"There is no God but God".

-Islamic saying.

I opened my eyes to see a big black nothing. Yet, my muscles atrophied, my ears were filled, and my face experienced a smooth and slick pressure. It felt like my limbs were being locked in place due to the sheer density of the liquid. With what remaining strength I had, I pushed myself off the ground, still on my knees, only to see a thick black sludge that had a rough texture, and that reached to the thighs. This was no liquid, but it was like a dark metal that had been shattered into such an uncountable number of pieces it might as well have been.

I turned my head up, and saw that the sludge held dominion over the entire area. It was a dark circular room that reached up high, and directly in its center was something of a contraption that barely emitted any light. Still, it was enough to see that were was someone laying against it, whom I had been next to. The hand of a Collector had been stuck out of the sludge further away from us, just barely illuminated by the faint split light.

He had pushed me away and took the shot.

I had to know this man.

I turned back to him. His entire lower body was under the sludge, and what wasn't was covered in his N7 armor. He had his left-hand to his chest, where his heart would be, and his other hand held the remainder of his helmet. He was of a white skin, with a triangular face and a faint thin scar just below the bridge of his nose. His rough-looking hair was long, wrangled, and groomed into a split with a single streak of white-colored hair on the front. Both of his eyes and his mouth were closed.

I attempted to stand up, but none of my limbs gave any solid support when pressed against the ground. I lifted them to see that all of them ended in rough nubs like they were ripped cleanly off.

Yet, the sludge on them reeled, shifted, and eventually began to coalesce into palms and feet. I felt every fragment moving like it was always a part of my body, but I did not feel any special sensation such as pain. When I put them to the ground again, through the sludge, they shattered, but I felt each and individual fragment building my arms back faster and sturdier with every attempt of standing I tried.

This was a blessing.

But for now, I had to comprise to crawling to get to the man. This was pitiful. To have to resort to this. But at least it would be over soon.

With every movement, more and more of the sludge on the ground stuck to me and integrated itself into my body; adding to the repairs of my extremities. I finally reached the man, and only then noticed that he was missing a significant portion of flesh. On the upper right of his head. Skull, meat, and eye bare, the rest splattered on the device he was laid against. The other half of his face hidden by his helmet.

Yet, his exposed eye twitched eye moved erratically, and the veins on his skull bulged unnaturally. His body was doing everything it could to keep him alive, but it was obvious he was not to last. All of our medi-gel was used in the firefight. He will die here, but at least I will remember him.

I pulled out my arms, which finally had my hands fully formed, and I searched his body for his dog-tag. I found it implanted onto his chest-piece, and it was a sliver plate with no extra decoration. Odd. Wasn't this man a Commander? Regardless, I read the small text embedded on it.

'Lieutenant-Commander Woodward Rael Shepard'. For whatever reason, that name seemed familiar to me. I looked back to the man. His eye had stopped twitching and some of his still-intact face had gone purple. His left eye was closed, his right looked down, and his mouth was closed shut. I found it… captivating in a sense. This human man, who was clearly of a high status, had thrown himself in front of the last standing Collector just to save me. He didn't even bother to pull his gun out. Why?

Why would he try to protect someone who wasn't even his direct superior? Why did not he not try to put up a fight? Why the lackluster dog-tag? Why even did he decide to help me chasing and hunting down the Collector ship in the first place? He was a Commander, not a common soldier. He was to be of a higher importance. So why did he throw his life away so… willingly?

I took off his helmet to see if there could be anything else I could gleam from him. Nothing, and no reaction.

I searched his entire body as soon as my claws had been defined enough. No more than military equipment.

I looked back once again at him, and decided to place a hand on his face to turn it. Just in search of… anything.

My hands lost their form upon impact, immediately diffusing into an amorphous pile that formed something of a network on his cheeks which continuously expanded. The blob suddenly and quickly reached into every possible orifice on his face. Nostrils, ears, mouth, and into and around his eyes. What was this now? A new ability? I kept my hands stationary to find out.

I began to feel tingles coming from my amorphous hands, but those sensations began to creep their way up my arms. Soon enough, I felt them in my ears, eyes, and mouth. And they were increasing in frequency and strength.

Then I felt something writhing around in my own brain. I could feel it as it touched the interior of my skull, made my body shiver, and took over my entire being-

I opened my eyes, and saw myself in a white void looking up. Black fuzz surrounded the edges of my vision whilst all of my muscles were utterly immovable from exhaustion. There was an… absence in the right of my head that I could feel being slowly filled.

Someone held my head. The texture on their hands was smooth, and it felt incredibly cold. The person themselves was some black figure I couldn't make out. The only distinguishing feature they had was that they were large, and that they had white melancholy eyes that made it seem like they had just finished crying. Was this… purgatory? Was I being judged for my sins? Did I even deserve to go to heaven? I didn't have any mental stamina left to answer these questions, so I became limp and let whatever would have happened happen. I stared into the being's eyes-

Loud and booming wisps. To the side. Something was here.

