I hate self inserts, but I wondered what I would happen if I even tried. I first wrote something really silly and romantic until I got to a really strange point where I inflicted myself strange pains only because I wanted to write an original story. Here it is. I don't have any beta reader and I'm too lazy and busy to find one so, if someone feels like removing the gallicisms here and there, contact me in a MP with a corrected version of the chapter. Also use the British English spell check in Open Office. Thank you.

Yngvildr the Voracious.

"Why are people so drawn by self-inserts, what do they have that is so interesting ? It's basically always the same from ME-1 to ME-2. If I was ever to wr..."

My throat suddenly dried out and my fingers left my keyboard to vainly try and shield my trachea. Flames were licking at my skin, the heat scorching it as it started to blister and smell awful. I tried to yell at first, but my throat was so dry. Soon after I realised that it didn't hurt. My beautiful dark skin was soon all burnt, an ashen coloured pulp mass and I could only guess what had happened to my hair. I sincerely hoped that my throat wasn't too damaged. I'm nothing without my voice.

The flames eventually died out, leaving me alone, naked and suddenly, very much in pain as I fell onto a cold metal floor. And I screamed. Somewhere deep down, the echo of my own voice pleased me. No one will take my voice from me.

I dreamt. A lot. In one of those, I was at my computer, waiting for team mates to come into my League of Legends custom game lobby while writing an acidic comment about self-inserts. "And how is it that every self inserted guy is seventeen and rolls in the Alliance whose age limit is eighteen ? What is it ? A fucking Kai Leng syndrome ?".

I'm not that much older than them. Turned twenty one last February. Ben had hidden in the closet when I came back from the campus and scared the hell out of me with a laughter filled 'BOOH !' when I had reached the living room. I jolted back into the kitchen and laughed yelling about how much of a dick he was, trying to smack him with my hands. It wasn't serious, of course. I would hit his arms with clumsy and wide arms movements and yell insults at him. Couldn't he see me burn ? Diablo III was just out and he was trying to connect just next to me on his own computer. Did the cat see me burn ? Our great clever and dumb european shorthair with a knack to open the fridge and cupboards but no clue about what was going to happen if he ate all his cat food can and some of the cake for dessert. Dear Enkeli. I want to bury my nose in your fur. I want to open my eyes and see the living room's door, always opened, unaware of the tall dark haired man holding his laughter and a silver ring with a shiny transparent stone on it. Probably not a diamond, but I couldn't care less when he was making love to me after asking me to be his wife.

My mind wandered a lot because even with opened eyes, I could only see the colours. I chuckled and it hurt. Of course, I burned alive on my fake-leather chair and then felt cold metal floor, I suppose my glasses were nowhere to be found when people brought me in this white room. Blurry silhouettes were my doctors. Every time I felt less numb and a bit more existing, they came. I supposed that they were giving me more painkillers. And then one day, when I opened my eyes, all was clear. I looked at my right. A door, with a big green holographic panel on it. I closed my eyes and opened them again, thinking I had an hallucination. It was still there.

I started to panic. I looked at my left and there was a great window bay that led to the most familiar view of the world.

The Citadel's Presidium.

"Non... Non..." I mumbled in my mother tongue.

Looking in front of me wasn't good either, because a human bust was greeting me, speaking in English of a certain Elcor diplomat being killed by C-Sec forces after having butchered half a dozen of humans, turians and asari.

I exclaimed at least the double of this number in French expletives. Soon, doctors were flooding through the door and as I was crying. Their hands felt even more real. I yelled when the salarian reached for my arm, almost jerking myself out of the bed. This was a nightmare. It couldn't be. The salarian stepped back and an asari came in his stead. I didn't want her near me either. I signalled her to stop with my both arms extended in front of me, palms raised. I added a "stop" to be sure I was understood. The asari stopped in her tracks.

And I didn't know what to do. I felt like singing a bawdy song, just so it could relax all my muscles and make me laugh all alone and appear mad, like I'm used to. Instead, I hummed a tune. I didn't remember what it was. Probably something my dad played on his guitar when I was a kid... Or something from a CD my mom had listened a lot from her mother's and aunts singing in weddings that happened long ago between the mountains and the desert.

African traditional music from north and south of the Sahara flowed through my head and soon I had my eyes closed and was transported in a country were water is even more precious than gold.

Hayart alby ma'ak wana badary wa akhaby (You've confused my heart and I try to hide it )

The Lady of Egypt, of course. Her voice was strong and soothing. The words always came wrong in my mouth as I could speak many languages but never those that were my ancestors', for some reason. I was calmer now. I was able to think straight. I gestured the doctors to come close and forced a smile on my face and opened my eyes. That's when it dawned on me. My burns were gone. My skin was a pale shade of brown in many areas, except near one of my finger, where it appeared almost pink. When I ran my thumb through it, it hurt.

The asari said something to me. Probably about avoiding to touch the wound while it was healing. She was speaking in a very smooth voice that was using a very throaty language. It almost sounded like arabic. And I couldn't speak it to save my life, nor the fulani dialect my father used with his mother for that matter. I felt so stupid. But I was fluent in English and Finnish and had notions in every other European language. I even spoke a good Japanese and Korean from my holidays spent playing Team Fortress 2 with an expat friend in Tokyo. Even with the killer ping, hearing all those guys talking had imprinted copious amounts of linguistics data in my brain. And I knew I could do the same with them. I am the Thirteenth Warrior, after all, I sarcastically thought.

In the inside, I still wish that I can close my eyes, fall asleep and discover that Ben carried me to our bed and tucked me in, laying a peck my cheek as he was doing so.

Instead, I woke up in the same hospital room above the peaceful radiant Presidium and I realised my whole life had become a nightmare.