Disclaimer - I don't own Mass Effect. Sadly.

A/N - I wrote this when I was bored one day in English at school. It's about a Marine who starts to have second thoughts about being part of the Alliance and the costs of serving humanity. Please excuse my bad grammar, I think I'm getting better. To those people out there waiting for an update on 'A New Beginning', just letting you know that I haven't forgotten about you. I will have the next chapter up soonish. Promise.

The New Black

People don't really think that much about the costs of war. They see the glamour, the medals, and the girls. What they don't see is the graves, the dead, and the lost friends. I guess I really only saw the rewards of service when I joined up with the Alliance Marines. I mean, who wouldn't want a free trip across the galaxy, with hot girls hanging onto your words every step of the way? But I was blinded by the glory of my job. I didn't see the dead bodies, the blood soaked uniform at the end of the day. The glory of proving humanity to the rest of the galaxy seemed to make these facts mere breaths across the tapestry of my mind. It wasn't until yesterday really, about a year after my enlistment, that I truly saw the horrors of war.

But I guess I am not really making sense, so let me start from the beginning of this miserable chapter of my life. One day, while we were on the Citadel for shore leave, one of my female friends, called Alysa, left the bar we were having a drink in and wandered off into the Presidium. None of us knew until later, when we looked at her computer one night, where she had gone. When we hacked into her terminal, we hit the jackpot. I didn't approve of my squad mates breaking into the terminal, but they have never listened to me. What they had found was astonishing. Alysa had hooked up with an asari, and had written that she was infatuated with the person. I'm assuming that if anybody manages to see this and read it they won't know what asari are, so I will give a little explanation. They look a lot like our females, except they have these tentacle things instead of hair, and are a bluish tint all over. They are mono gendered, and reproduce by 'melding' their minds with another and copying the DNA to their embryo or something like that. It wasn't until they met other spacefaring species, however, that they realized that they could meld minds with whomever they wished. And, although they did not need any bodily contact to mind meld, most couples chose to do so anyway. Most humans think of them as lesbians, and for Alysa, that made her a lesbian in my squad mates' eyes. Especially the diary entry they read aloud that described her utmost pleasure in the mind meld she participated in. She described it as pure bliss, a moment that she wished she could live forever. She said that the asari's contact on her naked body felt like little fires set off under her skin, making her giggle like a little girl when given a new toy. Unfortunately for her, judgement was swift, and brutal.

Last night, while Alysa and I were asleep, they dragged her out of her bunk and took her to an abandoned part of the Wards. I do not wish to think of what they would have done to her, but I will tell you what I saw when I was called to the doctor's office this morning. I was told later, that a cyclist had seen her body whilst he was riding around the abandoned warehouses. He found her tied to a post, with a sign around her neck saying 'Lesbian'. After just managing to keep my stomach from heaving from the smell, I examined her body. It was barely recognizable. Her body, I guess, was only taken to us because of the blood splattered dog tags that identified her as part of my squad. The azure bracelet I had given her last Christmas was still dangling on her right wrist, although deep gouges in it corresponded with lacerations all across that arm. Blinking hard, I moved my eyes to her once beautiful face, the one that earned her the nickname Helen, as just like Helen of Troy, we all could see ourselves launching a thousand ships to rescue her. When I tried hard, I could see that her face was still recognizable, although I doubt anybody but myself would have recognized it. A glint near her eyes caught my attention. As I looked closely at it, I noticed that the glint was in fact tears. Tears that had carved their way through the blood on her face. It was hard for me not to break down right then in front of the ship commander and doctor. Even now, writing this, I can see my tears splashing against the keyboard. After breathing through my mouth for a few seconds, I looked at her legs. Underneath the blood splatters, you could see burns. The positioning of them implied that she had been dragged along bitumen somewhere, although I was not sure. On her chest, where her heart should have been, was a horrific looking, gaping hole. On a closer look, I saw that it was stuffed with balls of paper. I put my hand near the hole, about to grab one, when I remembered to check that I was allowed to touch her. Answering my inquiring look, the doctor said softly, "You may touch her."

I withdrew the piece of paper closest to the open. It said -

"We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth." It was a quote from the poem 'The Green Hills of Earth', well, at least the first part. Alysa always used to quote parts of it while we were engaged in combat, putting smiles on all our faces. I will always think of her mangled body now, whenever I see it. Never again will it bring a smile to my face.

Lesbians don't deserve to rest in the glorious, pure soil of Earth. May you wallow in the depths of space forevermore, never resting in peace. You made a choice, and for that, we condemn you.

I passed the paper to the commander, and waited for his reaction. When he finished reading it, he put it down beside her and turned to face me. We looked at each other in silence for several seconds, before I decided to end it. "That was her favourite poem."
He looked at me, sadly, and said "I am sorry; I know you two were close."
I turned back to Alysa's body, thinking over what he had said. My eyes roamed over her body, taking in every burn, every gouge, every cut on her body. I could imagine the scene the cyclist would have been greeted with when he discovered her. Alysa's body would have looked almost like a deformed scarecrow, the shreds of her clothes flapping about gently in the wind. Her face would have been hidden by the shadows of the tall warehouses, and the ropes tying her to the pole would most likely have been cutting into her flesh, her whole body covered completely in blood, with her tears having carved clear channels on her cheeks. Ironically, the channels curved this way and that, and if you looked closely, you might think that the remaining blood on her face resembled a field of sanguine coloured love hearts.

The commander was wrong. I can admit this here and now safely, as I am confident that my comrades will never see this. I was not close to Alysa. I was infatuated with her. I loved the way she laughed, how her auburn hair hugged her face. I loved the way her green eyes glinted mischievously when we talked about our squad mates. But that is all gone now. I hope God reserves her a peaceful afterlife, after a lifetime of pain and suffering. I can't really believe that she is gone. I can't believe that I will never again see her wrinkle her nose at my atrocious attempts at cooking.

I stared at her body for a few minutes, wondering why she had to die. Wondering why her life had to be cut short so brutally. When I walked out, I didn't look back.

To all of humanity, gay is the new black. Gay people replaced black people. Gay people are persecuted instead of black people. Humanity never learns from its mistakes and wrongdoings, it just repeats them, time and time again.

Gay is the new black.

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