We both turned to it to see another black figure, made out of a vaguely familiar dark metal. It was a large humanoid body, about the size of a house, with all of its limbs missing. Its eyes were absent, substituted by black-holes, and the bottom of its chin was drooping like iron being melted. Its torso supported no limbs, and what were supposed to be extensions into the arms and legs instead ended abruptly. It was posed like it was crucified. Outside of that, it was completely featureless. No skin complexion, pores, or anything. It was like it was built instead of birthed.

It looked down upon both of us, but I didn't feel intimidated. I couldn't imagine living like this. No way to move, no way to speak, and no way to see. Despite this, if I were in its place I'd still push on until the bitter end, even if I were diseased or in constant pain I would still push on.

For whom though?

My… my… my team.

"Where are they?" I blurted out in a coarse and rough voice. Both of the figures turned to me with unreadable expressions. They had to know something.

"Where's my squad?" I asked again.

"Their status is irrelevant." The large figure spoke into my brain in a deep mechanical voice. It felt like a message was carved into my brain that my mind understood as verbal speech. Rage coursed through my body, and I could feel all of my limbs regaining the energy to move from that alone.

"Listen to me-"

"No It's not!" I shouted at the top of my lungs-

A bomb of images, feelings, smells, and noises bombarded me with all they had. I was no longer in the room. I was in some indescribable mindscape, where thoughts and sensations came to be reality. Colors flickered and jumped from place to place in an anarchy, sounds were all muffled beats of air that were fighting against some resistive force, and every fragment of my body was rattled like sand. Despite the sudden invasion, I attempted to fight back against them with whatever willpower I could muster, but I couldn't hold and thus my defense was shattered. It encompassed completely me before it launched itself into my form-

-A toddler asked if his father could play with him. Despite initial reluctance from his weariness, his father gets off his couch and follows his kid. When the kid is thrown up by his father, he notices his mother in the kitchen cleaning the dishes looking at the two. The disdain on her face is obvious-

-A child is in a small church, adorning in plain wooden crosses,reciting his prayers alongside everyone else. He is enraptured by the imagery and teachings of the Christ-

-A young man enlisted in the Alliance military as an officer out of good-

-He met Kaiden in his unit, his eventual best-

-He got intimate with another soldier from a different unit named Ash-

The memories all blitzed through me, yet I could recall each and every one of them perfectly like I was there myself. They all kept pounding on me more and more; chipping away at my being.

I would not die like this!

With all of the defiant willpower I conjured, I clenched my hands and physically grabbed the space around me. I held the mindscape in place as it was pinched between my claws, and I stood against a great whiplash of force that followed. Before I got a moment to recuperate, an invisible force crashed onto me and threw me against the wall.

There was a great ache in my head, rumbling throughout my skull, as I found myself on a rocky dusted ground illuminated by a harsh sun. I slowly got up, and quickly got a hold of myself to get rid of my blurred vision. I looked up and around me only to see that I was in some warzone of a city, bombed to hell and back. There was a horde of Batarians to my left stampeding across the shattered road, and Commander Shepard on my right who was slumped against a pile of cars. He was wearing a focused face ridden with his own blood as he held his rifle in one hand, and a small sphere of pure white light - a Nova - in the other. I would have had the inclination to take cover were it not for one discrepancy.

Everything was frozen. Even the dust particles held up by nothing but air were utterly stuck in place.

All except for me.

I could feel and see the dark-metal fragments that made up my hands shiver in place before shortly stabilizing. I took a step forward, and I was unopposed.

I looked around me again, and I quickly recognized where I was at. I was in Elysium, in one of its more decrepit areas if the net-photos were anything to go by. An admittedly successful colony, but a rather quaint one at that. I looked back again at the herd of Batarians, then back to Shepard, and then immediately made the connection.

This was the Savior of Elysium. The Hero of the Skyllian blitz. The man who did the impossible. All titles he had been anointed to all by himself. He was a Great Man, and I had the opportunity to know about him; learn from him.

I walked over to him, pushing away anything in my path including bullets, and crouched to be on his level. There was a certain slump to his form, what with how he hadn't bothered to fully extend his firing arm, and that the hand that held the charging Nova was on the ground.

Then I looked back to his face. Despite the blood coming from his head that dripped down his face, despite the open wounds on his cheeks that came from stray bullets, despite the sheer brutality of the Batarian invaders, this man had shown no emotion.

No, he was showing emotion. Not focus but… defeat.

What was this outlandish discrepancy? I had to find out. I looked around the scene, but I couldn't find anything of note. I tried leaving the area, but I was met with an infinite void abruptly cut off the immediate area. This was as far as his memory went, I deduced.

