Thank you for coming down here, sister, said Or-Lin’s voice in Em-Lin’s head. This place will be your tomb, and we will be together forever in death.

Em-Lin stood frozen as the others continued ahead of her, fanning out in the dark Dominion chamber under the shrine of Ho’nig. Or-Lin’s voice had become stronger and clearer than ever, as if Or-Lin herself were becoming more real.

Do not be afraid. I will be with you every step of the way as you die.

Em-Lin took a deep breath and tried to steady herself. The beam from the wrist beacon on her right arm shook in time with the shivers rippling through her body.

It was getting harder for her to hold herself together, which she knew was not a good thing right now. She had accompanied the Starfleet team and their Miradorn security escort in descending through the hatchway that Pattie had cut into the secret Dominion chamber, and who knew what fresh dangers lurked around her.

Em-Lin turned slowly in a half circle, casting the light from her wrist beacon at the banks of dormant equipment lining the walls. She wondered where Or-Lin would appear next and what the dugo tenya would say when next she whispered in Em-Lin’s ear.

She wondered also how Or-Lin could possibly be growing stronger and more real. Typically, a dugo tenya faded away as time passed, completely disappearing after days, weeks, or months, depending on the nature of the traumatic death and the force of the twins’ original bond.

To Em-Lin’s mind, the strengthening of Or-Lin’s dugo tenya could mean one of three things: Em-Lin was losing her mind; Or-Lin was not a figment of Em-Lin’s mind at all, but a genuine ghost (though Em-Lin had never believed in such things before); or…

Or Or-Lin was not the dead one, and Em-Lin was the one who was fading away.

Suddenly, someone touched Em-Lin’s shoulder. With a cry of surprise, she leaped away from the contact, heart thundering as if it had enlarged to fill her entire chest.

Whipping the wrist beacon around, Em-Lin caught a face in the bright circle of light. It was a familiar face, but not the one that she had expected to see, not Or-Lin’s.

It was Vance Hawkins of Starfleet.

“Sorry if I spooked you,” he said. “You probably shouldn’t separate from the group down here.”

“Oh…no, that’s…” Em-Lin’s breathing was fast, and her pulse raced. She pressed her hand to her chest, trying to regain control of herself. “No problem.”

Em-Lin saw an unmistakable glint of concern in Vance’s eyes. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he said, squinting against the beam of the beacon. “I can send you back up to the shrine with Kim or T’Mandra until we get the lights on down here.”

“No…thank you. I’m fine.” Em-Lin swung the beacon away from him. Just as she did so, she thought she saw something behind him. Something or someone.

A shape at the edge of the light. Something or someone in the darkness, less than a meter away.

Em-Lin swung the beacon back around to Vance, but the shape was no longer behind him. Instead of relief, however, Em-Lin felt more anxious than before, wondering where exactly the shape had gone and what it had been.

Vance threw up an arm to shield his eyes from the light. “How about if we catch up with the others?”

“Sure,” said Em-Lin, her voice shaking as she peered into the darkness around her. She heard a rustling noise then, and she spun, cutting the shadows with her wrist-beacon. The light caught just the tail end of something moving fast, flickering past.

“Em-Lin?” said Vance, taking hold of her right arm.

You will not leave this place alive, said Or-Lin’s voice, whispering in Em-Lin’s left ear, after which Or-Lin giggled softly.

Em-Lin’s skin crawled, and she threw herself at Vance, anchoring herself to the one living person she could find in the darkness.

It was just then that the chamber filled with light.

Immediately, Em-Lin looked all around for a sign of the dugo tenya. She found nothing.

“Excuse me,” said Vance, gently freeing himself from her grip. “All clear, ma’am.”

Em-Lin pulled away and straightened her burgundy coveralls. She felt embarrassed, but just a little. Her fear of the lurking dugo tenya, be it a figment of her traumatized mind or an actual haunting spirit, was still her foremost emotion.

“Shall we?” said Vance, gesturing toward the rest of his teammates, who were gathered around a huge, glowing tank filled with liquid in the middle of the massive chamber. “I don’t want to miss anything.”

Em-Lin nodded. She even managed a small, quick smile. As little as she cared for Starfleeters after her experience at the Rasha Nom depot during the war, there was something about Vance that she liked, something that impressed her even in the thick of her conflict with the dugo tenya.

“Me either,” she said, starting forward, listening as she walked for a set of following footsteps that did not belong to Vance: the footsteps of her dead twin sister.