Disclaimer: The mass effect universe is owned by EA/Bioware there is no copyright infringement intended. this is a fan-created work for non-commercial use.

AN: rated T for now but may go up to be safe due to language and future fighting scenes.

Full Summary: I don't have a death wish so why the hell am I following a Krogan into a building to steal some intel? Well because the Krogan told me to. But the point is I don't belong here. While meeting a Krogan is cool I'd rather be home playing the game from the safety of my room. Instead I keep getting images invading my head, doing jobs for people I'd rather not know and doing things I thought I'd never do. This is all because I opened the door to the proverbial rabbit hole. Worst of all? I have a crazy Salarian investigating why I have centuries old medical issues.

I feel an innate sense of fear wash over me as a sense of pain comes over me forcing me to wake up. Images that I realise had been flashing through my mind fade to the point I can hardly remember what I saw.

I wake to the sound of wind brushing against leaves and the smell of grass. I regret sitting up in a instant when my vision begins to swim in and out of focus. I look straight ahead first and notice a dark wooden door in the distance in the gap between the trees. I frown as I ponder about where I am. The memory of the pain and images a mere whisper now in the back of my mind.

Panic rises in my chest, my throat tightens to the point that my vision begins to darken the light coming through registering like the static on a tv channel no longer getting signal. As I register somewhere in my mind that I'm not in my bed at home and that I'm wearing clothes I didn't fall asleep in.

Tears prick the corner of my eyes as my heart beat increases, my chest beginning to ache from the sharp intakes of breath and outside sounds becoming dull to the point I could only hear myself. I try to count to twenty but stop somewhere at seven realising that it's not working.

I try to concentrate on anything else other than my panic. I try to think of other things that could help me so I begin to use the one thing that was close enough. I brush my fingers through the soft green blades of grass beneath me with a small forced smile. I know there is no one in the immediate area around me but the smile is more for my benefit than anything else. Giving me that one extra thing to concentrate on.

My breathing starts to calm as I continue to use the distraction that is the grass all around me. It is working so I let my fingers brush against it for a few more minutes until my heart rate slows down to a more normal beat. I let out a breath of relief as I feel the air travel smoothly through my mouth and down my throat without any effort being careful not to breath too fast now that I can. As I do not wish to start choking. Right now that is sorted.

I trace a circle in the grass as I take in my surroundings hoping that simple action will keep me calm. Apart from the door straight ahead I see no signs of human influence. I look up and feel another frown appear on my face as I try to squint past the bright light filtering through the leaves of the trees, quite sure that I can see glass or something similar above me. As if this is some sort of greenhouse-like structure. The light however feels very much like the sun but is far too close to be any location on Earth that I know of. Surely if the sun is that close it would burn the trees leaving a desolate dry land instead of the luscious trees and vibrant grass around me.

Looking away, I blink away the black dots in my eyes from staring at the glaring light too long. I go on my knees so I can stand up easier and finally look at my clothing. It's certainly not anything I'd have worn unless I was involved in some sort of live action role playing or going to a convention of some sort. Even then I would probably avoid wearing something like this.

The top for one is far too form fitting, I'm surprised it isn't making me feel anxious with how it molds itself to my body like a corset that molds your body like clay. I move my arms to see if the top restricts my movements at all but I'm happy to say it does not.

My hand flies to the top of my chest when I notice the low cut shape to the top there. If I don't know any better I'd say someone wants to give me a cold. Though it suits me partially since I don't like tops where the neckline is close to the neck. As sadly sometimes that is one thing that can set off random panic attacks. Another thing to add to the long list of things that causes trouble for me.

The pants stretch due to me being on my knees but I can see the seams are taking the strain well. Having been one who use to buy from Primark I sometimes can tell if it's going to last or not. Considering when I did buy from Primark most of the stuff didn't last longer than a few months. I had no idea if they had improved since the last time I shopped there but when I had the products were cheaper than most places due to that I believe.

