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Breathe, by potionsmaster Rating: T
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The descent is long. Dark. Cold. The mech creaks and groans as the pressure outside increases and temperature drops. I can hear my pulse pound in my ears, the silence pressing down on my chest and making it hard to breathe. I tap my fingers on the console, counting out my breaths. In, two, three, four, out, two, three, four, five. It’s just me and my thoughts the deeper I fall. Comms had cut out a few hours ago, judging by the depth marker. My HUD flickers as battery packs deplete and switch over to the next in line. I hope I reach the bottom soon. The cold and the dark coaxes me to close my eyes and I fight to stay awake. I talk to him, like I do in my quarters late at night when I need to sleep and am too afraid to. I never want to wake up anymore, because every time I fall asleep, I’m home with him again. Waking up alone in a cold and empty bed is becoming unbearable, and I would rather not sleep at all if it means I don’t have to relive the moment of realization over and over that he’s not there, never truly was, and never will be. “Kaid…” There’s no answer. There never is, except only in my mind. He’s not there, not really. I know this, but I still see him in my periphery sometimes, off to my three or nine like he used to be on the fire squad. My voice cracks in the stillness. “I miss you so much, it hurts to breathe sometimes. You were always there. You made me feel safe...like there wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle when you were by my side. We had to take on the galaxy, y’know. And you made it so that I could, and win, while you were there.” Of course there is nothing but my own rasping breath, small puffs of condensation in front of me as the thick, inky blackness pries at the plexi hood of the mech. I wipe the plexi, for what little good it does. Specks in the water reflect the light from my HUD, floating and swirling like dust. “And…” I swallow hard. “And...now that you’re not, I...I don’t want to do this alone. I...I can’t. I just want to come home, Kaid.” My jaw aches from clenching, trying not to let the wetness gathering in the corners of my eyes to fall. It’s not fair. When is life ever fair, though. If it was, I would be due some impressive compensations. At the very least, a vacation. I blink, shaking myself out of my thoughts. There’s...light. But it’s not from my HUD. They look like jellyfish, and the mech rattles around me as it thuds on the ocean floor. My heart jumps into my throat as I fire a flare and look for a path to follow the probe’s beacon. I give precursory updates on the mission, status reports on the functionality of the mech, and estimates on if I’ll have enough juice to get back to the surface. I quash the hope in the back of my head that I don’t. Can’t think like that, not now. Not with so much at stake. I jump down further and the mech creaks in protest at the increase in pressure. I continue moving forward and past the probe, scanning the surrounding water at the edge of the ledge, and what rises up is impossible to describe other than an organic Reaper. The voice is deeper than even the ocean it lives in, vibrating in my chest and skull as it speaks.
“You have come too far."
“I had to find you.”
“This is not your domain. You have breached the darkness.”
Flickers of me being on an endless plain of water, alone, filter through my head while we talk and with it comes pain. I fight to keep talking the massive creature, fighting whatever it is in my head. It’s not like Shiala or Liara. This is...larger than they ever were. Oppressing, and all-encompassing. Fear trickles into my stomach, cold as the water outside the mech. I focus back on the conversation. “But...I thought you were a Reaper.”
“They are only echoes. We existed long before.”
“ Then what are you?”
“Something more…”
The mech dissolves around me, the water rippling under me as I land on the surface but don’t fall through. I cough, afraid to take a breath. Footsteps gently splash towards me and I spy a pair of Alliance issue boots and BDU’s I haven’t seen for three years. My pulse speeds up and chases my heartbeat around my body as he speaks.
“Your mind belongs to me. Breeeeathe…”
Kaidan. He’s there. Standing right in front of me. I yearn to reach for him. My heart stutters as I look at him, knowing it’s not really him and it’s a demon in the deep wearing his face, but...there’s almost a compulsion to believe. I want to believe. It’s overwhelming. “Kaid...what’s happening?” “Your memories give voice to our words. Your nature will be revealed to us. Accept this.” His face has a disinterested coldness to it as he taps his temple with a finger, familiar yet distant. He continues to talk and I ask questions, struggling to understand, not be distracted. It seems to comprehend that I’m having trouble focusing and the puppet shifts between other familiar faces it finds while sifting through my head. I break the illusion it throws me in a few times, but it wrests me back into it with him. It knows...it knows how much I long to see him again, want to burrow into his arms, hide my face in his shoulder and disappear from this existence. And it wants to keep me.
“I have searched your mind...you are an anomaly, yet that is not enough.”
Kaidan moves past me. “Wait!” I protest weakly, grabbing his arm. Just to touch the illusion of him again makes the very core of my being ache. He glances down at my hand on his arm, then moves towards me, head cocked to the side and sliding a hand up my arm in return.
“The cycle will continue.”
“No! You’ve been watching! You know this cycle is different!” It is more difficult than I want to admit to keep the idea that it’s not actually him in mind. It’s using his face, his body, his actions, to convince me to stay, not to question it, but stay, curled up in its arms forever. Fucking hell, nothing else in the galaxy sounds better than that right now. He rests his arms around my shoulders, dark eyes boring into mine as he-it- speaks.
“We will survive. You will remain here as a servant to our needs. The Reapers will harvest the rest…”
It knows. Oh, God, it knows… Kaidan caresses my face, hand cool but dry, slightly calloused from guns and machinery. Just as I remembered. I exhale sharply, leaning into his hand. This isn’t real. It can’t be. “If you release me, no one has to be harvested.” I sob inside as I say the words. I want nothing more than to stay with the illusion. It knows.
“Nothing will change.”
“The Reapers know where you are. You can’t just watch anymore, you have to fight. Even if you survive the battle today, the Reapers won’t stop. Ever. Release me and we have a chance to end this. Once and for all.” I briefly am back in the mech, fire dripping from my nose, before I slip back into his arms. I have to fight. But I don’t want to anymore. I’m so tired...I just want to go home. “Your confidence is singular.” It, not he, has a small sneer on his face. Like it’s amused at me. “I’ve earned it. You know I have, Kaid…Out there fighting. Where you should be.” That...is not like my Kaidan. At all. He would never poke fun at me like that. It helps me draw back into myself, the cold and the damp seeping through the mech and into my joints. Painful.
“It is clear why the Reapers perceive you as a threat. Your victories are not a product of chance.”
“You should know,” I mutter, “You were there.” I can’t help but jab at him. It. It ignores me and detaches itself from me.
“We will fight. But not for you, or any lesser race. We were first, the apex race. We WILL survive. And the Reapers who trespass on this world will understand our power. They will become our slaves. Today, they pay their tribute in blood.”
Adrenaline thrills through my veins as alarms start sounding in the mech. It released me. My nose steadily drips blood on the console, black against the glowing blue screen. Energy reserves are dangerously low. Oxygen tanks at half. I punch the thrusters, rocketing myself up. I can only hope I will reach the surface before either or both run out. Nothing I can do now but hang on. And if nothing else, I might be home sooner than I thought.