We believed that the Reapers were coming to save us from an unnatural existence, a life estranged from the natural cycles of creation and destruction. We stood on the shoulders of giants upon giants upon giants, and from that place all we could see was the emptiness of our achievements, as we solved problems that were never meant to be problems. We wished for a dark age to start life back at the beginning, and when Shepard revealed that the Reapers were coming, we rejoiced. Here was the fearsome wrath of a god, something that had been missing from our lives.
Then Shepard disappeared, a time that we called the Occultation, where he learned the mysteries of the one known as Harbinger; and he was resurrected, to effect the Reapers' will. Shepard led the Reapers to humanity, which was most in need of their solution. I understood these things, and I believed them. And then, as we reached the megalopolis of Atlanta, we encountered our saviors, and I changed my mind. I changed my mind, and I lived.
Our leader, Preston, had become a curious sort of celebrity after Shepard's revelation. He feuded with the established sects of Interventionary Evolutionists, claiming that the advances that humanity had made since the discovery of the ruins on Mars were unintended. The only purpose, Preston argued, was to lead us to the relay, which would open our system to the Reapers, prove that we were ready for them. In a sermon broadcast on local access television, he syncretized the Reapers with Christian eschatology. The Reapers would encompass us and return the world to a primordial state, to Eden. They would absorb us, purify us, and return us to a natural world. Preston's message drew followers who were desperate for any sort of salvation. The universe was just too much for some people.
During Shepard's Occultation, our sect grew, and our cosmology began to be taken seriously. We became a threat, our goals not in line with those of the Systems Alliance, which insisted on seeing the Reapers as an enemy. After all, the corporations that owned the Alliance were spoiling for an arms race, and the politicians were eager for a crisis that would allow them to extend their powers. And had Shepard not abandoned the Alliance for its stubborn, institutional ignorance? That was our preaching, and that was why we were dangerous, why we had to go into exile.
We bought a tract of land with an old farmhouse, which we renovated and expanded. Life was basic, as life should be: we tended our crops and our animals, listened to sermons, trained to defend our compound from authorities who wished to harm us. Preston, with his paternal confidence and subliminal command, quite naturally took on the role of church father. He deemed himself the Sovereign of the church, the earthly analog of the Reaper whom Shepard had brought to the Citadel, which was Babylon in our eschatology. Although the Citadel survived, we believed that a seal had been broken, and we awaited the Arrival of our saviors.
By now we had cells throughout the country: our message had caught on, and we had a network of faithful. We received transmissions from Shi'a groups in the pan-Islamic state of al-Qahira who referred to Shepard as Mahdi. This vast network afforded us the chance to refine and expand our doctrine, to encompass more faiths, as well as access to funds and weapons: if the authorities came for us, we would not be dislodged, we would not be silenced. Our message reached the colonies, and we were able to witness the first wave of the rapture. We gazed upon the Collectors and recognized them as angels. For me, it was difficult to suppress a certain jealousy that these people who had left Earth would be the first to be saved; Preston assured me, however, that we were not to begrudge our brothers and sisters their ascension, for we would meet them in due time. Our duty was now to watch the signs and spread the doctrine.
At last they came: upon every sprawling megalopolis the Reapers descended. Our set-up at the compound afforded us access to news around the world, and we heard their harsh clarion call. Yet the Reapers had not found us yet, and so we determined to mount a pilgrimage to the city that had once cast us out. We knew that the Reapers were there, and we intended to meet them. It was a bittersweet departure, but we hoped that after we were gone others would take refuge here and, perhaps, find some solace in our texts, sculptures, and murals. The Reapers would be here for years, we assumed, so our shrine would have time to win us converts.
We spared no expense on our pilgrimage: what we had saved up we invested in outfitting a fleet of vehicles as well as the means to defend them. We were not about to fall short of our salvation because of the ignorant terror of the unbelievers. Many along the way begged us for food and water, and Preston pointed toward the great bodies that we could see in the distance hovering over Atlanta and answered them, "There is your sustenance!"
Our caravan grew, but our new followers were not all faithful: some clung to the hope that we would be moved by their abjectness and feed them, and there were others who believed that we were marching to fight the Reapers. They were an annoyance, but Preston urged us not to drive them off, "for they are all on the road to Damascus." Several of them converted on the spot: they told of us of lawlessness in the cities, that people didn't expect to live long enough to answer for their crimes; yet they found purpose with us, and they came around to our notion of salvation.
The bodies of our saviors grew and filled us with awe: we were still miles from the heart of the city, and yet their forms occupied our vision, filled the entire sky. The land was becoming promising: there were signs of battle, scorched walls, corpses. We hoped that we had not missed the angels. But we did not have to worry, because Preston soon saw a group of bodies shuffling farther down the street, and we recognized them as of the kind that Shepard had first encountered on Eden Prime. Here before us, at last, stood the gray-skinned saved: they were glorious, suffused with a gentle blue light. They were becoming one with the Reapers, and they were inviting us to join them. My brothers and sisters fell to their knees in ecstasy as the spindly hands gripped and tore their flesh. Their howled hallelujahs became distorted, like a sample of a voice stretched to its breaking point, and their coughs sounded like bursts of static.
I felt a tightness in my chest, as of a hand constricting my heart and my lungs. It was not the ecstasy that the others were feeling, but abject terror. Instinct kicked in, and then shame that I could not suppress it at such a crucial moment. How often had I been the one to pull others back from the lip of apostasy? They asked, Why did Shepard kill Saren? And I told them the truth as I had learned it, that Shepard adopted the mantle of prophet through his ritual combat with Saren. "Blessed with his blood," I said, the refrain of our hymn to Shepard, and that satisfied them. But now I couldn't hear the hymn over my beating heart, and I opened fire on the gray one coming toward me. I swear that at that moment I looked to my friend Garrett, and he was ashamed of me-even as the gray one clamped on his throat, he maintained eye contact and excommunicated me. Run, then. You don't deserve your martyrdom.
No one followed me: I am alone now in my apostasy. I don't know what I am expecting anymore. I had prepared for death, and this sudden impulse pulled me away from my destiny. I hold onto life, for what reason I cannot say. The angels have seen me for what I am, and I am not eager to meet them again.