“

Examining the strange Prothean artifact reveals a small, irregular slot on the underside of the surface. Remembering the strange trinket you received from the asari Consort on the Citadel, you pull it out and place it into the slot. The ball explodes in a brilliant flash of white light, momentarily blinding and disorienting you.

***

Slowly your senses return as you wake from a deep sleep. You are alone in the forest, though you are not far from the caves you share with the others of your tribe. There is a pain and a small lump in the back of your skull, as if a chip of flint has been forced under the surface of the skin.

Leaning on your bone-tipped spear for support, you rise to your feet. A sound draws your attention upwards, where a strange creature hovers high above you. It is unlike the birds you hunt by the lake's edge - it has no head and no wings yet somehow it flies. It is a beast of shining silver; hanging motionless in the sky like a cloud. You sense it is watching you, studying you.

Raising a hairy fist, you shake your spear at it in anger and the creature rises up quickly until it disappears from view. With a satisfied grunt you make your way back to your caves and the rest of the tribe.

You fall into the familiar patterns of life - the hunt for food, the struggle to claim and keep a mate, the battles against other tribes that would claim your territory. Days roll into nights and back into days. Each time you rise from sleep there is the sensation that you are not alone; that some "other" is with you sharing all you see, hear and feel. At these times your hand goes to the strange lump at the back of your skull and you remember the silver creature in the sky.

The air grows colder, winter falls. You must range farther for food, clutching the furs tight against you to ward off the chill. It is on one of these long hunts that the strange bird returns. You hear it before you see it, its call a deafening roar as it descends from above, swooping down on you. A single great eye opens on the underbelly, a glowing red orb. You try to run, but a finger of red light extends from the eye and engulfs you, and all goes black again.

You wake an instant later to find yourself on Eletania lying on your back, the Prothean artifact looming above you undamaged and your companions standing over you. They help you to your feet, puzzled. "There was a flash of light and you just sort of toppled over," one explains. "Are you okay, Shepard?" the other asks.

You don't answer right away, wondering at the implications of what you have seen: the memories of a Cro-Magnon hunter, captured by an implanted Prothean data recorder. How long did they study the primitive humans, observing them and analyzing the results at their base on Mars? And what, if anything, did they learn from us?