"Shepard..."

Shepard's world became a haze of darkness that hung heavy in the air. Soft figures of light appeared and disappeared, whispered to him in brief, until even the voices were taken away into the impenetrable nothing. He thought he could see these figures, he thought he could hear these whispers. He breathed deep and he thought he could feel his lungs expand, but they took nothing in.

His body moved, but in the nothing, it moved slowly.

"Shepard..."

The lights appeared again, spreading throughout the sky, replacing total darkness with something slightly less than such. The nothing took the form of trees that swayed gently against a breeze that wasn't there. They shed leaves that drifted through the ether, but never touched the ground.

Shepard took a step. Things crackled and crunched beneath his heavy boots, but he could not see what. The light that had diffused throughout the darkness intensified with every movement he made. The whispers beckoned him to stand still, lay down his burdens, let the dark take him back into its embrace.

He took another step.

Another. And another.

"Finish this... You promise me..."

Shepard was in a forest now. Underbrush and a pathway of dead leaves slightly illuminated. In front of him, some distance away where the nothing played at the light, he could see a small figure running through the trees. He chased after it, moving through the ether as though he was underwater. Dead things complained with every step he took. The whispers grew louder and louder.

"I like to expect the worst. There's a small chance I'll be pleasantly surprised."

They were begging. Calling to him by name.

"Shepard..."

He was close to the figure, able to make out the familiar face. It was the boy he had seen die back on Earth. The revelation resounded throughout the haze: a loud roar of artificial dissonance and a strange red light. The boy, frightened, ran deeper into the forest.

"It's so much easier to see the world in black and white... Gray? I... don't know what to do with gray."

He reached out, trying to catch the boy by the arm. He wanted to save him, wanted to take him away from this place. The boy stopped and turned to face Shepard, staring just as he had on Earth. There was a question there: Why had no one tried to save him?

"Now go back and get the lieutenant and get the hell out of here! You know it's the right choice, LT."

The light erupted into a wall of flame that consumed the boy, and they all burned out together, until Shepard was left with nothing but the darkness once again. His breath escaped him. He felt cold.

"It's a hell of a job, isn't it, Shepard? Being the good guys..."

"That..." Shepard's voice didn't escape his lips, as though he was speaking into a vacuum, but he could hear it in his ears. "That was... definitely symbolic of something."

He pushed himself up onto his toes and let himself fall. It took a couple seconds before he felt the ground again. "So, I'm dreaming, I guess. I wonder if..." A flashlight suddenly appeared in his hand. "Coooool." He clicked it on... "GAH!"

A pale man in a brown overcoat stood before Shepard. "Woah!"

"Who are you!" Shepard demanded.

"My name's Alan Wake. I'm a writer looking for—"

"Gun!" A pistol materialized in Shepard's hand, which he used to shoot the mystery man repeatedly. "That was close." He bounced up onto his toes a few more times, taking extreme delight in floating down to the ground. Then he tried jumping. "Oh, my God, I'm flying!"

When his feet met the earth again, he came to a startling conclusion: "Oh, man, I can do whatever I want!"

"Stryker! The decision to proceed is yours... is yours... is yours..."

"...is yours..."

Commander Shepard is Easily Distracted

"What Dreams May Come"

Shepard stood in the communications room of the SSV Normandy SR-1, having just foiled Matriarch Benezia's evil rachni plot on Noveria. The crew was filing out of the room, giving him some space so he could be debriefed by the Council in private.

Joker's voice came in through the comm. "Noveria report is away, Commander. You want me to patch you through to the Council?"

Shepard nodded to himself. "Patch them through, Joker."

Three holograms flickered to life on the communications board. They already looked displeased with him, and it had only been seconds since the report was transferred. He wondered if they even read the report or just glanced at the title.

"Is this report accurate, Commander?" the asari councilor asked, incredulously. "You've found rachni on Noveria?"

Shepard groaned. "The title I gave the report was, literally, Rachni Found on Noveria."

The turian councilor ignored that. "And you released the queen! Do you have any idea what you've done? How many generations until they overrun the galaxy?"

"Actually I killed the queen, which you would know if you had actually read the report."

"Killed the queen! Do you have any idea what you've done? Think of how much we could have learned from a living rachni queen!"

"Just kidding, I actually released her."

"Released the queen! Erm... Do you have any idea what you've done! You've completely... Wait, how did you say you handled the situation? I need to scold you for not doing the opposite."

"Look," Shepard said, widening his stance, "I've had enough of you three pestering me every second of every day, and every light-year I travel. You're going to give me the support I need, and you're going to go after Saren in force."

The salarian councilor chuckled a bit. "You've truly gone mad, Commander Shepard, if you think you can make demands of the Council."

