It’s dark out. Very dark, but the lights of the city keep the streets and sidewalks before us illuminated. Funny, a bunch of kids from the country going to the city to see an event that only people from the country would enjoy. Sort of paradoxical. I don’t particularly enjoy the event, but we do get to see one good bike wreck and of course, her company is the real reason I’m there.

Everything about the night goes perfectly. I impress her with politeness and chivalry a dozen times over in the space of a few short hours, which honestly isn’t that hard considering the kind of guys she’s used to hanging out with. I can’t even describe how lucky I am. Why she’s taken such an interest in me. I’m nobody, and she’s exactly the opposite. Hence why we stuffed four of her friends in the back of my ’01 Buick Century to make it to the show.

We’re walking back to the car afterward. Her hand is in mine; we’re walking and watching and laughing as her friends march onward attempting to remember where we parked. There’s a drunk guy trying to get their attention. I want to warn them; when I get this feeling I know it’s never a good sign, but I also don’t want to set him off. So when he leaves them alone I tell them to keep to themselves.

When we find the parking garage it turns out the drunk parked on the same level. He’s in the elevator as we ascend to our section. He continues toying with them, but at this point they’ve realized he’s drunk and an idiot. They’re attractive girls, so I get it, but honestly. Some men lose it a little when they get drunk. Either he doesn’t realize or doesn’t care that we’re all barely out of high school. Her cousin actually still is a senior, in fact.

We get out of the elevator, and everything happens so fast. We realize we somehow got separated from her cousin and one of the other girls. The drunk doesn’t want to leave without at least one of them. They insult him. She begins to freak out. I prioritize. She resists at first, on the verge of losing her sanity, but I wrap my arms around her and assure her everything will be fine. Tell her I’ll go find her cousin.

I get one of the girls to take my place and don’t even bother with the elevator. I run down flights of stairs and ramps until I get back out on the street. It’s impossible—thousands of people are leaving the stadium, heading to their cars just as we are. My heart’s pounding; I can’t believe we lost two people and I’m terrified that something unthinkable has happened.

After five minutes of searching I give up. I realize I left the others alone with a drunk and have to make sure I don’t lose them too.

When I reach them, they’re back, all five of them standing where I’d left three only minutes ago. Her cousin and friend got separated and took the ramps up the parking garage; I must have missed them by seconds. I find her and take her in my arms again.

The drunk yells. I turn and find him goading one of the girls. He’s just thrown a beer can at one, and by the look of her, she couldn’t believe it. I take two steps forward, clenched fists, and his friends come and drag him back to their truck. Apologize. I wish they hadn’t. Guys like that don’t get to just walk away.

But there are other things to worry about. We have a long drive ahead, and she’s not feeling well. We pile in my car and head home. It doesn’t go well for her. Little do I know she’s detoxing. I pull the car over at least five times. Grab her hand when she’s reduced to hanging her head and focusing on not retching. Let her squeeze as hard as she needs to to keep herself in check.

We drop two of her friends off at their car. Halfway home the other one and her cousin want to get something to eat. She’s still sick as a dog. I drop them at her mom’s car and take her straight home, just the two of us. She wants to kiss me goodnight but doesn’t want to get me sick. She tells me I’m perfect.

I go to work the next morning. Take her ice cream in the afternoon; no better treat for a stomach problem. Once again, little do I know ice cream can’t solve her problem.

She takes me into her house. Through the living room, through her aunt’s room, into her bedroom. We sit on the bed and talk for hours. When I leave, she walks me to my car. I ask if I can kiss her. She’s delighted. Amazed that I asked rather than acted. Being old-fashioned earns you some points, after all.

This is the best moment of my life. There are a lot of those over the next few weeks. Then one of the worst.

Very little could top the absolute shittiness of the last two weeks. You’d think that would be abundantly clear, but a rare few people go through experiences in life that can add up to be worse than even unimaginable chaos. For the most part, lines like “I’d rather die” are just an exaggeration. People fear death above all else; it’s the most basic of instincts, and one that humanity never did find the solution to. So when those words escape someone’s lips, it’s fair to assume that they would not, in fact, prefer death, but rather they’re merely attempting to illustrate a point.

