Disclaimer: Mass Effect and all its characters belong to Bioware.

Author's Note: And so I begin my trek into ME1 territory.

This Is It

Shepard awoke at the smell of blood. Not that faintly metallic (and at times fishy) smell of fresh blood, but the overpowering, rank smell of blood that has been shed long ago and left to fester. It was a scent Shepard knew well.

Slowly, feeling began returning to his body. First he could hear his heart's steady pounding. Then his neck throbbing. Hunger sitting in his stomach like heavy stone. Then his arms…his legs…the tips of his fingertips…the soles of his feet.

He lightly shifted his hand. Something stuck to his skin. The touch of it was familiar yet he couldn't say what it was.

When sensation had finally managed to creep to his eyes, he opened them. He lifted his hand and, in the dim red lighting, looked in the space where it had just sat.

Skin. Human skin.

Shepards heart began beating rapidly in his chest. He wanted to get up from wherever he was and run as far away as he could. But I won't. Slowly, Shepard lifted himself from where he had sat until he stood completely straight, stepped forward twice, and took one slow, silent breath. He turned around.

A chair. No: a throne. He had risen from a throne, every inch of which was covered in human skin. Black, white – they had all been sewn together haphazardly and draped across it. Now Shepard understood why the touch had been familiar. Instantly, every inch of his body that had touched the throne's in some places living, in others rotting surface began to burn with the heightened memory of that sensation.

Where am I? What is this? Shepard's eyes began frantically looking around him though his body remained deathly still.

Nothing. Nothing but that same velvety darkness interspersed with the dim red light that hung throughout the area like a cloud.

Shepard closed his eyes, hoping that if this were a dream it would end when he opened them next. As he held his eyes shut, he heard a steady trickling come from behind him. Shepard stood listening to the rhythmic dripping for a long time before curiosity, along with his own acknowledgement that the dream seemed no closer to ending from his simply standing there, prompted him to open his eyes once more and walk in the direction the sound was coming from.

After only a few steps, Shepard could see a bright red glow emanating from somewhere on the ground in front of him. After a few more, he could see the source.

His feet, covered in some sort of black sludge, now stood at the edge of deep ravine. Looking down, Shepard could see piles and piles of bodies – mostly human, some Batarian – lining the edge of the ravine, reaching nearly to his feet. I understand now, Shepard thought. This…is who I am.

"My soul." Before Shepard had finished speaking the words, a loud, piercing scream came from the bottom of the ravine. Shepard was about to step back when an arm reached out from between the two bodies closest to him and grabbed his ankle. The arm pulled on Shepard violently and flung him forward, down the side of the ravine. Shepard could feel his body being thrashed around violently as he fell the hundred or so feet. He finally tumbled to the floor of the dark chasm and felt his naked body being bathed by a thick, sticky liquid. Blood. Shepard tried to get up quickly, only to slip and fall back down. When he managed to find his balance he began running forward through the thin, twisting passage.

Yet the stream, which when Shepard had first landed was barely two inches deep, starting becoming deeper and deeper, and the ravine narrower and narrower, very rapidly. Within minutes, Shepard found himself wading through the liquid, which now reached up to his waist. The human walls of the ravine had grown markedly closer together, forcing Shepard to turn sideways in order to be able to move forward.

Shepard rounded another sharp corner and was surprised to see, just a few dozen meters in front of him, the throne. My throne. He looked behind him and saw darkness. No bodies and no blood; just darkness.

Shepard made his decision and plunged forward. Now the blood was up to his neck and the throne closer than ever. He would have to submerge himself completely if he wanted to reach it. Shepard kept moving forward through the ravine and let the blood wash over his head. As hard as he tried to keep his mouth shut, he could still taste that metallic tinge slipping around inside his mouth. He felt roughly textured steps under his feet and began climbing them. He reemerged from the stream, his naked body now completely red, and ascended the stairs up to his throne.

He sat down and felt the chair's skin cling to his own. He felt as the hands emerged from behind it and grabbed at his body. He closed his eyes and let himself be swallowed.

