CHAPTER 9

The Forest

Shepard…

He ran. His body ached and his lungs burned, but still he ran. Shepard had to.

He had to save him.

The boy ran just ahead of Shepard, just far enough away where he couldn't reach him.

"Come back!" Shepard screamed, reaching out a hand to the boy. The boy turned around to look for the voice that called to him, but his eyes widened in terror as he looked past Shepard and quickened his pace.

Shepard looked to see what had frightened the boy and saw the forest behind them was burning. The once tall and shadowy trees that loomed over him like pillars were ablaze in red flames. Their boughs, once thick with leaves, arced and crackled in agony as the fire ate away at them. Smoldering leaves released by the flames lifted high into the air, only to treacherously rain back down and ignite the others that had yet to be touched.

The fire let out an ear splitting roar as it methodically consumed everything in its path.

Shadows moved between the burning trunks, unfazed by the overwhelming heat and ash.

Shepard… they called out. Over and over they called, beckoning and reaching out for him.

Each time the voice was different, but it was always one that he knew. It was always one that he lost.

Shepard turned away from the shadows and sprinted for the boy.

"Stop!" he cried again. "I can help you!"

Shepard's voice was being drowned out by the blaring, almost mechanical roar from the fire that was hungrily devouring the forest behind him.

Shepard… The shadows continued to follow, their collective voices barely managing to be heard over the flames.

He tried to push the voices out as best as he could, but in a moment of weakness he couldn't help himself, and for a split second he looked away, taking his eye off the boy. As soon as he did, the boy ducked behind a tree and disappeared.

Shepard panicked when he turned back and saw he was gone. "No!" he cried out over the chaos, but only the shadows seemed to acknowledge him.

He pressed on, running in the direction he thought the boy would have gone. The shadows became more and more numerous the further he ran, and the heat from the fire only grew hotter and hotter.

Does this unit… have a soul?

Go save Ash, Commander…

Had to be me… Somebody else would've gotten it wrong…

Guide him, Kalahira… wash the sins from his spirit…

It took all of Shepard's will to ignore the shadows. The people those haunting voices once belonged to were all gone. There was nothing he could do for them, but no matter how hard he tried, the doubt continued to claw at his mind.

But the child… I can still save him... he told himself again and again as he trudged on.

After what felt like a lifetime of endless running, Shepard spotted a small opening through the trees and stalking shadows, and made a run for it, ducking his head under burning branches and biting embers as he went. The smoke choked his lungs and made his eyes water, but he refused to give up.

Just past the small opening was a large, almost strangely idyllic grassy field, and standing directly in the middle of it with his back to Shepard, was the boy.

He had finally stopped running.

Shepard bent over and took several, deep, relieving breaths. "Thank god," he wheezed in a tired, exasperated voice. "Come with me... We have to go!"

But the boy ignored him.

"We can't stay here," croaked Shepard again. "It's getting closer! I can help you if you just-"

A dark sensation washed over Shepard, and he realized they weren't actually alone.

Shepard stood up and looked past the boy to the far side of the clearing. He could make out the image of a man. A man wearing an alliance uniform, standing comfortably across from him at the far side of the clearing.

A man with Shepard's face.

Shepard froze as he took in the doppleganger, becoming more and more uneasy as the seconds slipped by. He had the same short, neat hair blemished with a small but noticeable scar, the same stubborn day old stubble, the same ears, nose, mouth. Everything was the same, save for one thing.

His eyes. They were no longer blue, but instead an eerie green.

He stood almost as still as a statue, but he wore a warm, welcoming smile.

"Come," said the other Shepard in a strangely calm voice. "I can save you..."

The boy hesitated for a moment, and to Shepard's growing confusion, took a step towards him.

Shepard watched on, unsure as to what to do, but the longer he watched the more unsettled he became.

The other Shepard seemed to change as the boy drew closer and closer. The sickly green in his eyes grew brighter and brighter until they almost glowed. And his skin was different. It was paler than it was when he first saw him.

