Ugh. I could do with a coffee. And by that I mean a real coffee, as opposed to having its molecular components injected into my bloodstream*. I don't know why I would kill for a cup of it, given that I've never tasted a drop, but the desire's there, nonetheless.

The only logical reason I can think of for my craving is that it would give me the energy to deal with- well, everything really. Ever since I pulled myself upright, wondering if I had somehow survived or if the afterlife really was this wet, I've had my world view twisted and contorted until it's about inside-out. The extra energy would definitely be helpful in convincing myself that no, I haven't knocked back one too many bottles of alcohol- this city is really in ruins, I really died and was brought back by some unknown benefactor, and- this one is the hardest to accept- I failed in my one purpose and left the kid alone with that- that woman.

What's more, I'm not suffering for it. Well, that's not quite accurate- my mind is tying itself in knots trying to find a solution, and my conscience is giving me a painful kick every second or so- but the agonising pain that lances through your head every time you get a little too far away from your ward is just not there. What happened? Did I break my programming? Did I fail in my duty so very thoroughly that it's just given up on me? Is this what happens when your charge-

No. No, she's not- she's fine. I'd know, wouldn't I? I'd know if she was- gone. Even if my programming was broken, I'd still know. I hope.

I don't know for certain, though, so I keep trudging down the shadowy ruin that was once the Adonis Luxury Resort, spurred on by the twisting anxiety in my gut. The walls are dank and rotten, now, and covered with limpets and other assorted sealife. At the top of the stairs I'm now stumbling up**, the coral has completely covered the doorway, a luminescent barricade against anyone seeking entry. I force my way through with a few turns of my drill, sparkling pink chips flying every which way and ricocheting off my armour, and continue on my way, which is soon blocked off once again- this time by a fallen pillar. As I duck under, I wonder once again how many years it's been for the place to end up looking like this. To my admittedly inexperienced eyes, it looks like it's been abandoned for centuries, but there again, since the whole thing's underwater, the place would probably rot more quickly than it would on land. Or at least that's what I tell myself when I think that maybe there's no kid to find. I reach the end of the filthy corridor, and come to one of the Adonis' numerous pools- or what used to be one of the pools. Now, it's mostly empty, and the liquid left within it- well, I wouldn't describe it as water, let's put it that way.

My train of thought is jerked off its rails as I see a shadowy figure dart across the ceiling and dislodge some of the mouldering architecture, causing it to fall into the once-pool with a resounding crash. I start forwards to get a closer look, but the shape flickers off into the darkness with a guttural cry before I can take more than a step in its direction. What was it? Not a splicer, I think- the ones I encountered in my time as a Protector have been fairly talkative, whereas all I heard from our shadowy friend was that hoarse, cracked shriek. Besides, no splicer I've ever heard of carried that strange scarlet light. Is it some new abomination from the depths of Ryan Industries? This warrants further investigation.

I make my way around the pool towards the archway the thing disappeared through, carefully negotiating the slimed tiles in my heavy boots. While one can say many things for our steel-capped, metal-soled footwear, being grippy is not one of their virtues, and combined with the slippery cracked ceramic underfoot they could very well send me crashing down to join the debris in the rancid puddle below.
I give it the tiled floor of the bath a quick glance, wary of what might be lurking beyond the rim of my helmet, and see a scrawled message which informs me that a Lamb is Watching. What lamb? Do they even have lambs down here? Do they mean it in a religious sense? From what I remember, what's-his-face with the moustache who ran the place was pretty against religion***, so anyone advertising their interest in it like this must be a few syringes' short of a plasmid, in my opinion. There again, what do I know about the subtleties of current affairs in this city? I'm a living bulletproof vest in a diving suit, designed to safeguard little girls who salvage drugs from corpses. A politics student I am not.

My thoughts are once again disturbed by a scream from the next room. This scream is slightly more coherent, though- a cry of "I need this!". I'm a little shocked to find another person still alive in this corpse of a town, and wonder if I could maybe get some idea what happened in this place from them. It'd probably require a bit of inventive mime to do it, but I'm sure that with my previous experience of communicating with the kid would help me out****. I stride into the next room and down a flight of steps (ugh) in time to see her come flying out of a door with a bullet embedded in her back and numerous mutations on her skin. Oh. A splicer.

