Amongst the concrete, rubble and ash, her broken body was easily missed, deathly still, barely breathing. Fragments of vehicle and building formed a crushing cage around her, but her trap went far deeper. Shepard was lost within a dense oblivion, the darkness only interrupted by fleeting shadows, inaudible whispers.
Shepard endured for what could have been an eternity, but slowly, the darkness began to dissipate into a new form, a swirling haze. Shepard wondered if she could be conscious, though she wasn't sure she could remember what it was to be conscious. The darkness had become her world and she'd embraced it. Now she could feel a crippling force pinning her to the ground, her chest was tight and every breath seemed like an epic feat. She desperately tried to recall why she was there, and she knew that she needed to open her eyes. But that would require more energy than she'd even thought tangible. It was of huge importance, why she was there, whatever 'it' was, it had consumed her very being once, long ago, there was a never a moment when it left her mind. She could feel it now, drumming on the inside of her skull, expanding as she willed herself to remember. Her head began to throb; it was teetering on the edge of her consciousness, ready to explode out into her thoughts, if only she focused a bit harder.
It was too much. Trying to recall was burning up the vital energy she needed to cling on to life. Her failure to remember was distressing. Instead, Shepard turned her focus on the image that had been in the forefront of her mind since she awoke. His face. No amount of suffering was strong enough to steal her memory of him. Instantly, a warm wave of serenity lapped over her. She latched on to his image, he was her anchor in this purgatory. He shone like a beacon in her mind, his name, the only word she still remembered, formed at her lips, echoed in her skull. Garrus. She smiled. His face accompanied her as she began to drift into unconsciousness again, a soft beam of light in the darknesss.
A dim room. An empty seat. A glass in her hand. She'd made it, it was real. All she had to do was wait. She raised the glass to her lips but before she could take a sip it shattered in her hand, cutting her fingers. The chair collapsed from under her and she plummeted into the abyss, her stomach in her mouth.