Welcome to yet another one-shot and my very first fan fiction in the Binding of Issac fandom!
As stated in the summary, this fanfic contains major spoilers for the final ending of the game (meaning the last ending obtained in Afterbirth+). If you do not wish to be spoiled, then turn back.
As a warning, Binding of Isaac is a tragic and morbid game, so this fanfic is a sad one. It's also worth noting that this one-shot deals with a character's death. If you find either of these things distressing, then you might want to skip reading this fic.
See the author's notes for more details, and I do not own Binding of Isaac.
Grave
Miles of darkness stretched out in front of him. The only thing he could feel was a floor as hard as stone.
Vaguely, he could make out walls enclosing him within his prison. He originally guessed the walls and floor were gray, but now he wasn't too sure anymore.
There wasn't a sound, save for his own labored breathing.
His only other companions were the watery tears that stained his face. He thought he cried them out long ago, but somehow but they kept coming. At first, he flinched at the sticky feeling they created, but he'd long since grown numb.
He should have been freezing. He hadn't had proper clothing in goodness knows how long. In the beginning, he had shivered, crawling into this pitch black box.
Yet now, cold meant nothing as he lay curled up within this basement chest.
But that didn't stop his body from reacting anyway.
His vision spun, like a toy out of control. A piercing headache slammed into him like a locomotive. Try as he might, there was no way of focusing on the area in front of him.
Yet some things couldn't be more vivid.
As his vision blurred, Isaac remembered.
He had been smiling, genuinely smiling.
What had he been doing? Was he playing with his toys? His cat?
Oh, he'd been drawing.
Isaac remembered his pencil danced as he drew. The noise of graphite against paper was music to his ears.
But what was he drawing that day?
A dog? A duck?
No.
It was a house. His house.
Their house.
The house that he and his family had lived in before… Everything.
Yes, everything that went wrong.
It was when Isaac was drawing that house that he heard the first sign of trouble.
The screams and howls of his parents pierced his ears. Isaac could barely make out what they were saying, but it couldn't have been good. Upstairs, he heard glass breaking.
Was anyone hurt?
Should he go check?
No, it was too dangerous. And scary. Mom and Dad were like completely different people after they fought upstairs. It was best to stay away.
But what if they were fighting… because of him?
No, that couldn't be. If he did something wrong, one of them would tell him. And of course he would fix it.
Yes, it was best just to wait.
Isaac carefully placed his drawing and pencil on a table.
The paper beheld a simple picture, consisting of a tiny house and tree.
Giant, capitalized, bolded letters shouted a message written above the picture.
We lived here.
As Isaac turned and his parents' quarrels filled his ears, he doubted that was true.
Isaac's vision swam, like the tears that flowed freely down his face.
The tears and the breathing were joined by the pounding of his heart. Isaac didn't know a bullet's speed, but he was sure his booming heart moved faster.
The headache persisted, yet Isaac still felt nothing.
Instead, more memories flashed before his eyes.
Isaac had peeked into the living room that day. He wanted to ask his mother about… something.
Isaac recalled that his mother would be in the living room, watching her strange shows about God.
So into the living room he'd tiptoed.
Yet he wasn't greeted by the television blaring.
Instead, the sound of his mother's deafening, howling sobs reached his ears.
Isaac's request was all but forgotten as he learned one thing that day.
His father had left them.
There must've been fighting about him the day he drew the house. There was just no other reason.
Which meant everything was his fault.
That drawing… Where had he put it…?
Maybe it was better he didn't remember. Its message didn't mean anything now.
Swimming became drowning. Drowning in the flood of tears he'd created.
Issac couldn't see much of anything now, as blackness obscured his vision. His heart thudded so loud and fast that he thought it was running some sort of race. Isaac's harsh breathing quickened, not to be outdone.
The present slowly slipped away, yet Isaac could still think back.
Fire roared in his ears as Isaac held up the remains of a charred photo. It looked like it was about join the many other photos tossed carelessly into a chest.
Yet Isaac had managed to save it, broken though it was.
Why did he save the photo that day?
It was just like all the others that were being burned.
Somehow, he couldn't resist the urge to look at it.
Three people beamed back at him.
The first two Isaac recognized as himself and his mother.
Yet the third person in the picture was mostly missing, burned away by the wrathful flames.
Isaac shuddered.
Even though there wasn't much left in the picture, he could recognize his father too.
Could he have done something different?
Could he have stopped his parents from fighting so much?
Could he have made his mother happy, so his father wouldn't have to leave forever?
Yes.
He should have done something different.
He should have stopped his parents from all their horrid fighting.
He should have made his mother happy, and then his father wouldn't have had to leave.
