A Numbing Effect: A Mass Effect Fanfiction

Chapter 1: The Face in the Void

So this is just a short chapter to get things going, I hope you enjoy and comment

Liara’s eyes snapped open at the sound of the alarm, her sapphire eyes red from all the tears. She’d had another night filled with nightmarish visions of Shepard’s end, reliving her sacrifice over and over again as she drifted in and out of sleep.

She knew she was a wreck, but she couldn’t help it, her heart had been shattered by the galaxies greatest hero. She knew that the others were morning the Commander; everyone was, on every world, in every system they celebrated the life, and mourned the death of Commander Shepard. But only she mourned for Alicia Shepard, because only she had truly known the woman behind the hero.

When she got out of bed, Liara didn’t bother straightening the sheets, or even dressing despite the cold of the ship. Instead she decided to meditate, something she hadn’t done since Alicia had died almost four days ago. As she settled into a cross-legged posture, she struggled to rid her mind of thought, summoning the biotic energy that was innate to Asari to take her mind deep into the void. As she felt her spirit detach from her body, melding into the wondrous, invigorating freedom of the void, her first thought was to look for Alicia’s consciousness, as she had done so many times before when they had shared unity while locked together in embrace. But she quickly pushed away that thought, her moment of turmoil nearly causing her to slip back into reality. As she calmed again, she let her mind drift aimlessly through the void, taken in at the rapturous beauty of the warp. She drifted like that for what felt like hours, although it was hard to tell in the warp, it could have been barely moments, not that she cared, wishing that the peace she felt now could last of an eternity.

Embrace. Eternity. Liara…

Liara heart nearly stopped, the nonverbal words echoing in her mind and the void swirling around a face, a face that she knew better than any other she had seen in her one hundred and six years of life. And then she was gone, her laps in concentration pulling her back into her own body.

And as she opened her eyes, the biotic energy still curling around her, she knew that what she had seen was beyond impossible,

“Shepard,” she breathed into the empty room, “Where are you?”