9/6/17: There is now a timeline of sorts for the various chapters and stories of Unbroken on my profile page, just an attempt to make it a little easier to see what happens when in relation to other chapters.

"Booker? What are you doing? Book-agh!"

The words ring through her mind and all around her, the young woman cracking open her burning eyes only to find herself in darkness. The words were her own, in her own voice, but she isn't the one to speak them.

"I need to find someone…" A man's voice echoes in the darkness. Must be that 'Booker' fella her voice had called out to. Still lying on her back, she groans in pain, her shoulder throbbing from some unseen wound. She tries to picture the face to go with the name, this 'Booker'. But the face doesn't come, and she lets out a weary sigh, bringing a hand up to her eyes to try and ease the burning. She only finds a hard metal mask covering her face and thick canvas cowl wrapped around her head, mouth and nose.

"So what's your name, anyway?" Booker again, the young woman opening her mouth to speak as she yanks on the canvas covering her mouth, her other hand trying to find whatever straps holds the mask in place. Something about the voice sounds familiar, but she still can't quite place him.

"I'm…" for some reason, she hesitates, a distant part of her thoughts wondering why, "My name is… my name…" Panic seeps into her mind as she realizes she doesn't know, the mask refusing to leave her face as she starts tugging frantically only adding to her growing fears, "Who am I?!"

"I need to find someone… someone dear…" Booker's voice again, visions of a girl flashing before her eyes, first of only her face before revealing more. She wears a blue dress that's oddly familiar to her, with dark brown hair and eyes as deep and blue as the ocean. Eyes seemingly filled with sadness. Words buzz around in her thoughts as she looks upon this girl.

"Miss… Lamb? Is that me? Is that my name?" Still struggling to rip the mask from her face, she feels a scowl coming on, "No, don't feel right…" The one Booker searches for, it must be her.

The girl disappears, replaced by a sight of a room somewhere in the factory. Near the airship docks, her mind registers, wondering how she knows that but not her name. Daisy Fitzroy, the woman she looks up to and leader of the Vox Populi, speaks with a redheaded man and woman as a man and boy kneel behind her, bound and helpless. Fink and his son, she realizes with disgust; Fink had much to pay for, though she doesn't quite know why.

"Damned visions, why am I seeing these things? Why can't I remember who I am?"

She can't comprehend why she knows where this is or who these people are, only that she does, and doesn't care either way. She just wants the mask off, now. "Hnnngg!" She screams through grit teeth as she tries to pull the metal prison from her face, but no matter how hard she pulls, the unyielding second skin refuses to give. Even worse, she finds she can't rise from the ground, only her head and arms obeying her will. A sigh slips from between her lips, redoubling her efforts to rip the mask from her face.

"… but, I will not hurt the boy. I will see Fink and Comstock burn, but I will not hold the son to account for the deeds of his father." She only half hears Daisy speaking as she struggles, panic strengthening her determination to rid herself of this stifling metal tomb.

"You mean I won't live to see the…" Daisy heaves a shuddering sigh, "No…" Daisy's voice shakes her from her panic, somehow getting her to focus, though she still misses the twins' initial retorts… something about a play.

"Someone is coming." The man speaks.

"She'll arrive a girl." The woman, no, sister continues.

"She must leave a woman." The brother finishes.

"Daisy… didn't want this… this bloodshed?" A fragment of memory returns, of overhearing Daisy speak into a voxophone about mercy, before visions of the people that she, Daisy and their Vox comrades had killed, the rage and hate she'd felt for all of them turning her stomach.

"Turn the girl into a killer, how?" Daisy shoots back, her voice harsh even as she acquiesces to the twins.

"Give the girl no choice," the brother… Robert, her mind grasps.

"And she'll be forced to make one." The sister, Rosalind. Lutece, her mind adds again, though she hasn't the slightest as to why. As she looks on, watching the twins disappear and Daisy march out of the room with a look of resignation on her face, she groans at the revelation. Reluctantly, she returns her thought to the obstinate mask and to ripping it from her face once and for all. She can't let herself think about how misguided she'd been, nausea already threatening to overtake her.

The image before her shifts for only a second, and she shouts in surprise; the girl from before, dressed in a white blouse and covered in blood. The shock on the girl's face, her realization of what she'd done… both gnaw at the prone, confused woman, she unable to reconcile this vision of the girl with the other. She very nearly retches in her mask, barely holding it in.

"Who am I?! Why can't I remember… why am I seein' these visions… this girl?!"

"Tear sickness…" Booker's voice again, and somehow she understands what those words mean. Her memories, they were nearly erased by passing through a Tear… by entering another world. Something she has no business knowing, yet she does.