I should have realised sooner, really. This place looks like it's been in ruins for years, who else is going to survive but the splicers? A voice in the back of my head says that maybe I was hoping people could survive so I could cling on to the idea that the kid's still out there, but I shove it aside so I can deal with the female's erstwhile companion, who's just come haring round the corridor with the probable intention of looting her remains. I charge forward and give him a drill to the face, which sends him collapsing to the floor with a yell and a shower of scarlet. I give an annoyed grunt at the droplets of red that are now obscuring my vision*****, and bend down to see if he had any worthwhile supplies. He and his lady friend kindly donate a first aid kit, some money (although how useful is it going to be in the post-apocalypse?) and some canned food, which is opened messily with the drill and emptied into the port. Over the unholy whirring, clonking noise the contraption makes, I hear the cheerful calls of the mascots of a Gatherer's Garden. Hmm. Big Daddies aren't really encouraged to use plasmids, despite the fact we've already been pretty much spliced to oblivion and the Alpha Series have ports which make the injecting process easy: it's seen as draining the profits we were designed to make for the company. However, given that there's pretty much no one left alive to disapprove, what harm could it do?

I make my way over to the hysterical pink glow of the machine, and find myself in what looks like a shrine, decorated with blue paper butterflies, candles, another of those "Lamb" slogans, and- a picture. To be more specific, a picture of the woman responsible for me losing, in order, what was left of my free will, my life, and the kid.

She peers out of her horn-rimmed glasses, a smile on her dark lips. I think it's meant to be calm and beatific, but to me there's a smug, mocking edge to her expression. Look at you, she seems to say. A canned monster, scurrying around in the muck and filth, rummaging through corpses' pockets to survive. It's a miracle you didn't lose her sooner. I feel a flare of loathing course through my veins, thick and smothering. Whoever she is, I think, if she's still alive now, she won't be by the time I'm done.
I see. Blaming me for your own failure. You know, if you'd managed to get to her sooner after the splicers attacked, if you'd managed to stop the girl running off in the first place- if you simply hadn't been as incompetent as you were at the one job you were designed for- she might still be here.
I shake my head inside my helmet, as if trying to dislodge the sinister voice that resounds through it. That sort of thinking won't help you or the kid. You messed up- fine. Don't let it happen again. But if you keep thinking about it, you're all the more prone to ruining the second chance you've been handed. Keep going.
With a hoarse sigh, I turn away from that shrine, and walk on towards the crimson glow from the Gatherer's Garden.

… Is it just me, or is the glow getting brighter? Not like I'm approaching the source, but like it's-

"Father."

I blink, trying to make sense of the image that just flashed across my eyes. A girl with the kid's face, looking at me with a mixture of awe, sadness and delight. The last view echoes of that woman's taunts seem to wilt in its wake, and I feel a glimmer of hope for the first time I woke up in this pit. Maybe it hasn't been as long as I thought. Maybe I'm not too late after all. Maybe- the kid's still alive.

That's a whole lot of "maybe"s, but one thing's for sure. I don't know where the kid is, but given that I haven't lapsed into a coma or gone insane, she must still be in this city, and given that she's still in this city, she's going to need rescuing.

Don't worry, kid. Sir Bubbles is here to save you: although, if he does manage to, he'd like to know why you used to call him that. Honestly, "Sir Bubbles"? Sounds like a mascot for soap.

Footnotes:

* There's a port in my suit that breaks foodstuffs down, and then feeds the resulting mess into my veins through some sort of drip-and-tube arrangement. I don't know, I was a bit too spliced at the time to understand what the lab techs were saying, and to be quite frank, I don't care too much anyway- as long as I'm not going to explode on the job because of a faulty wire, I'm good.

** I hate stairs so much. Would it really have taken the idiots who designed the Big Daddy armour so very long to do a bit of research on the dimensions of the average stair in Rapture? That way, our feet might have actually fit on any steps we might have happened to encounter as we wandered around. As it is, you have to adopt one of two methods: inch your way up sideways or pick your way up on your toes like a ten-tonne ballerina. Whichever way you choose, you're still not going to make a quick getaway when you've got a pack of splicers after you.

*** I was never much interested in his hour-long rants, but when aforementioned rants are broadcast on every speaker in the city you can't really avoid them.

**** Though since a lot of the gestures I've invented revolve around the common theme of her not running off when doing our rounds, the experience might not be as useful as I hope it will be.

***** As previously stated, the designers of the suit gave little or no thought to practicalities like "How are they going to clean the visor if the sleeves are too stiff to allow them access?".

Author's note:

Hello, world! This is my first foray into the phenomenon that is fanfiction, so any reviews and suggestions for improvement would be greatly appreciated. That said, thank you so much for reading this first chapter.

Edit:

So, it's been a while since I've had the time or the peace of mind to do any writing, and while rereading this I've realised that a lot of it just doesn't fit with the way I write now- hence, the edits. Don't worry, I don't plan on any major overhauls to the story until I've finished (which I think we can safely say will take some time), and my focus is going to be on getting the next update out as soon as possible, but I thought I'd make a few changes here and there so everything meshes better with how I write currently. Thank you to everyone who's stuck around and read this in the meantime- your reviews, favourites and follows are why I'm trying to make this happen again.