Shepard drew his sidearm. "No!" he shouted to the boy. "It's not safe!"

The boy again ignored him, moving further and further away from him and closer to the other Shepard.

Shepard's eyes grew wide in horror as he realized that the other man wasn't just changing. He was slowly rotting. His skin became thin. Gradually thinning to the point that it looked stretched over the bones of his face, and translucent enough to where he could faintly see what lies beneath. Advanced cybernetics crisscrossed underneath his rotting skin. Tubes and metal with sickening green lights becoming more and more apparent with each step the boy took.

"It's a husk!" warned Shepard, recognizing the monster slowly coming to form before him, "Come back!"

To Shepard's amazement, the boy finally stopped. He turned to face Shepard, but rather than head back toward safety, he looked to him with sad, seemingly disappointed eyes.

"You can't save me…" the boy murmured in a shaky, distressed voice. The boy's words cut at Shepard, and for a moment, he just stood there, unsure how to respond.

The Shepard husk knelt down and outstretched his sinewy, freshly clawed hands to the boy.

"Don't be afraid…" it rasped in a twisted amalgamation of Shepard's and a reaper's voice, "I am the future… the solution to all chaos… I am the synthesis of all things..."

Shepard watched in disbelief as the boy continued on, wondering how or if the child couldn't see the apparent danger he was walking headlong into.

Shepard had seen enough. Instinctively, he primed his pistol, set his finger on the trigger, and took aim at the husk's head. If the boy wouldn't try to avoid the apparent danger in front of him, then Shepard would remove it himself.

"I'm surprised at you, Shepard…" a voice called to him from the trees. The familiarity of the voice startled him and he felt a sudden chill creep up his spine.

Out of the corner of his eye he could make out a shadow stepping out from behind the burning trees. The shadow moved slowly, confidently despite the ever approaching flames licking hungrily at it's heels.

The shadow changed shape as it approached, but instead of turning into a husk like the other Shepard, it slowly morphed into the shape of another human man . A tall man wearing an impeccably clean, elegant black suit with an unbuttoned white collared shirt, and a cigarette held gingerly in one hand. Shepard turned fully to face the newcomer, and was met with two blue, piercing, cybernetic eyes boring directly into him.

"The Reapers are giving us the solution," the Illusive man chided as he took a long, relaxing drag from his cigarette. "And your first instinct is to destroy it? You were always shortsighted, Shepard. But I guess I never realized just how shortsighted you truly are…"

Anger welled within Shepard as the illusive man blew smoke directly into his face. Somehow the smoke from his cigarette managing to sting his eyes more than blaze behind them.

"Think about what you are doing, Shepard. The Reaper's power is immeasurable. The things they are capable of achieving are so beyond us that it would take us 1,000 years just to scratch the surface. Just imagine what we could do with such power! Humanity's survival would be guaranteed. All we have to do is take it…" he said gesturing his cigarette toward the ever decaying Husk across the clearing. "All you have to do... is take it."

Shepard glared hatefully at him. His instincts screamed not to trust him, but the temptation gnawed viciously at his mind. There was truth to the Illusive man's words. Much to Shepard's frustration, there was always a hint of truth.

He immediately thought back to the Collector base, when the Illusive man had offered him a similar proposal. At the time, there was no doubt in Shepard's mind, destroying the base was the right choice. But ever since the Reaper invasion began, Shepard couldn't help but question the wisdom of his decision. What if the technology from that base could have given them an edge in the war? Would they have found a way to save lives?

None of the previous cycles had ever been able to stop the reapers. Even the mighty Prothean empire couldn't stand against their onslaught. What if that strength could be put into protecting the galaxy? What if they could be controlled?

What if they were the answer?

Against his better judgement, and all the warnings screaming in his head, Shepard slowly eased off the trigger.

"Don't listen to him!" came another voice from behind him.

Shepard wheeled around. A second shadow had sprung from behind the trees and quickly closed on him, taking the shape of another man he knew, a man whom Shepard had always respected, a man that he knew he could always trust.

