The light blinded my vision, a piercing sear that fractured into pulses, drowning my senses in white-hot agony. Pain seared through my skull, my N7 armor's cerametal plates grinding against my ribs, servos whining as I sprawled across a cold, thrumming deck. Artificial gravity clawed at my limbs, pinning me to the steel, its hum warped, like a comm signal shredded in a void storm. The air reeked of rust and scorched circuits, a bitter sting that clawed my throat with every ragged breath. My vision flickered, red emergency lights pulsed dimly, casting shadows over shattered consoles, buckled metal slick with grime, and coolant spheres drifting in the stale air. A fog thicker than any Reaper whisper clouded my thoughts, memories slipping like sand through my fingers. My omni-tool sputtered, its orange glow stuttering, spitting out 2187 CE. A year since I'd been torn from the Milky Way to the Skyriver Galaxy, bound by the Catalyst's twisted promise of Synthesis.
I clawed at the deck, boots scraping, and hauled myself upright, joints screaming under the weight of my armor. Each step was a lurch through a crypt of silence, broken only by the structure's low groan, a dying krogan's rasp. Instinct drove me forward, toward a faint glow, a viewport, its scratched transparisteel framing jagged silhouettes against the black. I gripped its edge, breath shallow, chest tight, the haze clinging.
Beyond the viewport, chaos erupted, shredding the fog in my mind. Leviathans—the Thalassians—loomed in the void, their bioluminescent forms pulsing with an ancient, alien fury that dwarfed the spires below. This was no relic, it was a fortress, its dark Reaper warships and turrets spitting crimson beams, drones swarming like locusts. Psychic pulses slammed through space, clawing at my skull, scrambling the enemy's synthetic minds. A Thalassian barrier flared, tearing through a destroyer's hull, molten debris blinking like thermal clips. A capital ship's crimson eye blazed, then shattered under a psychic surge, its wreckage tumbling into the abyss. The stronghold crumbled in moments, blindsided by the Thalassians' billion-year defiance, a war older than the Skyriver's silly scuffles over its Force.
My gaze dropped, and the sight below gutted me. Earth was a biomechanical nightmare, its surface pocked with crimson-cored hives, festering like open wounds. The sky churned with indigo lightning laced with eezo sparks, a smog-choked hellscape. Faint green seams fractured space, shimmering like the scars I'd seen on Yavin 4, my Synthesis choice etched into reality, a choice the Catalyst had twisted, opening the Crucible's rift to unleash this horror. Nausea surged, and I staggered, slamming my fist against the viewport, the transparisteel trembling. "No!" I roared, voice raw, cracking with rage and despair. I'd lost Anderson, Tali, countless others to save Earth, and the Catalyst's ghost had turned it into this abomination. My knees buckled, bile burning my throat, and I gripped the frame, chest heaving, fighting the urge to retch.
The Thalassians' invasion raged on outside, some securing the spires of the Citadel with glowing barriers, others vanishing into the stars, their psychic pulses a fading weight in my mind. I forced my focus inward, soldier's grit kicking in. Miranda was out there—she had to be. Her voice, fierce and soft, echoed from Rannoch, her hand reaching through that holo before... "Come back to me, Shepard." I saw her imprinted smile in my mind's eye, her strength when Cerberus betrayed us, her eyes that held me through any war. "I did Miranda. I'm home." My omni-tool flared, its interface a lifeline, and I initiated the call, fingers trembling. The connection pulsed, a monotonous dial tone slicing through the silence, each beep a spike against my nerves. I clenched my fist, breath shallow, willing the call to connect. The dial tone droned on, a relentless beep, and I stared at the omni-tool, every nerve taut, waiting for her voice to shatter the silence.
THE END
(Titans of the Void will return)