It's dark. Pain, pain, all I know is pain. My head feels like it's on fire- and not in the headache sense, either. More like I've bashed my head in all over and now my skull is nothing more than a shattered egg shell.

Ow. Shit. Home? No. Bad dream. Nightmare. Fuck. HolygoddamnmotherfuckingJESUS it hurts it hurts it hurts so much why am I not waking up this is only a dream wake up wake up WAKE UP-

I can't help it. I scream, involuntarily convulsing. The convulsions are only held at bay from the blurry surrounding figures- when did my eyes open?- from what feels like multiple restraints around my wrists, ankles, legs, neck, waist, anything that could possibly be strapped down to a table.

Why? What'sgoingon? I dunno. I dunno. Bad. Badbadbad. Goddamnfuckinghurtpain. White coats- orange spot- fuck can't focus can't think can't feel anything but the fire and it hurts so much-

"Holy shit- she's awake!"

"What? How is that even possible?"

"Stay calm. Give her more sedative. That'll knock her right back out."

"We've already given her enough to knock out an elephant. You sure that's safe, boss?"

"Right now the only thing more detrimental to her health is the brain damage she'll cause by thrashing about while I'm attempting surgery! Damn, we're lucky she didn't wake up when the probe was in… could have caused some seriously irreversible damage."

Surgery? Brain surgery? Car accident? No, no other pain- only head. So much head pain. Would be worse, if accident. Another fainting spell? Maybe possible brain damage from falling.

A sharp but brief pain in my neck alert me to the familiar sting of a needle. At this moment I don't care what the fuck's in it as long as it can get rid of the fire in my head.

Smells like hospital but feels weird. Metal bed. Surgery metal bed? Surgery no straps, I thought. There straps here. Thinking strange. Fire leaving, but can't put into words. Pain less, yes, but can't think, eyelids falling, darkness coming, sleep-

"Subject Fifty is reacting positively to the effects of the sedative. Surgery can commence in less than ten seconds."

Subject. Not patient. Subject. Why subject? No name? I name. I have name. Why no name? This no hospital know. Where me? Where…

"Good. Now, seeing as she's the only positive result we've had in…"

The world fades back to black.

I wake up much like I usually do. A slow awareness that grows gradually until I'm forced to admit that my conscious has overridden my sleep cycle and that a new day must be faced. I think of the strange dream I had last night-

Wait a second. This is not my bed. I have a memory foam mattress and at least three pillows. This bed is much too hard and much less comforting than I'm used to.

I jerk up into a sitting position, almost immediately clutching at my head in reaction from the pain resulting from the movement. I pause.

I'm not touching hair. I run my hands over the gauzy fabric covering my scalp. There is absolutely no hair underneath.

What. The actual. Fuck. I look around and take in my surroundings, hoping that it could shed some light on the situation.

Oh. Wonderful. I'm in a cell. I can feel my heart speed up as I begin to panic, but I barely manage to keep myself from freaking out immediately. No idea how, but I manage. Lucky for me my rational side has always been pretty strong.

Aside from the bed, there's not much else. The room, if you could even call it that, is probably about seven by seven, judging by the approximate length of the bed which is the same length of the walls. If I got up, I couldn't take more than three steps in any direction. There's a tiny desk and chair combo and- is that a toilet?

There is a toilet in the same room as I was sleeping in. At least it's not a bucket or anything.

Making sure not to move too fast for fear of hurting my head again, I shift so that I'm sitting on the bed with my legs hanging over the side. Looking down, I freeze.

It's not the unfamiliar white shirt and pants combo that freak me out. No, this is much, much worse.

My boobs are gone.

I am a solid 34B and, while I've never had the biggest chest, I've never felt like they were particularly small either. I don't remember being this flat since elementary school.

I bring my hands up to press against the complete plane that replaced the mounds of flesh that were previously there to only pause again.

I am white. That is a simple fact of my entire existence, just like my boobs. I inherited my grandmother's Polish blood and have possibly the fairest skin of my entire family.

Why, then, are my hands the color of tea right after adding a little cream? It's a rather light shade of brown, but much darker than I've ever been. I've always admired this skin tone, especially on my friend Siani, but it doesn't belong on anything attached to me.

AND MY HANDS. Like my skin, my large hands and feet have been a fact of my life. For my height, it's never been a problem and I've always been pretty proportional.

