AUTHOR'S NOTE: I was kind of upset that the game didn't go into much detail about how Booker died in the 'martyr' universe, and since I seem to be obsessed with writing deathfics, I created this.
No spoilers for the end of the game.
Based off the information given in the voxophone message "Apology", found in Fink's office.
APOLOGY
The sickening muffled crack of shattering bone rang in his ears. The scent of blood, smoke, and fire hung heavily in his nostrils and filled his lungs. He felt disgusting. Sticky. His hands and forearms were plastered and crusted with the blood of so many donors. So many men, struck down by his very hand.
It was, in that moment, that Booker DeWitt decided he hated himself.
He lay where he had fallen, his back hunched in an awkward position against the unwelcoming surface of rain-splattered brick, lacking the strength to right himself. His right hand, bandaged and bloodied from a wound acquired in a previous battle, was clamped over his stomach. Hot blood dripped through his shirt and dried cold on his forearm in a gory smear of reddened rust. His blood. It seemed thicker than the stuff he'd wrenched out of the bodies of the men he'd killed. Darker, even.
His shirt was almost black with the stuff. Disgusted he once again buried his fingers into his flesh in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding, even though he knew he was finished.
Black blood meant death.
Booker swore he could feel air seeping into the freezing path carved by the bullet that had so cruelly ripped through his body. He imagined that if someone were to study the wound tract at eye level, they would be able to see straight through him. The brick wall behind him would be encased in a morbid frame composed of torn and shredded flesh.
He had long since given up the notion that someone would assist him. He would most likely bleed out before anyone even realized he was dying, or that he had even been struck down. The battle continued around him as though he wasn't there. Men were literally tripping over him but they didn't throw so much as an irritated glance in his direction. Just kept tearing each other apart.
And to think that he had started this.
Booker snarled a little bit and turned his head away from the battle. He HAD led these crazy men and women into the fray with the promise of hope. Of freedom. Of a society that wasn't caste-based or racist. And what had he done? The first damn strike he'd taken the head of, he'd gotten himself shot.
Fatally shot.
Life was slipping away, and all Booker could think about was how much he hated himself. He'd come all this way, done all this… all this shit only to find that they'd moved the damn girl. So there he was with a bullet through his gut. Waiting. Waiting for the end. Before he could even fulfill the deal proposed to him.
Bring us the girl, wipe away the debt. Bring us the girl, wipe away the debt. Bring us the girl…
That one phrase echoed in Booker's mind with every beat of his slowing heart. That one phrase was the reason he was lying here with blood on his hands, waiting for the merciful end to come. That one phrase was what had sent him from his troubled life in New York to a dangerous one here in this strange place called Columbia. He'd rather the drinking and the gambling and his job as a private investigator rather than the bullets and the anger and the armies and the death…
Was it all worth it?
No, Booker answered his own question as he stared down at the blackened blood seeping between his fingers. Had he known this deal would end with him clutching feebly at a bullet wound, he'd never have left that damned office in New York.
It always ends in blood…
He'd failed her.
He coughed and spat blood. Swiped it away with the back of his bandaged hand. Felt his heart slowing, his body numbing. He knew it was time.
And all he could think about was how much he hated himself. He hated himself because he'd failed her.
He inhaled deeply, shuddering. "Anna…" he coughed, the name riding out on what he knew was his final breath. "Anna… I'm… sorry…"