Claire Daniels couldn’t quite say that she’d prefer death to war with the Reapers, but it was very nearly reaching that point, and it was not an exaggeration. Though she wouldn’t admit it to just anyone, she’d barely been holding it together since leaving earth. Piling everything that had happened since then on top of it? If she were being truthful with herself, it was a miracle she wasn’t dead already. Maybe that was why she hadn’t tried to run when the big daddy Reaper decided to shove his kids into the playground and crush all the ants under them; why she hadn’t been able to find it within herself to run when dear old Death finally came knocking.

What would Gabby say?

The sudden thought of her sister surprised her, not because it was unwelcome, but because Claire rarely thought of her. Ever since Gabby had mentioned working with Cerberus, they hadn’t spoken. Claire’s fault, certainly, and one she felt was justified considering the circumstances. Now that they were both serving with the Alliance, it struck her as negligent that she hadn’t at least reached out, especially considering that they were stationed on the two most advanced frigates in the fleet.

Well. The key word there was were. Past tense. Only time would tell if Claire would ever see daylight again, let alone the Evanescent.

Her first instinct was, naturally, to open her eyes in an attempt to observe what had happened, but she was greeted only by the fact that her eyes weren’t working. She could feel her eyelids open and blinked several times just to make sure, but regardless of whether her eyes were opened or closed, all she saw was black. It took several moments for her to realize that wherever she had ended up, it was devoid of any and all light. That, or she was now inexplicably blind.

A gripping feeling settled into Claire’s lungs. She’d never been particularly bothered by confined spaces or the dark, but the knowledge that she was either deep enough underground or encapsulated in so much rubble that not an iota of light could reach her was an unsettling thought. The one that followed, reminding her that there had been two dozen other people with her who may not have been quite as lucky, sent a pang of remorse into her side in addition to the emotional suffocation.

Funny that she had just been having a sort of pseudo-philosophical discussion in her mind about death when in all likelihood, that’s precisely what she was facing now. The Reaper that had so gracefully crushed them after their short-lived victory was certainly no ally, and if it was, it had a terrible sense of helpfulness. Even if someone could get close enough to detect a person buried under a damn Reaper and the tower it had knocked over, exhuming said individual was likely to cause even more problems.

Claire had never imagined that her death would come from asphyxiation via being buried alive. She had thought about it a few times every now and then, as one tends to do, and almost always pictured herself dying of old age in a hospital bed, or falling asleep one night never to awaken. Something peaceful and dignified. Granted, that was before ancient, immortal machines hell-bent on genocide showed up en masse, but she believed her surprise at the reality of her current predicament was warranted.

Her family wouldn’t have a body to bury. That was the first thing to come to mind. Assuming, of course, that anyone actually lived through this ordeal, she didn’t think her remains would ever be found. Whoever was left to remember her would have to say their farewells to a gravestone lightyears away from any trace of her physical self. They’d likely hold the service on earth, probably at that little church her parents forced her to go to every weekend as a child. God, she did miss that place, even the musty smell that came from the attic full of old hymnals and hardback bibles. Strange how even a place you despised at one point in your life can become like an old friend when you’re faced with a dreadful situation.

It felt like days passed in that darkness. Claire knew her mind was playing tricks on her, of course; she knew that without the sight of change, time disappeared from one’s perceptions completely. Even so, that didn’t help her. All of her training and all of her knowledge about the human brain was absolutely worthless in the situation she found herself facing. All she could do was hope that someone had managed to get to safety and would, with a little luck, be able to start search and rescue. It was a flimsy fantasy, she knew, but there was nothing wrong with hoping. Maybe even praying.

