AN:- This is a very short chapter, for reasons that are hopefully obvious
Chapter Eight: Interlude
The sky burned.
She stood alone. Naked. Flayed to the bone beneath the searing blast of a particle beam that sliced down through the upper atmosphere, setting the sky ablaze. Smoke rose from the ground around her, curling and dissipating in a heat too intense to comprehend. All around her were blackened husks that might once have been human, twisted and deformed, charred to nothing more than chunks of charcoal.
Voices floated at her from the dark.
We've taken heavy casualties.
She knew the voice, for all that she hadn't heard it for so long.
Negative, it's too hot. We'll hold them off as long as
It disappeared, just as it had done that terrible day. She started forwards, finding that she could move, finding that she had form again. the red light faded and she saw flashes of light through the smoke.
As soon as she started moving the voice came again.
Belay that! We can handle ourselves.
She wanted to scream, but when she opened her mouth nothing emerged. Her voice was gone, she could only listen in horror to the echoes.
It's the right choice.
She collapsed to her knees, the dirt rising up around her.
I don't regret a thing.
Red light rose again and the searing wave washed over her.
AN:- So once again, my Shep has been having nightmares since wayaaaay before they put them into Mass Effect for real.
I'm not going to be trying to accurately represent the nightmares as they are in Mass Effect. I'm going to be focusing on things which are more relevant to my Shepard. Obviously the dialogue here comes from Virmire, Kaidan's last words before he died.