The Shadow That Follows Us All: a Mass Effect Interlude

featuring John Shepard and Tali'Zorah nar Rayya

Part 1

Legend

"speech"

Shepard's thoughts

Body

"Face me."

Funny thing, gloves. The way they attempt to cover your hands for whatever reason. Sometimes, they are designed to keep you safe from extreme heat. Other times you put them on to prevent frostbite. Increasingly, however, gloves were made to achieve several things simultaneously.

"Please..."

In the age of space travel, gloves have risen from their humble beginnings by quite a bit. Perhaps one of the most vital functions of any nowadays is to create a barrier of pressure and air between your appendages and the outside world. It made a lot of sense too, since people living in a time where they could choose to spend most of their lives in the blackness beyond their homeworld would have difficulty finding oxygen to feed their lungs much more quickly than the usual concerns of nutrition and hydration.

"Don't block me out like this."

He flicked his wrists, turning his gloves around. Now he could see the back of them, whereas he previously filled his curiosity with the palms. The design changed noticeably between the two sides. The front of the gloves were an enamel-colored weave of composite fabrics, soft and flexible. It attempted to lessen his loss of dexterity while equipped with the things, as well as give him a little tactile feedback akin to a naked palm's stimulation when coming into contact with an object.

"Are you even listening to me?"

The backside of his gloves, however, was a different story altogether. The thick, insulated skin was shaded with dark hues of brown and black, and no amount of friction would alert his sense of touch that something had indeed contacted his hand at that side. Only the realization that his wrist or arm was bending from some force at that part of his limb would ever give rise to the mental awareness of it being touched.

"I-I don't want to see you like this..."

Ironic, really; two sides of the same being, identical yet total opposites. One functioned as a receiver of experience, of opening up to sensation in order to gain knowledge of it with acute consciousness. The other blocked this same experience out, dulling his mind to the fact that he was being interacted with by an external entity.

"So, please."

And yet, they both were sown together to act as one, and to defend a single unbreakable promise: protect.

"Shepard!"

"..." The Commander blinked a few times, furrowing his brows in a questioning manner. For some reason, he felt a disturbance meekly touch his mind. It wasn't his own thoughts, nor was it the usual pain-induced warning of urgent danger. He ought to know; that specific sensation became engrained into his mortal vessel enough times to near-instantaneously identify it. So then, what caused the flux of his meditation to waver?

Was it you? He wondered with genuine interest at the subject of his previous contemplation, looking at his hands. They were inches from his face, and the floor, which was darkened partially due to his shadow, were in the background and periphery of his sight. I'm looking down, then. A trivial conclusion to deduce, but he couldn't seem to arrive at it sooner than normal. But why? Shouldn't it be obvious?

It was a then that the man tried moving his head slightly, only to discover something intruguing: He could not feel the motion. Only the subtle shudder of the ground paired with his knowledge of deciding to take an action that would cause the phenomenon allowed him to deduce that he had made any sort of action at all. This is somewhat troublesome. My inner ears aren't working. I've lost my sense of balance.

"Dammit, Shepard...!"

There it was again. A slight tremor in his body, permeating his logic with... something. It was something he couldn't describe. It frightened him that he didn't understand it, had no sense of its name. Man named every animal and thing, and it became his to control. He became concerned with this feeling, the lack of comprehension, and conversely of control over the anomaly that had twice now affected his being.

"I'm right here."

Where could this feeling be coming from? I won't get anywhere just guessing; there are far too many possibilities and only empirical proof will lead me to the truth of the matter. I had best start from what I do know. I, I know... I think... I am. Because I am, what let's me think is. It is... my mind. My brain. It is connected to my spine... so my spine also is. This connects to my abdomen, my arms, my legs... my body is. Therefore my eyes are. And the light my eyes perceive... are.

"Just look."