"Tear… why do I know that word?" She sees a city beneath the sea, hears Booker speaking to Robert Lutece, and hears the girl singing some song she doesn't know. She sees through Booker's eyes as he holds his baby girl before leaving for this underwater city. Thoughts and events she shouldn't, rather, couldn't know, yet she does.

And then the visions melt away, transforming into a memory she's certain that, for once, is her own. She finds herself in a one-room shack, dirty and in sore need of repair, a single lamp lighting the room. She sees a woman lying on a bed, staring right at her, signs of sickness clear on her pallid face.

"Abby…" the woman motions her forward weakly, barely able to lift her hand to do so, "come… come sit with me one las' time, love."

She couldn't have been more than five. They were living in a shack in Finkton, just another poor and hungry Irish family left to fend for their own. Her Da had been a mechanic down below, but the tiniest mistake had drawn the ire of the foremen, and they'd thrown him from the machines he'd loved down to toiling as a menial laborer. And her Ma… her mother come down with something, and when she and her Da went to beg the company to send a doctor, they'd just laughed in their faces. Fink had been in the office that day, and shrugged off her family's plight with an indignant laugh. Her father hadn't the courage to face her like this, and so she sat alone with her.

And now her Ma lay in bed, a mere shadow of her former self wasting away, struggling to form one last smile. She fights to raise her hand, pale and thin from sickness.

"I… I'm sorry, your Ma canna' stay with ya anymore…" Rasping coughs wrack her body. Just speaking took a toll on her mother, and she watches as her five-year old self pulls the stool up to her bedside. She takes her mother's shaking hand with her own small ones, struggling to keep the tears from falling.

"Don't… don't cry, mah sweet girl… I'm goin' to a better… a better home. I'll always be watchin', so promise me…" She feels her mother's hand tighten ever so slightly around hers, "promise your Ma, that you'll always be a good girl. That… that you'll be strong, and kind. That you'll watch… watch over your Da…" Her mother manages a weak smile, a tear rolling down her cheek, and she feels tears of her own as her younger self starts crying in earnest.

"My dear, sweet Abigail…" And with that, she was gone, the smile slowly fading from her face.

The memory shatters before her eyes, shining specks of golden light drifting around her as she chokes back a sob. A mirror hovers in its place, and as she looks up at herself, the hated mask shatters as well, the cowl unravelling and falling away. She finally gets a good, long look at herself.

Long red hair lays beside her in a ponytail, blue eyes staring back at her, not at all dissimilar from the eyes of the girl she'd seen. She wears a stolen blue uniform, a short white cape of some kind resting beneath her, the red of the Vox Populi on arm and shin guards. Tears stream down her fair cheeks, and she covers her face while wishing it all away even as she affirms who she is, "I'm Abigail of the Vox…"

Booker's voice appears one last time in the darkness, "Goodbye, Abigail. And… thanks for all the help."

"Abigail? Wake up… c'mon already, wake up!"

Her eyes crack open as someone shakes her shoulders, staring up at the woman calling her name. Confusion in deep brown eyes, brown hair pulled back in a bun, a face she's certain she knows. The name comes to her a second later, a hint of a lopsided smile tugging at her lips.

"Vivian?"

"Oh, thank God…" Vivian Monroe stares back at her, formerly of Columbia's military before joining the Vox Populi and her good friend, worry thick in her voice.

"What happened… guh." Pushing herself upright, Abigail feels a wave of nausea, barely able to keep her stomach in check as she utters a half-hearted groan. Her eyes feel raw, and as she rubs them she finds she's been crying. "No surprise there…" she mutters quietly; given what she'd just seen, a touch of tears certainly wasn't about to make her wonder.

"We brought you here after that Founder bastard escaped. Some of the squads are still looking for him, but I'm just glad he didn't hurt you worse…"

"Booker wasn't the one that shot me…" She bites back the retort, letting it run in her mind before glancing at her shoulder, only to find the wound bandaged up nicely. But a simple flesh wound is the least of her problems; strange memories that she hadn't experienced swim in her mind. Memories that she's sure doesn't belong, but is equally sure belong to an Abigail somewhere. Memories of another life, as an older woman living in the city beneath the sea she'd seen where she'd had a family of her own, and supported them as best she could. She'd been a singer, performing on a handful of small stages in dimly lit lounges, cigar smoke thick in the air. She can almost smell the smoke as she focuses on the memories. The last stage lingers in her mind, the name on the tip of her tongue. "Satyr?"

"Abigail! What… what happened to you?"

A splitting headache begins to pound in her skull, and she feels warmth running down her lip, blood trickling from her nose. She touches two fingers to it to see if this was real, and her mind fills in the blanks as she looks upon the red staining her fingertips. "I'm… I'm fine, Viv. Just… just get me somethin' to wipe this up…"

As Vivian runs off, Abigail hangs her head, clutching her skull as unwelcome memories march through her mind. She understands, but doesn't know how she understands; before today, she knew nothing of Tears, Tear sickness, the effect of entering a world where another you died… they're mindboggling. While she's a deft hand with wrenches, spanners and machines, one of the few things her father had taught her, a learned woman she isn't. Learning like that isn't easy to come by in Finkton.

