Saren could barely see anything.
He didn't know where he was, nor where he came from or how he got there. The sand was coarse under his feet, tiny rocks hit his ankle as he stumbled upon this strange, dark ground. He was weak, but he kept going. His feet would not stop, his talons kept digging into the sand as he lost his balance.

There was no one here, just an endless desert and distant stars on the sky. His memories started coming back as he fell face flat to the ground.

"Jane" he whispered slowly. Her face was all he could think about, he couldn't forget.
Her eyes as she shouts, a gun in her hand. Screaming. Devastated and angry, losing her grip on reality.

Her red hair flew around her face as she fearlessly left her cover to storm to him, to try and make him change his mind. To fight him, to hit him, to do anything, but she was unable to reach him when he pointed his gun to his own head.
She was eerily beautiful, but it was too late.
"It's too strong" he breathed. And he pulled the trigger.


How much time passed? Hours? Days? Years? It felt like he was lying in the sand for so long that it became a part of him.

But soon he felt his strength coming back to him and he became more and more aware, like after a long night of sleeping. He stood up and looked around, trying to figure out where he is. It was all just dunes, no buildings around. He could have been anywhere in the galaxy. A cold wind swept through the night as the turian got himself together and slowly folded his scarf around his mouth.

As he went from dune to dune, hill to hill, his resolve got stronger and stronger.
He had no idea why but he lived again, and he did not intend to waste this opportunity.

"You will pay for this" he murmured, already plotting the revenge, when his feet hit something hard in the sand. He crouched down and found that something was buried in the ground. He swept the sand away and his talons touched a cold metal surface. He started to dig out more and more but it never ended. That thing must have been huge.

And the touch... was so familiar: a strange sensation lingered in the metal, a feeling that he could not mistake for anything else. A feeling he did not want, but was once planted in his mind, that never really left.

Indoctrination.