I never really did much in the clothing except go to college so really I had no idea how long they would have lasted had I done more physical activities during my time in performing arts. In fact I believe had I used them for the next course I tried they would not have lasted even that. Not that they would have been suitable for it.

Due to the bland nature of the clothes I am wearing I deem that they must be mass produced for something that either requires binning them after use, giving them someone else to use or for something like a prison. They are a pale grey colour which makes me hope this isn't some sort of hospital or prison due to the bland look.

Other than my speculations on what they could be for I don't really mind the colour though I would never have chosen both to be the same. It actually nearly makes it look like a one piece. The only thing making it look like two separate parts being the belt around my waist.

Though the trees around me make me think otherwise. I stand slowly with a slight wince when my back stretches a little too much. I sigh as I can't help but feel annoyance at my current situation. Sure I was unharmed and there was no sign of any danger but that would probably change quickly. I glance at the door as I go to one of the trees closest to me. I lay a hand on the bark and run my hand down it. "Seems normal enough." I was half convinced that when I touched it that it was going to feel as alien as the situation I was in. It felt as natural and familiar as those back home, in fact it was sort of a comfort for me in these unfamiliar surroundings.

Now that I think about it the grass had felt pretty normal too. It was just everything else or rather a lack of everything else that made this place so alien to me. I had walked through woods before, hiked up and down mountains but somehow this place defied nature itself. I couldn't quite place it at the moment but something was not right.

I blow a strand of hair out of my face as it falls into the front. I have to say it is times like this when my hair begins to annoy me that I sometimes regret getting it layered years ago. Growing it out after that was a bit of a pain. I sigh as it defiantly lands back in front of my face so I brush it away with my hand this time.

I brush my hand over my hair pausing imagining what it must look like. For it certainly felt like a mess. Hairs had come loose of the braid. I look around to make sure there was indeed only me there before starting to braid it. No way was I about to let it annoy me further as I explore this place. It takes me a few minutes due to my hand cramping in between but I manage to make it neater than before.

As I go closer to the door and continue to check around me I notice that I can still feel the grass. I glance down only to realise I have no shoes on. I wiggle my toes through the green luscious blades knowing that I really should be wearing something. I am prone to standing on things. Though whoever had changed my clothes obviously thought that shoes were not necessary.

A shiver runs down my spine as I feel as if something is there. I look up and see someone in the distance facing away from me but as I begin to move so do they. As I get closer and have to swerve around a tree they are suddenly gone. It is then I realise it should have been technically impossible for that person to be stood there for it would make them further than the door.

It is with this thought that I venture towards the door once I gather the courage to do so.

I walk with careful steps not wanting to be surprised by anything and certainly not be caught unawares after having seen that person. That and I'd rather not hurt my feet if there is something to stand on.

However what was most important is if I don't make much sounds then I can concentrate on hearing other sounds. I subconsciously tap my finger against the side of my leg as I walk. Counting in my head to four as I let a breath out and then counting to four again as I breathe in. I was use to doing this to calm myself and well it was also a nervous habit these days.

My hand itches to hold something to defend myself with, but I am not about to break one of the nice branches on the trees to gain one. Which makes me realise what had seemed odd before. The ground wasn't littered with leaves or anything that would normally be around trees.

I stop at the door at the realisation especially at what catches my eyes. I tilt my body to the left and look beyond the edge of the door with a furrowed brow as I see more trees and grass beyond it. I then tilt my body to the right. Empty air. My right eyebrow raises in disbelief. I know it's possible to have a door there like that but it would require something to keep it standing as it is.

I raise my hand slowly to what should have been a wall if not glass but it simply passes through air. The door itself looks pretty old. It oddly reminds of the doors in castles. Made of wood but this was aged if the looks of it was anything to go by. The wood was discoloured in certain areas as if from use. I let air pass my lips in a sigh as I try to figure out exactly why there was a door in the middle of a wood with nothing keeping it upright. This was logically impossible. However here it was.