"A-Anderson?" rasped Shepard, staring in disbelief as his old mentor jogged up to him. While the Illusive man oozed a calm, almost arrogant confidence, Anderson radiated a determined, martial authority.

"The Reapers cannot be trusted!" Anderson barked at him. "Nothing good can come from those monsters! We have to destroy them!"

Shepard could hear the Illusive man release a dismissive laugh behind him. "Typical…" he said, taking another drag from his cigarette before slowly circling around Shepard. "When humanity discovered the mass relays… when we learned that there was more to the galaxy than we imagined… There were some who thought the relays should be destroyed. They were scared of what we'd find. Terrified of what we might let in… But look at what humanity has achieved! Since that discovery, we've advanced more than the past 10,000 years combined. And the Reapers will do the same for us again. A thousand fold…"

Shepard looked back toward the husk. It barely looked human anymore. Most of its flesh had given way to more and more cybernetics. Glowing circuitry replaced veins and metal reinforced or outright replaced bones and limbs. Only its face remained to remind Shepard of what it once was.

"Bullshit!" shouted Anderson. "We destroy them, or they destroy us!"

The Illusive man moved to insert himself between Shepard and Anderson. "Who will you listen to, Shepard? An old soldier, stuck in his ways, only able to see the world down the barrel of a gun? What if he's wrong? What if the Reapers are the answer?"

Shepard closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, straining to hear the Illusive man's poisonous words. Other voices soon assaulted his mind as hundreds of other shadows stepped forth from the fire. Each one telling him what to do or to pull him in another direction.

We're running out of time!

We can't hold out for much longer!

They cannot be stopped…

Shepard!

He knew he had to make a choice, he had to do something to save the child, but he didn't know what. It was all so unknown. How could he choose? Should he really be the one to make this choice? Was the boy's life truly his to save?

The flames had finally reached the trees directly behind him and were licking hungrily at his back. The voices were relentless, growing louder and more urgent to the point he could no longer hear himself think. He wanted to scream at them, to make them all go away, but his strength was fading, and he barely could even lift his pistol anymore.

Shepard finally opened his eyes to see that the boy was now standing directly in front of the husk, extending his small hands to grasp at the sinister claws outstretched before him.

Time seemed to slow as the boy reached up. All the voices spoke at once now, creating a chorus of demands, desperate pleading, and rage. But there was one that stood out from all the others, one that seemed to dwarf all else. One that made him move without further thought or hesitation.

He raised his pistol and squeezed the trigger.

Shepard nearly jumped out of his skin at the roar of his gun, confused by his sudden action.

The world around him abruptly went silent. The flames that had roared so victoriously, suddenly vanished. The trees that the flames had so greedily consumed stood still, branches bare and blackened from the chaos. The boy that Shepard had struggled to save was gone. The Illusive Man, Anderson, even the shadows, all had disappeared. Everything.

Except the husk.

Shepard saw its lifeless body slumped against the ground on the far side of the clearing. But something was different about it. It's shape was different. Its coloring seemed all off. He grew uneasy and slowly made his way over to the body.

He felt a lump growing in his throat as he slowly approached, his eyes growing wide when he finally realized why.

It's skin was no longer the pale and stretched flesh that had so disgusted him, but instead a bright, clean silver. It's once wasted and skeletal body was now a markedly feminine shape.

But it was its face that most surprised Shepard. It was no longer a reaper hewn mockery of his own.

"EDI…" he breathed.

The blood drained from Shepard's face as he looked down in horror upon her lifeless form. Her beautiful silvery face froze in confusion, and forever scarred with a bullet hole between her synthetic eyes.

Slowly, Shepard knelt down to his knees and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. As he picked her up, everything came back to him. The Reapers, Earth, the Crucible, the choice-

The choice…

It had already been made. Of all the ways he could have ended the war, this was how he did it.

"I'm… so sorry…" he said, pulling her body close. "I did what I… what I…"

The words wouldn't come out. Shepard himself wasn't even sure if he believed them. In fact, he knew he didn't believe them.

