Hey so I'm back with another Mass Effect story. (My previous one will continue, just have major issues figuring stuff out right now)

This one was interesting to write and I hope to have more out for you soon!

Thanks guys!

Abduction

"-'s dead. I'm sorry."

"What?" My world crumbled. I had stumbled into my neighborhood at three a.m. drunk off my ass only to be waylaid by the cops at the end of my street. I was looking like a drowned, harassed rat having walked from the opposite side of town and now here I was sitting on my neighbor's couch, untouched mug of hot tea in my hands being told that while I was out having fun, my mother was murdered.

Not only was I sober now, but somber. My mother, the person who gave me life, raised me when my father couldn't stick around, was dead. Slow, salty tears trickled from my eyes as I contemplated the death of my only parent, and the way the milk swirled in my earl gray tea.

The cops, save for the one that had finally told me what was going on, were in the corner of the room discussing what to do with me. I didn't have any family left to speak of, and finding me a home in foster care would be interesting, considering my recent expulsion and the fact that I reeked like a liquor store.

Maybe she's better off without me, I sniffed loudly. I was nowhere near close to being in the run for child of the year. I back talked, I swore, I drank, I fought, I smoked, and I never helped around the house and now she's gone-and I couldn't apologize for being such a complete waste of space asshole.

For the night, they put me up in a hotel, under guard since my house was a crime scene. I had a cop outside the door, and the mini bar was emptied before they would leave me alone, but the room was mine for me to grieve on my own before they shipped me off.

I had heard something about a camp in South Dakota for troubled kids. Apparently they had an opening and since I had nowhere to go, and placing kids like me was difficult due to the clogged foster care system, this was the option I had. I would be allowed to return home in the morning to pack, but was warned that I wouldn't be able to get through without seeing some blood.

They were right, but it wasn't how I thought it would be. The white carpet that my mother had tended so lovingly to in life looked like someone had dropped a bucket of red paint on it. That's all. I don't know what I expected. It wasn't like they were going to walk me past the body. No. That had been packed up when I was supposed to be sleeping in the hotel.

I packed all my long sleeve shirts, all my pants, and a few jackets. They told me South Dakota got really cold in the winter, so I didn't bother with anything else. Some toiletries later and the cops were setting me on a plane, with a pamphlet about where I was going, and a babysitter to make sure I didn't split when I got to the airport.

The camp was in the woods outside the town of Tripp. I would have a bunk in a cabin to sleep in, meals were served family style, and a team of counselors were on site so we could talk about why were were such dicks back at home. Single and group therapy, general education classes so we could get our GED's and all the bugs, bears and trees you could ever want.

I was met at the airport by Dr. Oren. She was an Israeli lady with a thick accent and sad eyes. She pulled me into a large hug and apologized for my loss. Her glasses were colorful and had a beaded cord attached so she could hang them from her neck. I liked her immediately.

The ride back to camp amounted to a two hour therapy session. Dr. Oren drove and grilled me on my behavior, and why I felt the need, and the entitlement to act the way I have been. She didn't pull any punches, and she didn't hesitate to call me out when I made some piss poor excuse.

By the time we got to the camp, I didn't like her as much.

The setting itself was beautiful. Snow capped mountains stretched out in the distance, and the

expanse of woods we were in were dense, lush, and very green. The pine needles that littered the ground crunched pleasantly as she walked me to the cabin where I would be staying. My bunk was in the back of the cabin off on its own in a corner. There was a foot locker with a key at the foot of it, and a neatly folded pile of new sheets on top of it. The mattress sunk in in the middle from years of use, and it was situated right beneath one of the windows.

There was a girl in there when Dr. Oren was helping me unpack. She was introduced to me as Shelby Stanton. Shelby had a scowl on her face from the time that I walked in the room, until the time she left the room at Dr. Oren's orders for not being welcoming.