Suddenly, I felt something welling up in my stomach. Something like a cramp, but without any of the actual pain. It was compelling towards a certain direction. Towards him. As I got closer, the feeling only got stronger and stronger. My mandibles began to flicker, the muscles on my inner-face tensed, and the dark metal infused with my hands shook so much it began to fall like sand.

I reached into Shepard and my hand phased into him, and just about every muscle, nerve, and tendon in my body began to lock up as I turned my arm to find the source of this feeling.

The scene changed in an instant. I was just outside of the ruined city gates, utterly riddled with holes and crushed by its own rubble, and I found Shepard kneeling over a fallen comrade. He had a half-obliterated helmet in his hands, not his own, and he had a blank face as he bared witness to the sight of one of his closest underlings laying on the ground on a pool of their blood, which was leaking out of their half-annihilated head.

He truly cared this much for one subordinate?

I felt the connection again, so I repeated the same series of steps, and saw similar events. Each an underling he had gotten close to, and each a death just as impactful as the last.

His closest ones were all absent though, and I was sure I had seen them again recently, so that must have only meant that they lived and still put in enough faith in him to continue being his subordinate. A good decision, seeing that he was to become much more accomplished later on in his military life.

Yet, it did nothing to alleviate his feelings. Absolutely nothing.

What a ridiculous flaw.

Vision suddenly came back to me, albeit in a blurred state, and my mouth opened out of reflex to vomit a metallic sludge, dotted with incredibly small blue lights, onto the same sludge that filled the room. Every single nerve in my body was firing up. Burning, touch, intimacy, I felt it all.

My stomach was getting turned upside down, and there was a general ache all over my body so great it prevented me from moving at all. My ears were ringing, and my sense of smell had left completely. As I coughed the remaining vomit away, I noticed two amorphous objects retracting away from my face. I quickly recognized them as hands, and looked up at the figure connected to them.

He was similar to the other figure I saw in my dream, for lack of a better description, but he looked like he was made from the same incongruous metal as the one that filled the room. Where his armor ended and his actual-self started, I couldn't tell. His body was constantly rearranging itself, patches of an unidentifiable black steel moved about his arms, chest, and legs, and all inseparable from his actual body. I looked up to his head, and saw as the metal there somehow turned white and substituted his metal face-plate.

"Saren?" I blurted out in a rough and coarse voice. His expression was indecipherable as he stood up and looked down upon me.

"Don't move." He ordered as he pointed a finger at me. The flanging of his voice was now completely absent. "You're barely alive as is. Just about every system in your body is close to shutting down. Doing anything will push you over the edge. But," He jerked his head. "It'll get better quickly. Don't worry about food or water right now. You won't die." He said before then fully standing up and turning around to the room's exit. That action gave me just enough time to fully observe the room. I locked onto the hand of a Collector sticking out of the sludge.

I was meant to pay for this mistake, but maybe…

"How's my team?" I asked Saren. Saren stopped in his tracks midway through, and slowly turned his head to me whilst still showing his back.

"They've likely perished following you."

That statement alone made my entire world crash several times over. Every memory I had of them flashed vividly all in an instant, then came the true realization that I would never see them again. Every sensation I was feeling was gone now; replaced by nothingness only.

They're all… dead.

All of them.

People I've spent years with. People I've grown deeply to know. To connect with.

To lead…

And it's all my fault.

It's…

"I know what you must be thinking." Saren interjected as he fully turned to face me. "That you must be some terrible man for leading all of you soldiers to death. Soldiers you've must have known for years. But let me tell you this," He got closer and crouched, but he was still a good half a meter taller than me. "You've saved that Quarian ship, hunted those Collectors down, and killed them all with my aid. So make this mission worthwhile and live, so that you can get another ensemble of those damned Collectors." He said with a certain lividity that seemed forced, but in all likelihood was genuine.

"What good am I as a Commander if I get my squad killed again?" I immediately rebutted as my stomach clenched. Saren's thin whisker-like mandibles flickered, likely in displeasure.

"You've been made Commander for a reason. A very good reason, might I add. I've read about it, the Skyllian Blitz. The great Commander Shepard single-handedly defending an entire city and by proxy the whole of Elysium. A man who was outgunned, outmanned, and was being bombed constantly, yet he defeated horde after horde of well-armed Batarians like it was nothing. It was miraculous, and that's coming from the mouth of a Specter. If you were a Turian, you'd be a legend." He said with a certain reverence as he pointed to his face, before then shifting a lot closer to me. Our faces were only a quarter a meter away from each other.

"So tell me: Is the nigh-legendary Commander Shepard going to let himself die because of some self-loathing bullshit?" He spat out. I immediately opened my mouth to respond, but somehow he was faster to speak.