"We wanted to stop the Reapers… No matter the cost…" he breathed in a grieved whisper. "To save the people..."

He looked around to the burnt and dead trees surrounding them, to the millions of ashes still floating in the air, and finally back to the lifeless one in his arms.

"Did I?" he asked her.

Silence was the only answer she could offer him. Shepard hung his head in despair as he gently placed EDI's body back down to the grass.

"You've saved… no one."

Shepard jumped at a sudden melodious voice ringing in his head. He quickly scanned his surroundings, looking for the source of the intrusive sound. A bright white light immediately flared to life in the middle of the clearing. Shepard brought his hands up to shield his eyes from the sheer intensity of it, but almost as quickly as it came, the light faded, leaving a small boy standing where it once showed.

Not the boy. The Catalyst…

The rippling, incorporeal form of the Catalyst stood defiantly against the gray and shadowy death of the forest around them, it's disappointed glowing eyes fixed on Shepard.

"I warned you…" chimed the Catalyst, pointing a small finger down at the synthetic body lying between them. "The created will always come into conflict with their creators."

Another light abruptly illuminated the field and forest around them. Shepard looked up to the sky to see a bright red orb glowing between the spokes of a great wheel. He gasped in horror when he recognized the giant floating structure as the Citadel, and the growing red light in the center of it was coming from the Crucible.

"The chaos will return… And your children's children will suffer the consequences."

Shepard wanted to call out to the Catalyst, to tell him he's wrong and to beg him to stop, but he couldn't look away from the Crucible and its terrible glow. Without further warning, the Citadel loosed a thunderous, crackling roar, and the terrifying red light erupted from its center, sending a tsunami of burning energy in all directions. It destroyed everything in its path, uprooting trees and sending stone flying high into the air. Shepard stood helpless watching it race toward him and the Catalyst.

"The Crucible will not discriminate. Even you are part synthetic. You've saved… no one."

He brought up his arm in a vain attempt to shield his face from the light, only to have it erupt into flame as he was quickly engulfed by the Crucible's energy.

Shepard screamed, his body burned, and his world went black.

The Catalyst was gone.

EDI was gone.

All that was left was silence.

Shepard's consciousness floated weightlessly in the silence. The pain given to him from the Crucible's flames had abated and he felt numb. The feeling was familiar to him. Three years ago, when the first Normandy was destroyed and he was jettisoned into space, he had felt this.

Then, he resisted it. Now, he welcomed it. This was to be his reward, his penance for his choice.

But the silence did not last. A voice pierced the darkness and took hold of his consciousness. He knew this voice. The one that had dwarfed all others.

Instead of ignoring it as he had tried in the forest, Shepard reached out and took hold of it. A new sensation slowly crept over his body as he held on, and the numbness he had felt slowly gave way to pins and needles. His body felt heavy, and he could feel his lungs cry out for air.

Shepard opened his mouth and tasted a swell of dry acrid air as it raced to fill his chest. The pins and needles began to feel more like daggers, and after several long, hard breaths, the darkness and silence of his consciousness shattered, and his eyes sprang open.

The forest was gone. Colorless, dead trees were replaced with twisted metal and wiring. The room around him was dark, alien.

Barely able to breathe and pain still wracking his body, Shepard tried to move. All he could manage to do was shift uncomfortably in the rubble. He tried to raise his arms, but they too refused to budge. What strength he had would not be enough.

But, his sudden movements did not go unnoticed. A singular light abruptly appeared and started dancing around the room. Stopping at random pieces of rubble and debris before finally settling on Shepard.

Upon finding him, the light became more intense and he soon heard footsteps. The tapping of boots on metal grew louder and louder until he saw a human in combat armor shining a flashlight down on his bloody face.

"I found someone!" called out the human through his helmet's comm system. "Call the evac shuttle and bring the medkit! He's in pretty rough shape!"