The thought coaxed an ironic chuckle from Claire’s lips. She’d left behind any and all habits like praying and churchgoing and scripture reading almost as soon as she’d left home—not that her family had ever put much stock in such things to begin with. It had always been more of an obligation than a true passion, the way one might visit their great aunt once a month despite not being close to her in the slightest. If there was any power in prayer, or if there were anyone to even hear it, Claire imagined she never would have ended up in this state to begin with.

She coughed involuntarily, only then realizing that she was dehydrated. It had indeed been some time since the Reaper made its crash landing.

For some curious reason, Claire’s thoughts drifted to the cousins. Naturally her mind had wondered about their well-being as well as that of everyone else on the team, but this time she let it linger. They’d miraculously survived the destruction of the Citadel and even come out of it largely unscathed. They’d been attacked by an actual Reaper, nevermind the dozens if not hundreds of drones it threw at them, and again came away from it intact. Not unscathed that time, but given the circumstances, that truly would have been an impossibility. With all of that under their belts, maybe they’d find their way out of this conundrum as well.

You’ve got to stop doing that. They’re not supernatural, they’re smart, skilled, and surrounded by exemplary people.

Except for her.

The stray bit of subconscious thought surprised Claire, if only because she was usually quite in tune with her subconscious and knew when she felt inadequate. She also knew very well how to remedy such a lapse of emotion, and it didn’t seem to be working. That small bit of doubt planted a seed in her psyche, and try as she may, she wasn’t able to get rid of it.

You don’t belong here.

There was a lie if she’d ever heard one. Sure, she hadn’t saved the galaxy a dozen times over like Shepard’s crew, and she may not have obtained a mass of information useful for combatting the Reapers like the brothers had, but Claire knew she had every right to be alongside them. She knew that.

Didn’t she?

Really, what had she ever done to get where she was? Had she stuck with her partner like any good soldier should’ve done, she’d be dead. Sure, she’d provided medical treatment to several members of the crew and gunned down a few Reaper drones here and there, but it was nothing that couldn’t have been done by any other decent field medic.

That was when it hit her. This was precisely what Donovan had been dealing with when they came back from the assault in Jerusalem. She simply had to tell herself what she had told him then: they’d gotten where they were because of the choices they made. There may well have been someone who could do better in her position—in fact she was certain there was—but they hadn’t disobeyed orders to follow two civilians on their likely drug-induced desire to find Commander Shepard. They hadn’t realized how vital it was to help promote cooperation in the middle of the largest conflict the galaxy had ever seen.

Claire had. She’d known the second they came falling out of the sky that there was something peculiar about Troy and Donovan, and she’d made the insane choice to follow them through all the equally insane situations they got themselves into when no one else had.

So why did she still feel so useless?

Then another thought snaked its way into her perceptions: why did any of this matter? Buried as they were with little foreseeable way to escape, the question of whether she did or didn’t belong there shouldn’t have been nagging her.

There are certain times in a person’s life when reality comes crashing down on them, a bit like you might see in the movies. Certainly not as dramatic as all that, most likely, but equally crushing to the individual who experiences it. Waking up from a dream, for example, in which you have everything you’ve ever wanted. Suddenly reality smacks you in the face and you realize it was all just a fantasy, never to truly be. Or perhaps you experience a sort of de ja vu that forces your mind to replace what is with what it remembers from a similar experience. Such a thing can’t last, of course, unless you have a very serious mental illness, and most often reality’s iron fist strikes once again. Often these experiences prove detrimental to a person, even if only for a short time.

Claire didn’t wake up from a dream, and neither was her current predicament reminiscent of anything in her past, thank God. A dawning realization did suddenly slither into her procession of thoughts, however, and it quickly became evident that she had subconsciously discovered something quite odd.

Her mind was not working as it should.

It was subtle, and not the kind of thing one would expect. There was no lightbulb moment where she just knew what was wrong; it was more of a gradual gaining of knowledge, as if she had known all along and only then processed the information. It didn’t frighten her, nor did it cause unease of any kind really. Curiosity, certainly, and perhaps a bit of confusion, but it wasn’t concerning. That fact in and of itself may have been due to whatever had caused this unexpected conundrum.