"What a waste it would be to the Alliance and the galaxy as a whole if you decided to waste away here in the middle of nowhere. Imagine all the great things you could achieve if you choose to walk out of here alive. Imagine how many more lives you could save. Imagine what your superior would think of you when he reads that you're the only one who came out alive on a suicide mission. You could be one of the greatest soldiers to ever have lived, and you're throwing it away for a self-inflicted punishment."

I looked away from Saren and onto the ground. The first thing I wanted to know is what he truly wanted out of this exchange. It seemed he wanted me to come out alive, but I knew that things were never that simple. Perhaps he thought that I would owe him. No, that wouldn't make sense. He wanted me to get up and leave by myself, instead of carrying me out of here.

Was he really genuine?

I didn't know, and asking him would likely only result in him reinforcing his argument. I had to think about what he actually said. He… wasn't wrong, but it was only a chance that I'd prove myself to be something greater.

But do I deserve to? Twice… Twice over I had my entire squad killed. Twice over, they put their trust in me and paid the price for it. Twice over, I would come out alive and unpunished.

It wasn't fair.

That I got to live, whilst they perished for only following my orders. I was no better person they are. They had their own lives, families, and friends, and I took that all away from them.

Why me then? Why did I live? Why did hundreds attend my speech, whilst only a fraction of that went to their funerals?

Maybe… Maybe there was some merit to Saren's idea. Should I take that chance though? The chance to make the galaxy a better place without sacrificing my entire team for it? Or at least achieve the former?

One more time.

One more time, and that's it.

"Alright." I said weakly as I turned back to Saren. His mandibles flickered down, but I couldn't make out the rest of his expression. He let out a breath before he stood up and made his way to the room's exit, before stopping midway through.

"It's freezing out there." He said blankly. "You won't survive, but I will. I'll signal for help, and go get some MITs and heating equipment. You stay here for the time being. It's warm enough." He added on as he walked away.

"Stay here?" I repeated, baffled. Saren stopped dead in his tracks. "I can't. I have to get up to count the causalities, and-"
"You will stay here because it's what is best for you." Saren ordered with a monotone voice. A beat of silence passed as I waited for him to further elaborate, but he didn't. What was he trying to gain out of this? Whatever it was, he was clearly tired of me for whatever reason, so arguing with him on this would likely lead nowhere. This situation thankfully had an easy way-out. I'd just have to wait for him to leave this place area proper, then I could move freely.

A moment passed as I kept silent. I heard Saren exhaling as he finally exited the room. His footsteps were now loud and metallic, and I swear I could hear the sound of metal-screeching as his hand was dragged through the doorframe.

I looked at my own body in comparison, but I couldn't spot any differences in appearance. A numb feeling emanated in my limbs, but that was to be expected. I'd have to check my face then with any sort of reflection. I can't lose my own self as well.

As Saren's footsteps got quieter and quieter, I tried looking for anything that'd be a solid distraction, but this room was utterly bare. Absolutely nothing of note was in here aside from the hand of the Collector sticking out.

I tried replaying some memories as an alternative, but…

My fault. It was all and always my fault. I-

No, no. I can't go down like this. What would Anderson think? What would my squad think? But who was I to speak in their place? I'm the person who led them to their graves, if they even were to buried in them.

I slammed my hand against the black sludge. Goddamnit! I can't stay here! I have to move. I grabbed my worn shotgun on my person and used it as a cane as I then made a Herculean effort to get myself off the ground. The fact I was wearing armor didn't help at all. I grunted, clenched my teeth, and my head hurt like hell with every movement I made. I swear I could feel something writhing in my skull as the pain got greater, and it moved so much that my vision went blurry and my head became light.

But then it stopped. My headache and general tiredness in my body was gone now. What the hell was in me? Was it the sludge? No, this isn't the time for questions. I trudged through the same exit Saren used as I rubbed my eyes and tried to make out my surroundings through the blurriness. All of a sudden, I was in a completely different area.

Bodies. Dead bodies everywhere. Some Turian, the rest human, though it was hard to tell which was which with how mangled their faces where. The blood littering this room seem to have already dried like paint, yet all of them still seemed so… alive to me. I had just met them a few hours ago, each vibrant in their own way, and yet here they all laid.

Would have the fighting even gotten that bad if I hadn't came? They were on a small ship chasing a, albeit damaged, Collector cruiser by themselves. Maybe they would have retreated on their own but… No. Saren seem very adamant to take down those Collectors. My absence wouldn't have changed anything. Perhaps the Collectors wouldn't have need to retreat into this Reaper vessel and we, or rather they, wouldn't need to go into it.

…So my squad died for nothing then.

No no no. I couldn't give up now. I had to make this right somehow, and wilting away here wouldn't do anyone any justice.