But now, THEY ARE THE TINIEST THINGS. Like, little girl hands!

This thought strikes a chord in me, and I have an idea. I stand up carefully, taking much longer than I originally thought because my wobbly knees didn't want to support any weight. I try to ignore the fact that the bed, which is about a normal distance from the ground, reaches my upper thigh rather than my knees. Looking down, my thought is confirmed.

In addition to the nonexistent chest and tiny hands, my hips are definitely narrower than I'm used to. My bare feet are, as expected after the hands, also tiny. I don't even want to think about how tall I am now. I'm tall for a girl, a fraction under 5'8 and even taller in the heels I love to wear. I don't think I can handle being short right now.

Fuck. This doesn't feel like a dream. What the hell is going on?

I move to the door, which reminds me of a vault. There's no way out from the inside. I try pushing and pulling, pressing random spots in the hope that there's a secret opening.

Guess what isn't there? A secret opening.

With no way out and nothing to do, I start to pace. It's what I do when I'm on the phone, only this

time the person I was talking to was myself.

Last thing I remember? Before the dream (which I now don't even know if it was a dream or not), I just remember putting my computer to sleep and heading to bed.

Wait. Graduation is in two weeks. I'm not home. If I don't get home, I'm not going to graduate. FUCK! I worked my ass off for four years, just completed a multitude of exams to get my IB diploma and hopefully college credit when I start college next year. And now I won't even be able to reap the benefits.

I knock on the door, "Hey, anyone out there?" I can't yell the question; just knocking on the door rattled my bones enough to add to the pain in my head.

"Hello?" I knock again, trying not to jostle the rest of my body too much, "Can somebody help me? Anybody?"

I keep knocking. Nobody answers. Each knock decreases in strength, until it is nothing more than the tapping of fingers weakly against the metal. For some reason, fatigue is taking over and I can barely find the strength to slouch against the door, limbs falling limp at my side and barely standing upright.

Nobody answers me. I can hear muffled noises, nothing distinct. It sounds like faint sobbing, maybe screaming. It's so quiet I can't tell the difference.

The only reason I don't allow myself to fall limp to the floor and allow sleep to overtake me is that it'll fuck with my head even more. Can't keep tenderizing it when it already feels plenty beaten up. Instead, I brace myself against the wall and take minuscule steps back to the bed which should have only taken a good two strides. I crawl carefully into bed and try to find the least painful position to lay in. Darkness mercifully comes before I can even start counting sheep.

A hard grip on my shoulder wakes me up. I open my eyes, panicked, to meet the unfamiliar face of a man in- is that armor? Not the old fashioned type of chainmail armor, but the futuristic hardsuit type of thing that looks pretty shiny and new.

"Come on, if you know what's good for you," his helmet-encased head turns away from me as he walks to the now open door, showing a bland metallic hallway colored similarly to the gunmetal appearance of the cell.

I know what's good for me. Despite my every cell protesting in fear, I get up as fast as I can while still acting gingerly to avoid jostling my head around too much. The man is already striding out the door, so I take an awkward couple of jump steps to get right behind him, though definitely not to close as I didn't want to risk his ire.

The height difference gets to me in a way I can't explain. I'm used to having my head even with the majority of guys I deal with, if maybe a few inches shorter than some but tall enough to have at least some part of my head above their shoulders. Here, in my tiny bare feet and almost malnourished body, my head was maybe even with the middle of the guard's back, whom I estimated to be about 5'9 or 10. No that my height guessing ability is all that good; I'm used to guessing height based off my own, not this half-pint body.

Looking down the hallway we were travelling, I could see multiple other doors exactly like the one my cell had. Some even had noises coming from behind them, and I could hear slightly clearer versions of the sobbing and screaming and what seemed to be singing that I heard last night (Night? If it even was a night- could have been the middle of the day for all I know). The singing was more than a little creepy, and it reminded me of more than a few let's play horror games I watched on Youtube. A little girl's voice singing a nursery rhyme in a creepy fashion. Just what I needed to calm me down.

This hallway is actually really familiar and is giving me a feeling of deja vu. I try to ignore the feeling and remain focus on the back of the man in front of me. We come to a door, but it's not like anything I've ever seen before.

Wait. Scratch that, I have seen it before. It's also metallic, with a green holographic interface that I know act as the locking mechanisms. Like I was expecting, the doors were the kind where each half retracted into their side of the wall.

