Location : U.S.S. Enterprise

Cold.

It echoed throughout the boy's body as he sat huddled on top of the cool metal of the cramped shaft. The cold was constant companion that radiated throughout his body as he sat there in the darkness.

Just sitting.

Desperately attempting to generate some sense of warmth in his body, but all attempts seeming to end in vain. The cold remained constant within just like the aches in his bones. Just another reminder for the boy of the awful sickness that occupied him.

Things were getting worse.

The boy knew that.

The sickness was progressing. He could feel it with each passing moment as pain filled within. Fatigue and agony had become a constant in his existence. He knew that he was nearing a fate his family had experienced seven years ago.

As he sat there on the metal floor. Thinking about what was going to happen to him soon. When his body could not support life anymore because the disease had won.

He realized something. That hadn't occurred to him before. He felt something he could recall
feeling before but always surprising because it was illogical feeling, but now he embraced it.

Fear.

Even though this fear was illogical for him. Even though he knew that death was apart of life. That it was something that would happen someday.

He did not  want that someday to be today.

He did not want to die.

As illogical as it was. He was terrified of death.

And that was the only one thought seeming to penetrate through the exhaustion in his mind. He just wanted to stay alive.

He did not  know why he was so scared. Maybe it was of the unknown that was staring him straight in the face. Maybe it was that he was to young to have already run out of time. Or maybe it was just out of the basic primal fear to survive.He did not know.

All he wanted was to live and he was petrified of the alternative.

And then he heard it.

Beep.

It echoed clearly off the metal walls of the shaft.

Beep.

It was a alert from the relic clenched in his clammy hand. In his exhaustion the boy struggled to remember for what it meant.

Another sound echoed from the device. It wasn't a beep this time, but something else.

Words from an ancient tongue. Echoed from the relic in his hand. They were the words of his ancestors , phrases he had been taught. And he knew that they were warning him.

Someone had entered the shaft. That was what is was warning him about.

Now he remembered.

He had set up a sensor to warn him if anyone had entered the shaft. And now he knew that someone had. That desire to live grew larger within and despite considering the logic behind it the boy acted on the first impulse to enter his head.

Get away.

And so he laid down on the cold metal floor. And gathering every once of strength and willpower from within he forced himself to crawl down the metal shaft, and as he did a moan of pain escaped through his lips.