I turned away and entered into another dark room. Black wires hung from the ceiling in arcs, and they had blue glowing stripes all over like they were veins bulging. The layout of this room was complete nonsense: Pathways that led into a circle, objects of definite shape just strewn about that were made into barricades, and shifting walls that constantly changed texture.

I couldn't avoid looking at the collage of bodies any longer.

The memories of this fortified slump came back rushing to me. My chest grew heavy, my vision expanded. and my breathing accelerated as I tried frantically looking for them, avoiding the other corpses and blood not of my own squad, in the off chance they were-

I stopped dead in my tracks, and all of my limbs froze.

Kaiden… Ashley…

On a rectangular barricade, they laid. Next to each other, both riddled to the bone with bullets, and bleeding profusely from nearly every pore save for their eyes. I could see past the vizor of their helmet, and noticed that their necks were already being colored purple and black.

I slowly walked over to them, hoping that they'd somehow rise back up, and then knelt before them. I took in their hands into my own, and looked them dead in the face. Nothing had changed. At least their eyes were closed.

I would never see them again. No exchanging stories, no hanging out, and no one to be intimate with either sexually or emotionally. Utterly nothing.

What a fucking failure I was. Two of the best people I knew personally, and look where they are now because of me. They deserved better. They deserved so much better, and I wished I give them what they were owed. A heavy weight pressed on me to lay down with them and give them a proper mourning, but I didn't deserve that sort of consolation. I should have said something, but what could I say? There was no string of sentences that could have somehow mended this. I could have said I was sorry but… No. That was nowhere near enough. I had to make this right somehow.

I stood up slowly and shook my head. I can't stay here, but… I looked around the room, and counted twenty-something people, including my own. I needed to know how many died, the magnitude of it all.

All of them. Not a single person had survived aside from me and Saren. The only saving grace was that their deaths seemed to be quick, and that was it.

Some commander I am. The first thing I ought to do when help came and I got back was to resign. No, that wouldn't do them justice. I had to try at least.

I made my way to the entrance, now exit, we used to enter inside the Reaper vessel, and just I opened the rather undirtied doors I was blasted by an overwhelming explosion of cold wind. Knee-deep snow flooded into the room like water as I saw sky impregnated with grey clouds, each laying their invisible weight upon me as I properly left the vessel. Then I saw curled hands and legs, both with their armor intact, coming out of the snow. It had buried them. It would never be enough, but at least it was some reprieve for them.

I hobbled forwards, but shortly after my knees gave out before me, and I had to slump myself on one of the four appendages sticking out of the vessel. I shot my sidearm into the ground and kept it near my hands to warm them up. Then I took out my miniature distress beacon, and my finger hovered over the call button.

Should I? Yes. I should.
"Commander Shepard of the Alliance military speaking." I said blankly. "Requesting a pick-up from any nearby ship. The entire ground team is dead, only I and Specter Saren are alive. All known hostiles are taken care of." I finished.

I had said that. No turning back now.

With the amount of ammo and flares I had, I could maybe survive a few days if I used them extremely conservatively, assuming I didn't burn through too many calories. Why did I even try to go out? The outside was much colder and harsher than the inside of the vessel. But even the mere act of turning my head to the entrance of the vessel again was so… difficult. Frustration. Hesitation. Restraint. All of those clung to me whenever I turned my head, and it was tremendously visceral. The same thing happened when I looked at my buried squadmates. Something was deeply wrong with me. But I couldn't worry about it now.

I garnered all the willpower I had remaining to get up and move, yet my limbs just slumped against the appendage I was laying and were completely unmoved. Soon after, I stopped feeling them. I sighed, and rested my head just for a brief moment of respite. It seemed like everything was working against my favor. Maybe I'd die like this, but at least I'd be with my squad. Or maybe not. Either way, I'd be fine with what happened next. I closed my eyes in anticipation.

When every sensation I felt was gone, I opened my eyes to see where I was now. I found myself in that white void again. The complete utter absence of everything felt… almost peaceful, were it not for the giant black figure standing before me.

I couldn't find the will to speak, so I just watched as the thing bent over slightly somehow with whatever remaining joints it had being stuck in place. Was it really trapped? Poor thing.

"LISTEN TO ME." It demanded. Despite the fact its voice was still monotone, I could feel the anger it carried through.

"It is too difficult for to me to communicate with you when your mind is too active. Too many signals. Too little time to relax. Too little breathing room." It said with a certain lividness. Though it spit on my squad's name, there was a chance that was a mere accident, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt and relaxed as best as I could.

"Four years. Then the Old Machines will invade the galaxy and wipe out all life. You know them as Reapers." It explained. I leaned in to focus. "Their only original creations, the galaxy uses. Mass relays, they're called. The Old Machines can shut them down, control them, destroy them, in order to divide and conquer. You know this"

It then set its chest straight. This was too much to process, but I didn't want to stop speaking to it just yet. "Help me annihilate them, and… everyone will live. They have their attack dogs in the Collectors. They have a base, I do not know where. But I can lead you to it, as I am in it. Free me, Find me, Harvest me, and you will gain the technology destroy the Old Machines. Destroy the base as well, and you will put down them Collectors like the dogs they are."

