Every Day the Same Nightmare.
A/N: First ever Fan-fic, so please review. I don't personally think I can do horror. I really don't think I nailed this at all. So please review with more than 'Hurr Durr that was rubbish!' Possible Femslash later so leave well alone if that's not your thing.
Standard disclaimer etc. Warning: Every Day The Same Nightmare by Jonathan Clivaz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Edit: re-post.
Selene has not answered my prayers. I did not think she would. Very well.
I recorded my dreams this night. I recorded them so that when I woke up in sweat-soaked sheets and a heart of darkness and endless fear, I could find out what haunts me so, should I wish too.
I've been too scared to listen to them before now.
I've sat here for an hour waiting for the terror to subside. It hasn't. Maybe it never will. Maybe I'll be like this forever.
But what I heard rocked me to my core and unlocked memories I had no wish to remember.
Akuze: Blood-stained, deadly Akuze. I dream of you still. You stalk my dreams like you once stalked me, in the waking world.
Akuze haunts me still.
This is what I heard, muttered from my sleeping self to my waking one:
"Alright, listen up" My voice, younger. "I'm your commanding Officer on this mission. If you have a problem with We go in, find out what the hell happened. If there are survivors, team one will help the survivors, and bring that, moan about it to someone else, it wasn't my choice, and it won't be your choice about whether it stays that way. Then back to the command post that command squad will have set up in the town hall. Team two guard the survivors if they turn up, but you're on the sweep until then. Teams three through five continue the sweep. If there are no survivors, keep your bloody guard up and keep looking for survivors, or a damn good reason why there aren't any. I'm not sending a massive 'I have no idea what the hell happened to them' back to the Alliance Brass. We're finding survivors, answers, or both. Now get to your teams!" Then I bowed my head and prayed to Nike, Goddess of victory, Artemis, Goddess of the hunt and Athena, Goddess of War, Wisdom and Crafts. I prayed that they would all lend me their strength.
The voice was undeniably mine, but it had an edge of something long since lost. It can only be heard with the benefit of hindsight: Innocence .It would have seemed madness if someone had told me back then that I had a single scrap of innocence left in me, I would have laughed, told then they had shell-shock. But I did. Oh How I did.
I thought I had lost it a long time before. I lived around soldiers as a child, and I saw them come back from wherever the hell they were fighting with scar, cuts, bruises, broken bones and blackened hearts. I thought, as I surveyed my team leaders, on the cusp of my first military command, I thought I had lost my innocence a long time ago.
Shows what I know
There is a curious sound, like the rewinding of an old tape, like the ones in museums. Yet the sound sounds reversed.
My over-ached brain takes a while to recognise that this means a jump forward in time. I appear to have invented my own language to communicate with my wakeful self.
A sudden resume in sound snaps my attention back.
The Familiar sound of a UT-47, somehow made by my sleeping mouth, plus hearing my speech, was enough to unlock my sealed memories, and gave some context to what I was hearing. In the Combat Cockroaches, all straining our necks to get our first proper look at the colony that had drawn us here. There was nothing. No light, no sound, no radio transmissions, not even automated distress beacons. It was like the night itself had risen to claim Akuze.
Then suddenly, the Thresher Maws struck: A blip on the sensors, a tiny pinprick of heat that our sensors showed to be below the ground. I blinked, and before I asked the pilot for confirmation, the pinprick swelled into a thimble, a football, before it broke the surface.
Right under our shuttle.
Before I could call for evasive manoeuvres a ball of bio-acid chewed through our shields and the mass effect drive. And then I was falling, falling, watching the same thing happen to the other teams. They were all higher up than the command squad, as I'd I made the choice to go down first. I led from the front, not from behind a desk.
And then I looked down. I saw the ground rushing towards me, and the high G contorted my vision, making it look like there were Thresher Maws. I saw the crushing inevitably of my own death. no no no no no no no no no no no no no. I kept on saying , watching my death scream towards me. All that training and genetic enhanchment, the tougher skin and the improved reflexes, all useless against the laws of physics. Do I have a Goddess of science? If I did, Now would be a good time to curse her, and the instruments that she gave me have cursed me. And then I remembered, pulling her name from the bowels of my memory: Muses, with my dying breath I denounce you to the goddesses of Olympus. Hecate, receive my sou- ARRRAAAGGGGHHHH!