This'll be fun, I rolled my eyes and locked up my clothing, only keeping my old Billabong jacket out. It was the thickest jacket I had, and was a bit too warm for the season, but I'd rather be warm than freezing.

Four months later and life at the camp had become routine: wake up. Breakfast. Single therapy with Dr. Oren. Study. Lunch. Group therapy with Dr. Belzer. Study. Free time. Wind down. Bed.

It wasn't bad, but it was boring. I found out that I was actually pretty smart when I actually sat down and studied, and I was almost done studying for my GED at sixteen. I set a goal to be done and have it before my birthday on the 31st. I only had a couple weeks left.

I hadn't necessarily made friends here yet. I had acquaintances that I sat in silence with and read next to during free time, but I never sought anyone out to go do anything, and no one looked for me either. I remarked on a couple of occasions that I felt like a piece of scenery. Her response was to try more-but if all these kids were here for reasons I was here, or worse, what good would it do to make friends?

So, I stuck with my reading group and kept my head down. Thankfully there was a really nice library in the town just down the road that had no problem lending books to try and save us felons-in-training, so there was no shortage of material.

It was cold in the cabin, so I was reading in my jacket, with my lower half under the covers. Marta and Julie, the two girls in my reading group were doing the same on their respective bunks while Shelby played solitaire on the floor. The lights were dimmed, as was wind down tradition, when suddenly the room was illuminated with a blinding white light, streaming its way through my window.

I winced and held up a hand to cover my eyes, and the other girls immediately did the same.

"The fuck is that shit?"

"Is Derrell playing a stupid joke? I'll punch him square in the nuts."

"Derrell knows better." You could hear Shelby's eye roll from across the room.

Even with a hand shading the brunt of the light from my vision it was like staring into the sun. I turned, swung my legs out of bed and stepped right into my boots. I was just getting to the climax of the story I was reading, and there was no way some fucking jerk from another cabin was going to ruin my chance to finish this before I went to sleep.

"Where are you going?" Marta questioned pulling her hood down low over her eyes.

"Out," I snapped, "I'm tired of this cabin wars bullshit. Someone's getting their ass beat." With that I

marched out the door, and into the front room, which was suspiciously less bright. I ignored the couple of inquiries I got from the girls there and headed out the door, to the left, and around to the back of the cabin in the direction of the light.

I saw a tall figure outside the window connected to the light, but it wasn't coming from a flashlight or a lantern, it was coming from a spotlight mounted to the shape's head-or what I assumed was its head. There was a weird shape to the figure, that I couldn't quite make out in the dark. My eyes had gotten as used to the brightness of the light, and now stepping into the dark I was at a severe disadvantage.

"Hey, you!" I stepped a few paces closer and suddenly the light moved and headed off, breaking through the treeline next to the cabin and off into the woods. "Hey!" I called, taking off after the figure.

The woods streamed past me as I ran as fast as I could for not having my boots laced as I headed off after the light in the distance.

Damn, this fucker is fast, I began running various options of who it could be through my head and came up with a couple names of boys in the camp that were freakishly tall, and had rather long legs.

I happened to be all leg myself, so while I wasn't gaining on the figure I wasn't falling behind. I matched the figure step for step, darting around trees and dodging large rocks until suddenly I realized the light gone.

Probabably hiding and scared shitless, I smirked as I continued on, hopping briskly over a large rock. The woods were thick, but having taken various walks in the area surrounding camp, I had a vague idea of where I was-the figure had to be in one of the large clearings that surrounded the camp. Good thing too, because when I got there and found out who it was, I'd need some room to maneuver so I could deliver a swift beating. There was very little moonlight that made its way through the trees, but there was just enough that I didn't bust my face as I broke through the treeline and into a rather large clearing.

The fuck is that, I slowed my pace gradually and looked at the foreign object off to my right, all thought of looking for the Peeping Tom, gone. It looked similar to one of the Alliance fighters my mother showed me a few years back after the branches had combined under one name. Did I walk into some Alliance war games? I had heard rumors of the Alliance running drills and scenarios in the hugely underpopulated areas of the Dakotas, but I always thought they had been just that...rumors.