But he hadn't done anything.
And now his father was gone, leaving his mother in constant sorrow.
And it was all Isaac's fault.
Isaac could feel his breathing slow, and his heartbeat continued to sprint its race. He didn't think there was anything left in him, but his tears would not stop their march.
The present world was fading and darkness completely overtook Isaac's vision.
Yet he still had one last part of the past to cling to.
A gallery of pictures the lined the walls. The first, Isaac's family happy and whole. The little house and tree he had drawn hung below it. The drawing below that one showcased Isaac with his cat. The love for the animal couldn't be more pronounced, as the drawing contained a heart at the top. Isaac and the cat both held joyful smiles, with the drawing depicting them frolicking together.
And his father…
Isaac's father…
He may have left, but the drawings made sure he was still seen. And there he was, playing tag with a young Isaac. Like the cat, Isaac and his father beamed as they played.
The drawings depicted a time of innocence.
But there was a moment when the innocence is lost forever.
And that was when Isaac's thoughts turned down different paths.
His drawings followed.
One showed a time similar to the day he'd seen his mother cry. Like that time, Isaac had peeked into the living room.
He didn't remember why he decided to go there, but he would never forget the sight of his parents fighting. The screams again pierced his ears, but this time, it was as though they never stopped.
It must not have, because then Isaac's father left.
Isaac remembered crawling into the toy chest, looking for something to ease his pain. He'd suddenly remembered his old hobby of playing dress-up, and dug for whatever he could find. Isaac finally came out with a small wig, and promptly put it on.
For the first time in a while, he smiled.
Perhaps he could make things right by being someone else.
And so the drawing depicted that day, and for a while, Isaac's plan seemed to work.
Isaac and his mother now lived alone, but they grinned ear to ear in the photograph on the wall.
Despite his father leaving, the situation remained cheerful.
Until…
Until…
Isaac realized one day that his mother could hurt him.
He wasn't entirely sure what led to the change.
Only that one day his mother's smile twisted with rage.
And Isaac's father wasn't around.
So it must've been his fault.
The drawing portrayed his mother's ire, but all Isaac could think of that day was himself.
He hadn't watched much of his mother's shows. However, Isaac knew that there was a devil in the shows, and that the devil was evil.
Making his parents fight… causing his father to leave… Provoking his mother's ire… And doing nothing to stop any of that…
There was no way he couldn't be evil.
Therefore, he was the devil.
There was no clearer depiction of that devil than the shadowy figure in the next drawing. With its pitch-black wings and glowing red eyes, it glared down at the rest of the gallery.
This creature in the drawing was almost as unsettling as the words scrawled on the walls. Phrases such as "I'm bad!" And "I'm the devil!" littered the place. The phrases screamed their message with large black and red letters. Ominously, they covered almost the entire area.
In the center of it all, a single drawing of a pentagram.
And at the end of the gallery, the logical conclusion.
Isaac knew he was the devil from his mother's shows.
And the devil would destroy his mother.
Isaac closed his eyes. The world faded completely.
The next time someone approached the chest, only bones remained.
As the chest was opened, sunlight streamed through.
The dazzling sunlight lit up the bones, announcing Isaac's fate to the world.
Outside, a ragged missing poster wore his face. The poster blew in the wind, before finally being torn from the tree it was nailed to.
Of course, there was no need for that anymore.
For Isaac had entered a place where no one could find him.
Now he roamed around, shadows at his back. Gray, hilly, landscape seemed to stretch on forever. Trees devoid of their leaves could be seen everywhere he looked. An ashen sky presided over everything.
Yet he continued walking.
Isaac didn't know exactly where he was, but he knew he'd left his grave.
Author's notes:
- I've always been morbidly fascinated with this ending, so I decided to novelize it. This ending has a few interpretations. These are the ones I went with:
-In the game, the player (mostly) plays Isaac dressed up in different costumes. There is no explanation in the game for why he dresses up, but I thought would make sense for him to enjoy dressing up and do it as a hobby.
-One theory is that Isaac believes his parents were fighting about him, and feels guilty when they break up. I went with this interpretation for his character.
-The idea that the photographs were burned in the fire comes from the fact that when the ending plays, there is the sound of fire burning as Isaac holds the photograph.
-It's not explicitly stated who opens the chest for the final time. Therefore, I deliberately left it ambiguous. It is also not stated where Isaac ends up after he dies, so this story leaves that ambiguous too.
-Isaac's drawings and what was found in the chest at the end is a bit more graphic in the ending cutscene. I decided to avoid describing the graphic parts.
-Finally, the name of this fanfic comes from a song that plays only during the final ending. Its name is in Latin and it translates to "tomb" or "grave".