For a long time, I couldn't remember. My death felt like a party to which I hadn't been invited. Miranda had explained that the harrowing physiology of hypoxia was incompatible with memory deposition. Eventually, however, some secret part of my circuitry reconnected with the whole. It all came back, first in the tangled, fragmented tongues of nocturnal fright-scenes, then in rushes of true recall, with a clarity that I almost regret. The soundless blooms of fire and their quick, creaturely contraction; the white retinal sear of the Collector beam; the Normandy's entrails spinning into the interstellar dark... Yes, I remember.
I can still feel the blip of relief that managed to register in the midst of everything falling apart, when I jabbed the control to seal my pilot into the safety of his escape pod. Then a pulse of light and force punched me like a spacewalking ragdoll into the vast airless void -- likely the same blow that rammed a fistful of metal confetti into my suit. Decompression is a swift, startling thing; it wasn't long before I blacked out. I would like to be able to say that I fought for the last of my air, but that'd be absurd -- the pull of vacuum will not, cannot, be denied, and all of one's breaths are surrendered to it right from the beginning of a breach. I'm not a religious man, or even a superstitious one, but in those final, dimming moments, the pressurized plumes venting from my suit seemed awfully like angry astral sprites.
Fear was on my mind, of course. All creatures capable of thought dread the threat of its cessation. The living fear death, be it the condition itself, or the processes which bring it about. Anyone who claims otherwise is being dishonest. Or merely inexperienced, if you're an optimist.
Strangely enough, perhaps all that was for the best.
Because when all is said and done, all my neurons rebooted, my vessels unclogged and my sinews restrung, dying has pulled the living nearer to my heart. Nearer even than fear. Close enough for me to feel the tug of our shared destinies. And so I will continue to fight for the lost. Until we lose no more.