The Selene Effect - Chapter 1 - 2

Story by Stephen Elmy
Narration by Lisa Indigo

Begin log Selene Shepard 1:

Log... I can remembered when the only logs I knew of were in the forest near our home... Where can I begin... It's been so long... I can barely remember the steps that were taken to 'safeguard my life' as someone once put it.  All I remember back then are fragments of emotions, and even they feel like someone else's... The Malkavian... My life... The rosary... Soe... My old life if you can call what Kindred have a 'life' ended with something I never thought would happen... They let me see Soe...It meant...so much...Soe... Where are you...?  Sorry, it hurts every time I think of Soe now, but more about that later.

After that Selene Liselore De Vries ceased to be, or ceased to matter, I no longer remember... My 'saviours', not knowing how best to rewrite my life, staked me... I no it doesn't kill us... But it still hurts my heart...especially since her… Next I remember I woke up when someone called my name, though it seemed right at the time, it took me a while to realise what happened before someone called me 'Shepard', Selene Shepard.  When I looked in the mirror, it wasn’t quite ‘me’ staring back... Oh they were my piercing red eyes, eyes that had helped me many times to get what I wanted... My red lips, like Vitae and fire, my hair was all red now, didn't bother me, looked good... but I was taller, again, not a problem, height is good... But I had aged... How was that even possible? We kindred don't 'age'... It was explained to me that it was done for my safety, to hide me from my enemies... I don't remember them. 

Selene Shepard was born on April 11th 2154 on Mindoir in the 'Attican Traverse'... Places still alien to me, though they are more beautiful than Amsterdam, and that mattered more than it should have.  Whoever 'remade' me couldn't undo Cain's curse that we Toreador are obsessed by true beauty, though they did somehow plant a hypnotic suggestion in my head.  When Toreador see the kind of beauty I have seen, they can be frozen forever, but when someone says 'shepard', then its like a liberating thaw comes over me, and I'm back in the situation at hand.  I hate being...hypnotized but I'd thank whoever did that to me.  I was told I was in the 'alliance military' which I enlisted in after being saved from slavers who slaughtered my family and friends... That point even though I don't remember it bothers me more than it should have.  What made me laugh though was that I was some medal-gifted hero who saved many under impossible odds, though the odds of how I got here are certainly impossible.

But that's nothing compared to what happened after that.

Once I had adjusted to the fact I was in the future, things flowed smoother.  I was 'assigned' to the 'shakedown' of a revolutionary new spaceship called 'The Normandy'.  I remember when Normandy was just a place in France, but this Normandy put the majesty of France to shame.  For a collection of parts and people, it was a thing of beauty, and I liked the colour.

The Normandy was a new step for humanity, thanks in some part to 'the council', the future's inter-system Camarilla, though the four races involved are a little more varied than back on Earth. And as if part of my Shepard programming, I felt resentful towards them, though them not being Kindred may also have had something do to with it. I was thankfully told I could do things how I wanted to, within reason.  I had to keep my humanity; after all, even in space 'the beast' can take you.  You would have though being space-kindred would be a liability though, but when Cain was cursed, it was on Earth, so the first time I looked at pure starlight, and didn't die as I stepped under an alien sun, then such worries soon departed me.  The only other rules I was given, initially to my disappointment, but made sense if I wanted to keep living, were that I couldn't turn anyone... Fangs would have looked nice on some here though.  I also couldn't feed as I used to, unless they deserved it and only if others weren't conscious, especially given my fangs couldn't be seen by others, another mystery, but I got used to that fast.  But apart from that the universe was Selene Shepard's oyster, and I like oysters... 

Begin log Selene Shepard 2:

Where was I... Oh yes, the Normandy.  I was assigned to it, big project.  We were meant to take a test flight to a colony named Eden Prime, a safe human start-up that was anything but perfection, but nobody deserves what happened to them... It was a massacre in progress when we arrived... I've seen and caused pain in others before, I am Kindred after all; but what happened was so wrong... I went down to try and make sense of the situation, flanked by 2 guys, Kaidan, who I'll talk about later, and someone named...'jenkins' I think... Didn't have time to care about him, idiot was dead before I'd become annoyed by his bravado.  

Anyway where was I again? Oh...As I said, caused pain, all in fun, as a Kindred, but outside of turning humans or 'playing' with them occasionally, we Kindred adhered to The Masquerade, easy way to stay alive... We never messed with the dead... Me and Kaidan met a girl named... Ashley, never liked her; winy, though she could kill well enough, and we watched what is still one the most chilling moments I've ever seen... These two 'robots' were carrying a human... I hoped they were dead... And...they impaled them on this huge spike that shot through their body like a...stake... And if that wasn’t bad enough, when we saw the ‘stake’ retract... The body had become this cybernetic zombie that ran at us... We kept shooting it...and shooting it.  I killed so many of them, but it still bothers me that anyone could do that, even to a Kindred if they wanted to...

Sorry, kindred shouldn't care about that sort of thing but I've never been right about things through the chest since 'The Malkavian'.  We eventually reached the main reason why this whole thing on Eden Prime really mattered: The Beacon; though it was more like spooky obelisk.  And there was an important death… seemed important at the time, but only because of who did the killing... 'Saren'. Didn't know then how much I would hate that name.  Anyway, 'he' got the beacon first. And to think, All the death he caused, was because of it…  Kaidan got too close to it, and it was as if it was alive and wanted him, drawing him towards its cold surface. I instinctively reacted, pushed him out of it's clutches.  Kaidan was worth sparing I thought; but then the beacon grabbed me... And it was like I was back with Malkavian again... The beacon...invaded my mind...forced so many pictures into it...so fast, I thought my head was going to explode...would have been a stupid way for me to die I thought, then it all went black...

Next thing I remember feeling was that I wasn't dead, and that was a enormous relief I can tell you.  I was back on the Normandy being checked out by Doctor Chakwas, who at first I was unnerved by because I thought my lack of heartbeat might blow my status as a human in the eyes of those uninformed of my status as a Kindred; but it turned out she was very much informed, probably assigned to the Normandy by whoever set everything up... So she always played her role well for the others on board, I liked her.  We were ordered to go to 'The Citadel', which I thought would just be some grand building on some planet or other, but when I saw what the Citadel was… And I became very glad of my inbuilt 'get-out-of-curse-free' card... It was truly beautiful, and the stars and everything around it made it look like some ultimate being had split open a perfect tube and found even greater perfection.  It was truly massive and awe-inspiring and made the Normandy and all of us look so insignificant.  We then got to be close enough to touch it... The universe is an amazing place! But it would have to wait, because first came the citadel...and the Council...