He couldn't breathe, couldn't see, couldn't talk, and couldn't move because he couldn't think. He was climbing, reaching, jumping, falling, running, then when that got him nowhere he started digging, faster and faster and faster until the ground gave up its resistance and then he was falling. He started to flail and writhe because this just didn't make sense. Then he hit something but he didn't care because he still had hands and though the flesh had been stripped from them, there was still some bone left and for now it was enough. Deeper and deeper, further and further 'til he hit gold and other riches then he dug past them, they held no worth, no meaning to him. He found black, thick, odd tasting water that filled his pores and every crevice in him until his eyes were swimming in it. Then the oil was washed away by some other body of something, was it another kind of water? It tasted salty. The salt water filled up his eyes and spilled out towards his gaping mouth and dripped from his lips, to his chin only to plummet to the white, tiled floors. His mind screamed at him, asking him why the world wasn't ending and he had no answer because only his mind could answer anything and if his mind didn't know, how could he have any clue? Was he still digging? Could you tell him please because he doesn't seem to know anything. He was begging you to tell him, begging with his salt water eyes and you couldn't tell him. All you could say with a heavy heart was,

"I'm sorry Jeff, there's nothing you could have done."

Anything short of a miracle wouldn't have been enough.

Then the crew disbanded and nothing short of a miracle would have stopped them.

He had nothing, colour had been drained from the world that he wasn't sure had ever been there. He stayed in it though, because it was the only world he knew of. Outwardly he had always appeared quietly optimistic. People had assumed so because how else would he have got where he was? Truthfully, he was a realist and it was realistic to think that he could be a pilot, he was pretty good at it after all.

Now his realism told him no, to everything. To heaven, to hell, to ships, to flying, to life, to death and everything that came with them. How could he do anything now that he was gone? Shepard was gone and whatever they'd had, whatever he'd given Jeff Moreau had left with him. His career, his life, his passion and his love had died in an explosion and all he had done was watch from the window of an empty escape pod. The plummet back to Earth had been both literal and metaphorical. There was no leaving in either sense.

So he continued to survive, not live but survive. This is how.

Notes:
1) Angst will lessen.
2) Any content at this point is yours to interpret.
3) Please leave feedback, whether you liked this story or not. I want to improve as a writer and to know whether it's worth continuing.