop pressing on the wound.

“I know, sugar,” he said to you, as you moaned at him to stop. “I know it hurts, I’m so sorry.” His voice cracked with emotion but he kept pressing on your wound, even as the officers hurried to unstrap your body. “Someone cover her up,” he choked out, and Chekov hurried over, holding your survival suit jacket that he’d found on the table.

“Here, sir,” he said, handing it over to Leonard, who gestured for Chekov to take over holding pressure for a moment. When he did, Leonard gently draped the jacket over your chest, trying to give you back your modesty and get some warmth back into your skin.

“Thank you, Chekov, I’ve got it,” Leonard said, returning to your stab wound. You gasped in pain again as he pressed down and tried to use your newly-freed arms to push him away, but your strength was negligent. Leonard’s heart broke even more as you cried, weakly batting at his hands, though he didn’t budge; holding pressure on this wound was critical and no amount of heartbreak was going to make him let go.

“Bring it here,” Kirk’s voice suddenly called and he and several security officers appeared, maneuvering a hover-stretcher into the room.

“We’re going to move you now,” Leonard told you, though you barely heard or understood him. He took a deep breath and then scooped you into his arms, wincing as you let out a loud cry of agony, your head falling back over his arms. He quickly stepped over to the stretcher and lay you on it, then resumed the pressure on your wound as you lay there, moaning.

“We need to go fast, she’s probably going to need surgery,” Leonard told Jim urgently. “We’ve got to get back now!”

“On it,” Jim said, hurrying to the end of the stretcher and gesturing to the security officers and Mr. Chekov. “Let’s go!”

They spread out ahead of you, taking down everyone in their path as Leonard, one security officer and Christine hurried along beside the stretcher, following them.

“Are you okay?” Leonard asked Christine, looking over at her as they hurried along. Christine was lagging a bit but trying her best to keep up; she was pale and clearly exhausted, limping along as fast as she could. Leonard could see cuts and blood on her face as well, any other damage hidden under the survival coat she’d pulled back on.

“I’ll live,” she said, her voice strained as you let out a cry of pain. “I just want to get her back right now,” she glanced down at you as she spoke, and Leonard could see the intensity of her concern in her eyes. He could only imagine how horrible it would’ve been to not only get tortured yourself, but then watch it happening to your best friend and be able to do nothing about it.

“You’ll both be okay,” he told her, his jaw set, though his voice wavered a bit as he looked down at you.

“I’ll make sure of it.”

* * * * * * * * * * *

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chevd-blog · 7 years

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My Top 100 Favorite Albums of All Time (Part 6: 10 - 6)

10. Anno Domini High Definition – Riverside (2009)

In 2010, as I was preparing to leave Emily Carr University with a degree in fine art, I was faced with questions about the direction I wanted my painting practice to take. What did I want my artwork to say? I began by reevaluating my niche as an artist, trying to take stock of whatever attributes I had which set me apart from my peers. The largest, as far as I was concerned, was my training in computer animation. All of my colleagues were traditional painters, and that was a skillset which I could see that I possessed and others didn't. With that in mind, I decided to focus my work thematically on technology; I wanted to be able to incorporate my training with 3D computer modeling software and Photoshop into my painting, and I also felt very strongly that technology would be one of the most vital themes that could be explored by a 21st Century artist.

Around the same time, I discovered Lunatic Soul and Riverside. At first, I was just happy to have something new to listen to in the studio while I painted. But when I obtained their most recent album at the time, Anno Domini High Definition… it truly spoke to me. It was perfectly in line with the theme of my own artwork�� an album which explores the effects our advancing tech is having on us. Is it really connecting us, or is it driving us apart? Is it really enlightening us, or is it turning us all into zombies with goldfish attention spans? It's all there in the title of the album, a phrase which alludes to the fact that we live in the age of wi-fi and high resolution, but also serves as a clever backronym for ADHD. This was the thesis statement for my artistic practice, in musical form.

