31 July, 2185 CE
Shepard felt trapped in a stream of subconsciousness. Her head was full of active, restless, and continuous dreams, the sort that left her feeling tired when she woke, no matter how many hours of sleep she clocked. More than once she experienced that odd moment of clarity when she recognized it wasn't real, and felt as though the dream had gone on forever. As if a lifetime had passed. In those precious moments of awareness, she yearned to wake up, but each time the dream refused to end.
The steady continuum of dreams broke at last when a disembodied and vaguely familiar voice played at her senses, threatening the stability of her dream world. Her subconscious realm became fuzzy around the edges while the voice became clearer. Before she knew it, she couldn't recall what the dreams had been about.
"Shepard, do you hear me? Get out of that bed now—this facility is under attack."
A female voice—human, given the Australian accent. No translator would artificially apply an accent that didn't belong. She could swear she'd heard the voice before but couldn't manage to place it.
Shepard's eyes fluttered opened, lazily at first, before shutting when they complained about the intense white lighting overhead. She felt a yawn coming, but her jaw was slow to respond. As she opened her mouth, she had to bring her hand to her chin to help stretch her jaw muscles from side to side, but found her hand almost missed her chin altogether, its sense of direction drifting to the side.
Damn, my arm's stiff, she thought, that said…everything feels stiff.
"Shepard, your scars aren't healed, but I need you to get moving. This facility is under attack," the voice repeated over a PA system.
Under attack…the words sank in and her training kicked into action. On the opposite side of a nearby window she heard and caught glimpses of a firefight, while the quakes of explosions rattled the room around her.
Every joint and muscle in her body still felt unresponsive, riddled with aches and pains, but as the nature of her situation settled in, she felt awake and focused as adrenaline surged through her system.
"There's a pistol in the locker on the other side of the room. Hurry!"
Shepard dropped off the side of the bed—wait, is this an operating table?—and looked around for the locker. The room was downright immaculate, a utilitarian design full of neutral tones. With everything stowed away out of view, she failed to identify anything that might confirm her suspicion the bed was anything other than a bed.
As she scanned around and spotted the locker, disturbing memories surfaced in her mind, memories of a slow, drawn out suffocation.
Did I…no, that's impossible, not if I'm here now.
"Grab the pistol and armor from the locker," the woman said.
Shepard shoved the memories and probing questions out of her way as she ran to the locker. She opened it up and pulled out the various pieces of armor when she paused at the sight of her own hands.
Since when was I this pale? My skin looks like dea—
She stopped her thoughts on the last word and placed her hands on her face. They felt warm enough, so it wasn't from any lack of blood, but presumably a lack of sunlight.
"You don't have time to wait around, Shepard! Grab your weapon and armor!"
Shaken from her thoughts, she returned to the task at hand as she assembled the armor over her clothes. Feeling her hair hanging loose against her neck, she rummaged around the locker for something to tie it back with. As she pulled her hair into a ponytail, she found it undeniably shorter than she remembered, but with far more pressing matters to worry about, she ignored the observation for the time. Lastly, she picked up the gun, only to spot a flashing red light on its side. Next to the indicator were the words, 'thermal clip.'
'Thermal clip?' What kind of gun is this?
Turning the pistol over, she spotted an empty slot where the pistol's permanent heat sink should have been.
"This pistol doesn't have a thermal clip," Shepard said.
"It's a med bay," the woman said matter-of-factly, "We'll get you a clip from…damn it! Those canisters by the door are going to blow! Get behind cover, now!"
Shepard's attention jumped towards the room's exit where a couple compressed gas canisters had caught fire. Moving forward, she slid behind some nearby equipment.
"Keep your head down, Shepard! Shield yourself from the blast!"
As Shepard waited for the canisters burn and explode, something the woman said answered one of her many questions.
Med bay. So that was an operating table. Where am I?
With her faceless ally's help, she exited the med bay into the surrounding facility, finding a few thermal clips for her pistol along the way—a weapon system she adapted to by brute force and necessity, despite the fact that she had never heard of a human pistol working this way. A brief encounter with a handful of hostile security mechs gave her an opportunity to try out the pistol, and she disposed of the mechs in short order.
Shepard was running on pure instinct. If she dared to pause and let her guard down, her growing list of questions threatened to overwhelm her. Nothing felt right about the situation. Her body seemed alien and tired, her muscles sluggish and tight. She was in an unfamiliar place and guided by someone she didn't know. How did she get here? Where was her team? Where was the Alliance? She didn't recognize the diamond-shaped orange logo on the walls, failing to give her any clue as to who ran the facility. Worst of all, awful memories of floating away in space—memories she prayed were nothing more than one of her many dreams—refused to be forgotten.
Survival first; answers later, she promised herself.
As she passed a window, a chance sideways glance caught her reflection, and she stopped dead in her tracks. A chill ran through her body at the sight of the face that stared back at her. To say her scars weren't healed seemed an understatement, though she hadn't imagined they would be this extensive. But the scars weren't what disturbed her.
They were glowing.
Shepard approached the window to get a clearer view in the weak reflection. Her eyes appeared to emit a similar subtle light as well. With a gentle, cautious movement, she traced her hand along the deep grooves in her face. Even with her glove on, she could feel them.
"How did…?" she said, her voice catching as her throat clenched reflexively.
Deep down, a growing sense of horror was brewing. Unwilling to trust the reflection, hoping it was merely a trick of the light, she stepped back and popped the armor seals around her forearm, letting the pieces of ablative armor clatter to the floor. She yanked her sleeve back—and stared at the same, artificial orange glow emanating from another network of scars.
"Wha—what the hell is this?" she said in hardly more than a harsh whisper, recoiling at the unnatural sight.
"I…no," she said defiantly, "No, no, I'm still me."
There were no answers for her now, and she knew chances were they would not come soon. This was no place or time to speculate.
"Other questions come first," she said to reassure herself, putting the armor back on and pushing her grave fears into the recesses of her mind for closer inspection at a later time.
"Shepard, where are you?" the voice in the PA said, "There are mechs closing in on that wing."
Shepard glanced up towards the nearby speaker.
"…starting with who are you?" Shepard muttered as she took hold of the pistol once more, back in conditional control of her fears as she pushed onwards.
It wasn't long before she made contact with another group of the corrupted security mechs as they searched for more hapless targets. By the time she exhausted the thermal clips she had on hand, she had whittled the enemy down to one remaining mech. To her relief, her biotics responded like she expected them to. She emerged from cover and sprinted towards the mech, letting her remaining shields absorb its shots as she focused her biotics into her fist. However, before she realized what was happening, her biotics spread from her fist and enveloped her entire body, lifting her off the ground and blasting her into and through the mech.
The mech exploded in a shower of fiery debris, and Shepard came to a disoriented stop a little less than a meter past where the droid had stood, stumbling as she regained her balance.
"Don't get reckless, Shepard," the woman said.
"Okay, wait," Shepard said forcefully, "Did I just pull off a biotic charge?"
"It looks that way. Glad to see the L5n is everything they promised. You'll notice some more muscle in your biotics now, but go easy on yourself until you're acclimated."
"How the hell did you change my amp?" Shepard said, on the verge of yelling and tired of being kept in the dark. She did her best to ignore the fact that the L4 was the most advanced human biotic amp, according to her recollection, not this 'L5n' the woman tossed around as if it were common knowledge.
"There will be time for Q&A later, Shepard. Keep moving."
And with that, the awful, nagging question she dreaded most pushed its way back into the fore of her thoughts.
Did I die?