Now, what the hell am I doing in a place with the same kind of doors that were used in Mass Effect?

The only possible explanation I can think of is that I'm dreaming but I've woken and fallen asleep in this same world. Generally when I dream every time I wake from a dream sleep I'm in a different place or I actually wake up.

Wait, no. That's not the only possible explanation. I've always been a fan of self-inserts, at least those that were written well. But that's impossible. And wasn't pretty much every one the result of some larger-than-life being/person/thing taking fate into their hands and placing some random fan in the universe where aliens and space travel and scifi magic exist?

Where's my big explanation, if that's true? It can't be.

I wish I knew what was going on.

Lost in my musings, I apparently missed that we arrived at our destination. It was a pretty open room, and I could see that there was a wide hallway leading to maybe another half of the room that I couldn't see. There was a chair in the middle of the space, with two doctors in strange rubber-like outfits standing to either side. One was a bald man, tan with prominent wrinkles on his face. The other was a younger woman, harsh looking with eyes narrowed in a glare and a hard beak of a nose.

I froze when I noticed the emblems on their outfits.

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck this cannot be Cerberus. Nope. Nuh-uh.

Wait. If this is Cerberus, then I'm pretty sure I know this place. The layout, the design…

I'm on Pragia. I'm in the goddamn Teltin facility probably years before the events of the game because it's still operating and isn't overgrown or in ruins.

I don't even know how old Jack was when everything went down. Just what year is it?

The man I followed grabbed my shoulder hard and pushed me to the uncomfortable looking dentist-type chair that the doctors were flanking. Not wanting to risk injury from the intimidating man, I climb quickly into the chair despite really, really not wanting to.

Before I can even blink, the harsh-looking woman has me strapped into the chair. As much as I want to strain against the restraints, I don't want to risk what I knew would be a hard, painful punishment, judging by the glint in the guard's eye. I just pretend that this is just another day at the dentist's office and the worst thing that will happen is the disgusting toothpaste they always use and telling me that I need to floss more.

"Subject Fifty has been restrained. Checkup will now commence," the man said out loud. Probably recording audio files, judging from the way he's talking. A glance out of the corner of my eye confirms that he's, in fact, using an omni-tool, which looks very similar from what I remember in game but strange at the same time, almost surreal. These three people I've seen are real people, not just random bland characters on a screen. The same thing is happening with the omni-tool and the people; both are immensely more realistic than any game could ever capture.

The man doesn't move but I can feel the bandages on my head being removed. Being bald means a strange draft over your scalp and I shiver from a light breeze.

I miss my hair. It was a constant presence and I've never been without it, and it's not until you lose something that it strikes you just how used you are to having it.

"Scarring is present, especially at points of incision. No negative reaction to the new port in the base of skull," this was mentioned after my head was yanked up so they could observe said place, "Dr. Harton's scans show that a positive reaction is occurring, though nowhere near the levels we've hoped for. It's only been a week since the time of operation- we will allow an extra week for the subject to acclimatize to the implants. Within that week, no additional testing outside of scans. The risk of interfering with the nodes are too great."

Implants? Nodes? PORT?

No. No. Nuh-uh. This isn't happening. I close my eyes from the fascinating spot on the ceiling that I hoped would keep my attention. I take as deep a breath I can without moving too much- something tells me if I moved too much something would be done to stop it.

Teltin was (is?) a biotic research facility. Trying to find the apex of human biotics or whatever. All other test subjects were used to further Jack's abilities. I'm in a biotic research facility.

I'm a fucking "other test subject."

Didn't they all die? Except for that one dude- Abish? Amesh? Whatever, doesn't matter.

Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit. I've always wondered what it'd be like to have biotics but it is not worth being at fucking Teltin.

"Should results turn out reasonably well, we will have the first successful attempt at an artificially created biotic. If this ends up a failure, at least the results we've obtained thus far will be useful in yet another attempt."

Dude. I'm RIGHT HERE. Don't talk about me being a damned failure to my face. My eyes pop open to glare at the man hovering above my shoulder, but my glare slips to the side and loses what little potency it had at the returning glare from beak woman. Doctor man doesn't even notice, too busy muttering to himself and fiddling with the orange light of his omni-tool.

