"It's cold, the table's cold and I'm typing. There's this buzzing, like an air conditioner and people are talking. I don't know what they're saying, but I'm trying to focus, so I put my headphones on. It's fantastic music; I can remember the build up, the crescendo, but not the name.

"I'm typing and it's cold. I close my eyes as the song rises. I see her face, Liara's and…the song ends. I wake up here, the same buzzing but from the heart monitor. It's still cold…that's all I remember."

A small table separates a young man and an aging physician. The physician jots on her notepad and the man makes eye contact with the table.

"That's all you remember before you woke up?"

The young man flicks through his thoughts. Actually, he remembers a lot; A lifetime of information. His parents, his high school years, his college dorm, his first love, there's so much. But the doctor's say that it's just a by-product of the coma. That it's just a way of his brain trying to compensate for lost time.

"That's all I remember," The young man says.

"You 'died' right before you woke up." The doctor says. The man remembers. The heart monitor beeping in the middle of the computer lab was what shook him from his sleep. Dozing off while typing a midterm paper was a common occurrence, but a heart monitor going off like that. Everything changed.

"They say that you shouldn't be alive right now."

I shouldn't be here, that's for sure, the man thinks to himself, looking down at the table. He's in a cold room and the doctors tell him he's just awoken from a coma. He's in Harken's First Colonial Hospital on Eden Prime and everything's okay. But it's not.

Eden Prime was a place that used to be fiction. And though the young man had wished to be there on several occasions, it was the kind of wish made in desperate times. When life seemed most bleak and the candle was finally going out. He didn't really mean it.

But there he found himself.

"I'm going to ask you a few questions to test your cognitive ability. Being in a coma for nineteen years is…well, let's just ask the questions." The physician gave a weak smile, the kind that had no hope for the best.

"Do you know the name that was given to you at birth?"

"Noah," the young man said. The woman was startled by his immediacy.

"Very good. It's said that coma patients can sometimes retain knowledge that's spoken around them." Noah knew his name not because someone had spoken it to him while lying in a bed. He knew it because his mother had taught him to say it when he was just a baby. He knew it because people had constantly made references to him and 'his arc' throughout school. He knew it because…it was his name.

"Do you know when your birthday is?"

"January, 25th…"

"And the year?"

"…nineteen years ago."

"You don't know the year, Noah?"

"Listen, Doc, is it…"

"Answer the question, Noah. Do you remember what year you were born?"

"That's what I'm trying to say. This…is a lot to take in."

"I know, Noah. But I'm just trying to make sure your brain is okay. I mean, nineteen years is…its ridiculous, kid. And you're acting like you'd just taken a nap."

"Are you sure I've been in a coma? Here? On Eden Prime?"

"Yes, Noah. You've been here since you were born." The doctor's face tensed into curiosity. "Do you think I'm lying to you, Noah?"

"I don't know, but I'd really like it if you quit saying my name. It's kinda weird."

"I'm sorry," The doctor shook his head, exasperated. "This is just extraordinary. You've never been formally taught the Earth language, yet you're speaking like an educated person. You've never met a doctor before in your life and you accept my role as your care taker. You're not scared, you're not panicking…it's just extraordinary."

"I'm scared, doc." Noah said. "I don't belong here."

"Of course you do."

"No, no, no, no, no. Listen to what I'm about to say," Noah paused for a moment, as if to make sure he wanted to say what he was about to. "I…"

Just then there was a crash. Both Noah and the elder physician turned to look at the shaded window stretching along the wall. The world went quiet for a whole minute before there was another crash, this one closer. Then people began to scream, some just outside the hospital room.

"I'll be right back, Noah." The doctor got up, Noah reaching for him, trying to stop him, and left the room, calling for a nurse.

Noah's heart pealed, layer after layer, dropping the death into his gut. His hands tried to grip onto the bed railing but they only trembled. They were weak, pale, but they were still his hands. The screaming continued outside as a series of crashed, these ones closer, sounded outside the window.

The shockwave of whatever made the crash burst the window and sent glass and dust flying into the hospital. It was then that he realized he wasn't alone. There were at least seven other coma patients evenly spaced throughout the room. None of them looked to be waking up anytime soon. He regarded them for a moment before another crash sent more dust and debris splashing against him.

Noah tried to move, but his muscles wouldn't allow it. For the first time since dozing off in the computer lab, he looked down at his body. He didn't recognize it. The fat was gone, the muscle was gone. He looked like skin and bone, a few veins here and there protruding through the skin.

He had just enough time to mutter a curse before another shockwave crashed through the window. The hospital bed toppled over, slamming him against the floor and crushing him under the heavy plastic frame. He'd never felt so helpless in his life. He screamed as he tried to move his arm to lift him. When that didn't work he tried his wrist and this just a finger.

Nothing moved. Nothing except his neck.

It made no sense to him. He remembered most of the nineteen years he's lived. There was no way he could have been in a coma. But his body was different, it was unlived, his muscles didn't work. For all he knew they were dead and he was stuck on the floor until he joined them.

But the memories. The speech recognition, the role recognition. There was no way he could believe he picked it all up while in a coma. He wasn't a doctor or a scientist, but it seemed impossible. Then again…he was on Eden Prime. Eden-attacked-by-Saren-and-the-Geth-Prime. From that damn video game his roommate was always playing. The one he got Noah hooked on.

That seemed impossible.

"Help!" Noah yelled. "Somebody help me!"

There were people yelling. Down the hallway, outside, everywhere there were people yelling. He didn't recognize a voice, not a sound. Everything felt pseudo, everything felt fake.

"Damn it! Somebody help me!"

But it wasn't fake.

"I can't move! Help me!"

Nothing had ever felt so real to Noah than when he didn't have the strength to pick himself up. He remembered sitting in one of the many computer labs on his college's campus, typing away at some massive midterm paper. The hum of the air conditioner, the cold table top that his arms rested on. He remembered it all and it was real, it was where he had been only thirty minutes ago. But it wasn't as real as the dust and the glass and feeling of helplessness.

He wasn't sure how, but he was on Eden Prime.

And Sovereign was too.