20 Feb 2019: Chapter 10 has arrived...finally

I really liked reading about the 'groundhog day' stories on the MEkinkmeme. So, here's my version.

Prompt:

Nihlus Kryik is supposed to die on Eden Prime. Almost all of the parallels in the universe dictate and demand his death. Subsequently, in all of these parallels, Shepard does not or cannot witness his murder. But what happens when Shepard accidentally stumbles upon a twisted scene of betrayal and locks eyes with the victim? A new, broken parallel emerges, throwing Shepard into a circular chaos where she must continue to protect Nihlus's now fragile life. If he dies, they start over. But how does the cycle end?


...~^~...

It wasn't until the fourth death that Shepard realized her folly. As she sat in the cargo bay, shoulders hunched, elbows on her knees, face in her palms, she remembered his death. She remembered all four times as clear as day. They never changed; in fact if there was one thing she would ever bet on again in her life, it would be the fact that Nihlus Kryik would die from a bullet through the back of his head.

The first time she saw it, Shepard let out a cry to rival a god's voice and charged the Betrayer. He had smirked at her and kicked with otherworldly speed. Her ribs snapped like twigs and she landed next to Nihlus in his growing puddle of blood. She watched helplessly as the killer walked away slowly, nonchalantly, confidently. Using what little strength she had left, she moved her body to lie resting next to his. Her eyes were shut and she wished with all her might that her resolve would overcome her curiosity. But alas, she gave in and moved her gaze upward to see his wound. Shepard had shamelessly wept. When fatigue finally took her into its embrace, it was strangely peaceful.

Until she awoke in the cargo hold with a gripping fear that clutched at her lungs and left her gasping for air. Striking emerald eyes came into view. Her breathing slowed and trembling hands moved of their own accord to lightly cup his mandibles. He laughed and mumbled that he should let her take naps more often if she would wake to greet him as such each time. Nihlus's spread smile faded quickly when Shepard let the first tears fall down her temples and past her ears. He looked nervous and worried to her, but she didn't care. Something had happened and he was alive. His death had felt so real. It must have been a nightmare.

The days rolled by with abnormal similarities to her supposed dream. By the time Shepard and her team touched down on Eden Prime with Nihlus far ahead, she was in a complete fog. Her body felt as if it were going through a path of set motions. With each step she took and each bullet she fired, her mind remembered the feeling as if she had done it before. Déjà vu was completely out of the question when she found herself separated from her group again and picking through familiar foliage. Her heart raced as she continued to cut down large stalks of brush. The weeds grew thicker but her feet moved faster; faster than they had in her dream. She was practically running through every obstacle when finally her body tore through the threshold. It was suddenly clear, and she could see him. He looked right at her, through her, with those piercing eyes and time seemed to freeze. Shepard swallowed hard and her knees felt weak. She watched the same murderer behind Nihlus raise his gun in slow motion. But Shepard didn't move, couldn't move. She was stuck in a trance begat of fear and shock. When the trigger was pulled, she swore she could hear the distinctive 'click'. Her heart wrenched in horror as Nihlus's forehead burst apart to give way to the intrusion. His now lifeless body fell to its knees and so did she. Her mind registered movement from the killer but she didn't care. Shepard's eyes were glued to Nihlus falling slowly forward before finally hitting the concrete with a dull thud. He was dead for a second time. She couldn't breathe and all she could think about was that it was a dream. It had to be a dream, it couldn't be real. But when she looked up and saw the killer's gun trained on her, she knew. The 'click' was once again heard, and her brain shortly thereafter ceased its thoughts.

White exploded behind her eye sockets and a scream tore past her throat. Shepard fell off of her napping crate and onto her knees, holding her face and sobbing painfully.

"Shepard! What the hell?!" It was his voice and it sounded frantic. She barely registered his hands gripping at her shoulders and pulling her up into his chest. She gasped and wheezed and pushed her face into the shoulder provided, clutching desperately at Nihlus's torso in a tight hug. They stayed like that for a while, wrapped up in each other's arms on the floor of the Cargo Hold. Shepard cried softly while Nihlus stroked her hair and rubbed at her back. He rocked her gently and tucked his face into the crook of her neck and quietly shushed her cries. He whispered it was alright into her ear and squeezed her gently in his arms when she shuddered.

The following days were awkward. Nihlus asked her regularly if she was okay, or if she wanted to discuss her dream. Shepard always responded with a quick and quiet no. When they stood in the Cargo Bay once more, cocking their guns and readying their ammo rations, Nihlus approached her again.

"You haven't been yourself."