I was lucky to have got down alive. The fall still destroyed the shields of my N7 armour completely and almost drained my armour of medi-gel. It still had enough to apply in small doses, so I could still heal minor cut, bruises etc. But for anything major, it required my permission to dish it out, so if I was knocked unconscious, I was out. And to be out now would be fatal.
The pain was still excruciating. I tried moving and instantly regretted it. Every bone in my body felt broken, every blood vessel burst, every nerve shredded, every joint dislocated. To top it off I had come in through a skylight and the medi-gel being administered to my cheeks was sealing the piece of glass embedded in my cheeks in there forever. I yanked off my helmet and tugged the glass out. It was then I noticed that glass was protruding out of my armour in a dozen different places. I panicked.
When I was twelve a soldier had been brought into the med-bay on the ship my Mother and father served on. He looked like me, glass protruding from his armour at every angle, thee medi-gel having sealed the glass into him .The Operation to remove the glass lasted eighteen hours, and, for reasons I will never know, he screamed throughout the entirety of it. He was under anaesthetic. He was in agony for the rest of his life. He committed suicide a week after the operation. Snuck out of the med-bay, jumped into the nearest escape pod, launched it and vented the atmosphere. They found him smiling, and they concluded death was the only release he found what release have you found? My body screams at me. I had named the voice SIAT (Stress Induced Angsty Thoughts) a long time ago. It ruined my thought patterns and made it hard to think. It was partly why I had my memories locked up.
I frantically ripped out the glass. As I ripped out the largest, last sliver, the pain, slowly overcoming the adrenaline and medi-gel, becomes unbearable. I only remained conscious because I was repeating 'Out now, out forever' over and over like a mantra.
Slowly, I realised that my eyesight had recovered. As the sedative from the medi-gel wore off I realised that the blurriness I had been seeing around the edge of my vision had receded, and, too my luck, my now functioning peripheral vision had spotted the red rectangular shape of a med-kit. Damning the consequences, I dragged myself over to it and transferred it to my suit dispenser. It was then my body felt the consequences, and I was out of it.
Luckily, not forever. The Medi-gel I added to my suit made it cross a magic threshold. I had enough for it to act automatically should I fall unconscious. Which I did collecting the medi-gel.
When I woke up, scant minutes after, I felt better physically. I began to collect myself. I scanned for my weapons. I picked them up, but I could tell they were useless. The heat-sinks were destroyed, rendering them beyond use. I tried my precious Omni-tool, but, like my shields, decided to splutter and die as soon as I tried it. I still had my combat knife and a lonesome grenade.
When I took stock, I wish I hadn't. I had a grenade, a combat knife, a broken set of N7 armour, and some medi-gel: Against thresher Maws. Standard protocol for thresher was engage with vehicle mounted heavy weapons. Vehicle? No. Heavy weapons? No. Weapons? Not really.
I cursed Ananke for my bad luck, and wondered if my goddesses had forsaken me.
I was suddenly hit by waves of despair, and would have sunk to the ground if I wasn't already on it.
My State of despair was rudely interrupted by the thresher maws. As I was on the ground, I could feel the vibrations that betrayed their approach. Spurred into action, I jumped up and, ignoring the vocal protests of my still groaning body, I ran. I turned to the stairs. TOO SLOW, sighing, I ran to the window and jumped. It was only one floor down, so what was the probl- !
Any other day I'd have been fine, I'd have landed fine, ignored it. But today it was one of the most painful experiences of my life. I almost passed out again but the vibrations of the Thresher maws. With a rising sense of Panic It seemed like the vibrations came from beneath my feet.
Fuck, there's a thresher maw right below me… MOVE JULIANNA, MOVE!
I frantically roll over. A Thresher Maw Bursts up beside me.
I scramble up and run.
It fires.
NO TIME TO DODGE JUST RUN IT CAN'T HIT- You.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!
It hit me! It hit me! IT HIT ME AND THE ACID BURNING THROUGH THE BACK OF MY CHEST PLATE AND THERE'S NOTHING I CAN DO TO STOP IT SHIT FUCK DIE!
Wait… maybe there is.
Tearing open a panel on my armour, I activate my emergency armour ejection system (EAES). Designed to help medics access large wounds with armour in the way, it allows the user to jettison any piece of armour the user is wearing. It's completely analogue, and so completely unhackable. Finally, as the first drops of acid reach my skin, I find what I'm looking for. JETTSION! JETTISON! JETTISON NOW YOU MALFUNCTIONING PIE- FINALLY… FUCK MY BACK IS COLD DAMNIT THE REST OF MY CHEST PLATE HAS FALLEN OFF!