Light... Coming from the ground. It gives light? No, only reflects it to him. Because it doesn't itself cause light, then that which it emanates comes from something else. Where? Light travels in a straight line. It cannot pass through solids, and so casts a shadow at the surface which was robbed of that illumination prematurely. Because of the lack of it, light actually allows us to realize that it's there. I see a shadow now, in fact, on the part of floor right below me. So then, the light comes from above.

"I'm right here."

He sees it: the silhoutte created on the floor by his figure. He could discern several features by tracing its shape, such as the lack of hair on his smooth round scalp, the way his neck abruptly grows and implies some sort of clothing that begins at that point of his true body, and the compressed length of his entire shadow. I'm sitting down, then. The consciousness frowned, however. By casting a shadow, I am effectively taking away the same amount of light that would have been shown where there is now blackness. And yet I'm unaware, without feeling. Like the back of my hand, facing away from the truth.

"I won't..."

He glimpses something unusual. On the floor was more than his light-devouring shadow, and apparently his legs. It was another pair of limbs, lightly touching the ground where light still shined near him. It seemed different than his own, however, more... elegant. More beautiful. He traced with unwavering eyes the tips of those legs, seemingly curved away from him, thin and slender maidens shying away from the dark ugliness confronting them.

"...Let you fall."

His cheeks felt something touch them, trying to break his focus. He knew better, though. The Commander would not yield to temptation, to scratch an itch that would only draw blood. Eyes continued to snake up the purplish appendages upwards, noticing how they both grew in thickness before making contact with each other and forming a single, cohesive unit of graceful curves. Perfect grace.

"Not like this."

The simplicity of this figure before him gave way to complexity as he continued on his scan. The curves changed, enveloping more shapes and connections than before. Two spherical objects came to view, side by side. They seemed to naturally emerge from the base he set his sight on. He seemed to hesitate before moving on, which was troubling. I don't get distracted, ever. People die when I lose focus. Why did I lose it that easily?

"Not into yourself."

It was true, though. Death seemed too easy and frequent to come by. He absently recalled how it enveloped him so completely as a child just approaching adulthood. The screaming and pain – but for him it wasn't physical – surrounded him as being from another world, beings of otherworldly appearance, descended upon his peaceful life and violated his very innocence in one damning night. Only through unflinching focus and perseverance, fighting those same demons attempting to enslave another world as well as internal hemorrhaging and dwindling resources, did he prevent the ultimate shadow from dominating his life in such a way a second time.

"I won't let you."

And yet, somehow, it came again. It snook up from behind, taking by surprise a man who thought he had finally prepared for all eventualities, especially for this one event. It was not as merciless as before, like the Vengeance of God blanketing a town of non-believers in Egypt with eternal slumber. It was different this time: a request was made to lady Chance, and she flipped her coin, and chose that one soul to take. No logic, no justification. No power to stop it.

The man could hear and see the elegant figure in violet approach him. At that moment his mind cleared. He remembered the mission. He remembered how he discovered the truth behind indoctrination. He remembered the ancient machine, larger than life and the afterlife. But that was not what numbed his mind. It was not the encounter with a rogue Spectre. It was not even the blast they barely escaped from, explaining the lack of inner ear function he currently suffered from.

"So please look at me, Shepard."

With a weak smile, he rested his eyes upon the visor of his Quarian comrade. "I understand now, Tali. I understand everything." The annoyance he felt on his cheeks returned. He finally realized that they were tears. "I am the destruction. The shadow that I cast is what kills indiscriminantly. It cannot touch me, so it touches everyone around me." He was not sure due to his blurring vision, but the Commander could scarcely make out the engineer's hands go to her mouthpiece. She understood as well.

"I murdered Kaidan."

To Be
Continued

Post-body

I'm not sure whether I should continue this. It feels a little dark, and it's been a long time since I've written anything at all (let alone the fact that I just don't have that sort of time in my hands right now due to college.)

Anyway, I wrote this out of impulse, right before sleeping. I wanted to get it out of my system. If anyone would be so kind as to comment and suggest (Chapter 2: yay or nay?) anything regarding this short story, please feel free to send a review my way.

2-19-'11 - So it turns out it will continue.