The discussion quickly dissolves into a highly scientific muttering between the two scientists, and I only recognize a few of the terms in passing merely because of my biology class. Even when I recognized them, I couldn't tell you what the hell they were talking about.

Luckily, the examination isn't more than fifteen minutes, though it feels like an eternity while trying to pretend everything was nice and dandy and I'm only in the dentist's office. They take blood samples but don't inject anything in- a part of the "no testing for the next week", for sure.

I've never been more thankful for the fact that I lack a fear of needles. They need to take blood samples from multiple locations on my body, so I'm speared with the tiny menaces in more than ten places. If I had to guess I'd say sixteen, but I'm trying to focus on keeping my muscles relaxed to ease the process a bit rather than keeping count. And, I think keeping count would not only freak me out even more so but also take away the small amount of calm and rationality I've managed to somehow keep.

The last needle retracts from underneath my ribs and I breath a small sigh in relief. Just because I'm not afraid doesn't mean I like them. Doctor man is already walking towards a different door than I can in through, embedded in the hallway I noticed earlier, his arms carefully balancing a tray holding multiple vials of my blood, 50 etched on all their sides. The Beak unstraps me and pulls me out of the chair harshly, nearly throwing me at the guard who, form the looks of things, was simply playing with his omni-tool against the wall during the entire examination. I stumble but manage to catch myself before colliding with the hardsuit, my hand coming up to shield my head just in case. The guard rolls his eyes before walking past me to the doors leading back to where we originally came from, and I follow despite no obvious sign or nod that he wants me to follow. The doors we pass are mostly quiet now.

They're all probably being tested on right now. Unless they're at Teltin's form of recess.

I shudder. These people give drugs to kids and put them in organized fights. Hell, they put the kids up against JACK. I have no sympathy for the faculty that got caught up in the riot.

But who the hell knows when that's going to happen? Not me, that's for sure.

Ugh. I'm probably going to be one of those pitiable subjects killed in the riot. I try to ignore the dark feeling of my intestines and stomach switching places at the thought. Death happens, no use trying to avoid it. I certainly wouldn't want to live forever.

But I don't want to die, either. I'm just one scared teenager-turned-child in way over her head who shouldn't even be thinking about her own mortality yet. I'm pretty sure I'm not dreaming, but I'm not sure I'm awake.

I should have watched Inception. Maybe that could help me make sense of things.

Maybe I'm on a drug trip. I've never done drugs so I'd never know. Are you supposed to suspect that you're on a drug trip if you really are or is that a way to realize that you are, in fact, sober?

And, with that thought, I am yet again shoved, this time back into the tiny cell. Luckily, it's with just enough force that I get in completely but not too much that I fall.

The door slams shut and locks. It's an ominous sound. I try to ignore the small echo of the slam in the room and survey what I came back to.

Everything's the same as when I left, but there's a tray on the desk with a spoon. If it wasn't for the spoon I don't think I'd recognize it as the food that it's supposed to be. It's a blob of brown with the faintest smell of overcooked meat, which was almost overpowered by the plasticy scent that it seemed to emanate. Mystery meat. Yum.

… I don't think you're supposed to eat meat with a spoon. Some sort of strange, mashed potato/steak combo in one entree? I'm not sure I want to even try. I hate mashed potatoes.

My grumbling stomach makes the decision for me. I stride over, take a seat, grab the spoon, and enter a staring contest with the blob. My brain screams at me, don't eat, not real food, gross, ew, don't you dare put that shit your mouth I already know you're going to regret it. It looks fake. Smells fake.

I poke at it with my index finger, the rest curled around the spoon.

Feels fake.

I spoon the smallest amount I could possibly grab while still being able to get an accurate reading on my taste buds and hastily fling it in my mouth, wanting to get the experiment done with as soon as possible.

Definitely tastes fake. It doesn't only small plastic- it tastes plastic. And the texture- I've never been a stickler for texture, but how can you even describe something that somehow manages to be as slimy as a clam but as dry as the fucking Sahara desert. How can food like this even be made?

I don't know how I manage to swallow it down, but I manage. My gag reflex tries to engage at the pure grossness, and I have to hold down a couple of retches before I continue looking at the thing previously known as food.

That shit is lethal. And there's at least ten more spoonfuls. I don't know what they do if you don't eat everything. There's gotta be something in there they want me to get. They wouldn't serve poison for that for no reason, right?

