My eyesight was flickering. I could hardly keep myself on my feet. I felt the blood dripping down along my arm and my heart beating itself down into nothing. I struggled to draw breath; there was something wrong with my lungs. Faces and pictures and names and jumbles of meaningless words and images were scrambling through my brain. Was this what they meant by your life flashing before your eyes? I thought it would be more elegant than this. The voice of the child who was the Catalyst passed through my ears, but his speech was meaningless to me, I could not make sense of what he was saying. Sometimes it was clear and his words made perfect sense, but a few seconds later I could not hear anything at all, and the perfect clarity dissolved back into the swirling cloud of memory that consumed me. I knew that this was important; I needed to stop the Reapers, save the galaxy, save Earth, save everyone, save everything. But it was all somehow removed, other. The Catalyst was not giving me a way to do this; there was something different that I had to do.

Something about a choice – I had to choose.

And then he was silent, just looking up at me expectantly. I had to choose.

I looked ahead of me, three choices – right, left and centre. I had to choose.

One was wrong, something I couldn't do. I couldn't differentiate between the other two. They were going to change things, change the galaxy as we knew it. Everything we had would be destroyed and rebuilt in an instant, but it would all be different. Either way, I would not be allowed to see it. I was going to throw myself blindly down a precipice of which there would be no return. And my fall would set the galaxy on a course that would define organic life forever.

I just wished I could think straight. I wished there was a familiar face somewhere. My mind spat image after image of friends and family and everyone I had ever known in front of my eyes.

Mum, Dad, Anderson, Joker, Ashley, Kaidan, Garrus, Liara, Tali, Wrex, Miranda, Jacob, Mordin, Jack, Kasumi, Zaeed, Samara, Grunt, Legion, EDI…

Thane.

I sighed, smiling through my pain – my Thane. He put so much trust in me; it was good to see him one more time. I could picture him so clearly, every detail of the beautiful face that I loved so much was right there in front of my eyes. I hoped he was proud of me, for making it this far. I knew that I could not go much further – there was one more thing that I had to do, but it would cost me my life. One life, in exchange for the whole galaxy. I had always been a survivor, death could never catch me, there was too much I still had to fight for. There was always one more fight, one more battle, one more enemy. All that pain, all that sorrow. Every injury, every loss, every victory. Each friend who had lost their life. It all led up to this moment, I had just never realised it until now.

My last fight was over; there was just one more thing I had to do. I couldn't imagine it hurting more than I was now, death would be an enormous relief. And truly it wouldn't be death. I had died when Thane did.

I squeezed my eyes tight shut and felt a tear leak down my face. Thane was all I could see, it was like he was standing right there with me. I heard his voice whisper in my ear,

"Stay with me, Siha."

I felt my feet move, step by painful step, leading me towards the end. My eyes flew open and my mouth twisted into a snarl. The Geth couldn't kill me, the Collectors couldn't kill me, Cerberus couldn't kill me, the Reapers couldn't kill me, and now it was all going to end.

I didn't really know which path I was taking, I just knew that it was going to end. This was it. This was my third time saving the galaxy, and it was going to be my last. But I sure as hell wasn't going down without my head held high and a fire in my eyes.

Adrenaline was burning through my veins, I was moving, I was running. Sprinting towards the end – the end of everything. The stars and ships in the vast expanse above my head dissolved into a swirling vortex of light. So much life, there was life everywhere. And it was going to continue. My legs pumped even harder as I reached the precipice, I felt my muscles bunch together and my blood singing through my veins. I threw myself forward into empty space, and I felt myself falling.

I was truly alive, from the tips of my fingers to my thrumming heart. This life we feel, it is beautiful. It was all around us, and I felt truly grateful to have been a part of it.

The wind whistled past my ears and I closed my eyes. Lights flashed behind my eyelids, they looked like clusters of stars. The galaxy would endure, life would continue, the cycle was broken.

My life was slipping away, slowly fading from my body. I had died once before, but this was different. This time there was no coming back.

My last breath escaped from my lips in a sigh of relief.

Thane, I'll meet you across the sea.