A/N: I've updated the chapters, hopefully they're more readable and enjoyable, please leave any feedback to help improve it, thank you.

Mindor

Chase Jarrett

Aarrrggghhh. What the hell happened last night that would give me this much of a headache? I wasn't drinking last night because I was with my father, who's a recovering alcoholic, plus I'm only twenty, a little hard to get beer. Not to mention the fact that I'm in the middle of the woods, not in my tent I was holed up in.

Wait, where the hell am I? I'm in some woods, but not like any I've been in personally, not to mention I'm on the side of a hill! For those of you that are uninformed, me and my father were hunting wild boar, in Florida, where I was born and raised. And with very few exceptions, like north Florida, there are no hills, just flat land. Well, this sucks, at least I still have my m14 and 911, otherwise this really would have sucked. I guess I'll just have to pick a direction and start walking. Fuck me this day already sucks, north it is then!

So, do you want the good news or bad news? Well, the good news is after about 90 minutes I found what appears to be some farm. Bad news, I've never seen a farm like this, there is some futuristic shit going on. Also, there are four eyed people patrolling around, so I'm dreaming. This can't be real, they look just like Batarians, but those aren't real, this isn't mass effect, so this must be this is one hell of a lucid dream. Or, I must have accidently eaten some mushrooms, because this is just too damn real.

Suddenly, I hear a scream, and without thinking I pull out my rifle and surveyed what was going on. It was a lady running from the house, screaming for help, she was a little pale, had blood all over her torso, with red hair down to her chest. And before I could even breath, the three four eyes that were patrolling tackle her to the ground, but she's not going down without a fight. She tries to push the three of them off her, but it just enrages them as she socks one of them in the mouth. That same Batarian pulls out a knife, and plunges it straight into her chest.

Without thinking, I line up my scope with his head, and pull the trigger, and its head disappeared in a shower of red mist. I line up the next shot, at this point they see me, about 150 yards south of them, and the remaining two pull up their weapons toward me, however the one on the left has his head go missing thanks to yours truly before he can open fire. The last one starts to pepper where I'm at with rounds, and fortunately he's a lousy shot. I immediately dive down to the ground, scope up the Batarian, and land a shot right where his heart is, or at least I think where his heart is? Any who, I immediate full sprint towards where the lady was attacked, arriving to find her barely alive, choking on her own blood, and all she does is point towards the house she came from and tries to say help, but it's all gargled, however I get the message.

I start my run to the house, about 50 yards from where I was, but I stop half way. Suddenly it hit me, this is real, and I just killed three people. I know I was in the right, but I still just killed three people without thinking about it. I immediately emptied all the contents in my stomach and hurled it to the ground. Then I heard a large blast coming from the house. Without thinking I run towards it's front door, shouldering my rifle and pulling out my pistol. When I enter the house I'm first greeted by a dead Batarian on the ground, holes peppered in its chest. I heard another blast, just around the corner on the other side of the wall, I level out my pistol and slowly make my way around, and I see a Batarian, covered in blood, standing in-between two bodies, a guy and a little kid, can't be more than nine or ten.

He's just standing over the kid, and I freeze from the scene I'm looking at, there's just blood everywhere. The Batarian looks over his shoulder and sees me, and his eyes go wide. He quickly turns around and fires his gun, but I can't move, fortunately most of the shots miss, except one hit my arm, and it finally snaps me out of my trance and I unload my pistol into him and he falls limp onto the floor before he can take another shot. At this point I don't know what to do, I tried to help but everyone is dead. All of a sudden, I heard something coming from the man. I quickly run over to his side and tried to listen to what he was trying to say.

"Cass… back…. save" he mustered out.

That was all he could say before his eyes turned over and he passed. Then I heard a loud scream coming from the back of the house and it finally clicked, so I hauled ass over to where it was coming from. I immediately turn into the barn to see a Batarian wrestling with some teenaged girl. I aimed my gun at the Batarian, but I couldn't take a shot without risking the girl. Then she starts glowing in purple wisps, and he flies off her and lands 10 feet away from me. I immediately pull up my pistol, and unload 2 rounds into his head. I run over to the girl, still on her back, and clearly physically exhausted.