She looked up at him in slight confusion. They weren't supposed to act this way. She wasn't supposed to be friendly with him. He was about to die so soon, and she hated him for it. "You barely know me enough to have seen what 'myself' truly is." He stared at her long and hard. Blues met green in a silent battle of who would back down first. Nihlus blinked and turned toward the door, hand at the ready to release the hatch. That was the end of it. So many times had Shepard attempted to muster up the courage to talk to him. She wanted to tell him of his death, of how he shouldn't go to the transport station. Better yet, he should simply sit this one out and let her go alone. But every time there was a lull in the talking, Nihlus would make a small quip to recharge the conversing. What sort of opportunity was she waiting for? The timing never came and all too soon Shepard was leading her ground crew towards the first clearing. Nihlus's voice crackled through their comms to inform them of the carnage at the settlement and that he was going on ahead to check things out at the station. With adrenaline pumping through her veins, Shepard swiped her hand up to her comm button in a hasty attempt to stop him.

"No! Nihlus don-" She was cut off by a sharp yell next to her. It was Jenkins, once again too naïve and inexperienced to keep hold of his situational awareness. Shepard stood stock-still as she watched him crumple to the ground in a spray of crimson blood. Her mind whispered 'what a shame' but her body felt nothing. No guilt, no anxiety, no pain. Jenkins was meant to die here, there wasn't a way around it; but Nihlus… She needed to get to Nihlus. Nothing else around her mattered and she turned towards the clearing to get to Ashley. Kaiden's ignorant voice yelled after her to ask where she was going in such a hurry. As fast as she could, Shepard ducked and wove through bullet blasts, remembering easily where each drone and geth were hidden. She threw a few ammo packs to Ashley when she rounded the corner, skipping any introductions altogether. Up the hill, through the Husks, over the line of bushes and down another hill. She emerged again where she had the first two times and found Nihlus in conversation with his killer.

"Nihlus, duck!" Her interjection echoed through the empty station and both turians turned to face the source of the voice. But her heart nearly stopped when she saw her mistake. The murderer took her cry as an opportunity, and sunk the bullet into the back of Nihlus's unsuspecting brain. Shepard's feet must have moved on their own because she found herself standing directly in front of him by the time his limp body began to fall forward. He fell into her arms, spilling his dark blue blood onto her chest piece and bringing them both down to the ground. Jane was ready with her gun locked and aimed for the infuriatingly smug turian in front of her. He laughed at her.

"Hold him close, human. Perhaps he'll have a safe journey to the afterlife in your dead arms." He shot her before she even had time to pull her own trigger.


...~^~...

"She awoke sweating and panting heavily; though there was no scream. She had been ready for her death this time. The feeling of Nihlus's heavy body in her arms still tingled on her skin as she tried to rub the phantasm away. Was this really a dream? How could she possibly dream the same thing over and over again without ever waking? Her attention was drawn to the living Nihlus at the other end of the Cargo hold. He was seated on a crate, polishing each piece of his armor, oblivious to Jane's plight. She needed to talk to him, needed to know this was real.

"Hey."

"Good morning. Sleep well?"

"Eh…not really."

He rumbled a small laugh. "That's what you get for falling asleep on an ammo crate." She laughed with him, still massaging her arms to relieve herself of the ever present tingling. When their chuckling subsided, it was completely quiet once more. Nihlus resumed his polishing and Shepard leaned against a crate opposite of him, watching. She was losing her nerve. Perhaps she should have thought out her approach a little bit more before actually executing her plan to speak with him. He would think she was absolutely bonkers if she immediately rattled out her looping dream of him dying and her mourning his loss like nothing she had ever experienced. Why did she care so much? She knew the answer already. Because he had befriended her. He had been the first turian to treat her nicely and fall into a friendly banter after their meeting. He told her she was a good soldier, and that he respected her. He told her that he was interested in her potential for Spectre status. And then he died. More than that, she watched him die. Jane had witnessed three times now, a bullet fly through his head. And she had seen with an overwhelming sorrow in her heart, the life leave his bright green eyes. Her hands rubbed at her face and she exhaled. Shepard needed to say something; anything.

"Do you…mind if we talk?"

"About what?"

She fidgeted. Why wasn't this easier? "About a dream I had." She flinched a bit when he set down his armor and polishing pad. But when he crossed his arms and looked at her patiently, she relaxed.

"I've uh…never had one like it before. And it actually scares me."

"I'm all ears, Shepard."

"It's about you."

He hesitated, but urged her gently to go on. "What about me?"

