Chapter I: Surviving Synthesis.
The soulless darkness parted momentarily to blinding white light, before it was snuffed out by the inky blackness. Mere moments passed before it was broken again by the same blinding light, but the darkness again consumed her. Suddenly there was feeling; she had a body, or the remains of one. She attempted to take a breath, but her lungs refused to draw it. When she tried to move, she was embraced by unbearable pain. She faintly felt like she was floating, the air searing her tender skin.
"We've got a live Jane Doe here," a faint voice called. "Get me a respirator and blood ASAP, she's pale and barely alive and we…" but the darkness quickly silenced those sounds. She was left in an all-consuming void. There was no light, no up, no down and only silence for company. But she was not alone in the emptiness for long, as memories began to return to her, giving her a fleeting escape from the void.
The last thing that she could remember, from before the flashes of light, was the Crucible docking with the Citadel, and then the feeling of being engulfed in a brilliant, searing green light, but no recollection of the moments between them. Perhaps the interlude was not relevant or important. She then had flashes of other, more pleasing memories. Of companions whom she hoped had survived, Garrus, Tali, Javik, James, Ashley, Steve, Samantha, Joker, EDI, Wrex and Liara, plus many others whom she had cared for deeply, and hoped they had survived.
But these were not alone, and soon more painful memories greeted her; memories of those who hadn't made it to the final fight. She saw; Kaidan, Mordin, Thane, Nyreen and Legion. She felt her face burn with pain, and this snapped her back to reality. A single, salty tear had formed at the memories, and its touch against her cheek burned her back to reality.
She forced herself to open her eyes, but felt severe pain when she tried. She tried to scream but her lungs were raw, unresponsive and weak, her jaw was also weak and it hurt to move. She tried thrashing and the pain intensified. But something did not feel right, parts of her body were unresponsive, or felt disconnected. Before her mind settled into these thoughts; the sounds of muffled voices reached her and a numbing, peaceful feeling coursed through her veins. She once again succumbed to the darkness.
The time she had spent in darkness was unfathomable, but it didn't matter, she had to escape the unconsciousness. Once more she forced her eyes to open, fighting the pain that fought against her. She was met with a blinding white light and she had to blink repeatedly to fight against it and attempt to focus her vision. Slowly she looked at her fuzzy surroundings. Her first assumption was that she was not on Earth, as she remembered it as rubble. Her surroundings were intact and mostly quiet. A faint hum informed her that she was on-board a ship, and the décor told her it was human in origin. She could see now, her vision restored and everything was now in full focus.
Her attention turned to the outline of her body in the hospital bed, or what little there was visible. She could see numerous wires and pipes running from machines around her to different parts of her body, both electrical and pneumatic. What depressed her was the evident signs of missing or unresponsive parts of her body, but she was thankful that the chemical kept the pain, both emotional and physical, at bay.
She looked over to the wall and saw X-rays of her body, and her pain became a little more real, even bringing another tear to burn against her cheek. Her skeletal outline lacked several ribs, right hand fingers, lower legs and feet, but most harrowing was the missing left arm. Part of her did not want to learn the condition of her skin and muscle she'd lost, at least for now. Instead she looked above the slides and saw that her identity was unknown to all. The name 'Jane Doe' was on all the files, and a note was visible beside her X-rays.
"Subject was found lying in a cratered field north of London, Great Britain. She is presumed to be a survivor of Sword or Hammer." It read.
A memory flashed into her mind. She remembered an intense space battle above Earth, the galaxy against the… for the survival of all. But the name of the great enemy eluded her, and neither could she remember the outcome. Attendants and nurses rushed in when they had been informed she was conscious, they quickly tended to her welfare.
"Hello there, do you know where you are?" one of them asked cautiously, she tried to speak but couldn't find her voice, so she shook her head, thanking the maker she was numbed to the pain.
"You're in a temporary medical facility on the SSV London. It is a miracle you're alive. The Reapers slaughtered thousands of people where you were found, especially during the battle." another said warmly.
The Reapers, she now remembered the ancient enemy that had tried to wipe out all civilized life in the galaxy, as a part of a 'cycle' of extinctions. The attendant nearest her requested to take a skin sample for identification, to which Shepard nodded slowly. They took the sample from her and scanned it. A few quiet moments passed before it bleeped to announce it had found a match, the attendant gasped and showed it to her colleagues.
"It can't be, but she was…, we need to be sure before we follow the order given by the admiral." the first gasped.
Another attendant took another reading and showed the response to the others before they bustled out of the room. She then thought about what they had said, what order could they have been given concerning whoever she was, and more importantly who had given it. But her body was tired from the few exertions she'd done so she once more drifted into a familiar darkness.
When she awoke again, a figure stood before her, dressed in Alliance military dress, flanked by attendants and an armed escort by the door. It took a moment before she recognized the figure; instinctively she raised the remains of her right arm into salute. An attendant moved to help her lower it again. The figure smirked sternly, Admiral Hackett was always a serious man, but he admired that the remains of a hero before him would endure intense pain just to salute him.
The Admiral eyed the remains before him, trying to discern something that would confirm the rumours that the now legendary Commander Shepard was the person in front of him. She, on the other hand, now noticed something strange, Hackett, his guards and the attendants all had glowing green eyes. It perplexed her greatly as to what could have caused it, and she began to wonder if she too had glowing green eyes, instead of her brilliant blue ones.
The admiral nodded and the attendant that had helped lower her arm, now gently attached something to her head. It was similar in design to a pair of sunglasses, but instead of glass was a holographic keypad.
"Use your eyes to spell out words, then select enter when done" the attendant said in a comforting manner. Slowly and cautiously, Shepard used the tool to spell out her first sentence and hit enter."
"Admiral Hackett" a synthetic voice said from the device. "What happened? Where's the Normandy?"
Hackett let a smile appear on his face, it was Shepard, but the smile faded when he addressed the question.
"You activated the Crucible and it fired a green energy beam, and that seemed to stop the Reaper's attacks." He stated. "But now from what we've uncovered, everyone is part synthetic, part organic. And regarding the Normandy; we do not know of its current location. Communications are bad; and movement beyond the Sol system is slow, as the crucible's energy has apparently destroyed or damaged all the Mass relays, as well as the Citadel and Crucible."
There was a pause before she used the device to continue the conversation.
"What happened to me?" His reply this time was instantaneous.
"We do not know for certain. Our best guess is you burned up on re-entry into earth's atmosphere, but that wouldn't account for you still being alive. Unprotected re-entry is fatal. What do you remember?"
Shepard told him of the searing green light before everything went dark, and of what little else she could remember.
"Well that doesn't explain the synthetic-organic hybrids that everyone seems to have become, but it's a start. I'll leave you to your rest, we will put as many resources we can into your recovery." Hackett stated.
With that he turned and left, without another word, so did the guards and the attendants leaving her alone, but she quickly returned to sleep. She woke screaming a short time later screaming, or at least raspy partial screams. She had dreamed of talking to a 'god child' atop the Crucible, where she had chosen to merge organic and synthetic. The idea frightened her, especially how implausible the god-child's view was, and the idea that it created and controlled the Reapers, seeking to destroy civilizations every fifty thousand years to stop chaos. The whole thing seemed far too ridiculous to be plausible, and it scared her of the repercussions for such a concept actually existing.