"Are you hurt?" I asked, she replied with a nod.

"Can you run?" she replied with another nod.

I immediately pick her up, bridal style, and I start running form the house and into another set of woods, about 300 yards north.

"Stop! We have to help my parents, they're in the house with my brother!" she exclaimed.

I didn't know what to say to her, after all if I was a little faster on the take, I could have saved two of them. I stopped running immediately, looked at her and nodded, and tried to mouth out the words 'I'm Sorry' but they wouldn't come out. She got the message and immediately her eyes turned to glass, then she started crying. I just knelt down onto my knees and put her down and pulled her into a tight embrace while she cried. I half expected her to push away, but in fact she grabbed me and held onto me with a tight grip as she cried.

I'm not even sure how long we were there, but it felt like hours. Out of nowhere multiple ships were flying around us, and I was immediately scooping up the girl and making a beeline for the woods. By the time we made to the woods, one of the ships landed where we were just at, and I just kept running. It had been two hours since we reached the woods. Right now, I'm just walking, way too tired to run.

"I'ma set you down so we can take a quick ten, okay?" she nodded in response.

I looked into her eyes and saw how scared she was, but that wasn't just it. It also looked like admiration, maybe because I saved her, or because I'm acting very brave because this isn't affecting me like her. Although the truth is I'm still praying that this a dream, that none of this is real. I eventually reach into my bag, pulled out three granola bars, and two bottles of water. I handed her one of the bottles and two of the bars, since she needs to eat to recoup. At that point I'm sitting next to her while resting, and I feel a tug on my shoulder. I look over to see her inspecting my arm, and I just realized I never bandaged my arm from when I got shot. And all of a sudden it hurts like hell. Damn you adrenaline. I immediately pull out my small first aid kit, pour some hydrogen peroxide over it, winced, and cleaned it up with a towel. From what I can tell the, is it a bullet?, well the round went straight through, so I put some Neosporin around my wounds and wrapped it tightly with some gauze and went back to eating my granola bar.

"What's your name?"

I immediately turn to the girl, this the first time she talked since she found out her family is dead. It's been nearly twelve hours since then, and it was starting to get dark. I had set up a small fire and we were eating the last two of my granola bars.

"Uh… Chase Jarrett" I responded, rather slowly.

At this point I realized that neither of us knew each other's name. All I heard from her was a snicker after I told her my name, and a small smile on her lips.

"Yeah, I know it's a little out there, but that's the name my parents gave me"

"No, I'm not making fun of you!" she replied, "I actually like it. My names Cassandra, Cassandra Shepard, Thankyou" I nodded towards her.

"That's a beautiful name" I responded with a smile.

I couldn't help but notice her cheeks blush a little. But what really got me was her name, I just saved Commander Shepard, from the colonist background, well fuck me seven ways to Sunday! I'm already messing up canon. We didn't say anything the rest of the night, eventually falling asleep.

I eventually woke up in the middle of the night, and I felt something odd on me. I look over and see Cassandra fell asleep on my left arm, and it hurt like hell. Then I heard a branch snap. I snap my head over and saw a black figure go and dash out of sight. I heard another sound, this one a dried leaf being crushed. I immediately grab my rifle and wake up Cass. She looks at me dazed and confused, but at the same time I can hear more sound coming from the south of us, getting much closer. I look into her eyes and whisper "run" and pushed her towards the north, and she takes off. I ready my rifle, I can see a black figure, only 10 yards away, and I pull the trigger.

I see a shimmer of blue around the figure. Shields, dammit. I pull the trigger again, and this time the shield glows bright then dissipated, and I'm about to pull the trigger one last time. Then out of nowhere some clocks me across my face and I go tumbling down onto the ground. I look up and see someone over me, I immediately kick them away, allowing me time to get on my feet. I've lost my rifle, but I still have my pistol, I pull it out aim and I'm only able to get one round out before the person closes the gap and tackles me to the ground hard, I lose possession of my last weapon and I fell hard to the ground, with someone on top of me. Were on the ground, I'm struggling to get him off, and I'm trying to think of a way out, but I've never even been in a fight, let alone trained. All of a sudden something hits the back of my head hard, really hard, and before I can do anything my vision fades to black, and I'm knocked out.