Work Text:
This report documents a series of abnormal sightings while under the effect of Nitrogen Narcosis in a Submariner setti… ”
No, that’s not it,” Dr. Westphalen mutters to herself in frustration, jabbing at the sticky delete key of her workstation computer. “Abnormal sightings, that’s a lovely vague way to say ‘fucking ghosts’, isn’t it Kristen?”
She sighs, rubbing her temples, closing the doomed attempt at rationalizing her experience, and bringing up her private email instead.
Dear Cynthia, she types, biting her lip in concentration. I’m sure the last person you want to hear from right now is your worrywart mother, but I promise I won’t browbeat you any more about the lack of communication. (Though do tell me more about this new job when you can, darling, I know you, and your kind heart- try not to get into any more of your “good deeds” that end with me on the phone to some hospital.) It’s simply that I’ve had the oddest experience recently, and I just need to get it off my chest. It starts….well it started with Captain Bridger calling me in the middle of the night, technically. (Don’t make that face, darling, I don’t mean it like that. )
She’d gotten the call around 0500, right as she was getting up for her shift, Nathan sounding clearly in pain, and rushed right over. He’d had a nasty bruise all down his side, and a dazed look on his face, which he blamed on waking up after a good hit to the wall. That initially worried her, especially when he started blaming ghosts , but once she’d ruled out a concussion, she’d been amused. The idea of an “apparition” throwing her captain against the wall was laughable. Surely Nathan had simply fallen, perhaps after a particularly vivid dream.
She’d been so sure, she thinks wryly to herself. After all, she was a scientist, and a damn good one, and while science requires an open mind, it also is rooted in the logical, the world of facts and touchable, repeatable data.
And there was no data she’d experienced that said there was any such thing as ghosts, no matter what frontiers of the mind and the unexplainable they’d reached in the last few decades. She may have once also scoffed at parapsychology and the idea of true “mind readers”, but there was a difference between that and the dead not being quite dead. She looks over again at the diary, sitting innocuously over on Joshua’s desk, and shudders.
They’d been cataloging the artifacts together before Nathan had dropped in and quietly taken the logbook, and Joshua liked to chat while he worked.
“The theory is, or one of them anyway, that ghosts and supernatural events like the one we all experienced are the results of a psychic imprint, the emotional residue of a traumatic event or human pain. One researcher,” and here he had patted a book, the cover art something that looks more like it belongs on the shelf of a witch than a respected scientist, “even believes that ghosts are merely the leftover psychic power of untrained and untapped psychics, back when we all thought it was fake, simply projected violently outward at the moment of death onto a place or object- perhaps that was why your experience was so….overwhelming, Dr. Westphalen.”
I suppose that idea would make sense, and it would certainly explain why Nathan was the first to “sense” anything- I’ve seen his medical records, after all, and the man has more of that potential than most- I’m surprised nobody from that half-cocked psychic's group has ever tried to snap him up. And we had seen things, before ever getting on that damned boat. But still…
“We were all hallucinating due to mass nitrogen narcosis, Dr. Levin, perhaps that’s what made my so-called experience so overwhelming,” she’d shot back cattily, still frightened and vaguely hungover from her “experience.” “The damn badges were faulty.”
She threw one of the plastic things meant to keep them all safe at the desk, still angry. Almost every badge had reported some sort of sensor error when they got back on board, and it infuriated her as much as it scared her.
The truth is, Cyn, I’m not sure what happened, and I think that frightens me more than the idea I was wrong about ghosts- the idea of not ever knowing. Nathan told Lucas that science was about what we do not know, but instinctively believe, and….I don’t know what I believe.
She’d seen something in that room, before her memories turn hazy, saw something her memories tell her was a young woman, that she could see through her, and then…her mind buzzes, pure emotional sensation.
We saw something before we were ever on that ship, but did we? Was I just already getting caught up in Nathan’s story, were we all?
And yet I can’t…I can’t quite bring myself to blame everything on the failure of the badges, can I?
Nitrogen narcosis doesn’t make you feel the way I did on that boat. I wasn’t euphoric, and while I can’t rule out hallucinations….I’ve never heard someone describe them like that. Like you’ve taken a backseat in your own body and started to recite along to someone else’s words like you’ve become a human karaoke machine.
Especially not literally.
And it had been literal- she couldn’t quite remember, her memories were hazy, holey, a sense of overwhelming numbness over everything, like she’d been drugged- but according to both Lucas and the Chief she’d recited the diary along with them, word for word in pace as fast as they could read it. She had been alone with the diary, but she didn’t think for long enough to possibly have read most of it, much less memorized it. She’d known exactly where to find the ancient dress, and how to put it on, she lead them to the remains in her stupor, and she remembers a feeling….When Nathan had talked to her, or rather to Lillian, his palm touching hers like a dance partner, she remembers a feeling of pushing forward, pushing against the numbing calm and then darkness, fainting, and quickly coming to. Her memories are her own, at that point, but…not quite right.
Like she’d been caught up somehow in someone else’s drama, watching a happy ending, a lights show.
The first time she remembers feeling fully herself from the moment she got locked in the room is when she “woke up” leaning against Nathan, and saw his badge had gone a florid, sickening red.
So where does this all leave me, Cyn? I’ve never been a superstitious sort, I’m sure you remember. I’ve always laughed a bit at medical doctors who swear the night of a full moon is the busiest or other such folklore. I laughed going into that damned ship, at Chief Crocker’s insistence on spitting for luck, at bringing salt.
I never imagined I’d be the one saying I met a ghost. And yet….
Maybe Bridger is right, darling. Maybe science is more about belief than I’ve let myself feel in a while. Science is wonder, and asking questions, that’s what I taught you, that science is learning how the world works. Then again, I’m sure you’re not surprised, even if I am, that your dear old mom still has some of her own lessons to learn, huh? I love you, darling. Hope you’re alright.
Mom
Kristen hovers over her keyboard for a minute, before hitting “save draft” and leaning back in her chair with a sigh, rubbing her eyes.
“Long day,” she laughs to herself. “Next you’ll be babbling about ghosts on one of Lucas's chat forums."
She stands up, intending to go to bed and sleep off the rest of her unease, but hesitates at the door, casting one last look at the diary that caused this all, an eerie feeling growing.
And just out of earshot, she swears, just for a second, that she can hear the ballroom music once more.