Character(s): Commander Nolan Shepard, with brief mentions of Tali'Zorah vas Normandy.

Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing. The Mass Effect series belongs solely to its rightful owners, BioWare and EA.

WARNING: A depressing story follows this note. You might want to have tissues handy if you press on.

An explanation: I found this on my hard-drive and decided to publish it as-is just to say: Screw Valentine's Day. What a meaningless holiday. Here's to ripping out the hearts of many dedicated ME fans and dragging them through the dirt, EA. Anyway, I'll be exploring an entirely new 'what-if' scenario while I try my hand at it, focusing primarily on the control ending of ME3.

Unsurprisingly, this piece was heavily, heavily inspired by Harlan Ellison's short story 'I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream,' and I have adapted much of that story into this one because I feel like the tone is right exactly on the mark. I highly recommend it. So, to clarify, anything that you recognize here does not belong to me. No copyright infringement is intended. And I was listening to Clint Mansell's 'Memories (Someone We'll Never Know),' which I've taken off the MOON soundtrack, while I was writing this, so it also had a hand in its creation. I feel like the loneliness in that song (and movie) is well-deserved in this piece.

Constructive criticism is, as always, welcome. No flames, if you please. And don't forget to review!

I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream

oOoOo

So, this is the end.

In the end, I chose control.

In the end, I am the ghost in a machine. My mind in Harbinger's body . . . The Reapers may do my bidding, but, at the same time, they are my prison — my own personal Hell.

In the end, I cannot help but ask: Is this justice? Did I truly do the right thing?

I had thought that the Reapers hated me for foiling their plans and destroying their brethren. I was wrong. So very wrong. What they felt for me then, if they felt at all, was not even a shadow of the hate I now perceive from every conscious circuit. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the Catalyst had made certain that I would suffer eternally and could not do myself in. He had, however, lied; He left my mind intact. As a result, I can dream, I can wonder, and I can even lament. I remember everything. I wish — well, it doesn't matter what I wish. At the time, I could no sooner condemn EDI and the geth than I could remove my own arm. I know that I saved them, I know that I saved them from what has happened to me, but, still, I cannot forget my humanity. My life, my friends. Tali. It isn't easy. Sometimes, I want to forget, and it doesn't even matter. It never does.

Of course, I am not without benefits in my own personal Hell. My memory is no longer implemented by grey matter and the workings of the hippocampus, but by circuitry and wires and data-banks. Now, it is perfect. Now, I can recall any memory with ease and have it play like a vid within my mind. In this way, I can remember the galaxy for which I fought and sacrificed everything. I cannot forget.

But tell me: Is that a blessing or a curse? Tell me because I myself do not know.

I was once human, but am no more. I had a beginning, a genesis, and here I will end. Oh, if only. Now, I am deathless. Immortal. Thanks to the Reapers, I cannot die. Such a thing is impossible. It is unthinkable. For how can something that was never alive, die? But even I can sense my sanity, which is the very last remnant of my humanity, slowly slipping from my grasp, like grains of sand through a clenched fist, and I know that eventually I will lose even that. When that happens, I hope that whatever I actually am ceases to be; I hope another, a stronger being than I, takes my place as the Shepherd of the Reapers, an eternal guardian over a galaxy that has, undoubtedly, long since forgotten the man I used to be.

I have already done my part, I believe. The Crucible's detonation had destroyed much of the Citadel and parts of the mass relays, rendering them inaccessible. Many were stranded in Sol. So, from the moment I had first regained sentience, I discontinued all forms of conflict with the galaxy and had the Reapers rebuild both constructs, deactivating, in the process, all of their little tricks. Then, I gathered the Reapers to me and retreated into the deepest, darkest reaches of space. I knew that, eventually, someone would try to follow in the Illusive Man's footsteps and take control of me, and, by extension, the Reapers. After everything I'd done, I refused to let that happen.

I still remember: There had been no time for good-byes. Part of me had been devastated that I would be unable to see Garrus and Tali again. Just once more, I told myself. But then, would I ever have the strength to stop looking? When I did leave, finally, part of me was relieved. Tali would not have to see me in this form that we both hated. She would not have to know what I had done at all — that I had given up so easily upon our future. I had promised to build her a house on Rannoch, to finish what her father had started, but I'd lied. I hope, one day, she will find herself able to forgive me. Truth be told, we were lying to ourselves for so long. We should have known that promises were meant to be broken.

Without me, the Reapers would be directionless. Without me, they would likely try to invade again. Only my will keeps them at bay, on a metaphorical leash, and I hold all the strings but my own. In this way, I am unwilling to stay, but unable to leave.

