Life after Death: Shepard's Journals

Prologue – The Long Sleep

April 9, 2185

Captain's Quarters, Normandy SR-2

In orbit around Omega

People say a lot of things about life and death. They say that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. They say you can achieve enlightenment. They say that time slows down, allowing you to think days worth of thoughts in mere seconds. They say death is painless. They say that people who have near-death experiences see a tunnel with a bright light at the end. Some take this as evidence of an afterlife.

I don't know any of those people, but I can tell you, that they are all wrong. I can't speak for all circumstances, but I do have experience with death. After all, I'm the only person in human history to have been dead and brought back to life. And I don't mean people on operating tables who have their heart stop for a few minutes. I don't care what any medical professional says; they are still alive until total organ shutdown. I was dead for over 2 years, and it took more credits than a small nation to bring me back to 'life', if you want to call it that. I don't even know what I am anymore.

I've died, and it wasn't anything like what people say about it. It was a slow death by asphyxia. There wasn't any of that life-flashing, no enlightenment, no change in the flow of time. All I remember thinking is 'Oh god, not like this.' Then I lost consciousness. I think I dreamed a feeling of heat, probably my body entering Alchera's atmosphere. And then nothing. No afterlife, no dreaming, just falling into a sleep and never waking up.

Apparently, it was lucky I was wearing my armour when the Normandy was attacked. We'd been prepared for quick action at the time I recall. If I hadn't, I wouldn't be here to write this. The armour reduced complete vaporisation to merely burning away all the skin and severely damaging everything underneath.

I don't know what happened after that, I was dead. Somehow, my body was given over to Cerberus. Not my first choice, but then again, I wasn't really in a position to decide. I definitely don't like what they've done in the past, and I really don't agree with their overall position, but they have done two things right by me so far: they brought me back to life, and they gave me a chance to finish what I started. It's not much compared to what I know they've done, but it's enough for me to work with them, for now.

I don't know what exactly they did to me, but I know most of it was experimental. They had to entirely reconstruct my skeleton, since it pretty much every bone shattered on impact. I'm amazed that my brain was mostly intact, my heart as well, but they had to be cybernetically implanted, along with most of my central nervous system. Most of the rest of my soft organs had to be cloned though, and they probably had problems getting enough tissue to clone them from. I was told that I didn't have any skin left to clone, so it was replaced with a cybernetic-organic dermal replacement; lab grown skin. It works just the same, and it can be engineered so it has the same DNA as the patient. Most of my muscles have some form of cybernetics implanted in them, as well as most of my reflex and optical nerves, all routed through a control unit near the base of my spine; which means I can react and move faster than a normal human. Not much, but a significant improvement. All this took over 2 years, just to get me from a permanent death to something approaching a coma.

Huh, I just remembered a line from an old film. That's right, film, not vid. It's over 200 years old, but it seems funny to me now. Did you ever hear of Star Wars? Big series of films back in the late 1900s and early 2000s. Completely changed the way visual effects are used in films back in the day. Anyway, one of the first ones, one of the characters talks about a guy called Darth Vader. Describes him as "more machine now than man, twisted and evil." I don't know about evil, but I do feel twisted, and I'm not entirely human anymore.

Hell of a way to end up after a long sleep, but nothing compared to the wake up call.

~o000o~

A/N: Hello those of you at home. A few things I would like to make clear:

1) None of this would be possible without the peerless beta-ing of my good friend and fellow FF author medusalan. She has her own stories I suggest you check them out, not Mass Effect but that's not necessarily a bad thing!

2) I live and breathe on comments, and love to here feedback and constructive criticism, so please leave both.

3) As you continue you will find that these become less like chapters and more like mini-epics. Some chapters will have descriptive violence. Some will deal with deep personal the psychological issues. Please remember that this story is my own take on the events of Mass Effect, and I will use creative licence, sometimes more than others.