Disclaimer: I own nothing what-so-ever you recognise from the Bioshock Playing field.
A.N: Contains spoliers for BS2. This is just something I've been playing about with. Maybe I've posted this before...I cant mind...:P
"Italics"-Think of it as an Audio-Diary recording or memory.
"Bold"-Present event.
MMK?
"In all seriousness, Jane, you would do that for me?"
Twinkling laugher, light and flirtatious.
"But, of course, I have you and for now I am happy with just the two of us…"
A touch, soft and provoking-a flash of pain through his skull sending the air from his lungs-a memory, a dream of a smile.
"…John, I can wait."
~.~.~.~
A shock strikes his spine forcing a groan from his raw throat, his fingers twitch and eyelids flutter; he wakes once again to the covered faces of mad men.
He has not spoken in two weeks or has he eaten, his throat remains raw and his stomach empty. This is no silent protest or determined hunger strike. He does so because it is what they want of him and he has learnt this to be the way of things.
Two weeks pervious, he had been torn from his cell, passive and deteriorated from the threshold of sleep. He was dragged along cold metallic corridors carrying the ever present scent of sterile chemicals to a room he knew all too well.
He had not fought but held his breath and bit his tongue until it bled. He was used to these nightly disturbances, knew what was to happen and what he would be put through. It had been no surprise when he was thrown and held down on some odd yet familiar steel table; it was bolted to the floors securely. He was strapped down and his eyes covered by gloved hands; a needle was forced into his neck sending cold piercing numbness through his throat and down it spread until he had felt nothing but the rough texture of the leather straps binding his bare feet.
The world faded.
And then there had been nothing.
When he woke three days later he found himself back in his cell. His cellmate sat on his own bed facing him with hollow eyes,
"Wish I'd known." He'd said.
"Could have asked for your last words, lad." He told him.
It was then he found his throat black and blue, red and raw from the things they had done to him; his voice had been taken, replaced by moans and a haunting singing, so very like the background noise of a undersea paradise.
His side had burned and after removing his dirty rags he wore he found a freshly healing wound running under his ribcage, the stitching was nice and tidy; it seemed misplaced on his pale flesh. He pulled his clothes back on and ignored the pain and never, never, thought of what they had done.
He never felt the champs of hunger no matter how long he went.
He had not spoken since that day, had not eaten or been removed from his cell.
He waited. They would come.
Any last words?
No, the dead can not speak.
~.~.~.~
"So, what's your name, Kid?"
"The guys here have dubbed me 'Topside', and I say if the bill fits…Well just call me Johnny Topside."
A handsome chuckle and slight laughter.
"Topside, eh? Sure, fits perfectly. I have to tell you, kid, you've done the impossible, we believed Rapture to be a hidden paradise. Yet here you are…quite the something."
"I'm as surprised to be here as you are to see me. But a paradise? Yes…this place truly is something else altogether. The things here…are amazing, its unbelievable ."
"Welcome to Rapture, Topside, you better get used to it."
~.~.~.~
He never got used to it.
The pain.
It seemed their purpose each time was to simply find more extreme and crueler ways to punish him though what he was being punished for he either did not know or had long forgotten. He seemed to forget more each day, every time he was bought from his cell he returned with less. He woke to the faces of strangers now.
But he woke and he told himself that was good enough even if all he did was wake to pain.
A needle is bought forward in slim hands, his head is strapped, the thick band across his forehead holds tight when he tries to slip a glance at the substance inside the glass casing.
He spends his days mostly confused and sometimes in the between hours his own name is a blur. The men who do this, who cause the pain and suffering, watch him with hopeful eyes, sometimes with awe. The man he shares a cell with watches him with fear and repulsion; why, he doesn't know, his days are occupied by unfulfilling activities, some days his feet do not touch the floor at all, during such times he is strapped to machines, needles piercing his flesh, his eyes covered and mouth forced open with tubes and wires.
Their metallic tang and that of his own blood lacing his tongue have become Home.
The pain is mild, he doesn't moan or scream, a low rumble is admitted instead; perhaps in welcome to the mildness. The white-coat steps back, reaches for a chart- the clicking speaks in volumes-and removes himself from the room. He is left to watch the blank monitor above him, hearing only his ragged breathing and blood pumping through his ears.
When in his cell he sits and watches the strange men in lab coats and shining black boots move to and fro, back and forth, thinking they look rather like butterflies fluttering about uselessly looking for purpose-what is his purpose-. There are no flowers here, he tells them in soft moans, only metal and water and pain and blood.
Butterflies live on the surface.
WE belong there.
Home.
But that's nothing but a dream.
~.~.~.~
"What is you name?"
Silence.
"What is your name?"
The soft brush of cloth against skin.
"I will repeat again; What is YOUR name?"
A irrigated sigh.
"If you fail to co-operate, I will be forced to deal you the punish-"
"I'm…"
"Yes? What is your name?"
"I am Subje-…"
"Continue, please or your answer will be taken as incorrect."
A defeated sigh of a man those soul has been taken and tortured.
"I am Subject Delta."
"Very Good."
~.~.~.~
An image flashes across the screen and then there is whiteness and ringing, it happens so fast he takes no notice of it until a harmonious sound calls his attention. The screen is no longer blank, instead a moving image plays silently before him. Transfixed, he watches and feels his eyes drawn to the screen even when he blinks.
In the end, they come again and unfasten his bindings. They watch him and he stares back unblinking, unknowingly emitting a slow whaling.
They take him to his cell, lower him to his frame and he sleeps.
He dreams of a small child's laughter, the humming of butterfly wings and a feeling of pure ecstasy engulfing him in red.
Maybe more?