Chapter Text
Ash traveled on the light breeze, filling the air with the black light specks of destruction. From fields of crops at the outskirts of residential dwellings smoke emitted and filled the atmosphere above. The fires at the base of the smoke burnt bright enough to light the night sky. Death lined the streets surrounding the farmhouses. Humans, simple colony farmers who’ve not known a day of combat in their lives had not even a sliver of a chance to avoid it, burnt alongside their fields. Bullets rang through the air. Shouting, yelling, screaming, created a chorus of pure dread in what hours ago was the blissfully calm and quiet end of another day of work.
Anabel heard and saw it all before her but the longer she endured, the less she was able to comprehend. The teen girl hid behind the wall of a neighbor of hers prefabricated house not yet set ablaze. She knew it was only a matter of time before it was, alien voices barked orders at one another not too far, she dared not to even breathe lest she be found. The Batarians took whoever they were able to get their hands on but didn't hold much patience for their victims. Something Anabel had seen with her very own eyes, the raiders had grabbed a young man and when he fought back, his body hit the ground so quickly the girl couldn’t even register what had just happened. The girl shook her head frantically as if the action would rid the sight from her mind.
The Batarian speech quieted and soon enough stopped completely. Slowly she peeked her head out from cover and towards where those voices had barked. The walkway between this house and the next, though littered with debris, was free of the raiders. Anabel finally let herself breathe again as she attempted to move as swiftly and silently as humanly possible. Her house was getting closer, she was nearly there. Though the girl had no real plan for what sort of safety her house would provide, it was the only place in which her mind would let her rest and figure out a better plan. She prayed it was still standing.
Turning the corner she got her answer, it was just a little further, but still there. That was all she needed to enter a full sprint to her home. Until she collided with the ground with a yelp, Anabel let out a curse while scrambling to get up again. The pads of her knees and palms of her hands used to brace her fall stung with sharp pains. Then the shouting returned in an instant. Her movement became further frantic as she ran and reached the first steps to the porch of the home. Looking behind her to see if they were as close as she thought they were, her eyes instead fixated on the object that caused her to trip. It was another body, the girls' eyes widened as she saw its face and realized it was one she’d known as well as her own.
“Javi?” Anabel croaked toward the unmoving figure.
“Javi!” she yelled now, rushing towards her brother on the ground.
Anabel froze as a searing pain emerged across her face. She fell back onto the ground with a thud and made no effort to get back up.
Anabel shoots up awake in a cold sweat. Her hands fly to her face feeling the horizontal patch of slightly raised skin stretching from her lower right cheek, across her nose, and ending on the upper left cheek. Every time she wakes from that dream, she expects to see the smoke and blazes once more. To find her face wet with her blood as though she lived through that day once more. Instead, all that met her was the artificial sunlight peeking through her window, partially illuminating the very small barren room she’s called home for the last two years. The young woman shivers, regretting not having put anything on before she went to sleep the night prior. She turns her head to the makeshift alarm clock on the floor beside her bed, as much as she would prefer to warm back up under the incredibly thin covers of the bed, she’s slept through her alarms. No time for one last shower before she leaves either, that was probably the biggest blow to her morning.
Sighing she lifts herself off the bed, her bare feet meeting the cold metal floor. On contact letting out a small curse, and then subsequently thanked whatever god above that she would never have to spend another day living there. She had not an idea of whether the Alliance provided quarters would be any better or worse than this room, but she was hoping.
She got dressed and stood before the mirror on the wall to straighten up her clothes and make sure her short hair didn't look like she just woke from a recurring nightmare. Anabel combed her in every which way, shooting herself disapproving looks with every iteration of styles she could manage. The haircut was new, she never had it shorter than just shoulder length before. Covering it up with the Systems Alliance baseball cap the recruiter had given her weeks ago seemed like the next best idea, she thought as she eyed the hat hanging off the handle of the door.
“I gotta get going…” She began with putting the bed together and collecting what little personal items she had into her bag. Thankfully she had prepared enough the day before getting a majority of it in her duffle bag. Checking every inch of the room and going over the contents of the back only twice instead of five times due to the little time she had left.
Finally, she slung the duffle bag over her shoulder and grabbed the hat off the hook. Standing in the mirror one last time Anabel lets herself look at her scar. The streak of skin was a shade lighter than the rest of her face. Where it crossed over the nose was a slight dip that didn’t really match the shape of the rest of the nose. A deep exhale escapes her at the sight, it was two years since the attack on Mindoir and still, it never healed quite right. She swept her hair back with one hand and put on the hat with the other.
“Anabel Shepard…Alliance hero,” she chuckled and shot herself half a sort of pitiful smile. “Heroes never had to look pretty anyways.”
Anabel took one last look around the room before finally leaving, and Shepard locked the door behind her.