I said the first thing that came to my mind.
"Harvest you?"
"YES." It bellowed adamantly. "Tear me apart, study my body, and use it to destroy the dogs. I am made of a technology far superior to anything present in the galaxy, and it is what the Old machines are made out of. I am still new enough; I have not undergone nigh-complete brain death yet, unlike the Old machines. There are hundreds of souls in me, coalesced into one being."

Suddenly, I felt just the slightest pang of… sorrow. "What does that mean?"

"It is irrelevant."

"So why bring it up then?"

It went silent. It was dehumanizing to keep referring to them as just 'it' though.
"Your sympathies are misplaced."
I looked up from the ground in complete bafflement, and only then I realized that I had said that thought out-loud. Why was this thing acting this way? "Who are you?"

"I am but a fetus that has died in the womb."

"What are you?" I found myself asking.

"A human reaper."

Huh? "How… how did you come to be?"
"That is irrelevant."

It likely wouldn't budge on this issue, so I had to most likely find out myself. Better to ask about something else then.

"Who are the Old Machines?"
"Rotten. They are outdated weaponry, given sentience by their so-called 'gods' to increase their lethality. But their creators are gone, so they have taken their place. What a delusion. They are the ones who wiped out the Protheans, and all of the civilizations before them in a grand cleansing for the sake of a foolish belief." They then bent over slightly. "Remember that they're no more than old machines. Machines are nearly rusted, broken, and archaic."

"Why do they want to destroy the galaxy? And why like that?"

"To prevent early heat death of universe by dark energy, supposedly. They posit that advanced enough technology creates dark energy as a by-product, as a waste product even. Ironically, the Reapers are made out of an advanced enough technology to produce it. So they cull the galaxy in fifty-thousand year cycles, they proclaim, to not produce dark energy as much as possible. They believe constant extermination is too costly, and so they hibernate. They calculated fifty-thousand years to be the point where civilizations advance enough to start to produce dark energy, and just weak enough to be culled"

It then leaned in again. "Don't you dare fall for what they believe in." It threatened. "The old machines are so rotten that several miscalculations occurred. They came to the Protheans too late, and thus one hundred out of the five hundred old machines perished in war. Now, they've become so rotten that their internal clocks have decayed to the point of near non-function. They were meant to come in a few thousand years. That's how rotten they've become."

"How don't you know where the Collector base is if you're in it?

"If you were trapped in a prison from cradle to grave where you could not move, how would you know where you are?"

"I'd ask the guards, or any faculty worker."

"How would you communicate with dogs that do not even acknowledge your existence?"
I didn't want to waste anymore time on this subject matter.

"What is this dark energy anyway?"

"An invisible force. Rapidly ages anything within its vicinity." Suddenly, a blooming sensation spread over my head. "Like Cain. The Reapers fear it. Good. We have to use it against them."

I couldn't see how something like that would be good, or even achievable, but I tried not thinking about it too deeply for this thing's sake. Speaking of:

"Why are you going against your own kind?"

The human reaper stood as straight as it possibly could, and looked down upon me. It growled in low but deep metallic groans as it began to twitch unnaturally, and this twitching only increased in intensity.

Then, a crescendo of pressure crashed onto me. Coming in waves each stronger then the last; trying to reach further and further into my body. At first, it was on my skin, then into my nostrils and ears, and then into my own retinas. It felt like I was being swarmed with large heavy bugs. Somehow though, my vision endured.

"SPITE."

And right after that word, like a command, the force on skyrocketed in strength and I felt as my entire form collapsed in on itself-

I woke up in the middle of a snowstorm. My legs and hands were already entombed, and… my squad were completely gone. The hailing of the wind clogged up my ears as I tried looking for any sign of Saren, but alas there was none. Not even footprints

How was I alive? Or was I merely in the process of dying? Though I was no expert in biology, I wouldn't be surprised if my body put itself in a self-induced coma to save itself. Maybe this was all a hallucination my mind made up in its last hours.

What about what the human reaper said? No, this wasn't the right time to think about it. I had to… live first.

I couldn't feel my own legs, so I attempted to shift around using my arms. Surprisingly, they weren't weak at all, and I found that using them to move was fine for the most part, even if it was a bit unintuitive.

Suddenly, a bright white light with an angelic quality bore down on my face, blinding me for a moment, and I had to look away due to its sheer strength. I put a stiff hand up in front of my head and tried to see what was the cause. The light seemed to have come from a darkish figure standing on top of the hills surrounding the Reaper vessel, and it had something of a flowing red shawl that covered roughly half of its body, but I couldn't tell if it was just a piece of clothing or an actual part of the thing.