Still, it existed, and she couldn’t quite place her finger on it. It was a simple understanding that the procession of thoughts and the logic on display was unusual given the circumstances. Of course, anyone’s mind would act a bit unusually after being buried alive by a goddamn Reaper, but that was just it—Claire knew herself well enough to know how her brain would react, and it wasn’t reacting accordingly.

How she knew that was anyone’s guess. Critical thought would assume that if one’s brain wasn’t working properly, the knowledge of that fact would be paradoxical because it could be caused by said malfunctioning brain. However, that wouldn’t be true because of said paradox, in which case her mind was working perfectly fine. But she knew it wasn’t, and the fact that she knew that didn’t make any sense at all, kind of like this entire paragraph.

She probably had a concussion. That was the best explanation. All these contrivances and bong-rip musings could be explained away by the fact that her brain had bounced around her skull when the Reaper crash-landed. There was also the fact that, even though she couldn’t be sure, Claire knew there had to be far more physical damage to her body than she could sense in this state. If she had lost an excessive amount of blood or was in a considerable amount of pain that she was simply too exhausted to feel, that would similarly provide ample reason for her insane ponderings.

There was another solution, of course, but she didn’t want to entertain the notion. Two, actually, when she really gave it consideration. And while she didn’t have any particular proclivity for taking her thoughts to such dark places, if ever there were a time for it, it was then.

First choice: she was dead. It explained everything: the lack of sensory input, her insane mental ravings, and the odd feeling that she was going to explode at any second.

Second: she had been down there for far too long and insanity was starting to set in.

As if I needed something else to worry about.

Somehow, though, she didn’t seem to mind. Not even when she started hearing voices.

I’d like to say there was some dramatic revelation after the Reaper brought the Shroud and several of its counterparts down on top of us. That someone happened to throw up a giant biotic sphere around us, keeping the several thousand megatons of metal and debris from crushing us into dust. I’d really like to say that I even knew what the fuck happened at all. Unfortunately, I don’t. All I knew was that I was alive, if only barely.

It was all getting fairly redundant at that point, really. We’d already been shot, stabbed, crushed, thrown off massive balconies, and incinerated by Reaper lasers at near-point-blank range, and every single time we managed to come out of it in mostly one piece. Sure, there were a few bumps and bruises along the way, a blackout here and there, and some kind of pseudo-conscious mind invasion thrown into the mix, but it all usually ended the same. We walked away victorious, or someone saved our asses.

This time, none of that was true.

It wouldn’t exactly be accurate to say that I regained consciousness and was baffled by my surroundings. The entire thing was just so jarring that I really wasn’t aware of what had happened until the literal and proverbial dust settled. I remember the Reaper landing, the Shroud falling, my eardrums bursting due to all the noise, and the rest is just gone. Either my eyes were closed or my brain simply couldn’t process so much chaos all at once. Can’t even remember any of the pain that surely had to have accompanied getting a fucking building dropped on top of me.

If you’ve ever been in a fight before, you might understand it better if I explain it like this. The first time, you’re so high on adrenaline that you can’t really focus on anything other than not getting hit and achieving your goal: hitting the other guy. Afterwards, when you’re cooling down and the chemicals are wearing off, it all kind of becomes a blur if not a complete loss of memory. This doesn’t happen in every fight, of course, just the ones that we’re particularly amped up for, and it explains why so many people embellish the details of their pugilistic exploits. Hell, I’ve been in fights before where people had to tell me I got hit because I really just couldn’t remember it.

I suppose the same principle applied to this clusterfuck. Running was involved at some point, jumping as piles of debris fell around me, and then it just felt like I was falling for several minutes. It wasn’t until some time later that I realized I was not, in fact, a victim of gravity, but instead lying on my back in an incredibly peculiar position. One leg was propped up on something and hanging off to the side, while my back sat lower but angled up so that my shoulders were at relatively the same height as my leg. No movement in my right arm; pinned, or just utterly broken beyond the point of use? I couldn’t tell, because it was so completely pitch black that I couldn’t see an inch in front of my face. The tower, the destroyers, and whatever else there was to be destroyed had come down on me so entirely that the sum of the debris completely halted light from entering.

