The doctor lay semi conscious on the bunk, her condition was deteriorating. The fever had taken a hold with vengeance. As she lay there tossing and turning Jim sat by her side. Protecting her, reassuring her that things would improve. Urging her to have faith in him and herself. Telling her that it was just a part of a purification process, telling her that he understood. That he too was unable to understand at first. At that moment Jim had felt closer to her than he had to any one else in his entire life. He felt the touching of their souls. He knew her pain, her fear, her own secret truths through the sacred connection. The feelings and knowledge swirled in Jim’s mind. He then knew that what had happened had formed a unbreakable spiritual bond between them, a bond that would last an eternity. As she lay there she too could sense the seed of the new sprouting deep within her inner most being. She was vaguely aware that Jim sat beside her, holding her hand. Willing her to recover, just as she had done a few weeks earlier for him. The fever was increasing, a consuming heat rising from with in her. She felt the conscious world drifting away, slipping deeper and deeper into a world of mystery. A world which see had only seen in her dreams. The last thing she saw through misty eyes was Jim’s face, a blurred impression of a man, a man who was fighting for her and with her. She thought she could make out a single tear welling up in his eyes before the darkness of dreams enveloped her. The doctor lay motionless, an expression of blankness passed over her face. Then she was no longer on the bed. She was at the other side of the medic bay, she was looking over at Jim as he leaned over her body touching her face. She was looking at herself, looking at the shell of her body, her own physicality. A wave of confusion and shock hit her. She was separate from her body, looking at it, but not a part of it. The sensation, the strange detachment she felt over awed her consciousness causing her to be yanked back into her body with a jolt. Before she knew what was happening she was back lying on her bunk, looking at Jim. This time it was different, his whole body seemed to be engulfed in a deep blue fire. She lay there as if frozen, her eyes tightly shut. She knew he was there and wanted to cry out, but nothing happened, not a single flinch, she felt like a stone statue, a physical shell unable to move, lifeless. The light in the room slowly started to fade, as she lay there. It felt as if each second stretched into hours, hours stretching into a eternity. The numbness gripping her as she felt herself slipping away again. Then there was only blackness. Fear that she was dying started to rise with in the tattered shreds of her mind. A fear unlike anything she’d ever felt before, a feeling of helplessness. The loss of herself which would be impossible to describe, a feeling of the inevitable. The impenetrable blackness shrouding her. Then somewhere in this impossible void a doorway started to form. Driven by some unknown compulsion she reached out with her mind. Only half aware of what was happening, the door opened. Beyond which appeared another, then another. Now she was rushing forward, through door after door after door. Then as suddenly as they appeared the doorway’s stopped and she was falling, no she was floating, no vision, only fleeting feelings and sounds encroaching upon the edges of her consciousness. Strange sound’s, sound’s like could that can only be heard through a stethoscope, sound’s similar to that of a heart beat. Her heart beat, a strange sense of being inside herself. Within herself, within her own blood stream. She was now traveling down a narrow passage. A fast flowing river filled with soft cushion like objects. All bumping into each other, racing along to some unseen destination. Constantly rebounding , each one racing along . Each one with no control, each one being drawn through the tube. Propelled along by a huge unseen engine. The sound’s around her becoming louder, the pace of the flow increasing. The cushion stream suddenly compacted itself for a split second. All the objects jostling with each other as tube end. Then with a tremendous force a opening appeared, with in a split second she was forced through the gap before it shut again. Then she was floating freely in a vast chamber. A feeling of intoxication over whelming her senses, before once again the flow became compact. The walls of the chamber contracting. The flow the once more found a opening in one of the walls of the chamber. Before she knew it she was inside another chamber. Floating again. What ever happened in the other chamber still intoxicating her. An infusion of gas within her, sending her mind into a high never experienced by any other. The second chamber started to contract, the cushion flow compacting around her. Once again a opening appeared. Then she was flowing in the river of cushions through a long narrow tunnel. Just as she was beginning to enjoy the roller coaster ride within her own biological system, she was suddenly pulled away again into the nothingness. The black void enshrouding her once more. All the sights and sounds gone. Even now though she began to sense something else, an all consuming energy swirling around everything. Then once again she felt herself being drawn towards something, something small. Something so minute millions and billions of them combined together are still invisible to the human eye. She was swirling amongst them. Floating freely between and across them. Then she realized, these particles were atoms, but she herself wasn’t. The thought struck her. She was energy, she was a part of the ultimate energy that binds all things. She was a thought. The very concept of what she had just witnessed ripped at the very fabric of every thing she’d previously believed. The force of which hurled her into the black void of nothingness once more. This time the blackness comforted her. A peacefulness that grew from inside. A feeling as if some how the key to the doorway to her heart had just been turned, releasing all of her fears, freeing her from the haunting of the past. Jim was no longer sat by her side, but was asleep on one of the other bunks in the medic bay. He’d stayed with her for the past two weeks. Watching her crying out in her troubled sleep. Just as she had watched him. John visited them both each day. He some how sensed Jim’s feelings towards the woman lay before them. He also knew that some how recent events had brought not only him and Jim closer together, but every one in the complex had subtly changed to. He knew that Jim was willing her to survive. He knew that somehow the two of them had become instrinctly linked.