The singing stopped, the dancing people were gone, it was pitch black and silent. Towalr looked around, but wherever he was looking, nothing was there to begin with. It was like he was all alone. “Ghost, or whatever you are! Show yourself! Get me out of this torment! SHOW YOURSELF!” he yelled as Towalr leaned on his hands, looking down to the floor. 

“Oh, look at you now…pity, sad sack of regret.” 

Towalr looked sideways to the direction of the voice to see the next torment sitting on the chair looking at him. “Captain Takato….why of all the people it has to be you….” 

“Hey, I don't pick it. You do,” Ryoko replied, leaning on the chair as she held an old knife and balanced it on her hand. “I am here to show you of yet-to-be.” She pushed the knife up from her palm and grabbed the lower part of it. “Are you ready?”

He slowly stands up from the floor with all the willpower he has left in him. “Are you the Ghost of Yet-To-Be?”

Swinging a bit playful with her knife in his direction and shaking her head, “I just stated that I would show you what yet-to-be is coming. So that does make me that ghost, does it not?” Ryoko smirks a bit. “And here I thought you were the bright one.” 

“Stop playing around, show me the horrors of what has to come, so we can get this over with” Towalr felt tormented with everything that was shown to him. Were these ghost playing with him, was this a fiction of his own mind? What was happening? Is this the effect of what happened on the last mission?

Ryoko stands up. “But dear old Towalr, do understand it is up to you. Now let me show you the path that has carved the way to your … future." Ryoko turns around as a gust of wind blows hard into the face of Towalr as he gets a good grip on the ground. The wind forced him to close his eyes, and as it suddenly stopped, he dropped to the floor. 

Mechanical sounds, warm air filling his area, footsteps but no voices. Towalr opens his eyes, seeing the green glow and the metal flooring. He looked up, seeing to his own horror that he was in a Borg ship of some kind. His eyes stopped at Ryoko, who was poking a drone at its cheek. “Why did you bring me here? Why ghost are you showing this torment that is even worse than the other showed” 

Ryoko blinked and looked in his direction. “What I am showing is the result of your failure. You ran and were captured by the Borg. Your fellow team members had to endure the same fate. One even died” Ryoko looked back at the drone, poking it one more, and then backed away.

Flashes of memories pass him by, running away from his team, getting cornered, screaming for help, feeling the cold nano probing. Towalr grabbed his head as if he had a major headache. “Please, this can't be true! I am a Starfleet Officer, I am the First Officer. There is greatness in store for me!” He looked frustrated at Ryoko, who looked back at him blankly.

“So the lesson you had to learn from my predecessors has not come through you yet? Well, you have successfully subscribed to the Borg Collective. Be proud. You are one of them now; you shall be one of them, and this will not change. You must carry the guilt and pain of knowing you brought Sujian Deem and Behrad Vahdat to this doom forever. Well, forever is a hefty word….the Borg Collective uses you until your function ceases to exist, and you will be torn apart and discarded as the trash you are.” Ryoko looked at the panel that showed the ship observing a new target to add to their collective.

“This …this can't be! I have learned from my mistakes…I have learned to to…” Towalr recalls what the other ghost showed him “To take responsibility, to let go and move on. I want to live my life to the fullest without being bound by my career achievements. I need my friends…if I still have any” Towalr shrugged. “Please give me a chance.” 

Ryoko saw the ship getting captured and dragged in, she looked back at him playing with the knife in her hand. She narrowed her eyes and sighed. “There is a way, but only you can do it...” She walked to him and kneeled before him. “Are you ready to give life one more shot and let fate be in the hands of those you looked down on? Let them choose if you are worthy or not. What would you say?"

“I….I would say…..Help me…no Help us and retrieve us from this horror fate that is not yet sealed. Give us a chance to redeem ourselves. Please, I beg of you….come back." Towalr collapsed to the ground.

Ryoko smiled and looked at the screen. “Good, hope she hears you.” As Ryoko disappears and it starts to zoom out of the inner core, the outer framework shows the incomplete Borg Sphere. A sudden burst of energy shoots out a signal. Traveling at light speed, hitting a foreign satellite, going to the next and the next as it this the final satellite that views Markonian Outpost. One final burst coursed at the station and hit a docked ship. The USS Tokyo, going through its communication systems, made its way to the captain's Quarters, which were pitch black. 

“Help me…no Help us and retrieve us from this horror fate that is not yet sealed. Give us a chance to redeem ourselves. Please, I beg of you….come back.”

A woman sits up suddenly from her bed as sweat runs down her face. She catches her breath as if she had run a marathon for hours. “Towalr…” she whispers to herself as her eyes look outside. “No way…”