So though the door was something of a conundrum I could have spotted someone beyond it. When I look no one is there. It's rather disconcerting knowing that someone had been beyond the door but there is no sign of them having been there. No disturbance in the grass beyond and nothing moving except the branches in the wind.

I crouch to the floor and dig a little at the ground around the door to find the door is simply standing on top of the ground making this all the more illogical. Not that waking up somewhere else is logical. "The hell." I try to work out a possible solution to how its standing there as I let myself fall backwards so I am sitting instead of crouching. I look up at the door in both awe and frustration as it begins to give me a headache trying to work the impossibilities of this situation and the door.

I lie on my stomach facing the door and dig to the point my hands become covered in dirt. I look up expecting the door to be leaning slightly to the side. Nothing. It remains the same. No movement. I sit back again in annoyance. This was both the best and most exasperating thing I have had the pleasure of being confronted with.

"You sir are being very unhelpful." I don't know why I felt the need to talk to the door and make a it into a he but I suppose it was a coping mechanism. My way of dealing with the impossibilities of this whole mess.

I look up at the 'sun' still feeling its light enveloping me like a warm blanket. I bask in that feeling as it is one I was use to during the summers back home. It was something familiar and I could do with any form of familiarity at this moment of time.

The familiarity of the heat leaves me cold as its blown away when I realise something. There was no sound of any life at all. No sound of birds chirping, flies buzzing around. Nothing but the wind brushing through the leaves. No sign of someone else being there. While around me was lush and so full of life when looking at the trees and grass it was like a desolate land at the same time. It was devoid of the very things that would make it lush with life. It was like this place was a living oxymoron. Flourishing and beautiful but has the aspects of a uninhabited wasteland.

Generally I believe this is usually a sign of something bad since wildlife usually only leaves an area if they feel threatened at all, however I had no idea if wildlife had ever existed here so I couldn't go off that. I certainly wish I could but luckily the latter thought helped me calm down a little. I let my eyes look upon the door once more debating whether I should do what you normally do with a door.

Open it.

"You better not be a metaphorical version of Pandora's box." For I certainly did not want to unleash any evils upon myself or the person I believe I had seen.

I suck in a breath as pain shoots up my spine. I really did dislike my back making it sometimes difficult to stand. I didn't have a definitive problem with my back though it did cause me pain and discomfort. I have a feeling that will be the least of my problems sometime soon.

I let my hand take hold of the round golden handle that I didn't notice until now had writing on it. Though I could not make out what it said either it being a different language that I could not recognise or it could be just a simple design. I slowly twist the handle until the door opens with a small click. Making me rethink that bit about it possibly being from a castle. The ones I had been to certainly didn't have anything on it that clicked like that once you opened it. Not the click from a lock nor the click from a normal door. It reminds me more of a click you'd hear when turning something on.

Suddenly the air around me shifts. The door blows open knocking me to the floor making me clutch my arm to my chest from the impact. Then it is as if the force that had flung the door open reverses and I find myself being dragged towards the door. A curse left my lips as I turn trying to get hold of the ground beneath me internally screaming at the pain it causes my arm.

It is then in the distance that I notice another door. One that had not been there before. It's open and someone is being dragged towards it. If that was the person from before how had they gotten behind me without me noticing?

It felt like a mirror effect looking towards that person who was wearing identical clothing and had their hair in the identical braid I had mine in, the same dyed red hair.

As it becomes increasingly harder to keep my grip on the ground I make a decision. I will let go knowing that it is pointless to keep holding on. It was only getting stronger and I rather not have my nails remain in the ground as I am sure would very likely happen if I did not let go. I force my hands to relax even when my instinct is to just grab at the ground again.

As I fly backwards I wonder to myself if this is how it feels to be ripped from the ground by a tornado. Somehow I grab onto the frame of the door when I force myself to realise that I am not the only one going through this. My grip nearly gives way when it jars my injury. It is in that moment that I watch as the same thing happens to her, "someone help us!" My desperate please goes unanswered as does hers. The exact same words, the same tone of voice, the same octave and the same accent. The same emotion inflected in the voice.

