Aftermath

Chapter 1

In the darkness time is infinite. Drifting in and out of nightmares beyond imagining, brutal and endless. Scattered in are scarce memories of better times, times of comfort, times of passion. But they are few.

Slowly the darkness grows empty, hollow. Awareness of a world beyond the dark starts slowly, sometimes receding, but then returning, until finally it explodes... into pain.

The body of the soldier on the table convulsed once before contracting into violent shaking. A disembodied voice commanded, "Relax. Breathe." The darkness was broken by an impossibly bright light. Disorienting. Assaults of sounds came from every angle. Angry beeping that resolved into the heavy staccato of gunfire. A sudden blinding flash of red and she was back...

...in the streets. Rifle impossibly heavy. Sweat pouring, or is it blood. No time to check. Another scream, a horrible sound that made her insides turn cold. A Banshee, another one. Hadn't they killed them all? Must have been at least twenty and yet they still kept coming. Ammo check, only quarter full. Bodies on the ground. Friend or foe, impossible to tell. She looked for her team but their identity was lost in the crack of the scorching red beam and piercing sound of the Reaper firing. She dove for cover.

The Reapers. Her body stilled. Her awareness flooded back. A calm of certainty overcoming her. The Reapers. She was here to stop them. Looking past the clouds of destruction she could see it. The red eye of Harbinger glowing dangerous and close. Looking at her. Knowing her. She would die here. The red glow swelled and the screaming alarm of the Reaper firing sounded. She raised an arm in useless defense...

...then quiet. The heat of war around her evaporated as fast as an airlock venting into deep space. The ringing in her ears began to subside giving way to softer sounds. Wind in trees. Life. Birds. A child laughing.

She lowered her arm, opening her eyes. Her charred and bloodied armor a striking contrast to the soft green rolling hills and tall grass suddenly surrounding her. Her eyes adjusted to see distant mountains. The sting of war in her senses began to subside.

Enormous weeping willows and trees bent by the endless force of natural winds dotted the rolling landscape. She was alone, standing as the one dark blemish on a perfect landscape.

The laughter again. Young, playful. Filled with innocence and joy.

Her rifle dissolved into dust in her hands and fell into the breeze, blowing away. She could feel the wind pulling at the matted strands of her hair, as gentle as a cool kiss against hot skin.

The laughter came again, carried on the wind from her left. She crested the hill to find one of the enormous windswept trees and underneath, three figures. Two adults and a child. They were sitting under the shade of the tree while the child spun and giggled. Without the thought of moving she was suddenly closer, pulled to them by their innocence. They were untouched by war. Surrounded by cool blues and soft greens, there was no harsh red light from the Reapers to taint this place. The tree that sheltered them was ancient. In the trunk a carving of an eight pointed star, like a compass, old but still bold and white against the dark bark. She stared at the star, squinting as if trying to glean it's meaning by looking harder.

The two adults laughed lightly drawing her gaze from the tree to the family. Yes. A family. Two parents, smiling wistfully at their playful child as she spun until she was dizzy and collapsed into her mother's lap. The child, an Asari. Puckish and spry and adorable. The soldier felt a smile trying to stretch her cracked lips. The child kissed her mother lightly and began to spin again. Her mother, also Asari, smiling.

Suddenly the soldier's breath was gone, sucked out of her by the jolt of recognition. Asari. Her Asari.

"Liara," a voice whispered. The whisper echoed across the hills, carried by the breeze. The soldier's eyes stung as she tried to call to her but no sound came from her lips. Liara didn't see her. Couldn't see her. She tried harder to speak but only strangled wheezes escaped, her throat a desert of fire.