“Hhhhhrrrrgggghhhh,” I wheezed in my feeble attempt to call for help. It’s true my lungs were very used to constantly being filled with foreign material, but dust was a bit more solid than cigarette smoke and much more painful. Had I been able to move, I’m sure I would’ve doubled over in pain. As it was, I had to settle for a solid five minutes of internal screaming.

I wasn’t dead. I knew that. But I also knew that there was plenty that I didn’t know. How much time had passed, for one. Whether it was the physiological changes my body had undergone from the gene mods or just natural biology, I was hungry as hell, which could’ve indicated that I’d been buried alive for some time now. Thirsty too. All that running and jumping and stabbing and blowing myself up had dehydrated me quite thoroughly. That, or it had been several days and my body was getting ready to die from lack of water. Hunger is something that’s pretty easy to control once you get past that initial torture; after a couple days you hardly notice it anymore. But thirst, well. Thirst can be a motherfucker.

“Heechhhgg!” The voice hardly even sounded like my own. My perceptions were likely a bit askew given all that my body had just been through, but even so I was aware of the incredible strain my vocal cords were under simply due to the low rasp they emitted.

“He-hhelp!”

Finally I managed something reminiscent of intelligent speech, and was satisfied enough to give my throat a moment’s reprieve. Honestly, if I’d had just a couple drops of water it would have been so much easier to begin yelling in the hopes that someone would hear me. I knew it was unlikely, of course, if not downright impossible; but in that situation there was nothing else I could do. That’s the curse of stubbornness, I guess. Even if all your efforts are pointless, still you find yourself screaming until you cough up blood.

“Help!” I yelled again.

It was no use. I knew that fact, somewhere in the back of my brain which was constantly being sapped of its usefulness, but coming face to face with the revelation was much more difficult than it should have been. I was helpless. It wasn’t a new sensation; there have been many, many times in my life where I’ve simply been utterly unable to control even the simplest of situations, but it’s a bit different when you’re not even sure whether you’re alive or dead.

What happens now?

You’d think the answer would be obvious, but I was thinking in a much broader scope than my current predicament. With the genophage cured, the krogan had all the reason in the galaxy to join with the other races in fighting the Reapers tooth and nail. Furthermore, with a singularly united galaxy and the assistance from however many of the mechanical goliaths were on our side, did we actually stand a chance? The Crucible may have been gone, but damn did the scales seem fairly even.

In hindsight I realize it was stupid to even think about such things while I lay there half-dead under a mountain of rubble, but the mind wanders where it wants. In that state, I was fairly content to let it run rampant.

I thought about Troy and Adison, and if I’d been physically able to feel anything I’m sure my stomach would have churned. There were only two possibilities: they’d been crushed just like me and were enduring the same vague torture, or they had met a much swifter end. The same went for the rest of the crew—there was no way in hell anyone managed to escape the debris from the tower, let alone the Reaper stepping on us. Everyone who had been closest to the Shroud was likely already dead.

My lips did snarl at that thought. Mordin, Gorun, Claire and Wrex had all been at ground zero.

You’ll never see them again.

I was used to such sinister thoughts, but the forthrightness of it took me off-guard. Usually my depressing inner monologues aren’t quite so blunt.

You’re trapped here until you die.

It was nothing I didn’t already know. I think even on a self-aware level, I’d already accepted that fact. I had no illusions about some miraculous rescue this time; in the previous two weeks alone, I had survived more near-death encounters than any sane person would ever experience in a full lifetime. I’d already dealt with the psychological trauma of being mutilated, I’d had a Reaper—or possibly two—poking around in my mind, and I’d gone through more dreams of death and disorder than even Edgar Allan Poe could imagine. It was beginning to feel like a ferris wheel of carnage and insanity.