My hands hurt as the wind now pulling me begins to feel as if someone flipped the switch to maximum.

Tears prick the corner of my eyes as my panic rises as my brain tells me its illogical to shout out for help when there had been no signs of others other than what had been possibly been my imagination. That it was illogical to hold on as it was inevitable that I'd go through the door. "This whole bloody situation is illogical!" I shout at my own mind yet again hearing the same as before. An echo. I nearly choke on the air that forces itself through the open door to whatever was waiting for me behind.

Don't think I haven't worked it out because I have but... it's harder to face the reality of seeing yourself being dragged by a invisible force through a door than dealing with seeing someone else in the same situation. So that's what I force myself to believe. In the hopes that it will help calm me in any way possible. I know it sounds awful to think that seeing someone else in the same situation could calm you but I have to think of something to stop myself from hyperventilating or worse. Even if later I will probably feel guilt in hoping that there was someone else there with me, in the same situation.

As my fingers lose the grip on the frame I am flung backwards with so much force that I turn in midair. Nearly causing me to be sick but it certainly makes my vision go funny. I no longer saw the other door or its companion as my door slammed shut once I was beyond it.

However I did not take much notice of that as I was now free falling down what looks like a bottomless pit. Darkness envelops me to the point I can not see my own hand in front of my face. I admit that a scream tore from my lips, though it didn't last long. Or maybe I was falling for so long that in fact I had been screaming the whole time and only stopped when I could no longer scream but it felt as if it had only been a few seconds.

I think it was the unknown of what I was falling to that scared me more than the falling itself. Everyone falls at sometime in their life even if the distance of the fall varies. It could be that when you were a kid you fell off your bike or tripped in high school causing you to fall forward. Either way everyone falls at least once in their life. I didn't like heights but somehow this was worse. At least falling back home I'd know where I was falling to. Here I have no clue.

One thought manages to pass my lips as I shout at whoever or whatever had caused this to happen. For surely something had made this happen for if it hadn't I was witnessing a very life like dream turned into a nightmare. "I'm not bloody Alice!" Though I'm sure her fall down the rabbit hole wasn't so bleak.

I don't know how long I was falling for after that but I continue to fall further and further or maybe I thought I was falling but was in fact stationary but then that wouldn't explain the light that is now ahead of me. Or the feel of air brushing against my face and making my hair fly out behind me.

The light below I realise looks like it was coming through red and black clouds or maybe it was water... I honestly have no idea and surprised I had any sense of thought left in my mind after all that had happened up until that moment.

One thought passes through my mind and honestly I rather it hadn't. The red below. The door I had been dragged through. The forest around it. The light bathing me in its heat. It all gave me a sense of limbo though I was sure in limbo you were there for some time. Not that I really knew anything about it except versions from books, shows and movies.

But if it had been limbo then I sure hope what is below me isn't hell. Also the idea of what both meant. I sincerely hope just before I hit the red stuff below that this is just another one of my nightmares where I was falling and just before I hit

whatever was below I woke up with a start with my heart thumping in my chest.

As I get closer to what surely will become my watery grave images I vaguely remember seeing before waking up in the luscious world beyond that door flash before my mind. Some of it looks familiar but the blinding, searing pain it brings with them makes it hard to concentrate.

The illusion of this all being made up is broken as I hit the water. Water comes rushing into my lungs, soaking into my skin. Just as I black out I swear that the water changed colour and that I hear a splash somewhere above me. But that all leaves my mind as fast as I embrace unconsciousness. While the images vanish just as quick the feelings they invoke in me remain like a lingering touch. Fear. Grief. Pain. Anger.

I haven't written something by myself in some time. LeShyWolf read through part of this chapter and helped me get back into the flow of writing so big thank you to her.