The album begins with "Hyperactive", which emerges from a simple piano melody, and picks up steam until transitioning into a heavy metal day-in-the-life chronicle of a person whose entire perception of reality has been altered by his electronic existence. It is also the shortest song on the album, with each of the four subsequent songs being progressively longer. Clocking in at nearly 9 minutes, third track "Egoist Hedonist" meanders through three movements, including a jazzy brass section interlude, while dealing topically with the crushing pressure of conformity to society's expectations. The beautiful slower-paced "Left Out" picks up where the preceding song leaves off, detailing the emotional consequences of being overlooked in such an oppressively homogenous society. But the album's full power is conserved until the final track, "Hybrid Times", an almost 12-minute epic that embodies the perils of 21st Century life in its most virulent form: technology addiction. It starts with a frantic piano, and gives rise to squealing organs and guitars and Mariusz Duda's screams about obsession, before sinking into a seductive sea of digital ambience. In summary, from an aesthetic perspective, this is one of the albums which I feel best encapsulates my relationship with the ever-advancing world around me.

Prime cuts: "Hybrid Times", "Egoist Hedonist", "Hyperactive"

9. In Absentia – Porcupine Tree (2002)

With as much of Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson's solo work as ended up on my list, I'm sure it's not going to come as a colossal surprise to anyone that In Absentia ranks this high. This is, after all, the most critically and commercially successful album in the band's two-decade discography, and the one that many fans will point to as their best. When you mention Porcupine Tree to someone, chances are, this is the album they're going to think about first. It's a fantastic album for initiating someone who hasn't heard of them. I should know. It was the first one I heard, too.

I came across Porcupine Tree around 2006, while I was still at Ringling College in Florida. I had recently heard of this cool new website called Pandora Radio, which could recommend music based on a listener's selections. I decided to test it out by asking it to find me music in the same modern progressive rock vein as the Mars Volta. One of the songs that popped up was "Radioactive Toy", an early Porcupine Tree song that was featured on their 1992 debut album On the Sunday of Life. It wasn't as similar to the Mars Volta as I had expected, but it was interesting enough to me that I remembered it and moved on. Later, when I got around to doing more research into Porcupine Tree, and which album was best to properly introduce me to their sound, In Absentia was the one upon which everyone seemed to agree. So I tracked down "Blackest Eyes" and "Trains" on YouTube, and gave them a listen. Just from listening to those two songs, I was an instant convert. And it was a rather momentous timing as well, as I was reaching the end of my time in Florida, and preparing to start a new chapter of my life in Canada. Looking back on it, I now realize I've unconsciously drawn a pretty big line in my head: my last two years in Florida were my Mars Volta years, and my six in B.C. were my Porcupine Tree years. It's a funny thing, how the mind works sometimes.

Musically, In Absentia is an infectious blend of the band's progressive roots with a distinctly post-90s alternative rock influence, as well as some heavy metal edge and a little extra ambience tossed in for good measure. Though not a concept album in the purest sense, many of the album's tracks, including "Blackest Eyes" and "Strip the Soul", are thematically linked to serial killers, and an exploration of the impetuses behind their twisted mental states. Like the other two albums directly before it, In Absentia also has one of Steven Wilson's trademark critiques of the music industry, this time in the form of "The Sound of Muzak", which laments the apathy with which the degradation of popular music is regarded. Wilson's vocals may perhaps not be the flashiest, but there's something in the conservative, simplistic nature of his singing that has always struck me as charming— particularly in songs like "Trains", where he layers the vocals to produce a wholesome choral effect. And while we're on the subject of "Trains"… yes, I know it's so cliché of me to say, given how it's the single most popular song in the band's repertoire, but it's damn near flawless. Listen to "Trains" and tell me you don't feel something special, I dare you. And the same challenge can also be extended to the devastating "Heart Attack in a Layby", or the melancholic "Prodigal", or the album's beautifully graceful piano finale, "Collapse the Light into Earth". There's just so much stellar musicianship here, that I have a difficult time fitting it all into a terse few paragraphs.

Prime cuts: "Trains", "The Sound of Muzak", "Strip the Soul"

8. Ænima – Tool (1996)

One of the most indispensable albums of my high school years, I received my copy of Ænima sometime around 2001 or 2002. Upon my first listen, it became an instant favorite, and cemented Tool as one of the most profoundly important bands I had ever heard. I can't overstate this. When I was 17, Tool was the axis around which all my other musical tastes rotated. They were the foundation of my love of progressive rock and metal. In an era when boy bands were only just beginning to peter out, Tool— and Ænima specifically— helped me keep my sanity, and showed me that musical appeal and intelligence were not mutually exclusive. That was incredibly important to me at that age, because I sure didn't see many other signs around me that my intellect was something of which I could be proud.