The light seemed to have come from its… head? Just as I registered that information the figure slid down the hill, snow building up in-between its appendages, and approached me with awkward movements. The veil of light dimmed which allowed me to see that it had a large singular eye, a snake-like neck, and an obviously metal body. That only meant one thing:

It was a Geth.

I crawled back as far I as could and then put a hand on my belt-strapped sidearm. It seemed to have noticed this as it stopped moving towards me and held up its three-digit hands. Several high-pitched screeches came from its joints and I could clearly see some rust on its body. A metal number twenty-three was etched onto the edge of the upper-right section of its torso.

"We mean no hostilities, Commander-Shepard." It said in an inappropriately calm multi-layered voice. It could speak? And why the pacificism? No matter, it could still be a threat. I drew out my pistol and aimed it straight at the Geth's chest. "Who are you? And how do you know my name?" I asked sternly. I barely caught on to the fact that my voice was somehow more clear.

The Geth gawkily gestured to itself, making the same creaking sound that I flinched from. "We are Geth. Our name is Legion. We received your distress call." They said as they grabbed the red rugged shawl tied between their arms and chest, then carefully undid it and offered it to me. It had a name? Did one of the Geth achieve individuality? No point in questions now; I'll take what I can get. I nabbed the shawl which was surprisingly thick and wrapped the thing around me, but I still held up my gun at the Geth. Then followed a moment of pause. I used this period to think.

Judging by the fact that the scenery changed, it only follows that I've been unconscious for a decent amount of time. If that were the case, then that means help isn't going to arrive anytime soon, which I found rather deserved. Whether that meant Saren was lying or not, I'd have to figure out by myself. It wouldn't be surprising if he got held up by the Council for wanting to rescue a human ship.

Moving on to a more immediate concern: If this Geth were to be trusted, it could help me up and get me to my crashed ship to survive off the MREs for a good while. If I didn't trust them, I'd have to crawl to the ship on my own. Of course, there was the possibility of them trying to trick me by appearing friendly and getting up close only to kill me. Either way I'd be dead in the worst-case scenario, so I decided to push my luck and trust Legion.

I lowered my gun and gestured for Legion to get closer. it walked up to me and hoisted me up in a crutch carry. I felt nauseous from the sudden movement but I wasn't going to complain, especially right now.

Legion then practically lifted me up from the bottom of the hill to its top, my legs trudged through the snow and only now could I feel the chill of the cold wind seeping from the holes in my armor and washing over the rest of my body. The adrenaline had faded, it seemed.

"Your body is approaching dangerous levels of hypothermia. Your survival rates are unlikely considering your physical condition." Legion explained just as we reached the top of the hills. "I know." I admitted weakly.

"A moment." Legion asked for, before several the sounds of several fans and machinery winded up and increased in volume. Slightly, I could see the edges of each of Legion's components fading into a red color. Before I knew it, I was hoisted up further by Legion, making me wrap my arm around its neck and putting my head on its shoulders and my chest next to theirs.

I could feel the artificial heat emanating off of Legion's body, and it comforted me ever-so-slightly. It shouldn't have. This… intimate act, it was disgusting. Repulsive. Hideous. A knot formed in my chest which then leaped to my throat, and I needed to swallow that considerable gag forming in my mouth to stop myself from vomiting. I so desperately wanted to push Legion away from me, but I just could not find the strength to even lift up an arm.

"Your body temperature will return to normal." Legion suddenly said as I finally gathered the strength to look into their dimmed eye. "Unfortunately, we do not have any food or water available, and neither are acquirable at this time. Do you still have a stockpile of food?" Legion asked. Of course it would think I'd have something like that, but that meant a considerable amount of time had passed whilst I was out. I didn't want to worry Legion anymore by essentially saying that I hadn't eaten for however long it has been, and neither did I want to go back to the vessel to scour for food. There was no need to desecrate the bodies of my squad, or at least more than I already have.

This all however depended how long it actually has been, and though I could have checked my omnitool to know, that would have told Legion that I didn't actually know how long I've been here, and it'd likely reach the conclusion that I was out. The best option was to lie then.

"I've just run out, but I think I'll be fine. By the way, my omnitool got busted during the fight, so I have no clue how long it has been since I last sent the distress signal." I replied. Dammit, I should have phrased it like a direct question instead of an implicit request. Legion looked at me blankly without any indication of a response. I took it that they understood my statement as just a mere sentence. "How long has it been?"
"It has been three months since you last sent your distress signal."

Three months? I was out for three months? How the hell was I alive?! I was without food, water, or shelter for three months out in the freezing cold. I wasn't even hungry or thirsty, and only now had I realized that. This was a… no it can't be. Why me?