Finkton. Shantytown. Whatever you call it, the place is somewhere dreams go to die and the downtrodden to huddle together. Her Ma died there because the company decided she wasn't worth calling a doctor for. Her Da still gorges himself with cheap booze, trying to drown the loss of his love and his cowardice in the face of her death.

"Hold on just a second…" Sitting cross-legged quietly atop her cot, something clicks in her mind, Abigail lifting her head, "How am I even whole? Tear sickness… is supposed to completely jumble your memories…" She shakes her head, trying to put the question from her mind; why is she trying to figure out something she shouldn't even know? "My head's jumbled 'nough as is, best not to linger…"

"Here you go, Abby." Vivian appears at her side once more, a red cloth and cup of water in hand. Somehow, it reminds her of the mask she'd desperately wanted off, Abigail shuddering as she takes it from her friend. No sooner had she thought of the mask came to mind than she spies it; sitting near the foot of her cot with the rest of her gear, the yellow gleam of the metal sends a chill down her spine.

Quickly averting her eyes, Abigail glances around the room, trying to take her mind from her muddled memory. She sits in one of the side rooms in the factory, in Fink's 'work' area, converted into a makeshift infirmary. Cots line the floor, a wounded Vox soldier in each. Most had been knocked unconscious by the previous intruder, but a few had been shot or burned by the man she'd met.

"Booker." She groans into her hand again as the name crosses her mind. Not the Martyr Daisy and the others had looked up to, but the Booker she'd met. A few of his experiences seem to be caught up in the mix of her muddled, disjointed memories. An image of his daughter, others of the girl, the city she'd seen…

"The girl…?" Something about her nags at Abigail's thoughts, trying to come to the surface. "Booker's looking for a girl… could it be…?" She hadn't been in the area when the lady intruder had come through, so she couldn't be sure… but it makes sense somehow.

"Abigail, I've got to tell you… Preston Downs is on his way, and he wants some answers."

"Downs? Why? What happened to Daisy…?" She falls silent, remembering the vision of Daisy with the twins. Daisy and the others had made her feel welcome when she joined the Vox, she feeling like she finally belonged again. And yet, Daisy was resigned to sacrifice herself for a girl she didn't know at the behest of a curious pair of twins, for the sake of their revolution. The 'play' as the twins called it.

"Abigail… she's… Daisy's gone. She was stabbed through the heart. By Comstock's Lamb…"

"Wh-what? The Lamb?" Abigail stares back at her friend, trying to comprehend what she'd said; Comstock's daughter, the Lamb of Columbia and child of prophecy had been the one to kill Daisy. She's the one the Lutece's needed to make a woman? That she'd be the one to bring down the Prophet… her father?

"Downs has taken command, and he's intent on getting revenge for Daisy. We're to kill anyone who gets in our way, and to shoot on sight if we see that imposter Booker DeWitt or the Lamb."

"No…" Abigail turns away from Vivian as the word crosses her mind, "This Booker… can't be the same Booker, yeah?" A sigh parts her lips, seeing the memories that Booker had somehow left her, "I think… they're likely linked…"

"Little miss Abigail!"

The doors to the makeshift infirmary bursts open, Preston E. Downs stepping through with a quartet of armed guards, "We need to have a talk, little lady!"

Abigail winces at the booming voice, attempting to keep her expression neutral as Downs and his bodyguards storm up to her; she never cared for Downs, the man's bluster and bravado rubbing her the wrong way from the moment they'd met, and the confusing memories swirling through her mind doesn't help any. His tendency to call her 'little lady' or 'little miss' always had her grinding her teeth, the condescending tone he uses making her want to rip that mustache right off his smug face.

He still wears his Columbian military uniform, no different from Viv's or her stolen one, except for the fact that someone took a brush and red paint to it. Two red streaks run from his right shoulder to left hip, a display of Vox colors even less subtle than the cowl and hood she and Vivian wore in battle.

"Now," Downs drags a chair up to her cot and swings a leg over, straddling it like a horse as he looks down at her, "Ah' hear you went an' took a bullet fer that Founder you were with? Why would you go and do somethin' like that?"

He crosses his arms on the chair back, staring at her. For once, Abigail finds all eyes on her, and she can't help but squirm a little; Preston, his guards, the Vox tending the injured and even the conscious wounded watch her, suspicion of her loyalties plain in their eyes. Only Viv looks at her differently, though in her eyes Abigail sees confusion.

