33
memorial wall
The flames flickered. Wax rolled down the candle like the waves of an ocean reaching the shore, caressing the sands, before a storm more vindictive than the one they had endured. They were dying. Breathing one more fragile, “can I exist in this horror, this sorrow?” breath before ‘poof, out’, but it was not dark. He wished it were. He wished he were alone and that it was quiet. The buzzing of the lights chased the ghost of her voice out of his head. He was clinging to a whisper, to what she had left behind--she had left so much behind, she had left him behind. Her hoodie, her black every piece of lint found it hoodie still smelled of her. Safe, and like home when his was lost. He knew she would have said something human, something to placate him, but unlike Tali, unlike Joker he had stopped deceiving himself.
There was a woman. Torn by war and despair and loss. It tapped on her shoulder and crawled in like it belonged there. Like it had always been there, it just needed to be awoken. The geth did that. The Reapers did that. The cold and dark and hum that haunted him did that. The poison that stole her youth, that scarred her also made her strong. It was infectious. It made everyone she touched strong. It made him strong. There was a woman and her name was Shepard. She lead them, she sheltered them.
Though, really, and he could only admit this in thought, broken and frantic as they are--there was no woman. Just a picture. A picture was all that remained of his friend.
(She wasn’t coming back.)
The flames flickered. Wax rolled down the candle like the waves of an ocean reaching the shore, caressing the sands, before a storm more vindictive than the one they had endured. They were dying. Breathing one more fragile, “can I exist in this horror, this sorrow?” breath before ‘poof, out’, but it was not dark. He wished it were. He wished he were alone and that it was quiet. The buzzing of the lights chased the ghost of her voice out of his head. He was clinging to a whisper, to what she had left behind--she had left so much behind, she had left him behind. Her hoodie, her black every piece of lint found it hoodie still smelled of her. Safe, and like home when his was lost. He knew she would have said something human, something to placate him, but unlike Tali, unlike Joker he had stopped deceiving himself.
There was a woman. Torn by war and despair and loss. It tapped on her shoulder and crawled in like it belonged there. Like it had always been there, it just needed to be awoken. The geth did that. The Reapers did that. The cold and dark and hum that haunted him did that. The poison that stole her youth, that scarred her also made her strong. It was infectious. It made everyone she touched strong. It made him strong. There was a woman and her name was Shepard. She lead them, she sheltered them.
Though, really, and he could only admit this in thought, broken and frantic as they are--there was no woman. Just a picture. A picture was all that remained of his friend.
(She wasn’t coming back.)