Ænima is, in many ways, a transitional album— after the band's first full-length release, Undertow, they parted ways with their original bassist Paul D'Amour and replaced him with Justin Chancellor, which shifted their sound away from the blunt, primal heaviness of their early work, toward something much more nuanced and thought-provoking. Ænima was the sound of Tool evolving. The name itself is meant to be symbolic of change— a mixture of "anima" and "enema", representing the purging of the psyche. And of course, I would be remiss if I failed to mention one of the other major catalysts for this metamorphosis: the band's experiences with the now-legendary comedian Bill Hicks, who passed away in 1994 from pancreatic cancer, and to whom Ænima was meant as something of a posthumous tribute. Hicks was first and foremost an evangelist for free and critical thought, and while opening shows for Tool, his influence rubbed off on the band. It was Hicks' routine entitled 'Goodbye You Lizard Scum', a tongue-in-cheek rant about the destruction of Los Angeles as retribution for its vapid banality, that inspired the album's apocalyptic title track (albeit, spelled "Ænema" instead).

While it may not quite be their most advanced work, Ænima is sonically one of their most interesting albums, and was the one that was responsible for laying much of the groundwork and setting many of the precedents for the path the band was to follow in their post-Undertow years. It is the album that introduced the band's use of experimental segue tracks to pad between the actual music and showcase their quirky sense of humor—here, there are several, including "Message to Harry Manback", a violent answering machine message from an irate Italian which the band reframed as a love poem; "Useful Idiot", which is comprised of the sound of a record skipping, and which was included in order to mess with listeners of the vinyl edition; "Intermission", which is a Monty Python-esque organ intro for the song "jimmy"; and "Die Eier Von Satan", an industrial-sounding German screed intended to fool the unsavvy listener into mistaking a cookie recipe for a Nazi rally. Thematically, the songs themselves are largely tied to the subject of personal evolution: "Stinkfist" vocalizes a disenchantment with desensitization, "Forty-Six & 2" explores the idea of growth through terms of Jungian psychology, and the album's 13-minute finale "Third Eye" begins with samples of Hicks's stand-up act and takes the listener on a journey of deep, psychedelic-fueled introspection. From start to finish, Ænima is about shedding one's old skin and attaining a new consciousness— it's what the band themselves did in the course of making the album, and musically, it's what I did in discovering it.

Prime cuts: "Pushit", "Stinkfist", "Third Eye"

7. Kid A – Radiohead (2000)

Let me set the scene for you: It's Spring Break 2007. The beginning of April in Florida, and I'm 21 years old. I'm staying in a hotel room in Orlando over the weekend, after driving up from my parents' house in Bradenton. My mission is to gain entrance to the Canada Pavilion at EPCOT, so I can do some artistic research on totem poles for my senior thesis presentation at Ringling. It's been a few months since my first trip to actually visit Vancouver, when things didn't go as well as I had hoped. On Saturday night, I am heartbroken, despondent, and completely at a loss for what to do next in my life. Sitting alone in the dark of my hotel room, I listen to "How to Disappear Completely", and totally collapse into despair. Kid A was an album that I discovered from my time spent in Canada, from friends who were fans of Radiohead. In that moment, though, the music perfectly mirrored my isolation and melancholia—I actually felt like disappearing completely.

I know it's a strange incident to cite as a reason for liking this album, but it isn't just this one incident that has indelibly stamped Kid A into my consciousness. I have so many memories tied to that album: camping near Harrison Hot Springs, in the forests of British Columbia; late-night singalongs in the car with friends while driving somewhere; the ending of my time in Florida. Despite the fact that Kid A alienated a lot of Radiohead fans who were expecting something more along the lines of OK Computer, Part 2, it's actually my favorite Radiohead album specifically because it's such a hard-left turn away from everything the band had ever done up to that point (well, that, and the memories). There's an eerie feeling permeating the entire recording— steeped in paradox, simultaneously calm and frenetic. I once told my friend Laurie about the Orlando incident, and that I interpreted "How to Disappear Completely" as six minutes of sheer melancholy. She replied that the impression the song gave her was much more positive and uplifting. And here's the thing: after that conversation, both of us could understand the reasoning behind the other's perspective. The song is both of those things at the same time.