Shepard held out a gun. "I said..." He pulled back the hammer. "...give me the fleet I need."

This time, all three councilors busted up laughing.

"Shepard," the turian councilor said, recovering from his fit of laughter, "I'm not sure what backwards physics book you've been reading, but shooting our holograms doesn't actually—HERK!"

Shepard shot the hologram of the turian councilor several times over. He didn't reload the thermal clip, because for some reason weapons at this time were more advanced than in the future and didn't need to reload. "You were saying?"

The turian councilor fell to his knees. "This... isn't... How the hell...?" The councilor exhaled for the last time. The hologram disappeared.

"Goddess!" The asari councilor put up her hands. "How is this possible?"

"Don't shoot!" the salarian councilor pleaded. "We'll give you anything you want!"

"Offer me money!"

"You'll have it!"

"Power, too. Promise me that."

"All that we have and more! Please!"

"Offer me everything I ask for."

"Anything you want!"

"I want my father, you son of a—! Wait..." Shepard shook his head. "I'm reenacting The Princess Bride again. Let's start from the top."

–

Eden Prime. The fires on the horizon still hadn't gone out.

Nihlus Kryik took cover behind a crate, hearing footsteps in a place where everything was dead or undead. He readied his assault rifle, ensured the temperature of the gun was at combat level, and then stood to take aim. He couldn't believe what he saw.

"Saren?" he said despite himself.

The turian Spectre stopped walking in the middle of the courtyard, turning to acknowledge him with an icy blue stare. "Nihlus..."

He lowered his assault rifle. "This isn't your mission, Saren. What are you doing here?"

Saren walked up and clapped Nihlus on the shoulder. "The Council thought you could use some help on this one."

Nihlus briefly wondered why the Council hadn't informed him of this, but the suspicions quickly dissipated. This was Saren, after all. If he wasn't a legend yet, he was still a hero to millions. "I wasn't expecting to find geth here. The situation's bad."

"Don't worry..." Saren was behind him now. "...I've got it under control."

Nihlus could hear the quick whine of a trigger being compressed. But it wasn't possible. There was no way that Saren...

"What the hell!" Saren exclaimed.

"Yeeeeeeehawwww!"

Nihlus turned around just in time to see a Mako ramp off of a nearby hill, firing on all thrusters to give itself more speed. The oversized vehicle spun once, twice, three times in midair before landing directly on top of Saren.

"Wha...?" Nihlus could say nothing. "N... No..."

The Mako drove forward off of Saren's body. Then it reversed back over it. It repeated this process a few times before someone finally emerged from the vehicle.

It was Shepard.

"What have you done!" Nihlus shouted at the top of his lungs.

Shepard tossed something in his direction. Nihlus had recovered just enough to be able to catch it. It was cold to the touch.

It was a bottle of Coca-Cola.

Shepard was already drinking one. He exhaled in delight and nodded in Nihlus' direction.

"You're welcome."

–

Joker piloted the Normandy around another Geth formation, dodging missiles left and right, before lining up his attack run on Sovereign. The synthetic monstrosity was still attached to the Citadel Tower. This was his chance to take it down. Its shields were down and he had a clear shot.

Suddenly, he spotted something impossibly small moving in to attack the Reaper head-on. It looked about the size of a fighter, but it was too bulky.

"Break off the attack!" Joker shouted. "There's a fighter in the line of fire!"

Admiral Hackett came back over the comm. "That's no fighter..."

Joker took a closer look. "Is that... Is that a Mako?"

As if to confirm his suspicions, Shepard's voice blasted through the comm. "Yeeeeeeehawwwww!"

The Mako drifted at full speed, directly into Sovereign's grasp. Before the Reaper could fire its primary weapon, the little land vehicle smashed into it. Against everything Joker knew to be true, the Reaper instantly exploded into a million pieces. Debris rattled across the outside of Normandy's hull, sounding an awful lot like rain.

There was silence across the channel, until the static gave way to Shepard's voice one more time.

"You're welcome."

–

"Yeaaaaahh... You're welcome..." Shepard was awakened by the sound of someone entering his cabin. He sat up on his bed and wiped the drool from his face. "I'm up, I'm up."

Liara sat down at the foot of his bed. "Are you all right, Shepard?"

"Yeah." He wiped the sleep from his eyes. "I was having the most amazing dream. You were there, Liara."

Liara blushed and looked down at her hands. "I'm flattered, Shep—"

"You and several of your twin sisters were there."

"Oh..."

Shepard saw Liara's good humor drain away. "Wait! No! That's not what I meant." He thought for a second. "No... Yes, it was. That was exactly what I meant."

There was an awkward silence between them for several long minutes.

"Hey, Liara," Shepard said, finally.

She looked up. "Yes?"

He took her by the shoulder. "You're welcome."