It starts

Posted on Wed Jul 15th, 2026 @ 9:27pm by Lieutenant Kah’lyn Chiara

563 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Peril at the Unification Accords
Location: Temporary Quarters, Barisa Prime

Kah’lyn was sitting feet up enjoying reading a book she’d recently found. She rarely sat down to read so this made a nice change to the usual pace. She was just finishing off the latest chapter when a message came through, putting her book face down she moved to check it frowning as the contents weren’t what she was expecting.

Roses are Red, Violets are Blue
You won’t remember me, but I’ve seen you.

“What in the hell is this?” She read the short contents, but it made a chill run down her spine as at the end was an attached image of herself from earlier in the day.

Counsellor’s ran risks with some patients, especially those in serious mental conditions but she hadn’t seen any recent patients that she considered to be a risk that way. Filing the letter for future reference if it was needed she hoped it was just a one off and went back to reading her book.

It was a couple of hours later that there was an unusual knock on her door, getting up she walked over opening it to find a thin elongated box on the floor. Picking it up she headed back inside curiously opening the parcel to find a dead rose and a printed note.

Roses are Red, Counsellor’s are Blue
You won’t like me, and I HATE you!

Putting down the note she quickly pulled up the previous message on her PaDD and headed out for station security taking the box and note with her.

It had taken a few hours, but station security had her quietly moved to new quarters. Along with having a guard put outside her previous ones to act as a ruse. She hoped that would be the end of it, and for a while it was until she returned to her new quarters to find her belongings strewn everywhere and another message left.

Roses are Red, Counsellor’s are blue
You can’t escape me, I’ll always find you.

Kah’lyn had faced cases like this, just not involving herself personally. She wished she had a clue just who this could be, but she couldn’t think who would be doing this or why. She knew security would want to know names of anyone she may suspect the problem was she just didn’t know.

The only safe place now was wherever security were and that was where she spent the night camped out in the brig even though she hadn’t done anything wrong. It felt safe and until this was sorted, or the Astrea docked she was going to be wherever a security officer went. She wasn’t one for being afraid, but she knew this could escalate.

She was asleep when she was gently woken.

“Counsellor you don't need to be here ma’am, we can put an Officer on your door for tonight and we’ll check your quarters for you to make sure it’s safe.”

Kah’lyn stifled a yawn. “I guess it makes more sense than being here.” She smiled. “That would be acceptable.”

A few minutes later, her quarters thoroughly checked and a guard on the door outside she settled down to sleep hoping that whoever this was would soon give up.


Lieutenant Kah’lyn Chiara
Chief Counsellor
USS Astrea

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