He was only twenty-five years old when he succumbed to the allure of Adam. The ruby liquid that had turned Rapture into a place, not of reality, but of fantasy and magic. Fire flickered from the fingers of every man, a charming smile locked in place as he brushed his fingertips across the end of a beautiful woman's cigarette.
Music rang in every corridor, a seductive mixture that brought your very soul ablaze with passion and vibrant energy. Women laughed and danced, men gambled, children sang, and the lights never flickered out. It was a grim kind of irony, that the darkest part of the world somehow seemed to be the brightest, the most promising for a new beginning.
It never occurred to him that he was making a mistake as he inserted the syringe into his arm. Blinding pain seared his body as his genetic code was quickly rewritten and replaced by an overwhelming surge of power. It flowed in his veins and seemed to breathe life into every cell. He felt like he could do anything. Be anyone. He lost himself in a drunken haze, the dizziness and the overwhelming pleasurable high that never seemed to end. Until it did.
The cravings for more were small, unnoticeable at first. He seemed weaker, more exhausted than normal. He couldn't help himself as his mind constantly shifted back towards the thought of when he could have more of this wonder drug. This unholy elixir that allowed him to call the elements themselves to his command. This confused him, as he had barely used his newfound gifts aside from an ice cube here, a cigar light there. Still, he payed his body's warning no heed, and stared into the hypnotic eyes of the clown at the Circus of Value in the eyes as he bought… one? Two? No, better to have three. Just in case.
The sharp recorded laughter of the machine pierced his brain as he entered his money. He felt an odd surge of annoyance, as though the blasted thing was mocking him for his purchases. An uneasy feeling settled in his stomach as he looked into the swirling red fluid inside the little glass syringe, and for a minute he considered turning back… Nevertheless, he jammed the needle in this arm yet again. Instantly his entire body relaxed, the tension he hadn't even known was there falling away from him.
He was high on life and energy again, lost to Rapture's high luxury living. He was confident, jocular, and hopelessly addicted to the feeling he received as electricity danced between his fingertips. The crackle and the buzz and his daughter's face as she cried out in sheer delight at the sight of the purple lights he could shape and bend to his every whim.
And he had his wife, her blonde hair shimmering under the bright lights of yet another party, wrapped around his arm. Together, the two of them, electricity and fire… molding together in a dance that he suddenly had the coordination to do. His hair grew longer, his glasses were put away, he stood taller. Pure muscle replaced the little fat he had on his body. The Adam transformed him in such a way that he could no longer recognize himself in a mirror.
He ignored the signs of chaos brewing around him, content to live and thrive in a world that wasn't as perfect as it appeared on the surface. He drank, he told stories, he danced, he gambled, he sang… The horror stories, of people attacking each other for a sip of blessed liquid that was as priceless as gold to the inhabitants of their utopia, were unproven after all.
"And if they are true," he told himself, "I'm not addicted. Nothing bad will happen." Even as he inserted yet another dosage into his bloodstream.
He hardly noticed when his skin started to turn ashy white. His muscles lost some of their definition. He lost even more weight. His perfect brown hair started to fall out in clumps.
The parties were now littered with sobbing women, the bathrooms filled with furious screams as their faces became even more disfigured... hideous. His pretty wife no longer greeted him at the door, preferring her isolation as she mourned her beauty and youth. And he couldn't bring himself to care. Instead he simply went right to the safe, picking up another dose of the sweet drug that could give him peace of mind. It was the only thing that could ease the pain that seemed to become his constant companion as time wore on.
Once, his wife and daughter had been his world, his everything, and even they had fallen to the wayside. He was in too deep and too far gone to notice he was falling off into a dark pit with no way out.
And when he was flat broke, his mind crazed only for the sweet nectar of Adam, he made his biggest mistake. Traded for 40 Adam and shiny new plasmid, he gave away his only child. His daughter, with eyes as blue as a summer sky she'd never get the opportunity to see, cried out to him in fear as he sent her away into the arms of a stranger.
And when he returned home, empty handed save for the Adam and purple ribbon that had fallen from his daughter's soft hair, he and his wife fought for the last time. Her body hit the floor with a sickening thud that made his heart constrict, and for a moment he was himself again.
"Sarah?!" He cried, alarmed at the shock of red liquid spilling out and staining the rich luxurious white carpet. He collapsed to his knees, sobbing as his shaking fingers tangled in long blonde strands. "Wake up baby!" He screamed, shaking her and receiving no response. It would have been difficult for her to speak with the dagger in her eye socket.
He wrapped warped, rotting arms around her slim figure, still as beautiful as the day they said their vows. Although in a world he was no longer a part of his pretty wife was little more than rotting corpse, her face covered in a mask Cohen had designed to hide the hideousness of their faces. The consequences of their hubris.
The coherency lasted only as long as the Adam coursed through his blood, and before long he was drying his tears and focusing only on his next fix. The body of his wife was left to rot, their apartment a dirty hovel he no longer had a use for. No, he would go. And he would get more Adam, and all of this pain and sadness and guilt and hunger and desperation would disappear with the images of his screaming daughter. The look on her face as he handed her over, sold her like livestock to a stranger with no face.
Time had no meaning to him anymore, every hour felt like a hundred years, the only bright spots coming when he managed to scrounge up a little Adam. He was lost. Too far gone to ever be reconstructed. He scurried through the darkness, preying on the frightened and the desperate as the war around him started to tear apart his beloved Rapture. The one bright spot in a world ravaged by war, now sinking into the darkness itself. The music died out, the parties ended, and the children no longer sang. Life was not a beautiful thing. It was dirty and rotten and everyone who took his peace away deserved a little misery.
He told himself all these things as he tore open a little sister, a little girl so like his daughter it hurt him somewhere inside. Past all the ugliness and the hunger and the need. He drank up her Adam, no longer feeling the surge of power or happiness. No, he existed only for the Adam. He lived for it. Would die for it.
And that is what he was doing now, wasn't it? Staring into the barrel of a loaded pistol he hadn't been strong enough or quick enough to snatch. Time barreled to a halt as he stared up at his killer, at the man unmarked by Adam who nonetheless carried several little syringes strapped to his belt.
I just needed one Sarah, I just needed one more! ONE MORE!
I'm sorry baby, I'm sorry for the knife, I'm sorry for the purple ribbon. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Are you a man or a slave? A man, or a slave?
"Just fucking shoot me you rube! SHOOT ME!"
And then his world exploded.