The biggest change, of course, was Radiohead's risky decision to ditch their trademark 90's alt-rock sound for an avant-garde art rock blend with a sound palette of strange digital textures and electronic drum beats— "Everything in Its Right Place" and "Idioteque" being textbook cases. In other instances, like "The National Anthem", the band experiments with jazz instrumentation that, only three years earlier, would have been unthinkable on a Radiohead album. The only song on the album that even remotely resembles the old Radiohead's rock roots is "Optimistic", although even that song is much more ambient than their usual early fare. And through it all, Thom Yorke's distinct voice, despite being frequently unintelligible, lends the music another dimension of emotion with a collage of strangely oblique lyrics. It's an album that has served very well as an expression of my own adventures into the unknown.

Prime cuts: "Idioteque", "Everything in Its Right Place", "How to Disappear Completely"

6. The Fragile – Nine Inch Nails (1999)

As a teenager, I was slow to develop an affinity for Nine Inch Nails (as well as associated act Marilyn Manson). It wasn't for lack of interest; I'd seen NIN and Marilyn Manson music videos, and I knew for sure that I was interested. It was mostly because I lived in the Bible Belt, and because I was also wary of what my parents' reaction might be if they knew I owned anything by them. Don't get me wrong—they weren't really religious themselves, and they were usually pretty laissez-faire about my musical tastes… but I can recall an occasion where my father once told me in no uncertain terms that he saw no artistic merit whatsoever in Marilyn Manson; it was one of the very few times growing up when I really felt like my parents and I clashed on the sort of music to which I could listen. But The Fragile changed that. In 2003, in the summer between my junior and senior years in high school, I spent a month at a pre-college program at Ringling, which was intended to give prospective students an idea what on-campus life would be like. During one of my periods of free time, I was browsing a nearby store which sold used vinyl records and CDs, and came across a copy of The Fragile. It was my chance! No parents to worry about for weeks, no conservative Georgia atmosphere to tell me no— I was totally in the clear to buy it and add it to my collection, and no one could do a goddamn thing about it. Over the next few weeks of the program, as I became familiar with the album, I finally had a chance to properly fall in love with NIN.

So what do you do after you create a groundbreaking album like The Downward Spiral? How the fuck do you top it? That question has already been partially answered by my review of Kid A (another album that was created under similar circumstances). But in Trent Reznor's case, I suppose another part of the answer was quantity, because The Fragile is a double album, separated into a "Left" disc and a "Right" disc. That doesn't necessarily mean he sacrificed quality, though. I sort of feel conflicted saying this, because I know that Reznor was personally going through a particularly difficult and painful time in his life during the recording of this album… but it's my favorite NIN recording, specifically because it's so much more nuanced than anything else he'd done up to that point. I can't say it's heavier, because Broken takes that distinction; I can't say it's truly darker, because of The Downward Spiral. But The Fragile is very hard and very dark, in a less readily apparent way. It doesn't bludgeon you like its predecessor does. There are still furious outliers like "Somewhat Damaged" and "No, You Don't", but the rage of The Downward Spiral has been transmuted into resignation, self-loathing, and even some quieter moments of introspection here.

One of the biggest differences between The Fragile and its forerunners is the increased presence of piano—not a synth, not a keyboard, not digital textures, but a real, honest-to-goodness traditional piano. It was something that really hadn't been seen very much from Reznor at the time. Aside from the raging intro (the aforementioned "Somewhat Damaged"), the Left disc is full of songs where the piano has a conspicuous presence: "The Frail", "The Wretched", "We're in This Together", "Just Like You Imagined" (also known as the instrumental from the trailers for 300), and the oddly gentle "La Mer". The end of the Left disc is capped by the eerily beautiful "The Great Below", which has, over the years, earned the dubious distinction of being one of my top picks for listening during my depressive bouts; it is about as close as I've ever truly been to staring into the abyss. On any other recording, I would consider it the climax of the whole work, but in this case, considering its subject matter, I wonder if it's not more fitting for me to call it the nadir instead. The Right disc, on the other hand, sees Reznor more in his usual element, with the hard-edged guitars, precision drums, and rasping, glitching electronics of songs like "Where Is Everybody?" and "Please". When it comes down to it, The Fragile's real strength lies in being the best demonstration of NIN's full musical range— and through it all, Reznor's mix of self-deprecation, cynicism and flirtations with nihilism hold the diverse assemblage of songs together as a binding element.

Prime cuts: "We're in This Together", "The Great Below", "Into the Void"

And at last, all that is left is the top 5! Check back here tomorrow for the final part of the list!

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