To Find The Sea

Part I: The Cruelest Month

Suto District, Omega

"Found what you're looking for?" the greasy batarian asks me. Smirking.

I hold a young human's face in my gloved hands, pushing locks of black curls out of her large round eyes. Her long black dress, cut out at the abdomen and around the hips, just barely touches the floor. Her make up is thick, accentuating her fleshy lips and elongating the dark lashes of her eyes. I inhale her scent. Sweat. Prophylactics. Heavy perfume.

This is a boy.

The three of us stand in a dimly lit lounge above a grubby casino. The locals call this ward the Red Light District. I understand enough of what that means. But this is Omega. There are no lines, no borders, that separate one horror from another.

"How old are you?"

"Fifteen," he says. He is smiling, but I feel the fear and hesitation pumping in his veins.

"What's your name?"

He looks past me, back at Swelter. When his gaze returns, he twists the corners of his mouth into a mischievous grin.

"Whatever my turian wants it to be."

His voice is high and lilting. He has been taught. I conceal my shudder as I think about how well.

I lean in to whisper into his left ear.

"You face the other way now and close your eyes."

He does not understand. But he does what he's told. Oh, yes. He has been taught very well.

I turn back to Swelter.

"Kid's a bit shy. Never had one of you before," he says. "But you look like a man who might appreciate that."

"I certainly do."

My arm shoots through the air. My closed fist crashes into his throat. My training has molded me into a creature of controlled and deadly strength. But that is not the creature I am today. I am become something feral, something unchained. Something new.

He is sprawled across the rough grey carpet. He is slow and stupid. His hands shake as he reaches for his sidearm.

I remove my gloves, dropping them to the floor.

Swelter points the barrel at my gut.

"You sure you want to do that?" I taunt.

Click. Click. Click.

His four eyes gape at me. His jaw drops.

I pull the clips from my breast pocket, dangling them tantalizingly before tucking them back in.

"Just take my credits. Take the kid too. Just take them." He pleads.

I look over at the boy. His back is to me, his arms folded over his head. He is breathing heavily. I smell the piss trickling down his leg.

I want to savor Swelter's gasps for breath as my boot slams over and over into his ribs. I want to smash his kneecaps, break his arms, and break his fat little fingers. I want to feel the soft ooze of ripped tissue beneath my talons as I slice them across his face. I want to constrict the air from his lungs long enough for him to think he's near death, then release him so that I may begin his torment anew.

I am not sure how much time has passed. He's stopped begging for me his life. He's not dead, not yet anyway. He will live in wordless agony for only a little while longer.

I approach the boy. Cringing and humming a simple tune. I gently place a blood soaked hand on his shoulder as I slowly spin him around.

"What's your name?" I repeat.

"S-s-s…Stephanie."

He sends a nervous glance to the mound of gore behind me. He vomits on my already soiled boots. I try to hold his hair back as he wretches.

"You got a home?" I ask when I think his stomach has emptied its contents.

He shakes his head. Another heave expels thin yellow bile.

"Me neither."

"You g-g-gonna sell me?"

"Sell you?"

Before I can start to explain, he raises a skinny little leg to weakly knee me in the groin. I make no attempt to catch him before he storms out the back.

And now I am alone. Standing in the blood of my rebirth. Stained by the fear of an innocent.

I feel alive.

I feel undone.

I feel liberated.

I feel nothing.

Author's Note: This may sound grim, but this chapter has been my favorite to write so far. =)