Here goes nothing. "You die. And I watch you die the same way every time, in such incredible detail. It's terrifying and sad, and I cry like I've never cried before. And then I die soon after. That's when I wake up." Her hands were wringing nervously and she couldn't bring herself to make eye contact. As expected, he was completely silent. Jane wondered in that moment what he was thinking.

"You…you tell me this as if you have the dream regularly?" She nodded slowly, finally looking up to see his face. He was staring at her hard, the very same way he looked at her before going to his most recent death. Shepard closed her eyes and silently berated herself for thinking of his deaths as if they were real. They aren't real, Jane. Just bad dreams.

"I'm not really sure what to say, Shepard. How often do you have the dream?"

"That's the thing…I feel like it's one long dream. Right now, I feel like I just woke up from a month long coma with the entirety of that sleep filled with that…dream." She said 'dream' as if it were made of poison.

"You've only been asleep for about 40 minutes."

"I know. But every time you died, I would wake up and see you here alive. Then we would live for 5 more days, in detail until we're sent to Eden Prime where you get shot. The cycle went on for three times before I woke up just now. And here I am, telling you all of this, and I still don't know if I'm even awake." Shepard felt like a complete idiot when Nihlus huffed at her last statement. He thought she was crazy, she knew it.

Then he did something interesting. Nihlus's hand reached over and pinched her arm. He just empinched/em her and stood there, mandibles flexed apart in a turian, shit-eating grin. Shepard couldn't help herself despite the gravity of her situation. She laughed until she cried, Nihlus chuckling deeply along with her. After that she stayed and talked with Nihlus about dream symbolism. He explained to her all about turian customs and culture, and what role dreams played to them. He made her feel relaxed and comfortable. By the end of the night, Jane felt happy. She was at peace, sitting next to Nihlus in the cargo hold, the two pouring drinks for each other and swapping stories. She didn't know when they had fallen asleep, but she awoke refreshed. For the second time in her life, she opened her eyes to see emerald green ones staring down from above her. Slowly, she regained her senses one at a time. The air smelled of metal and polishing cream. All she saw was Nihlus's face above hers. The cargo hold was still just as quiet as the night before. When she felt his fingers tangled in her hair and lightly massaging her scalp, Jane sighed and nestled herself in his lap.

"You plan on staying here for the day?"

"Nothing else is giving me a reason to move. I hadn't realized a spectre would make such a nice pillow."

"Well it's 0530, so you've got about half an hour to get your fill before I'll have to kick you off. Are you feeling better?"

No. But she smiled up at him regardless. The next few days went by in the blink of an eye for Jane, despite her efforts to draw them out as much as she could. She and Nihlus had become closer than any times prior to his deaths and she wanted to savor the time they spent. When the day came to touch down on Eden Prime, Nihlus found her pacing in the cargo hold.

"I can always count on finding you down here, can't I?"

"Nihlus. I know what's going to happen down there and I can't let you go." He sighed and walked up to her.

"I appreciate your concern, Shepard, but that isn't your call to make."

"You're going to die."

"Shepard, I thought we went over this. It was just a ridiculous dream! My superiors tell me I'm needed down there. Innocents are dying; I can't stay behind."

Jane wanted to cry. Her fists balled and she fought the urge to scream at him. He was stupid and stubborn. She wanted to let loose her concern for him and convince him that she was right. But maybe she was losing grips with reality. No matter how real the dreams felt, Nihlus standing in front of her, telling her it wasn't true; that was what she wanted to believe. She couldn't deny that this iteration felt different than the others. No one on board had said anything that matched exactly what the ones prior had been. Perhaps…she resolved to stay positive. Shepard hoped it would be enough.

It wasn't.

Shepard found herself freely sobbing, clutching Nihlus's dead form. She was bloody and tired. The killer was once again in front of her. This time he spared her a few moments more than the previous death cycles as he watched her with barely any interest. She forgot about him and cried into her turian's shoulder as she tried to hug him closer. After a few more minutes she vaguely heard him scoff and cock his pistol.

This was it. Jane held up her palm to the turian, pausing his actions. She quieted her cries and gently laid Nihlus onto the ground beside her. She placed her gun on his chest and brought both of his hands to rest over it. It was a terrible burial, but the best she had given him thus far. When she stood, her eyes locked with the killer's, strong and unafraid.

"I'll get you."


...~^~...

Shepard awoke on the crate again. She rose slowly, smoothing her shirt. It was peaceful in the cargo hold with the only sound being Nihlus's armor lightly clacking on a table as he worked at restoring its shining finish. Her final words to his murderer rang and echoed in her head. She lowered her face into her palms as she reflected on the torturous cycles she'd lived through, vowing to avenge him for each of them.