Mass Effect - Fragments

Chapter 1 - Third Time's a Charm

Chapter 1 - Third Time's a Charm

 The first sensation was pain. He couldn’t really put it into words, as one sufficed: everywhere. His limbs were aflame, muscles screaming, flesh prickling against cold air. The feel of drifting grit and the smell of smoke and charred flesh.

The second sensation was was realisation: that he was what smelled of smoked meat.

The third sensation was that he was alive. His memory was a blur - a white, transparent being, offering guidance. His bleary understanding, visualising through blood loss and several broken bones. His rejection as he saw through the lie.

The voice.

We Are Your Salvation Through Destruction

The pistol, heavy in his hand as he had pointed at the pipes, the sensation of movement behind him - the lunging, rotting form of a huskified Illusive Man lurching at him. The impact and those glowing yellow eyes amidst a face of blue-electric veins, the creature’s lurch through the holographic “child”. He had felt himself twist, the flash of agony spasming muscles as he had leveraged the sudden assault. He had seen the creature fly past, its own momentum inexorable. He had seen it impact the beam.  The arcs of white light and the sudden impact of erupting mass effect fields - the Citadel and Crucible firing. The scream of denial and frustration and fear from a thousand age-old abominations across the stars as their final ploy had failed. The feedback of one of their own falling into a galactic-band transmitter.

He had felt it, it his mind - the scrabbling grey-blue of the indoctrinated, their voices, seeing through this what they really were. The horror causing thousands of starships of gestalt, dissolved organics to cease their denial of their true nature and to truly see.

The explosions of a thousand ageless entities committing suicide. Billions of voices shrieking in anguish and despair and relief.

Falling.

And now pain. The rubble crushing his leg and the dusty air choking his lungs.

Pain but also peace.

And now a fourth sensation - movement. Rubble dragged from him, causing new symphonies of agony across his ruined form. Voices, barely recognisable and at the edge of hearing. Crying. The light streaming across blurred vision as he was moved. And slowly, ever slowly, the all encompassing blackness of oblivion.

__________________________

They watched him. Countless faces. Some ruined and bleeding, others angry and confused. At their front, Chief Williams, her eye accusing. As he watched, her face distorted, her complexion taking on a grey-blue pallor, her eyes sinking into her skull, melting as blue optics forced their way through. Blue cables pushed to the surface of her skin, replacing veins and muscle. THe mockery of humanity snarled and lunged.

He jolted forwards, beeping echoing in his ears, the crackle of machinery and the hiss of a pump. He hacked and scrabbled as he realised something was obscuring his throat. Bodily he pulled the pipe from his mouth, vomiting as it cleared his lips. There was a loud, insistent noise, some form of alert? His vision blurred as figures crowded around him. He saw the frill-crest of a Marauder and lashed out, catching the thing a strike across a metal mandible. An arm slammed across his chest and he focused on a humanoid shape. He flailed against the husk, the machine noises and clicks overwhelming the senses. Beyond them he heard shouts and cries, which formed themselves into words.

“...hold him steady…”

“Get me that damn sedative…”

“Are you sure? We want to knock him out? After all this time…”