Some hundreds of years may have passed since my "death." Or my body's death. I don't know. Time means nothing to the Reapers, and I have long since stopped searching for stray signals, transmissions, or anything else that would help maintain my connection to the galaxy I saved and to my left-over humanity. It all means so very little to the Reapers. Time itself seems to be having me on, accelerating and retarding my senses. I can say the word 'now,' but that is all I can say. I think it has been some hundreds of years, but I just don't know. How could I know? There is only now, and there is only me.

I have always doubted the existence of a God, a heavenly Father. Mostly because I had a father once, and he died. I grew up knowing that there is no order to the chaos. Just senseless violence that the Reapers were intended to correct. But at first, in my desperation, I did turn to God. Ashley's God, the one she believed in so determinedly, so faithfully. The one who did not deign to save her on Virmire when I know she did not deserve to die.

So, I prayed: Oh, Jesus, sweet Jesus, if there ever was a Jesus and if there is a God, please, please, please, let me out of here, or kill me. Please, end this Hell and save me like Ashley said You would.

I must have waited ages, but there never was an answer. Still, I prayed for many things. Sometimes, I would pray that I might remain lucid enough to retain myself. If I lose my sanity, then I might forget who I am, my origins as a man-turned-machine, and ironically invade the galaxy I once fought so hard to save. Then, I thought: If there ever was a God, then that God is the Catalyst and Ashley was wrong. God is not kind. He was never kind. And I've been played by Him in the most horrible way.

With that thought in mind, I began to rage against the injustices I had suffered, given to me by God, by the Catalyst, by the child I could not save. I was purely irrational. I would scream in my mind, GOD! Can you hear me? In my dreams, I am King! In my dreams, I best you and escape the Reapers' clutches, and I return just to bring the might of the galaxy to bear upon them. In my dreams . . .

But that was then. A long time ago, I imagine. Now, though. Now, I feel nothing.

Outwardly, numbly: I float listlessly through the vast depths of dark space as a thing that never could have been known as human. A thing whose shape is so alien a travesty that humanity somehow becomes more obscene for the vague resemblance that I maintain.

Sometimes, I ask: Am I a man or a machine? Am I a savior or a destroyer?

But even I, with all the Reapers' infinite knowledge, have no answers to these questions. I know not whether I am Shepard or the Shepherd, Guardian of the Reapers. The lines have somehow blurred between the two. I am Harbinger, and Harbinger is me. I know not where he begins and I end, whether or not a destroyed world he remembers from long ago is a world I once visited. It is utterly ridiculous to recollect that I once argued with him over the merits of organic life when we are now neither. At least, I understand him a little better than I did before.

Of all things, Harbinger sought understanding. His intent was clear enough in my mind, and starkly so; after all, the Reapers could communicate through their consciousnesses, and ours were even closer than most. They had no use for such trivial things as discourse. That was something only I maintained. Only I insisted. And oh, how they loathed me for it!

For example, when I once viewed my memories and his consciousness pressed itself against mine, I knew instinctively that he did not understand. He sought understanding, and yet did not understand why I cared so much for the organics that I had left behind. So far removed from them, he did not understand the fondness for which I regarded them, or the excessive amount of time I would spend perusing my memories, committing their faces and features and mannerisms to heart. Quite simply, I missed them. And I missed them because I loved them. But that was something Harbinger would never understand.

And I fear that, one day, I will not be able to understand either.

At this intrusion, and with the fear lurking in the shadows of my mind, I became irrational. I forced an overwhelming amount of pressure upon his consciousness and held it until he squirmed in sheer discomfort like a beaten varren, simply because I had cut him off from his peers and he was thus limited in capability. For them, to be separated from the collective was a fate worse than death.

They're not just organics, I told him fiercely. They're not just anything. They are — were — my friends.

Still, he could not understand. He simply could not understand why I ached so, why I felt such unfamiliar things. Emotions, I suppose, were things he hadn't experienced in some billions of years. So, he had forgotten them. Because mine were filled with such pain and remorse, he could not understand why I was hurting him when he had done no wrong.

And I realized then that he did not understand, that he could never understand, and so I released him from my vice-like grip.

Why does it hurt? I echoed. It hurts because I'm not human and I miss it. I miss it more than anything in the world.

I never forgot the incident. I think about it often so I have something to identify the differences that exist between us, lest I lose myself in him. I don't think I have much of a chance.

Inwardly: I am alone. Here, living away from my home, from everything I'd ever known, everything I'd ever loved, surrounded by my lifelong enemies in my self-imposed exile. At least the galaxy is safe at last. If they could feel, the Reapers should be all the madder for that. I know it makes me a little happier. And yet . . . to me . . . the Reapers have won, simply . . . they've taken their revenge. . . . I have no mouth. And I must scream.