PROLOGUE
Nicole Brennan sighed as she dropped her equipment bag and sat down in front of her computer. Sure, the Ishimura was a great ship, but with all the strange happenings and mysterious injuries and deaths...well, Nicole had her work cut out for her.
Nicole booted up the save station and her thoughts turned to Isaac. Many times in a day they did, and she missed him. Nicole's fingers danced across the keyboard, dialling up Isaac. A loading bar appeared as the comms array received and transferred her address to match Isaac's location. The static on the screen cleared, now showing Isaac Clarke's groggy face.
"Oh Isaac!" Nicole exclaimed, "I'm so sorry, the time difference, I-"
"No, no, it's fine." Isaac turned toward the camera and smiled. "How you doing?"
Nicole beamed. "Isaac, you we're right. The Ishimura…it's such a great ship."
Nicole hesitated. If it wasn't for Isaac, she would have never heard about the opportunities on the world renowned CEC ship. "Thank you Isaac."
"For what?"
Nicole sighed. "For just...making me stick with it."
Isaac smiled. "Well, just remember I'm giving you up for two weeks so you can do this."
Nicole opened her mouth to say more, but the screen, once again, grew fuzzy and filled with snow.
"Isaac?" She glanced at the control panel. "The connection is breaking up...I'll call you right back okay?"
"Ok, ok, I love-"
The connection snapped to black.
She was right there...in front of him.
He tried to call out to her...but his mouth wouldn't form words.
"Isaac..." She cooed, her voice strange. Her eyes and mouth glowing with an unnatural light.
Suddenly, Isaac grew afraid.
"No. Stop." He tried to tell the apparition.
"No Isaac," Hissed Nicole. "Make us whole Isaac..."
"Isaac..."
"Isaac..."
"ISAAC."
Isaac Clarke sat bolt upright in the chair. Well, as far as he could anyway. He squinted and looked around the pitch dark room. He was sitting at a table littered with objects. A small Marker rubik's cube, a Rorsach ink painting he himself had done, and a man, sitting across from him.
He had short blonde hair, his mouth set in a grim line.
"You were drifting away there Mr. Clarke." He looked down at the paperwork on the table before him. "I believe you were telling me about a dream you had." He again looked at Isaac. "About your dead girlfriend."
Isaac squirmed uncomfortably in his straightjacket.
"Nicole." He said softly. His mouth dry.
Even as he said it, he heard her voice...the one from the transmission. Nicole, sitting in front of her station, the hypodermic needle that would take her life in her hand, her voice...
"I loved you...I always loved you."
"Ah yes," Said the man, shifting through more paperwork. "Nicole Brennan. Senior Medical Officer. Stationed aboard-"
"The Ishimura." Isaac intoned darkly.
And, once again, his mind was filled with images...the cold metal hallways. The slaughtered crew, the airlock, the ADS cannon room, the horrific Hive Mind...
"Yes, the USG Ishimura. Planetcracker. As we know, you came into contact with something very special aboard that ship Isaac."
Isaac's eyebrows contracted in pain. He shook his head. "The Marker."
A red light flashed on. Isaac looked up from the floor, expecting to see the man with some sort of light.
But it wasn't.
A red glow has appeared over the man's shoulder, growing brighter...closer. The light became more and more intense, and a shape he knew well emerged from it, growing still ever closer.
"The...the symbols...they spoke to me..." Isaac muttered.
The man spoke to him, Isaac barely heard over the rushing in his ears.
"What did the symbols say Isaac? What did they say?"
Isaac gabbed incombrehensibly as the symbols coulded his vision, the light flickering...a human figure appearing in front of him, climbing on the table. It's eyes and mouth glowing with light...
"No...no!" He shouted.
Then, blackness.