I must have made quite a sight, running in panic wearing armour on the legs and arms but not the torso. But while the acid burnt I reminded myself it could have been a lot worse. The gurgle of the acid eating away at my back armour an attest to that.
Remember, this was all done while running in panic.
As I ran I crunched a few facts about the 'Maws. They see heat, can move underground, spits bio-acid, (as they already proved), always go for the largest concentration of prey…
I… FUCK! FUCK DAMN SHIT FUCK BUGGER FRAK HECATE CURSE THESE CREATURES TO ETERNAL DAMNATION IN THE FIRES OF THE UNDERWORLD!
Perhaps I was the only one left.
As I drew up, gasping and panting for breath, finally noticing the vibrations has disappeared, I collapsed to the ground, partly from exhaustion, and partly so I could be more sensitive to the tell-tale vibrations of a Thresher maw approach. I then decided something: Find something to communicate with the support frigate. Tell them what happened, get the HELL out, and have the place flattened from Orbit.
Not a good plan, but it was the best I had.
It was pointless trying to locate Sargent Vasquez (The petite, red-haired women carrying the ground-team's long-Comm, and also my lover.)And your only lover, ever, SIAT helpfully added. So I resolved to find a building
No one will love you ever again, ever No that's not true, it can't be true, my mother loves me, Only because it's an obligation, If she wasn't your mother what would happen? I… GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
with a radio transceiver. Failing that, if I found a store the sold short range comms I could knock something up, with Omni-Gel although it would be a lot harder without my Omni-tool.
But I will survive. I Must.
Pulling out my thankfully undamaged datapad, I brought up the Colony map. After a bit of searching I found what I was looking for: The main Comm array. I oriented myself, thanking the cruel goddess of Luck and Chance (Ananke, how I detest thee so!) my panic-stricken run had led me close to it.
While this was going on, unknown to me, as I had got up off the floor to get my Data-pad, the Thresher Maws had been closing in. One to be exact, as the others didn't want to fight it over a single morsel of prey. As I did not have the same level of contact with the ground as I did before, I didn't detect it until it was far too late.
It burst up beside me, making the ground shake the surrounding buildings collapse into little heaps of rubble. I had felt the vibrations and dived to the side, just in time. The reckless dive had the unfortunate side effect of colliding me with a piece of rubble in mid-air. I was knocked out for a few seconds only, but it was almost enough.
I came to with the mouth of a thresher maw in my face preparing to shallow me whole. And it screeched. OH Mida, Goddess of Oaths and speech, what did it's race do to you to make you curse them with this? The sounds make me freeze up, like a daemon has Hijack my soul and
It's infrasound, infrasound silly! Cries SIAT. FUCK OFF SIAT IF I WANT TO MAKE THIS BEAST AN UNHOLY THING YOU CAN'T DAMN WELL STOP ME NOW SHUT THE HELL UP AND DIE!
mind. The stench made me pass out again, thinking I would never wake up.
There was no flashing of my life before my
You never had any life to speak of. FUCK THE SHUT UP SIAT
eyes, no dramatic last words or acts of defiance. I think the shock had finally reached me. I knew no-one was left alive, not after this long with the 'maws. I just gave up.
Then it hit me: If I didn't get a report back, tell the brass what had happened, I'll be sending even more soldiers to their deaths. That stirred the soldierly core in me, honed through military tradition, basic and N7 training. I Could NOT let that happen.
With that, I opened my eyes again.
I found myself on the thresher's tongue, staring at the roof of his mouth. Its saliva was slowly dissolving the back of my chest-plate.
I thought over what I had:
Combat knife: not enough damage or range.
Grenade, might work, but would never stick to the roof of its mouth.
And that was it, aside from Medi-gel (yep, you could kill things with medi-gel) and some Omni-gel…
Suddenly, a desperate plan came into my head. It wasn't a very good one, but again, it was the best I had.
Using all my Omni-gel, I attached the grenade to my combat knife, and then, praying for Athena to guide my hand and hold my contraption together, embedded the entire thing in the roof of its mouth. This was not going to happen without repercussions. And while I was heartened by the scream it gave off when I embedded the contraption, the resulting movement threw me down its throat. Luckily I had already armed the grenade, but then I cursed my luck, and Ananke, as I saw that the explosion had ignited the volatile gases Thresher maws carried in the bodies for some reason. I prayed to Hecate that I would meet her soon. At that point, I had nothing to live for. I thought my work was done, and that I could die in peace.
