"He's Father Comstock."
"He's Booker Dewitt."
"He's both."
These words rung in Booker's ears as his lungs filled with water, desperately trying to suppress the urge to struggle against the small hands that held him just below the surface. Except there were no hands. There was no water. Booker Dewitt sat in his small office/meager living quarters, his forehead dripping with sweat and half clinging to a dream that had vanished so quickly he hadn't even noticed he woke up. His heart hammered as he stood, stumbling his way over to the door that held his daughter behind it. As he gripped the doorknob, his heart filled with dread. What if she wasn't there? He chuckled at himself. Why wouldn't she? The memory of the dream was fading away, slipping out of his mind like water through fingers, and with it, the feeling that something bad had happened. Booker smiled, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
She wasn't there.
No blanket. No crib. No noise. No baby. No Anna.
Elizabeth?
Anna.
The room stood practically empty, save a cobwebbed bookshelf holding a scant few books covered with a thick layer of dust. The air smelled stagnant and old. Booker glared. That's right. He took her. That bastard knocked on his door and stole his daughter from him. Booker's mind reeled with confusion and memories, none of them quite making sense but all of them screaming and demanding his attention. A lighthouse. A city. A man. A deal. A deal?
He was late. He cursed, gripping his jacket and throwing it around his shoulders. He'd be lucky if he could get to the docks in time before those twins left. He'd meet them at the boat, they'd take him to complete the deal, and when he was done they would-…give his daughter back? That wasn't right.
Again his memories reeled. Pain, screaming, the crying of an infant and a wave of complete sorrow. He cursed again. That damn psychologist hadn't been any help, despite all the money he had shelled up.
Psychologist?
Booker closed his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose as her words rang through his memories like a bell, sharp and crisp and loud.
"This is the fifth time we've met this week Mr. Dewitt and again I will tell you, there was no Sophia, Marie, Violet or Elizabeth. Your memories are compromised."
The orange haired doctor pursed her lips as he stayed silent, her hands folded neatly in her lap. When he refused to speak, she continued.
"You're traumatized. Anyone would be after they lost their wife and child. You refuse to acknowledge this, and in an attempt to rationalize the pain of it all you create fantasy worlds where your daughter is alive and well, waiting for her father to come and rescue her."
Booker spoke. One word, soft and weak with the weariness of 20 years of pain, misery and desperation to forget.
"Why?"
Doctor Lutece looked over the sad, broken man before her, and sighed.
"The mind of the subject will desperately struggle to create memories where none exist."