Warning : 1st Person POV contains Strong Language
Stop me if you've heard this one before, but I've always heard that people say drowning is a lot like going to sleep. Now, you may not know it, and I certainly didn't, but that statement is not even remotely close to the truth. Sure, you get woozy and you have trouble thinkin' close to the end of it all, but before that there's all sorts of struggling, flailing and tossing about. It's like you're some kind of animal, getting your lungs skinned from the inside by some kind of little goblins while a bunch of strong, steady hands keep you under 'till you stop twitching.
Drowning sucks, is what I'm trying to say. It ain't like going to sleep. Hell, if I'd known what a hassle it'd be, I'd of just took out my Mauser and do it quick and clean. God knows I've been shot enough times to get used to the feeling.
But speaking of God, I guess he wouldn't have like that. Heh. God probably wasn't too happy about a whole lot of things, come to it. I could just see the almighty father up there now, with some kind of disappointed look in his eye. Just like my daddy...He'd say, 'Booker, you done fucked up good now, hadn't ya?'. And I'd say, "Yessir lord God almighty, I sure has.". And then I'd be wonderin'...wonderin, well what the fuck's gonna happen to me now? 'Cause if theres one goddamn thing in this world, I know I'm not gettin' straight through them pearly gates. I could see St. Peter up there, laughin' his saintly ass off at such a notion.
No...even without Comstock...I've done too much. Ain't never met a man who wasn't a sinner, and I've met worse cases than most in recent times. But that ain't no excuse. I'd killed before I came to that fuckin' city up in the sky. I remember what that guy said, too, when I first came in there. "It's heaven, friend...or at least the closest thing too it!". If only I'd known what the fuck was going on back then. But no. That'd be runnin' away from what I did. This whole goddamn thing started because I was a drunken, dicy shithead who gave away his own fuckin' baby daughter to pay off a gambling debt. Yeah...way I figure...God's gonna be mighty pissed.
But I'm getting ahead of myself here, it looks like. I didn't know what'd happened, at first. I just sort of...woke up. The sun was all getting in my eyes, but they didn't hurt any. I could still feel the water all around me, though. I felt my hands sinking into the muddy river bottom as I forced myself up out of the creek. And lo and behold, here I was. Back to where it all started...and where it all ended. Wounded Knee Creek.
The river was still as clear and as beautifully pristine as ever. All the blood had washed away a real long time ago...but even if I bathed in this river for fifty years, I knew that I wouldn't ever be clean. Not after what I did here. This place...It might be pretty and nice now, over twenty years after the massacre, but I knew the truth. All those women and kids. All dead. And It wasn't a goddamned battle, no matter what fucking Forsyth said. We didn't need to do that. We...we went too far. And I was worst of 'em all.
I didn't kill 'cause I had too, or cause I wanted Uncle Sammie to be proud of me. I killed those people because I liked it. I took trophies for fucks sake. I still remember making that goddamn thing. A necklace made out of red-skinned ears and human teeth. I remember the look in the sergeant's eyes...I thought he looked like he'd seen the devil. I told him as much, and asked him what was bothering him. He just kept staring at my bloodstained face for awhile. 'Nothin'', he'd said. I guess I shouldn't asked what was wrong with him. He was a good man, as I recall. Had a wife and kid back in Massachusetts. Question I shoulda' been askin' was...well, what the fuck was wrong with me?!
I don't know...but one thing was clear. I was back here, now. And if there is one thing I know for true fact, Wounded Knee Creek is not and never will be associated with anything that I could possibly misconstrue as "Heaven".
I just sort of stood there for the longest time. Had Elizabeth failed...No. No, if she'd changed her mind at the last minute, I wouldn't be here, like this. She wouldn't have just...left me here. Right? Goddamn it. We'd agreed...We'd agreed that it had to be done. Comstock had to be smothered in his crib as a baby for us to kill him. And that crib was this river. I had been that baby. We'd agreed that she would drown me here, and get rid of Comstock and all his other cronies and everything he'd done, at least. I may not be able to take back what I did here, but I could've at least take back everything Comstock ever did. Everything he ruined. Columbia, Anna...and New York. I could take back all the lives he had destroyed. And fuck me if that wasn't worth my miserable, fucked up life.
Now that I think on it though...somethin' ain't right here. I'm in the middle of Wounded Knee Creek, so...shouldn't I be smelling something right about now. Last time I was here, I mean, when all those other Annas came along and drowned me, I remember smelling hibiscus. It had almost reminded me of those berries that Ma would always grow in her garden back home, 'fore the fever took her and Pa both up to heaven. But now, I noticed I couldn't smell nothin'. I tried to check my chest, make sure I was breathin' all right, but then I found out that wasn't the problem...
I didn't have a pulse. My heart had stopped beating.
...
Well, shit.
I guess Anna really did keep her end of the bargain, after all. Clearly...I was dead, and that meant Comstock was dead. But, how was I here, then? I looked down and saw it, though, just to check. As I had suspected...my feet didn't make ripples. There weren't any tiny waves in the water, or the noises of what should have been me sloshing around in the muck. I felt the chilly, muddy water down by my legs, and my were all covered in muck...but it was like I wasn't really there. I could feel the world, but it couldn't feel me back. When I lifted up my shoes, there weren't any sunken footprints in the mud where I know they ought to have been. There was clearly only one logical explanation.