SSV Normandy, 2183

Shepard jerked awake and looked around him.

A bed? What about his pod? He looked to his left – a tall metal cabinet with drawers for clothes and armor, and then to his right – 'SR1' was printed in large white letters across the wall.

What am I doing in Anderson's quarters? Shepard sat up and remembered the last few days.

Eden Prime. The beacon. The Council. Saren. Images of the last 48 hours flickered rapidly through his head.

That's right, Shepard thought to himself. He was a Spectre now. And the commanding officer of the most advanced stealth frigate in the galaxy.

Shepard swung his legs over the left side of the bed and sat up, looking to the clock on the desk just forward and right of him. 3:13. So much for eight hours. Shepard reached forward into one of the drawers of the metal cabinet and pulled out some blue Alliance-issue sweats and a gray T-shirt reading 'Alliance Navy' in black and yellow block letters. He got dressed quickly and walked out into the mess.

"Commander."

"Vakarian." Shepard nodded at the turian as he moved passed him towards the chef's counter. He rifled through the fridge behind it until he managed to pull out last night's dinner's leftovers: grilled peach BBQ chicken breast, steamed green beans, and seasoned yellow squash. Decent, but only because they had docked yesterday. From this point on, Shepard knew, eating aboard the Normandy was all downhill. Shepard moved back towards the table and, deciding that sitting away from Vakarian would just be tactless, sat in the seat directly across from him.

Shepard put down his tray and eyed the alien. So far, Shepard hadn't gotten a real opportunity to size up the new additions to his crew. The only things he could say he knew about Garrus Vakarian stemmed from the few short exchanges they had had on the Citadel. Hot-headed. Reckless. Follows his 'gut.' But, from what Shepard had seen during their all-out assault on Chora's Den, not a bad guy to have covering your back.

"So why're you up Vakarian?" Time to find out just what I invited onto my ship.

Scoping me out, human? "Same reason you are Commander," Garrus responded.

I doubt it, Shepard thought. "Saren?"

"You know it. He's out there Shepard. A rogue Spectre running loose with an army of geth. And now the Council itself has given us a green light to hunt him down – our rules, our way. No way I would've ever had that back at C-Sec."

'Our rules, our way' huh? Shepard filed the tidbit away in the back of his mind. "So why'd you join then?"

"C-Sec? Because I was young and idealistic. I wanted to fight injustice. Help people."

"Past tense?"

"No, I still want those things. It's only recently I realized that C-Sec makes it harder, not easier, to do it. The higher you go the more red tape you have to wade through…That's why I came with you Shepard. Spectres get absolute freedom. It doesn't matter how they get things done, just that they get it done."

Shepard found the force of the turian's words reassuring. Instinctively, he had approached the matter warily. He couldn't be sure whether the turian would be a high-minded idealist, intent on avoiding collateral damage at any cost, a die-hard Machiavellian (not that the turian would understand the reference, Shepard was sure), or somewhere in between (though Shepard had had more than just a suspicion based on Vakarian's actions and responses back on the Citadel).

Shepard held the turian's gaze for quite a while before pushing his chair back and standing up. "Good. Now get some sleep. We reach Therum at 0800."

"I can try but…." Shepard looked over from where he stood at the sink, rinsing his dishes.

"You do realize those pods were built exclusively for humans don't you?" Shepard closed the door to the dishwasher and headed back towards his quarters.

"Good night Garrus."

"Night, Shepard."

As the doors to his new quarters closed behind him, Shepard let out a small smirk.

Author's Note:

I basically plan to throw up these vignette type chapters for most of ME1. Since Torfan's actions sequences managed to garner some positive reviews, however, I am more inclined to write up additional action-based chapters. These would probably be original interpretations of side missions particularly those involving Cerberus and the one with Major Kyle (and some shoutbacks to the Reds!).

Again, reviews are always welcome. The more an aspect of the fic gets reviewed, the more likely there'll be more of it!