Bites-The-Badge's Blog

Unit has recently noticed disputes among it's many borgs over your crew status, unit is guessing id theft.

Check in with your local HOP please.

Huh, I don't recall making a lot of these posts... Dr. Buzzwell said that I'd have trouble remembering a lot of things. I'm glad to say that I am fully recovered from some substantial head trauma. I've been taking it slow the last few days, but Doc has given me a clean bill of health. It seems I posted some strange things in my dazed and delerious condition. Also, the V-21 subject goes by V now, and is the captain. Made some odd comments about us "being ghosts." and seems to know more about me than I'd ever told him. Things about my home.

But it hasn't been all bad. The bad has been cancelled out by some good. I took a shift as janitor and there was something to be said about the time you get to reflect. The world goes on around you -- and its not your responsibility to stand against the tide. You just ride it.

I took a few shifts as paramedic as well. It gives me the same feeling of satisfaction that comes with saving innocent lives. Its not my job to throw myself between them and danger -- but I can drag them out of danger and get them back on their feet, or at least to someone that can.

I have also had time to communicate with others, one on one. I never had time for that before. Its been interesting. I'm not a social creature -- but they seem to accept me anyway. I just finished a shift where I was part of a "prank" where I minor assaulted a fellow crewmate with lizard plushies alongside our chemist, who himself is quite nice.

Doc said I should journal my feelings. Put them somewhere other than my own head. Not used to that.

I feel like I’ve brought shame on the security department. Losing a limb... feels shameful. Maybe Kruxaruk was right when it said I don’t take proper care of myself. For most of my life, I’ve worn my scars proudly. They were stories. Proof that I had survived something difficult. Proof that I had done my duty.

Lately, they feel different.

Every scar is still a story, but now they feel more like a tally. A record of pieces lost along the way. I look at myself and wonder how much can be replaced before there’s nothing left of the original. I wonder if I am still whole - and if I'm not, will I ever be whole again?

I’ve never lost a limb before.

I always assumed it would change me. That it would make me more cautious. More aware of my own mortality. I imagined there would be a before and an after.

Instead, I woke up, learned what happened, and started thinking about when I could get back to work.

That troubles me, because- no, not sure.

Likely... not the injury itself. The fact that it doesn’t seem to trouble me as much as I thought it should.

Back home, losing a limb was the end of a warrior's life. A crippled warrior was pitied at best and discarded at worst. Here, half the station has been burned, crushed, spaced, electrocuted, or shot at some point. They get patched up and keep moving. Some of them are more machine than flesh. Some of them are all machine.

Nobody seems particularly bothered by it.

Maybe that’s normal.

Maybe I’m the strange one for thinking about it this much.

I don’t know.

I keep finding myself staring at the empty sleeve at night. Not because I miss the arm. Because I feel like I should miss it more.

That feels like the sort of thought I should probably discuss with Doc.

Massive frezon leak. Nearly turned my cold blood to gelatin. Suffering greatly now. Taking some time off, until the bad scales stop slothing off.