Three days after the attack
She felt different, like a part of her was missing. She felt like she had forgotten something, but she knew she would never get a single moment of what happened to her in the last few days. No, it would haunt her to her last breath. She hated the Alliance officers and the nurses. With their faces covered in pity and sadness painted with the fakeness of a sincere smile. She was not some poor broken girl who would never recover from this. This wasn't the end of her, no, she had always been stubborn, the type that wouldn't back down from a fight, even if the odds were against her. But what if they were right? What if she was just some broken thing, a porcelain doll with a chip, sure you can "fix it" but everyone can still see the cracks. Maybe they were right to look at her like that, she had seen some terrible things on Mindoir and had done even worse. The poor dear, damned to the fate she had created for herself, she didn't deserve the kindness of these people, they did not know of the horrible things she had done to save her own skin. She should have died on Mindoir, but that would have been easier, she had to live to be punished for the things she had done, if her sister ever woke up, Scarlett didn't deserve to have her wake, but if her little sister did, she should never receive a kind word from her or a smile. No, all she deserved was hatred filled eyes brimming with the flames of revenge and words laced with poison that slivered its way through her veins and into her heart, where it would slowly but surely begin to destroy it. She couldn't be that lucky though, because while she was terrified of receiving hatred from someone she loved, it paled in comparison to the dark cold solitude of being completely and utterly alone.
That's what she was now. It was something she had always feared, even as a small child, and it was exactly what she deserved. She shouldn't have fought so hard. What was she fighting for? Her own personal Hell? Because that's what it was. Everything she has ever feared was now near, like some monster under the bed just waiting for you to move a limb within its reach. She could end it, but the lives she took would have been for nothing. She had killed people. Sure, some would call it protecting herself, but they never mention the slow transition between victim and criminal. As she had pulled the trigger on her first Batarian, she felt the change. She could feel the cold rush flood into her blood as the blood came out of his wound. She felt the shattering of her innocence as he choked on his blood, she wanted to save him, to reverse what she had done, even if she was just trying to save herself, she would see that Batarian's face until her end finally had enough of its torturous ways and took her. What would her mother think? She raised a murderer. There was no putting the bullet back in the gun and laying it down, no, no matter how much she wanted to change, the fact remains that she did not just take her first life, but many more after that. She would never forgive herself, but she would not ask for forgiveness. Maybe if she was lucky she could atone for what she had done, but the odds of that happening are about the same as time reversing and the Batarian being spared. However, if it could be reversed, she would have killed him again. It was him or it was her. There was no debate on that, and Scarlett Andrea Cummings was not one to simply lie down and die for the sake of her own moral standing, she could wallow in self-pity after she saved her ass. The future is a pretty dark place, but at least there is a chance for the light to find its way in.