Shepard stumbled toward her cabin, clutching at the door frame in an effort to keep her whole body from lurching into the wall. Her boots were leaden on her feet and dragged along the floor as she moved further into the room and the door hissed shut behind her, a quiet word locking it behind her. One greave fell to the floor, then a shoulder guard, a crack spanning the length of the carbon fibre from where she had hit the concrete hard and deep scrapes from being dragged along the ground. The other followed, then the sharp snaps of upper arm guards as they were unsealed and discarded. Gloves peeled off and thrown in a corner, shaking, cramping fingers worrying at the closures beneath the ridge of her chest piece.
Sweaty hair fell in her eyes, as she struggled, pushing it back with a hand that streaked her face with blood and mud until the whites of her eyes stood out sharply in the gloom. Pain; burning, acid heaviness radiated out of every muscle that struggled to keep her upright and moving forward. Ragged breathing filled the air, sharp gasps that broke the thick silence until it seemed to fill her ears with a constant roar that made her head pound still harder.
The seals under her left arm were jammed, fused shut from the vicious collision with the side of a building that had dazed her and left her concussed in the middle of the line of fire until someone on the team, she still didn't know who, had put a shoulder to her and rolled them both behind an abandoned gravcar before sprinting off again. She'd lain there, head lolling to the side for an age, mind clear of thoughts and mercifully, blessedly blank. She could see her legs stretched out in front of her, her back uncomfortably slumped against the empty door frame. Everything was silent. She could see nothing, hear nothing. Nothing made sense. There was no one. Just her, and the piece of shattered concrete that she could see from where her head rested against the seat that was wedged halfway out the door of the car. A fine web of cracks emanated from the hole of an impact that had displaced chunks of asphalt and thrown dust into the air. Motes swirled around her, catching the light that filtered weakly from above, from beyond the haze of smoke and ash that covered the sky.
It would be so easy. It would be so easy to let go, to close her eyes and wander away from consciousness to the infinite peace of nothingness. What a thing it would be not to feel for a moment. To not to have to struggle against doubt and pain and fatigue for a brief, glorious second and forget the world. Step away from the burden of her existence, the existence of every other living being in the universe. What a privilege it would be to not be alive.
Exhaustion burned through her every cell as her eyes fluttered open and shut lazily, half out of focus. Still somehow separate from the world, a ghost that cannot see, nor be seen. Absent, incongruous, inconsequential. A being, a nothing, a shadow among a sea of life that sweeps her away until nothing makes sense anymore.
She struggled with the seals, wrenching and pulling until they popped, ripping off the flexible plates that lay beneath the hardsuit until she was almost, almost free. The last, nearest her shoulder, was warped so badly that there was not even a hint of give and she cried out as she pushed the chest piece away from her. The right side was open, and the right shoulder, they flexed apart a little as her arms shook with the effort, head sliding through the neck opening until she was free and sliding the still-joined chest and back pieces down her left arm and sent them crashing to the floor.
She stood, breathing hard, not noticing the blood that dripped down her fingers to the floor. A snapped catch too close to her skin as she pulled the armour off, a stinging streak of red that reached down her arm. Bending down to grasp her thigh guard, her knee gave way and she hit the floor with a grunt of pain. Her eyes were shut tight as she curled around herself and it washed over her; a revitalised burning, stinging internal shriek of protest from her battered body.
Deep breaths.
Deep breaths.
Determined. Focus.
Finish the task. Finish the mission.
A hand pushed the larger locks of her leg armour open, sweaty and mud streaked until they too lay among the pile of ruined gear. Its marks were a cacophony of protesting screams from almost-but-not-quite bullets, glancing blows and near misses. A record of her struggles, not in words, but in scars. Then they were gone, pushed away with the boots that landed on the floor soon after. She slumped against the panel behind her, grounding and safe in her broken state. Her skin burned against it, sweat needling her eyes as they fluttered closed, breathing sluggish and laboured.
Someone had grabbed her hand, wrenching her shoulder as they dragged her along the ground, away from the gravcar and its isolation in the middle of the street. The sounds of fighting that filtered through the haze of her mind were closer, sharp cracks of bullets that streaked over their heads and great thudding booms of grenades and the accompanying smash and rain of shattered rock that skittered across the ground afterwards. The figure tugged her along by the arm, holding another prone body in its other arm as it pounded the road in retreat to safer ground. Shepard nearly vomited as she crashed down into a crater and her shoulder wrenched from the socket, mercifully slipping back in with another jerk as they reached the other side.
And then a rushing, booming blast of air and she was flying. Limp, weightless, a ferocious heat searing her skin and lifting her up and away. The hand was torn from her grip and she was alone, eyes stretched wide and screaming until there was no air left to breathe.
And then she fell.
One hand forward, raw, angrily red under the burns that had seared through the protective kevlar weave of her glove. One knee, coloured by the decaying blood that lingered beneath the skin in a grotesque reminder of impact too hard for delicate capillaries. Another hand, stretching forward. She crawled toward the bathroom, each movement a scream of pain from joints and muscles that had been abused beyond their limits and then over again. Her compression suit was torn in places, the left sleeve flapping open lazily with each jerky movement forward, soaked with sweat and salt and fear.
The cool tile beneath her fingers was a relief when it came. A promise of letting go, forgetting the slithering, aching fear that still coursed through her veins until it was all she could do to keep moving forward, reach the goal. One hand reached behind her and tugged at the zip of her suit, pulling until cool air rushed to her clammy skin beneath. The neck clasp swung free where it had been ripped free. The neck guard of her armour had been shredded in the explosion. Tugging it over her head and peeling away the torso, she growled low in her chest as the raw skin of her burned belly came away with it. She pulled away the the last of it over her legs and slumped again, head cracking against the wall until her mind swam again with pain and exhaustion and desperation. Why couldn't she have just let go. It was too much. This was too much. She had nothing left to give, the struggle had taken everything from her and left her an empty shell of her former self that moved and breathed but didn't live.
Her hand moved to hit the holo on the wall and she gasped as warm water sprayed over her as she curled up in the corner of the shower. Streaks of mud and blood gurgled down the drain and the water poured down on her head, plastering her hair to her face and covering her eyes. She didn't notice. She couldn't breathe, sobs heaving from deep within her, gasping and tearing at her chest. Great shuddering rasps welled up and exploded from her as she cried, collapsed on the floor of the shower.
No one was coming.
No one could help.
Why couldn't she just die?
