Personal Log, 20 October 3303
20 Oct 2017User78245
When station security found me, I'd been pacing the concourse questioning anyone I could find about Campos. I had somehow convinced myself I'd seen her here at Mic Turner Base, but our meeting a couple days ago was 100% in my head.Security tranked me right there on the concourse after they tried to convince me to follow them to the infirmary and I pulled my sidearm on them. They deposited me into the care of the station physician and a psychologist on the staff of the base's science lab. After mandatory rest time, they helped me reconstruct what happened before I arrived here and after I landed.
After escaping my encounter with the Thargoids, the last thing I fully remember is looking at my cargo manifest and then transitioning to supercruise. I had to review my cockpit recordings to find out that I continued on to Mic Turner Base without stopping to rest, popping stims the whole time. I'd been awake for almost 20 consecutive hours at the time, flying but unaware of my surroundings and only reacting to external stimuli.
Next, they showed me the security footage of the concourse. I'd walked out of Universal Cartographics, and someone down the concourse had yelled out to another person, but they weren't talking to me. I'd walked off in a daze toward the Pilot's Lounge, mumbling to myself.
In the Pilot's Lounge, the security footage showed that I'd ordered a concerning amount of Lavian brandy, drinking it alone and acting distant to the other customers. The bartender finally cut me off when I started crying, saying that I drank his entire supply, then had one of the other employees help me to a rental room.
I apparently didn't fall asleep, because a few minutes later the footage showed that I left my room and ran into a black market dealer of cosmetic nanites, which explains the stupid haircut and eye tattoo. Then I reentered my room. Maybe I was trying to change who I was?
I do partially remember the next morning, where I'd gone to the infirmary, then tried to pry personal information out of the bartender. I just don't know why I was doing the things I was doing, like I was a passenger in my own head. Apparently I was still lucid enough to take notes in my logs though.
The doctors think I entered some sort of fugue right after escaping the Thargoids, caused by the horror of the aliens scooping up escape pods and me not being able to help. Lack of sleep, combined with survivor's guilt, the booze, and the fact that I haven't really given myself a day off in over a month all came together and caused me to construct some elaborate fantasy where I met an old friend at Mic Turner Base. Maybe after screwing up that bad I felt like I needed to see a friendly face. The doctors are also not ruling out that the lights from the Thargoid ship I encountered had some previously unreported hypnotizing affect. There is a species of predatory reptile native to Lave who hunts its prey the same way.
I looked over some of the things I'd put into my logs during my...state. A long series of stills of the California Nebula at different distances, all apparently obsessed with its resemblance to a phoenix. Everything I mentioned about Campos is accurate up to the time we parted ways while I was still in the ADF, the rest elaborate fantasy.
So I've been medically grounded until the doctors are satisfied I'm not a danger to myself or others. I went back to the lounge today to publicly apologize for making an ass out of myself. That earned me a couple of half assed claps and a sarcastic "whoo!" from somewhere in the back. That's The Pilots Federation I know.