I couldn't get hung up on this now. There must have been an answer, but I just couldn't find it. Regardless, the fact I survived for that long in those conditions must have meant that I had some endurance/longevity to me, despite the fact it never manifested before now. If I could find my crashed ship, then I could get in it and at least be in a more hospitable area. Food and heating were also nice, but my immediate concern was shelter.

I pointed in the general direction of my ship which Legion followed. "I have a ship over there. Roughly a few miles away. If we could get to it, then we have a shot at living." For whatever reason, saying that last part didn't feel dirty. Legion took a very shot pause to answer. If I had to guess, they was calculating the odds of us making it there.

"We have detected a heat signature similar to an Alliance ship on our two-point-seven kilometer trip to this area." Legion said before turning to me. "It is possible that we could reach it before you face starvation if we hurried."

"You travelled nearly three kilometers just to get to me?" I asked in a mix of disbelief and shock.

"Affirmative."
I… didn't know how to feel about that. All of that effort? Just for me? It was… No, no. I didn't deserve it, and Legion shouldn't have even bothered with such a task in the first place. The least I can do however was show my gratitude, if it meant anything at this point.

"Thank you." The words came out weakly.

"You are welcome." Legion responded mechanically. It felt strange to hear that, even as an informality. It was alien, foreign, and abnormal. It shouldn't be there. Yet, a thick warmth spread over me that made me feel just the slightest bit valued. My lips were pulled into a slight smile, which I quickly shut down.

"We should get going then." I ordered as I got up and went by Legion's side, but they continued to stare at me instead of moving. I gave them a curious eye.
"Have you taken any stimulants?" They asked.

"No." I replied firmly. They took another minutely short moment to respond.

"That is strange. You have not shown any signs of adrenaline or drug use, yet your legs have made a remarkable recovery." They said. Now that I thought about it, it was indeed odd. I could barely stand on them a moment ago, and here I am offering to walk a few kilometers with Legion like nothing had happened. I wrapped the shawl around me more tightly as I looked to the ground. Another foreign feeling entered me, and I suddenly found the will to walk that distance, and perhaps even beyond that.

"Let's make use of it then. No point in standing around." I emphasized.

"Understood. Please take the lead." They replied. That last phrase stung like a motherfucker. What the hell was wrong with me? It was just some words. No matter, I could get checked at another time. Just before we made way, I caught a strong inclination to turn around, and so I did and bared witness to the biggest mistake of my life.

A gigantic black Reaper the shape of a squid laid asleep on the plain of thick ice it was on. There were small pores all over its body, and at its end were four rigid tentacles that became smaller as they went on. There was a patch of metal that gave way to a dead 'eye' made of a material akin to glass. It was either made of grey or dark metal, I couldn't differentiate with the looming cloudy sky above, and it appeared to be segmented.

This was no proper burial. It would never be. Freezing out in the middle of nowhere, stuck on some isolated planet, and contained within a being that supposedly want an omnicide. They should have been on Earth, or at least on another spaceship. With friends and family surrounding them, and mourning them, then lowered into the ground to be ingrained into the planet forever. But they would never get their bodies. The Council was likely to rule this off as an 'unlawful intrusion into an unmarked territory without proper permission beforehand' and not let the Alliance get them back for whatever political nonsense. Another plaque of shame and regret to bear.

This was *my* failure. I fucked up, and yet everyone else paid the price. All of my friends, brothers, and sisters died because of me. Because I made the call to attack that Collector cruiser and help Saren's ship chase it down. What the hell was I even thinking? We were just getting our shielding system back up, we hadn't even finished refueling, and most of my crew were tired from defending both the Quarian liveship and our own.

Yet no-one protested when I made that decision. They had to have known better. I should have known better. But yet, how would it look if we decided to leave a singular small Turian ships to go after an entire Collector cruiser? I couldn't just abandon them. Politics be damned, it would have been wrong to leave them to their fate.

But about my crew? Had they all truly died for nothing then? Knowing what I know now, would I have still made the same call to aid Saren's ship? Should have stilled taken that risk, that chance, that somehow something good would have come out of all of this?

…Maybe.

But there was only one way to make this right. The Human Reaper and Saren were right, I had to get back at the Collectors somehow. To make them repay the price tenfold and more. I had to find their base, annihilate them, and get the Human Reaper out. No point in all of this if everyone ends up dead anyways.

At least, for my squad.

AN: For those of you who have already read the 'old' version of the story, I've taken down all of the chapters and I'm currently in the process rewriting all of them so that the story is better overall. The 'original' story had too many holes, flaws, bad dialogue for my liking, and I couldn't just rewrite every chapter one-by-one whilst the rest just kept being lest I risked big contineuty errors, mischaracterization, and readers getting confused. I've decided that this is the best course of action for the sake of convienience.