Still, the knowledge that I wasn’t alone was what shook me. The previous dozen-odd times that I’d almost been killed, it had only been me. Granted, Troy and Adison should have been equally dead in the attack at Jerusalem, but even so, I’d held out hope that somehow they managed to escape the blast, and that I had been the only one dying on the floor while a Reaper invaded my head.

This time, there was no such comforting thought. There was no hope to be had for anyone else. The most optimistic thought I could bring to bear was that Shepard and Hackett would hopefully have an easier time dealing with the leaders of the galaxy, provided the krogan respected the deal Wrex had set in motion. Then again, if anyone could survive a building and a Reaper dropping on top of him, it was Wrex.

So maybe there was hope after all. Maybe our legacy wouldn’t end here in the dust of Tuchanka.

Only yours.

“Shut the fuck up!” I wheezed. “I fucking get it already, I suck shit and I’m gonna die.”

The ensuing silence was a jarring juxtaposition to the outburst I hadn’t been able to contain. I hadn’t actually thought it would work; the thoughts faded into a dull quiet that momentarily made me regret my words. The stale discouragement was certainly unwelcome, but at least it made me feel like I wasn’t alone in that empty space.

But then, that was nothing new. I always felt alone. Sometimes I even preferred it. Isolation made for a much easier place to escape to. It’s hard for you to hate yourself if you don’t know who you are, and it’s easier to lose sight of yourself if you don’t interact with society enough to form an identity. In solace we can be whoever we want to be, unencumbered by the expectations of others, and therefore never have to deal with crippling lack of self-worth. No one can judge you if they don’t know you. No one can hate you if there’s nothing to judge you for. You can’t ever really hate yourself if you don’t exist in anything other than a void.

No, the best you can get is apathy. A numbing of everything that might make you a worse person, and everything that might make you better. Atrophy. Never growing, never failing. And somehow, that state of existence is even more despicable than the severe depression of a kid in his twenties questioning his own worth as a human being. It was death. The end of everything.

You’ve been dead for a long time already.

It was true. Apathy, atrophy—it was all the same thing. I’d become so jaded and dulled by life that I had stopped living. I’d given up on every one of my ambitions so long ago that it killed the part of my soul that longed to experience life. Maybe that was why I hadn’t tried to fight when I saw the Reaper flying in like a bullet. I gave up.

So give up.

I wanted to. I wanted to so fucking badly. If I had closed my eyes and accepted my fate just then, I’m sure I would’ve truly died. My entire existence would have ended, dramatic as that may sound. And I wanted to let go, because giving in is so much easier than the alternative.

But I still wanted. Maybe I couldn’t lay claim to anything so real as hope, or joy, or faith, or love, but I still wanted to. I wanted to believe that somehow everything would be ok, and that I could climb out of the sinkhole of depression and callousness that had buried me so thoroughly.

So when the thought returned to my mind, telling me to cave in, I didn’t listen.

Fuck you.

Not a thought formed from my lack of self-worth trying to convince me what a piece of shit I was, but rather a declaration from that part of my soul that still existed. Defiance in the face of atrophy. Though my brain was wired to wallow in self-pity, some sort of resistance existed there that found the will to stand up for the part of me that deserved to exist and be recognized.

There’s an analogy that’s always stuck out to me, not because it seemed cool or quotable, but because it hid a much deeper revelation that was lost on me for such a long time. The hands of a puppeteer, or the mask of a showman; who we really are is often hidden from the rest of the world for numerous reasons. Perhaps we conjure up a facade that we think everyone else would get more enjoyment out of than our real selves. Maybe all we’ve ever known is how to put on a show, and once someone sees the real us, we become vulnerable and naked. Or maybe we take such deep wounds from life that we have to slip behind a persona just to survive, and in doing so, we slowly lose sight of who we really are.

It’s true that many people can do these things without suffering negative consequences, because often what separates a healthy individual from an ill one is the proper mechanisms for dealing with turmoil. Not every puppeteer hates showing his face, nor does every actor hide behind her characters. What they have is experience, and the knowledge that their acts are just that—acts, and not ways of living. To live a lie, or to not live at all, is even worse than death.