He soon heard several new sets of footsteps suddenly rushing toward him, but Shepard didn't acknowledge them. The darkness soon crept back into the edges of his vision and he began to slip back into unconsciousness. But before he fully returned to the silence, the familiar voice came back to him.

The voice that filled him with hope and fear all at once.

Come back to me...

A wave of exhaustion washed over Hackett as he left the ready room. The meeting had gone on for longer than he originally anticipated. Turns out coordinating food, housing, and medical care for multiple species was quite the undertaking. Now that he had had a taste of cross species politics, he had a newfound respect for the old Council.

Despite the excruciating length, the meeting was, in his mind, a success. Each species agreed to lend aid to the others in some capacity. For instance, the quarians offered the use of their liveships to produce food for both them and the turians, the salarians offered technicians to repair the damage to the asari ships, and the krogan promised not to destroy anything while they were on Earth. Hackett shuddered at the thought of the damage the krogan could do. One bored krogan could be a problem. An army of them could be a catastrophe.

A headache started to gnaw at the Admiral as he made his way through the ship. He hadn't gotten much sleep in the last few days and it was starting to take its toll on the old soldier. As he walked through the CIC to get to his quarters, he overheard several crewmen whispering excitedly to one another. The whole room seemed to be buzzing with excitement and confusion.

"You think it's true?" a young woman asked.

"Impossible," retorted a young man. "You saw the damage to the Citadel. Just another wild varren chase."

"Crazier things have happened, man," replied another.

"Don't remind me," the young man responded.

Hackett was curious, but not enough to stop and confront them. He was tired and needed a rest. Or a really stiff drink. The thought reminded the Admiral of something he had left in his desk for such an occasion. Something he had held onto since he had to abandon earth six months ago.

He took off his hat and hung it on a rack as he entered his quarters, running his fingers through his silver hair as he made his way toward his overcrowded desk. He opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a large bottle of whiskey. On the side of the bottle, hastily scribbled in permanent marker, was written:

In case of miracle - DRINK

Hackett couldn't help but laugh a little as he read it. The whiskey was a gift. A gift from his colleague and friend, Admiral David Anderson. Anderson had sent him the bottle in the weeks leading up to the Reaper invasion. Both had spent considerable time working together, trying to prepare Humanity for the coming war. An uphill battle considering Alliance leadership refused to acknowledge the threat until it was too late. At one point, Hackett plainly told Anderson that they would need nothing short of a miracle to defeat the Reapers. Anderson responded by sending him the bottle with a note saying, "If we need a miracle, then Shepard will be the one to find it."

Hackett's smile faded as he looked back into the drawer where he kept the bottle. He had two glasses stored in the drawer alongside the whiskey. One for him, and one for Anderson. He had originally planned to drink the bottle with Anderson after they had achieved victory. It was a bold plan considering what they were up against, but Shepard's recent successes gave him at least some confidence that it could happen. But Anderson was gone along with Shepard. So his plan had to change accordingly. He would have to drink alone.

Hackett pulled a single glass out of the drawer and filled it with the golden brown liquid. He sighed as he held the glass up and prepared a toast to his lost friend. "Here's to you Anderson. You were right. He found the miracle."

He took a sip of the whiskey, coughing a little as it burned its way down his throat. He gave the glass a suspicious look. "Must be English whiskey," he groaned after clearing his throat. Hackett was about to repeat the gesture in honor of Commander Shepard when he heard a knock at his door.

He sighed again and put the glass down on the desk. Guess you'll have to wait, Commander.

"Come in."

The door slid open to reveal Serviceman Carter once again standing in the doorway. She was different this time. Excited. Bouncing almost as she approached his desk. Hackett gave her a confused look. "What is it, Carter?"

Unable to contain herself, she thrust her datapad at the Admiral. "You won't believe it, sir!"

Hackett took the datapad and looked it over. His eyes widened and he slowly sank back into his chair. Carter was right, he couldn't believe it, and the Admiral responded with the only appropriate words that came to his mind.

"Holy shit…"