I was a fuckin' ghost.
...
"...Are you for real, or are you just fucking with me up there, God?" I asked out loud, even though no one was around. And if this really was what I thought it was, there might not have been anybody listening up there either.
Now let me get this straight out there. Now, I had just fought my way through hell and back, killing who the fuck knows how many people on my way bustin' out of my other-future self's fuckin' sky church fortress. And now...now you're telling me, who either did all that or actually dedicated his life and the lives of thousands of others to God and the Christian church...that everything I ever fucking learned in Sunday School was a fuckin' lie? That all that...everything, that Comstock did...hand been based all off of one...big...lie...?
Well.
Halle-Fuckin'-Lujah. I'm a fuckin' ghost.
So. If I am right...and I swear to God he better not be pullin' my fuckin' leg up there somehow, I was a ghost. That goes against everything I ever learned in the Bible, in School, and from Minister Washington. This all points to one thing, and it makes me want to laugh my ass off and drown myself again in my own tears all at once. God is fake.
Comstock...I...destroyed cities, ruined...ended lives, caused an unbelievable amount of pain and suffering for the biggest hoax in the history of forever. I was a fucking ghost and there were no angels, no demons, no heaven or hell for me. I'm just standing here like some dumbfuck in the middle of a fucking creek where a I killed a bunch of people, and to top it all off, I'd been killed by my only daughter who is now a self-made orphan without a single penny to her name. Well...this day, was...Just...Fuckin'...Perfect.
I fell over after that, and passed right the fuck out.
"Hey...hey, dude, wake up!" I heard. It was a shrill, annoying voice. It sounded like some sort of small, irritating creature had just decided to interrupt my well-earned rest, and naturally I told it to piss right the fuck off.
"Hey! How rude! I'm trying to help you out, mister! Up up! C'mon! Up!" It came again. Groggily, I decided that it probably wasn't giving up anytime soon, so I pretty much had to just get myself up out the suprisingly comfortable riverbed and see who the hell it was. Maybe another ghost? I can't imagine that I was just automatically visible, after all...otherwise, there'd be more ghost sightings and shit like that, right? I'd have heard about it in the papers.
"Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time, pipsqueak." I said to the diminutive child before me. She was a little blonde girl with extraordinarily large pigtails and sharp amber eyes. She was gritting her teeth in annoyance, for some unfathomable reason. She was the one who had interrupted my sleep, right? She sported an unsightly snaggle tooth, and looked to be about 10 or 11 to him. "So who the hell are you supposed to be, kid? I don't need any help, I was just taking a nap. Not drowning...anymore, at least." She raised her eyebrow ever so slightly, but she was still glaring right at me. Precocious little brat.
"...Do you have any idea how much trouble it is to come all the way out here to find you?" She finally asked. I shook my head dumbly, barely acknowledging her in favor of observing my surrounding for any friends she might've brought along. Normally I wouldn't be so suspicious, but after seeing those weird-ass 'Boys of Silence' my creepy fuckin' otherworldly-self made, I had sort of been conditioned for kids about her height to come callin' for armed backup if they found me out. I had been asleep, too. I didn't know if ghosts can be killed, but I was certainly not in any hurry to find out.
"Ugh..." She sighed in exasperation. "Look, I didn't come all the way out here just to track down one measly, greasy, rude Plus like you. Captain Urahara's been getting some weird readings on his sensors lately for this area, so he sent me to check it out. I just came to get you when my soul pager went off. We use 'em to detect Pluses like you if there isn't any dedicated monitoring of the area set up already. Anyways...get ready."
"...Did you just call me a Puss?" I asked quietly. It's not like I was going to do anything about it, really, she was just some kid. It was what she'd said after that that really worried me. Get ready for what? Was she gonna call out her buddies now, or some shit? I slipped my hand down to my holster to get out my trusty Mauser...
Only for me to come up empty. I checked my inside-vest holster, and found myself settled with a gently used, mint condition, empty holster...Fuck my afterlife.
"Hold still, idiot..." She said, almost bored. She had an impassive expression on her face, now. I hadn't noticed before, but she was wearing some kind of that oriental sammy-rye gear. Now, she certainly hadn't come up empty when reaching for her weapons.
I watched with mouth agape as she drew a curved saber with a fluid motion I was sure trained cavalrymen couldn't have matched. "Shit..." I said. I didn't want to have to fight some kind...especially not here of all places. I winced for a moment at the memory of the Creek's dark past, and she took the opportunity like an early Christmas present.
With the force of a bucking bronco, she rammed the pommel of her saber down on my forehead with practiced ease. The last thing I felt before my world burst into a blazing, white-blue light was a skull-splitting headache...and then I just drifted off, feeling for all the world like I was floating on air. It was almost...like...going to sleep.
A/N: I fully intend to continue working on my other stories, and I know I have a tendency to publish new ones and then not work on them forever...I just happened to get inspired to write a BioShock Infinite Crossover after I'd finished the game yesterday. The next chapter of Dishonored Effect is about 1/4 done and the next Simulacrum and Ultimate Arachnos are both 1/2 done. I also thought I'd try something new this time and go for a first person POV rather than a third person one. Sorry if I overdid it with Booker's colorful language.