I knew then that I couldn’t live behind the mask any more.

“Fuck you,” I said aloud, wheezing because my vocal chords hadn’t gotten any use in quite some time. “I’m not dying yet.”

“STATUS REPORT!”

He could barely see. He was sure he was bleeding profusely because every part of his body felt sticky and wet, but there was no pain. The only thing he could hear was the sound of his own voice screaming at the top of his lungs. He smelled charred flesh and the stench of decay. Stale, dusty air touched his tongue.

He was in shock.

“STATUS REPORT!” Garrus screamed again. He stumbled forward over mountains of rubble and corpses, using the battered remains of his rifle as a sort of crutch. Any sense of direction was completely lost on him. All his tech had failed; he couldn’t see the extent of his own injuries, the locations of his team, or anything at all that would have been remotely useful.

He did, however, see Wrex.

“WREX!” he yelled, vaulting forward so quickly and on such shaky legs that he toppled to the ground. His rifle was lost. In reality it likely hadn’t gone far, but he didn’t have the strength left in him to turn back and find it. He just had to focus on moving forward, away from that blinding light.

His leg was broken, he was sure of it now. Pain had started to creep its way back into his system after the fall. Sound, too. A low groan sounded off from overhead; something large and metallic was swaying in the wind, moving for the sake of motion. He couldn’t think about it right now. All that mattered was that Wrex was somewhere ahead in the cloud of sand, beaten to hell but still on his feet. Thank the spirits someone was still on their feet.

As Garrus approached, Wrex saw him and opened his mouth, but all the turian could make out was a muffled garble. It was only when they got closer, inches away, that his speech became audible.

“Where are the others?” Wrex asked.

Garrus didn’t know. He didn’t remember a thing. Or, maybe he did, but it sure as hell wasn’t coming to mind at the moment. His head felt heavy, like his brain had just received an overwhelming surge of information and physically couldn't process it all just yet.

Wrex reached out to touch the side of Garrus’s head and drew it away soaked in violet blood. That explained pretty much everything.

“We lost,” Garrus said. He couldn’t even hear his voice; he didn’t have the strength to speak any louder. Understanding snaked its way into his mind after seeing his own blood. The Reaper had literally crashed into them. He and Wrex were probably the only two survivors, and it wouldn’t stay that way for long.

He looked into the sky, into the blinding sun of Aralakh that faded in and out of sight as the Reaper loomed above them, threatening to crush them even further if they made even the slightest indication that they were alive. Periodically a fighter swooped by, the last of the turian fleet that had been sent to assist them, only to be shot down by a red beam piercing the dull, sandy void of the sky.

It was over. Everyone was dead. Every last one of the destroyers that had been protecting the Shroud had collapsed along with the tower itself, leaving nothing and no one but Garrus and Wrex in the midst of all the carnage.

“We didn’t lose,” Garrus heard from his right. Or maybe his left—possibly behind him? His brain wasn’t working like it should, but at that point he couldn’t be bothered to care.

“Sure as hell looks like we did.”

“Hey!” Suddenly the world became a violent and dusty rainbow as Wrex spun Garrus around to face him, only settling down several seconds after he’d stopped moving. “We released the cure, jackass. Whatever happens now, the krogan are a free people. We did what we came here to do.”

It was a nice thought, and one that surely did mean a lot to a krogan. But as they stood there, the last two survivors of an elite squad of combatants while a gargantuan Reaper surveyed them from above, it didn’t feel like it mattered.

“Wrex, look up. Look at me and you. What are the krogan supposed to do against that?”

He didn’t offer any argument. As he looked into the atmosphere that had been permeated by a monstrous conglomeration of machinery, Wrex must have realized the same thing Garrus had. They’d been squarely beaten, and even if the krogan joined hand in hand with the rest of the galaxy to fight back, there wasn’t much of a chance. That was assuming, of course, that the krogan would keep Wrex’s promise when he died—because make no mistake, he and Garrus were both dead just like the rest. The Reaper was simply taking its time.