The vessel was mostly white, with certain panels of red and black. Its wings sloped down from the body, making it look almost frog like from the way they were bent. There was a light coming from what I assumed was the rear end of the ship, the same brilliant white light, and I hoped it was a command station of some kind so that I could rat on the soldier that went peeping in my cabin.

I strode in the direction of the ship ready with an exaggerated story of how the soldier peeped into our cabin and scared us girls half to death. Only I was brave enough to chase the intruder off and I expected something to be done about it. I got close enough to the ship to touch it, and run my hand along the freezing cold metal. It was bigger than it looked from across the clearing and extended further than I thought it would from the slope of the wings.

I rounded the corner of the back of the ship and looked into the brightness. The lights were facing down, so luckily I wasn't blinded when I stepped onto the ramp and headed into the hold. The inside was a drab military gray, and there were five seats on other side of me as well as closed compartments for storage in the front and the back.

What's that, I 'hmm'd as I noticed what used to be a helmet on one of the seats. It was large, a bit too large for a standard helmet, and had had a weird rounded spike coming out of the back. It was of a decent size, but still too small to be a place for storage. The Alliance is weird, I frowned and dropped the helmet back onto the seat.

Interest waning, that's when I began to hear noises from outside the ship. It was the sound of chattering, what sounded to be a trilling sound, and low rumbles all mixed into one. There was also the sound of something electric being turned on, like how you would hear a gun in the movies being switched on.

I peered around the side of the ship and saw a group of tall figures heading my way. They seemed tall, and were wearing similar helmets to the one I saw on the ship. They all had generally the same build, and their arms were extra long and ended in…

Talons? I gulped and my stomach dropped. The more I looked at the impending group the more alien they began to look and the more my fear rose. I looked quickly behind me for an escape and found none. My only way out would be to cross paths with the soldiers coming my way.

I gulped and tried to formulate a plan as best I could with my mind racing a mile a minute, and the best I could come up with was 'run and don't get caught'. Great, I frowned at my own inability to figure a way out of this mess I had gotten myself into.

I peeked again, and they were now maybe twenty feet away, it was now or never. My heart was pounding and my hands were sweaty, but I swallowed the lump that was growing in my throat and leapt down the ramp. My feet hit the bottom of the ramp with a deadened clang, and I thought that maybe I could make it.

No sooner had my foot touched down, there was a pain in the side of my head and I was falling to the pine needle covered earth. I heard the same electric sound but this time a lot closer, and I turned my aching head to face it only to find myself staring down the barrel of a very strange gun, and heard what would have been talking if it had been in any intelligible language. It sounded like a mixture of a cat trilling, low growls, and clicks.

Oh god, I'm going to die out here, I squeezed my eyes shut waiting for the impending gun blast. At least I would be with my mom again, right?

When the blast never came, I peeked out from behind strands of my dirty blonde hair and noticed that the gun was off me, and there was a taloned hand outstretched, pointing back into the ship. The being nodded its head in the same direction punctuating its want.

"O...okay," I nodded and slowly rose from my prone position to a seated one. I noticed there were more of those things in the ship, and a few were around where I was laying, blocking any means of escape. I got onto my knees and did my best to stand, but my the knot on the side of my head from where I had been hit didn't like the change in elevation and so I stumbled and began to fall.

I fell into something hard. Something hard and cold. It didn't have the crunch the ground did, so it wasn't that. Is it one of them, my eyes widened at the thought of touching one of those...whatever they were, and I wondered if now I was covered in some weird radiation that was going to give me cancer in twenty years.

Quickly I righted myself and looked off to the side at the one that had caught me. Tan and black armor. I nodded my thanks to the creature—hoping it would understand, or that I hadn't just told him to fuck his mother or something, and headed up the ramp into uncertainty.