A/N: Alright folks, here's my contribution to the Mass Effect self-insert community. Let me clear some things up: Firstly, any and all people who like to leave flames can go jump in a lake. I would prefer constructive criticism, and if you don't like the story, no one is forcing you to read it. Also, I apologize if anyone in the story is out of character. If they are, tell me and I'll try to fix it.

Strange Pathways

Chapter 1

"Julian," came my dad's voice, jolting me out of sleep. "Time to get up for school!" My eyes cracked open, and I groaned inwardly before answering.

"Coming!" I answered, yelling to make sure I'm heard. I swung myself out of bed and rubbed my face. For some odd reason, I felt like shit; as if I had just pulled an all-nighter reading fan-fiction or playing video games or something like that, which was really weirding me out, considering that that wasn't something I did, especially not on a school night. That wasn't the only thing either; I also had this strange indescribable feeling that something was just not right.

Staggering to the upstairs bathroom, I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked like shit too. My blond hair stuck out in several directions at once, and my grey eyes had dark circles below them underneath my glasses.

After my morning shower, I changed into clean clothes and went for breakfast, still feeling weird. "Morning," I greeted my dad. He said the same back to me.

...

The rest of the morning went as it always did: I ate, made my lunch, made my autistic younger brother get up (as usual, he had fallen back to sleep after being called, brushed my teeth, and read fan-fiction until it was time to go out and wait for the bus to arrive.

School went as usual. I coasted through English, Social and the first half of Math, ate lunch and talked with my friends, twiddled my thumbs through the rest of Math, continued working on the painting I had started on the wall in the Art classroom, ran out of green paint for said painting, talked with my friends some more as I waited for the end-of-school bell, got on the bus, and left. Throughout the day, I still had the niggling feeling in the back of my mind that something was wrong, or like I was being watched.

Once I got home, I went out to chop wood. I don't know why I do it; we have a nice large stack of firewood already, and we can't really use the woodstove in the spring and summer anyway. I guess it helped me clear my head. I focused entirely on the dull thunks of the axe hitting the logs I was splitting, and the rhythmic swinging as I cut into the wood.

I was going back to the pile of uncut logs to get another piece to split, and I noticed something odd when I picked up a log. A metal sphere, about the size of a soccer ball, peeked out from under the pile, where I had removed the log. What the hell?

I leaned the axe against the stump I had been using as a chopping block, dropped the log with it, and reached out a hand tentatively to touch the sphere.

The surface looked like liquefied steel, and it pulsed when I picked it out of the woodpile, causing me to jump back. Then a faint green glow began to emit from the sphere, along with a low hum. Oh shit, that can't be good.

Several tendrils of green energy lanced out from the sphere and enveloped me. Feeling a tingling sensation in my arm, I held up a hand to look at it, feeling horror as I saw the green energy seeming to dissolve it or something. I saw my hand becoming less and less solid, like I was turning into a ghost. Looking down, I saw the same thing happening all over my body through the green haze. As my sight began rapidly fading, I saw a tall figure in black, futuristic armor come out of nowhere and pick up the sphere. My vision went dark.

What the fuck is going on?

...

"-ey! Hey, you alright?" A hand touched my shoulder and lightly shook me.

My eyes slitted open briefly, then screwed back up at a bright light. My parents didn't wake me up like that . . .

Suddenly, everything rushed back to me, and I sat bolt upright from where I had been laying, eyes opening wide. I immediately felt nauseous, but the feeling passed. What the fuck happened? I was in my yard, chopping wood, when I found some metal sphere that hit with me with some sort of energy and did something to me. And where am I? This isn't home, and it doesn't look like any place I've been to.

A hand came to rest on my shoulder, and a strangely familiar flanging voice asked, "You okay? You've been unconscious for a few minutes. A pedestrian saw you and called for help." I looked over in the direction of the voice, and jolted back. There was a frigging Turian from Mass Effect crouching next to me! And it wasn't just any Turian. I recognized that blue facepaint and eyepiece. It was Garrus!

. . . Okay, this is seriously fucked up. Wicked cool, but fucked up.

"Whoa, there. You shouldn't move around too much; you could hurt yourself." Garrus cautioned.

I nodded slowly. "Where- where am I?" I rasped, my voice hoarse and throat dry.

Garrus seemed to look oddly perplexed, but I wasn't sure. "The Citadel, of course," he answered slowly. "The Presidium, to be specific." He looked hard at me; I felt like a mouse being stared down by a hawk. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I lied. "I was just a bit disoriented, that's all." I debated asking him the year, but did not want to seem any more weird than I probably already did.

"Okay," Garrus said. He didn't look convinced, but seemed to let it go. "Take care of yourself." And with that he started walking away. Turning back for a moment, he added, "If you feel you need something, just come up to C-Sec and ask for Officer Vakarian."

"That's you?" I asked, playing dumb.

"Yeah," Garrus answered. "Stay out of trouble." he said, then walked off.

I sat there for a few minutes and thought. Okay, I'm in the Mass Effect universe. I know that I'm on the Citadel, but I don't know what year it is. The first Mass Effect game is set in 2183, so I should probably figure out whether it's before, during, or after those events. The best way to do so would probably be to go talk to Avina, so I should look for a terminal, over... there!

I got up and walked over to the Avina terminal, and activated it. The vaguely creepy Cortana-ish hologram popped up.

"Greetings and welcome to the Presidium. My name is Avina, and I am pleased to be your virtual guide throughout this level of the Citadel space station." she/it greeted me. Oh god, I hate this VI already . . .

"What's the date?" I ask, cutting to the chase. "In Earth time, please."

"It is June 14th, 2178 in Earth time."

. . . Fuck. So not only am I somehow in the Mass Effect universe, where there are homicidal machines that want to grind us up into paste to make more of themselves, I got here 5 years early. Great, now I have to survive for 5 freaking years before I even have a chance at helping Shepard out. Fuck my life.

I walked away from the Avina terminal and toward . . . actually, I didn't really know where I was going, and didn't really care. I got into an elevator. Maybe I'd just wander aimlessly for a while, see the sights. It's not like you ever really saw much of the Citadel in the games.

...

A frustratingly long elevator ride and some more wandering later, I found myself in a pretty much deserted neighborhood. There wasn't anyone around, which was weird considering how many people there were in other places. I found myself idly wondering how many Quarians the Migrant Fleet would be able to pack in this place. Probably a few hundred, maybe more.

A flicker of movement in the corner of my eye interrupted my musing. I spun around to look where I had seen the movement, but there was nothing there. Or was there? I spotted what looked like... was that the barrel of a rifle?

. . . Aw, hell n-

A stinging pain in the side of my neck cut me off. I pawed at my neck, and feeling a cylindrical object, pulled it out and looked at it. It was a dart. I threw the dart away, vision already swimming, and then my knees gave out. I collapsed on the ground, feeling really, really tired.

My last thoughts before blacking out were simple: What the fuck?

A/N: So, first chapter is finished, do tell me what you all think of it. No flames please, or I shall be forced to come after you with some implement of killing with lots of blades and pointy bits. Ciao!