Tomorrow's Heroes

Chapter One

Smoke was in the air and the smell made her nostrils tingle.

What the hell is that?

Tar. Burning. Ash. Meat and crunching of bones. She gasped and her eyes flew open. Black. Gone. Forever burning. She clutched at her abdomen as bile rose up into her mouth.

Burning, burning, BURNING.

She spun and tried to run but her feet would not budge.

A mirror stood before her, though she did not recognize the woman staring back at her. Her skin was paper white and cracked like age-old cement. Dark, crusted blood outlined her features, making her look bug-eyed and sickly. Her eyes were bloodshot and her lips almost nonexistent, showing long lines of ivory teeth. She had no hair. Gangly. Deformed.

Then she opened her mouth.

“You were nothing but meat and bone, Shepard.”

Terror rose in her belly. The face began to warp and crumble and shiver as it kept repeating the words over and over like a mantra.

“Meat and bone. Meat and bone. Meat and bone.”

No, this can’t be happening!

Suddenly, all that was left of the horrid face were chattering teeth drenched in bile and a pair of rolling eyeballs on the ground.

She took a quick step back to escape, but the eyes snapped back to pierce her own.

“Where are you going, Red? You sleep when you’re DEAD!”

--

“NO!”

Vivian Shepard bolted upright in her bed. Her shivering shook the beads of cold sweat from her brow onto the sheets leaving tiny imprints.

Frantically, she searched the room.

No mirror, no teeth, no blood, no bones…

“Just a dream,” she whispered to herself, tempted to begin a mantra of her own, “It was just a dream.”

Slowly, she wiped her face and staggered to her feet. Shepard took a deep breath as she made her way over to the bathroom and stood before the mirror.

Blinking quickly, she gingerly touched her face, outlining the angry, red scars on her cheekbones and chin from Cerberus piecing her together.

Everything looks about right.

But the little, annoying voice in the back of her head mocked her.

Yeah, about as right as a dead woman can get.

She groaned and smacked her hand against the sink basin with frustration.

It had been a month since the attack on the Cerberus base housing the Lazarus Project: Her. A whole month since those sons of bitches brought her back to life. She still hadn’t gotten her mind around it. And she was pretty certain she was never really going to be alright with it.

Why couldn’t they just let me die?

Allowing her head to fall forward slightly, she sighed wistfully. She knew exactly why. The Collectors. Humanity was in peril and no one else would do anything about it. Nobody except Cerberus gave an immediate shit. But, most importantly, the Collectors brought the imminent threat of the Reapers hanging on their tail ends.

She wished nothing more than to be done with it. But, there was nothing for it.

It laid in her hands to stop them. And, she planned to get the job done. Because, if she wouldn’t, nobody god damn would. And, that was about the gist of it.