6.

Nazara's records: say my name

Nightmares of every moral and emotive shade had no longer been a news after the end of the War of The First Contact.

At the beginning they had thrown him in a sensory laboratory where the unconscious distilled and mixed with timeless care minimal doses of emotions, but so charged, so rich to resemble an explosion when he woke up. And initially, humans as much as the chemistry of his brain had been his enemies.

Over time, they said, many notes were inclined to fade away. In a sense, that happened to him too. The choking resentment that threw him out of his slumber became soon transitional drowsiness, a return to conscience where voices and innuendos melted in a dense weight in his chest. He listened to his thoughts often, chasing those murmurs in the cosmic clearness of a mind that had just woken up.

The nightmare always remained, when he ate, when he ran during a mission, when he spoke. The constant obsession to return the evil suffered.

He had to save himself, and had to defend himself from demons with flat and too expressive faces, and impudent glares. He couldn't silence the echoes of the memories that squealed with the names of the lost turians, and that of his brother. A mission, it became, worthy of the name of a Spectre, with its evanescent and subterranean knots.

Eventually he paid attention to those suggestions. To what his anger recommended, transformed in reason and then consolidated. Soon that rage consumed its foggy nature, became words, intentions. It became thick with whispers, often calling from afar, to distant and cold places in space, the only one ground where could be a path by no other crossed.

Overlapping dream and reality, he found himself observing hallways, routes and rooms with a critic eye, but soon void of any analyticity. It often locked him in the middle of a street, a corridor, making him statue. Flowing time didn't disturb him, not even when an external agent woke him out of his pensive trances, analyzing.

Seeking, he searched the surroundings familiar to him. His apartment on Palaven, the dark corner in his ship. Always the same, always known, now just less redundant, almost blank of emotive radiations. The anger, the hum that kept him awake seemed to vibrate out of the walls, from the nooks and the windows.

He searched for a long time, forgetting the routine. There was always something out of place, a chair, a window ajar, a whirr in the equipments, a rustle when he turned his back.

For a time he believed missions could distract him from his compulsion, from his rancor: but it followed him even over the more distant stellar orbits.

He searched it in his quarters, in the living room, on the bridge.

He searched the vents, the machinery, his own factotum. The hum persisted.

He dismantled entire consoles, gave attention to the cosmic radiations, turned off scanners; he made all fall to silence when he docked.

The hum persevered.

Wherever he went, wherever he moved, it hummed. Even when it seemed to be weaker, or stronger in one point, no change in position muted it.

Then, one day, it became voice. A call.

It opened up to him like a companion, gave answers until then only grazed.

Who are you, he murmured then, lying in his cabin.

You know it is the only solution.

Where are you, he asked – without fear, only urgency.

You searched for a long time.

How can I find you, inquired.

Look for me. We can help each other.

Why?

You have gone far.

I need means.

For the ends.

Because my brother's voice has fallen silent.

This rage dominates you.

Because they deserve to pay.

This rage can dominate them.

Where are you?

Close.

Who are you?

Say my name.

They will now their place.

Say my name.

Sovereign.

o o o

o o o

o o o

As usual, I'm not sure how many errors there are here in grammar and syntax, and I apologize for that (my mind is a bit foggy and tired, exams period).

You can obviously correct me, I'll appreciate it. My purpose is to improve.

I think at the end was clear who was the character in such a state of paranoia: the poor, first villain of Mass Effect, Saren Arterius. I found him interesting, and a victim, of Sovereign and his own desperation. In fact, in the canon is said that because of the war against humanity he practically became obsessed for the loss the turians took, and after that he searched for something to take his revenge (and he found Sovereign, the poor bastard). In Virmire he said he wasn't indoctrinated, but it is clear that the victims of such madness weren't aware of what was happening to them. As a personal interpretation, he was already mild indoctrinated when he found the beacon on Eden Prime, ignoring what was really happening to him, believing it was only his anger guiding him (and later, discovering the power of the reapers, the obvious fact that the galaxy had no choice). Honestly I'm not sure about his brother, I read it somewhere searching on the internet.

However, thanks to all for your visits, and a special thank to The Fox Familiar, for your review and the favourite, especially after the first review; I promised in the first chapter that I would have changed the style in case it resulted too excessive. It's good to see you noticed the effort!

See you all in the next chapter, stay tuned!