Fat Chance.
I woke up to the smell of acid and recently dissolved armour.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW .
The acid had wormed its way into my pussy. It completely ravaged my ovaries and womb, ensuring I could never conceive. While it wasn't such a big loss in the long run (I was a lesbian anyway, and I had no plans for childbirth.)
IT
STILL
HURT
LIKE
HELL.
HECATE, WHY AM I NOT WITH YOU YET? WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?
Desperately treading acid, trying to avoid MORE burns in extremely unpleasant, I regarded my surroundings. My greaves were dissolving fast, and when they fully dissolved my legs would seize up from pain, and I would die. I noticed I was near the mucus wall of the stomach. Desperately, I swam while trying to keep as much of my body possible out of the acid. Eventually I made, as I climbed ever so slightly above the acid line, my greaves finally gave way, and fell. They were dissolved. They could have easily have been my legs (which I were damn proud of.)
Smelling eezo, I looked around, seeing the bobbing, lifeless body of Mona Vasquez. Tears welled up in my eyes. The eezo I smelt was the acid eating away at her shield generator. The Acid was making it malfunction, making it flicker on and off randomly on different sides. One of these flicks sent her into the wall next to me.
Amazingly, her Long-Comm flicked on. An increasly nervous voice was repeating a message
'Any ground units on Akuze respond immediately. I say again, any ground units respond!'
Freeing her hand from the wall, I grabbed the classic telephone shaped handle.
Ah, fuck it, I couldn't care about call signs and code words any fucking less right now.
"This is Shepard. Akuze overrun by thresher Maws. No survivors, currently casualties estimated at 98%. Extraction impossible at this time. Shepard out."
As I cut the connection, the 'maw's stomach stopped convulsing, and then everything was still. I figured that Hecate had finally claimed this thing's twisted parody of a soul for herself.
Having strapped the Long-comm to my back after careful manoeuvring, (And for this I thank a quirk in Mona's character, as she had turned the Long-comm into a self-sufficient unit and attaching it to her back like a rucksack), I started my climb.
I eventually reached the gullet of the thing, hanging upside down from the 'ceiling' of the thing. Swinging round as much as the mucus allowed, I built up enough momentum and swung into the gullet.
I was presently surprised. Instead of the vertical passage I expected, the gullet was at a twenty degree angle. Luckily the thresher maw went on its side when it died. So I had killed it.
After a ten minute walk, with the joints of my armour jamming up with acid, I reached the surface. There was nothing in my mind apart from the desire to leave this blasted place. I clambered onto the 'maw's skull, figuring that was the only place a 'maw couldn't burst out of it. I activated the Long-comm again.
"This is Shepard. Extraction now possible at these coordinates. Shepard out."
And then the fatigue of the day finally wormed its way in, and I felt Selene take my soul to deep sleep.
Then I remember waking up in a med-bay, half my body covered in bandages. For one instant I wondered why I was here, and then I remembered, remembered everything. All I did was wallow and cry silently for two weeks. The only person I felt I could cry around without fear of judgement our doubts. She was the only person I opened up too. And now she was dead. They were good at their jobs, about half were my friends, and one of them was my lover. I still feel their loss. They were the first soldiers I lost under my command, and I had 98% losses. The only survivor was me.
Eventually a doctor came up to me:
"Shepard. While most of the damage you sustained, while major, is repairable, the acid has rendered you infertile."
I was no longer listening. All I could think about was Mona.
They asked me to speak at her funeral. I refused, for I really was not in a fit state to talk much, let alone do public speaking. I loved her for reasons so personal, I only ever shared them with her. I could only ever share them with her. I had scars, even back then. I would never share, with anyone else.
And so I vowed never to love again, never let anyone get this close for their death to hurt me this much. The old Shepard, the nice, friendly, loving Shepard, was dead. An empty, cold, scarred shell had risen into her place, never to be unseated. Vasquez was my first love. She will most likely be my last.
Oh Ananke, why do you despise me? Screw with my mind and kill my friends and lover, and leave me behind a broken wreck?
Old goddesses of Greece, the goddesses of Plato and Socrates, why did you abandon me?