(Continued from earlier post)

*Bubba leans over to the neighboring bunk, and prompts Talbot for a response*

"Ok, kid, talk. What the heck is your problem?" "I...don't know how to tell you this, sir, and you probably won't believe me. But, maybe...just maybe...It happened years ago, back on a little backwater planet called Lycanth. I was on leave with a couple of buddies of mine. We were exploring some old ruins near the town where we were staying. Our house keeper kept warning us not to mess around out there in the dark, kept saying something about a curse, but we were young and stupid...nothing was going to happen to us. Or so we thought. The moon was bright that night, in fact it was full. We didn't even need our flashlights to see. We had been working on opening a heavy, rusty old door that seemed to lead downward into some kind of subterranean vault. There was a seal over it that had some kind of strange writing on it. We copied down the characters and figured we'd study them later. It took quite a while, but we finaly managed to remove the seal and pry the door open. Man, the smell that came out was like nothing we had experienced before."

"Look, Airman, what's this got to do with your condition. You'd better cut the crap and get to the point, understand?" "Sorry, sir...I'll try to move along. We started to make our way down the old stairway, and the further we went, the darker it got. One of my friends switched on his light, and when he did, the sight was like nothing we had seen before. We were standing in a small room with several odd statues scattered around. One, in the center of the floor, was a large, grotesque, animal shape of some kind we had never seen before. It was huge. And very distrubing. It had a strong, muscular body, with large, claw-like hands. The body seemed to be covered with long hair and the face...rather disturbing to think of, with long, sharp teeth, scowling in an animalistic manner. Yet, the eyes...gave the appearance of an almost human look. It was very strange. They seemed to follow you as you moved around the place. I was fascinated by them. They held me in their gaze and it was almost like they were calling to me, somehow. I don't exactly know what happened then. There was a sudden gust of wind that came up, knocking the light to the floor, broken. We all started to try and find the stairs but suddenly, something crashed into me and sent me flying. My head hit the wall and it's hard to remember just what happened next. I heard terrible sounds...screams...lots of running...cries for help. I couldn't see...I tried to help...something slammed into me again, and the next thing I recall was waking up and looking around the room. I was alone..."

(To be continued...sorry it's taking so long)