Garrus thought about his father. Last anyone had seen him, he was attempting to board a refugee barge off Palaven headed for the Citadel. No one knew whether or not the ship had actually made it off-planet, but the Citadel hadn’t had any report of their arrival, so at least he hadn’t been there when it was destroyed. All Garrus could do was hope that his father was out there somewhere, avoiding the Reapers.

He’d often heard humans say that their entire lives flash before their eyes when they’re about to die, and while he’d always assumed it was hyperbole, he couldn’t deny that something similar happened to him just then. His thoughts drifted to everything he’d ever loved, and everyone he’d never see again. Shepard. Liara. Tali.

He’d never imagined they would have to carry on in this fight without him. He’d always thought that it would be them against the universe for the rest of their days, and that even the Reaper wouldn’t keep them down. He wasn’t an idiot, of course; he’d known that their chances were slim at best, but Shepard had been able to inspire so much confidence in him that their triumph seemed like a foregone conclusion.Yet there he was on death’s doorstep, and all he could think about was how he wanted to see them one more time.

“Garrus, look up.”

“I know, Wrex. I don’t need to see it again.”

A dull thud hit him in the back, and it took him a moment before he realized it must have been a krogan fist trying to persuade him to stop being stupid. “Not that, you imbecile. Look up!”

He didn’t think he had the willpower to do something so simple as lift his head. Whatever Wrex wanted him to see, it couldn’t possibly be any worse than what he already knew to be true: this was the end. Garrus wasn’t a particularly somber man, nor one inclined to give in to fits of emotion that cemented hopelessness in his mind. This, however, was the exception. When faced with such a catastrophic defeat, there was no room for anything less than complete depression and acceptance of one’s own death.

But of course, it wasn’t so simple. A moment later the ground shook around them, at first no more than a tremor, but within seconds it had grown so that it was a struggle just to stay upright. As he toppled to the ground in a cloud of dust and debris, Garrus was spun around so that he had no choice but to view the scene unfolding above him.

Wrex had been right. He should’ve looked earlier.

As the tremors grew so violent that Garrus was sure the ground would swallow him whole, he saw the dark metal of the Reaper ascend further into the sky, accompanied by deafening roars and the awkward sound of a mass effect drive propelling it forward. Straight into the air it went, shrinking in size as the distance between them increased, until Garrus could see nothing but a tiny dot ascending into space. When the dust settled, he turned to see Wrex staring at him, mouth agape.

Neither of them said a word for such a long time. At first it was simple shock, and then it stretched into such an uncomfortable length that Garrus was sure some cosmic force would strike him dead if he spoke. It just seemed like the kind of luck he was having.

“What the hell just happened?” Wrex asked.

It was several seconds before Garrus found the mental fortitude to process their situation, let alone form words to explain his thoughts. “No time. We have to find out if anyone else survived, try to get them help—”

“Don’t get your quad in a knot,” Wrex interrupted, hefting himself to his feet before offering to help Garrus do the same. “You’re not far from dead, and I need you alive if you’re going to be useful.”

It would have been a touching thought under any other circumstances, but they had too much to worry about. “You’re not exactly looking peachy yourself.”

Wrex chuckled at that. “I’m a krogan, Garrus. Half my organs are already running on backups. I can take it. Let me and my people deal with the aftermath. You need to get somewhere safe and try to contact yours. Let them know . . . well, whatever the hell happened, happened.”

Garrus sighed and took Wrex’s outstretched hand, immediately regretting it. As he was pulled to his feet, the world started to spin and surges of pain shot down every part of his body. Wrex was right; he was in no condition to stand up, let alone conduct search and rescue. Not to mention, now that the mission was technically complete, they needed to extract from the hostile area and give the Council a mission report. The thought briefly crossed his mind that this was going to be the most insane debrief he’d yet given in this war, and that was saying quite a lot.

Then he promptly lost all feeling in his legs, slumped to the ground, and blacked out.