My grip on the spoon tightens, and I shovel the largest amount that would fit on the spoon into my mouth and try to ingest it as fast as humanly possible. I try to detach myself from the eating, like I do with all my unpleasant encounters through life, reassuring myself that it'll be over eventually.

It's not until the third spoonful that I realize I'm crying. Tears are streaming down my face, the hand in charge of feeding me is shaking while the one not holding anything is clenched in my lap.

Until now, I was still half convinced that this whole situation was somehow a dream of some sort. Even when I eat in dreams, I experience nothing. I don't taste it, or smell it, or feel in in my fingers or in my mouth. I certainly don't almost throw up in reaction to the grossest thing I've ever had the horror of trying.

This is real. This is completely, utterly real. I have no idea on how or why, but I'm in Mass Effect maybe ten or twenty years before the events of the game. I'm in a body that's not my own, in a life that's not my own, stuck in a facility that I know will implode in only a matter of time and a galaxy that will face destruction.

What am I going to do?

I'm sobbing, snot and drool and tears running down my face, spoon forgotten in the pile of poison. My rationality was only a result of my assumption that I'm dreaming. Now I know I'm not.

I'm super fucking terrified.

A/N: So, yay! First chapter! As you may have read in the summary, this is an SI and, thus, I am channeling my story the easiest way possible: through myself, my experiences, and how I think I would act in certain situations. I would be lying if I said I haven't been inspired by the multiple other SIs that populate Mass Effect fanfiction. When I read a good one, I think: I want to do that. When I read a bad one, I think: I could do better. This is my chance at doing better, though I admit that I will be nowhere near the level of my complete and utter favorite SI (Masses to Masses, anyone?), at least not for a while. While not as good as iNf3ctioNZ (...yeah had to look up how to spell that, I'm such a bad fan!), I'd like to think that I'm a good enough writer for a reader to enjoy the story and look forward to each week's update while offering advice or mentioning mistakes that were caught.

I'm trying to approach the whole trope differently. Firstly, in the majority of SIs I've always been a little annoyed at how they arrive in the world (generally omniscient being, teleportation/actually sucked into console, and magical transportation of personal goods that just happen to cost a lot of credits). Seeing as that is a completely personal preference, I don't let it detract from the story and almost always love the rest of the story to the point of obsession, but I've always wondered of different, slightly more "realistic" (if arriving in a different universe can BE realistic) ways to transcend universes. I have big ideas that I hope I can live up to and carry through, such as sticking to canon while also making major changes in multiple supporting characters, if not all of them.

Seeing as I'm at Teltin, yes I do meet Jack. If not the next chapter (which is most likely), probably the next chapter after that. I go where my muse takes me. Right now I have a much clearer picture of what happens AFTER Teltin rather than during, so this is going to be interesting.

Oh, and if you haven't noticed yet I do, in fact, curse a lot. This is generally how my train of thought gets when I'm agitated, nervous, hurting, you get the drill. My mother makes a mean glare when I cuss out loud, so she's conditioned me not to actually say these things in front of other people (not to say I don't cuss when surprised or in immense pain). I'm not trying to be, like, super-tough and using all this bad language. That's honestly how I think, especially the stringing together of multiple cusses or repetition of one. When calm, I don't cuss nearly as much, but if you can't tell this last chapter was kind of agitating for me.

I'm trying to write in first-person present, but present/past tense has always been a bit more difficult for me to get a grasp on so if you notice anything weird grammar wise or wanna offer me some tips that'd be great :)

Thank you for trying out my story! If you liked it, please fave/subscribe/comment! If you didn't, thank you for using your time to give it a chance and maybe drop a review/PM me about what it was that you didn't like? I'm mainly writing this not only for me to explore the alternate world I've been building in my head but also to improve as a writer. The only way to get better is to practice, so I think setting up a story I need to update on a weekly basis will act as a good incentive. Wow this note is nearly 1,000 words by itself. I should shut up now.

Yes, I will be using my name for the story, though I think I'll misspell or anagram my last name. My last name is pretty unique in the US (only about 200 of us) and there are a very few people in the world with the same name combination as me. I'm paranoid, I know, but identity and internet safety has been drilled into me since childhood so it's hard to put my actual name out there. I might or might not. Still deciding.

Okay now I'll shut up.