The blast threw her backwards violently, slamming her into something and knocking the breath out of her. All she could see was fire. She was drifting now, through what was left of the Normandy as it fell apart. She hoped Joker had made it out okay. She hoped everyone had made it out okay.
A wall of flame blasted towards her and she was knocked away again, farther from any chance of survival. She was well aware now that she was probably going to die, even as she searched desperately for something- anything- to save herself. But the Normandy was gone, and she could only hope that the escape pods were gone and on their way to safety. There was an odd sort of sensation at the base of her neck and suddenly her suit began leaking air.
"Fuck!" She gasped, fear creeping swiftly into her mind as she tried to cover the breach in her suit. It was useless, though, there was no way she could stop something like this. Her eyes watered and she tried to convince herself it wasn't because she was about to die. But it was getting so hard to breath now, and she was flailing so pathetically as she tried to hold onto the air.
She could feel it now; death. Around her bits and pieces of the Normandy floated by, and it seemed odd that only maybe ten minutes ago everything had been completely normal, almost mundane. Now her ship was destroyed, part of her crew dead, the rest… She didn't know. Even if she was dead she hoped to god at least some of them had made it out. It felt like Akuze all over again, only this time she knew she wasn't going to make it out. The air was almost gone. It was getting hard to see.
With a sigh she stopped struggling, tears running freely down her cheeks. She gasped for air but there was none, and she could feel the numbing cold of space biting through her hard suit. God, she was so scared, suddenly terrified of something she'd faced almost daily for nearly fifteen years now. She didn't want to die, not yet, not like this, so… alone. Dying wouldn't be nearly this bad if someone was with her. Garrus, Ashley, Wrex, anyone just as long as she didn't have to be alone.
Her vision began fading, and she realized she had already taken her last breath. There was no more air, only a few more seconds of consciousness before she blacked out. A few more seconds before she was gone forever. She almost expected her life to flash before her eyes, but that didn't happen, not in the way they always described in the vids. She saw faces, faces of all the people she had let down, the people she cared about, people that she had helped and aided. She saw the faces of her team last, the people that had gone to hell and back for her. She hoped they survived. Hoped they went on to lead good lives. Hoped…
The body of Commander Shepard floated silently above the dark planet, as lifeless as the debri around it.