"I didn't mean to…" Her throat feels like sandpaper, dry and scratchy, and she takes a deep pull from her cup. The room had fallen silent, and she needs a minute before continuing, "He took me hostage, and I was tryin' to keep him from gettin' away."

They stare at each other in silence, Abigail not daring to blink as the new leader of the Vox Populi twiddles his mustache. Whatever's going on in Downs' head, Abigail's sure she wants no part of it, especially after what Vivian had told her.

"Is that so?" Downs' voice breaks the silence. She sighs carefully as a murmur fills the room, most of her audience now turning to other matters, the tension in the room noticeably easing even though Downs still stares at her.

Stroking his oversized mustache, Downs continues watching her, Abigail shifting in place as she stares back at him. "The men that got a good look at the Founder say he looks just like the False Shepherd. But I'm sure you got a better look at 'im than any of 'em, though, and we know the False Shepherd was on the First Lady when he nabbed you and ran off."

"Is he testing me?" Abigail fights the urge to snap at him as she thinks it, swallowing a groan and downing the rest of her water while idly wishing for more, her throat still dry and raw, "He looked like Booker DeWitt, but also looked some years younger. Don't know who he was, he never said his name."

They stare at each other still, the rest of the Vox going about their business around them, leaving Vivian to glance between her and Downs. "There'll be rivers of blood with this fool in charge…" Abigail grimaces as the thought crosses her mind, the grimace turning into a scowl when Downs smirks at her, "Daisy wanted a revolution an' to bring down the oppressors, but this… I don't think she wanted ta' turn us into bloodthirsty murderers…"

"Alright!" Downs jumps to his feet, she passing from his attention in a heartbeat, "Everyone that can walk n' carry a gun, we're moving out! We're headed for Emporia, men, an' we're gonna avenge ourselves on Comstock, the Founders, and the False Shepherd and the Lamb!"

A cheer thunders in the cramped infirmary, even from Vivian, though Abigail fails to join in, something her friend notices. As the other Vox follow Downs out of the room, Vivian turns to her, "Abby, what's wrong? You were chomping at the bit to go kill some Founders earlier."

All she can do is shrug and shake her head; Vivian truly believed in the Vox Populi, and now that Daisy had set them on this course and with Preston Downs urging them on, there's little she can do to explain to her friend why she wasn't so keen on this. If she hadn't seen Daisy and the Lutece twins, hadn't met Booker, she'd probably be just as eager to gun down any Founder that crosses her path.

"Nothin'. Let's go."

"Little lady! One of the barge's pilot machine is busted. You know how to fly 'em proper, yeah?" Downs shouts from down the hall, Abigail wincing once more, "Get it in gear, your squad's goin' to drop munitions at Port Prosperity before headin' to Emporia! You'll be marchin' on Market Street! Vivian, you're headed to Harmony Lane!"

Abigail and Vivian share a sigh, the latter grinning at her, "Well, you heard the man." Abigail gives her friend a good long look as she dons her cowl and mask, only averting her eyes when Vivian fits her mask in place. "Stay safe, Abigail, and I'll see you on the other side."

"You too, love…" She waits until Vivian is well gone before climbing to her feet. The muffled sound of her friend's voice reminds her of the visions, of her own mask that would not come loose. She shudders again, pondering what the vision of the mask shattering to reveal her face could mean.

"Booker. The girl. Daisy and the Luteces." She mutters to herself as she holsters her Paddywhacker Hand Cannon, "Why do I have these memories of his? I…" The memories of her other self don't bother her nearly as much, those she understands well enough and even sort of enjoys now that she's figured them out. But Booker's… she only senses sorrow in them.

Abigail falls silent as she reaches for her cowl and mask, the sight of its golden surface and glowing red, hateful eyes triggering a wave of revulsion. She thinks back to the memory of her mother, of her life in the other world, and of the people she'd killed since the revolution started. Tears run down her cheeks, and she clamps a gloved hand over her mouth to suppress a sob.

"Ma would be so ashamed." She draws a knife from her boot, the same knife Booker had missed and she'd used to cut her bonds, slicing a long red strip from the cowl, "I can't disappoint her again…"

Wrapping the red strip around her right arm, somehow feeling it proper, Abigail hurries to join her squad as she swears a quiet oath, "I won't lose my way again, Ma. Once I get my head straight, figure why these things are in my memory, I'm gonna have a chat with that fool Downs."

Author's Note: Welp, here's the beginning of Abigail's story, something I've been hinting at in The Absent Twin and in other pieces. Smack dab in the middle of the Vox Populi uprising, with Booker and Elizabeth running around somewhere, where do you think this is going? As usual, I welcome any comments in messages or reviews, and thanks for reading. I'm also looking for a better cover image, but there's not much in the way of fanart for Vox soldiers.