Chapter 1 – A Glimpse of Hell

"Cheak! How many times do I need to remind you to take your utility belt? How on earth are you going to fix anything without your tools? God, what kind of idiot are you? You know, if you pulled that kind of shit back in my day, you'd be…"

I wasn't particularly interested in the old man's rant or what I would have been thirty years ago. Nor did I care that he thought I was an idiot. I knew better. After all, what use does a wizard have of muggle tools? Their technology was impressive from time to time, but it was still primitive, limited, and pointless when pitted against magic. But still, the Ministry's laws decreed that in order for our society to remain secret, appearances had to be kept up. With a sigh, I turned around to face the supervisor who was still ranting away about my irresponsibility.

"...you got to be the captain's right-hand mechanic when you're so irresponsible is beyond me! You're not even experienced with a plasma cutter! When you lose an arm due to carelessness and inexperience, nobody will bat an eye or feel sorry for you because it'll be your own damn fault!"

"Yes sir." I replied dully, unlocking my locker and pulling out the unused utility belt. "My own damn fault."

"Are you getting smart with me, Cheak?"

"Not at all, sir. I wouldn't want to confuse you."

And before he could muster up the anger to respond, I strode out of the locker room and down the hall to the bridge.

If I really wanted to, I could have just silenced him with my wand or even modified his memory, but I hadn't learned the locations of all the cameras on the ship yet. So I couldn't risk accidentally being caught with my wand out yet. I'd been transferred to the U.S.G. Mactire three months previously. Once a powerful war ship fifty years ago, it was now used as a patrol ship to watch and inquire any unscheduled vessels coming to dock at the cracked moon of Titan.

I hated the ship the moment I stepped onboard. I hated being alone. I hated going someplace new after staying on the same ship for seven years. I hated being so far away from the Sprawl, the central hub of Titan. And I particularly hated being outnumbered. For every wizard on this ship, there were about twenty muggles to match. With a crew of roughly about 700 men and women, it was intimidating to be such a minority. And of those muggles, about eighty percent of them were exactly like the blithering idiot I had just left behind; opinionated, self-righteous, overblown, and generally possessing a bad attitude. I had been transferred into the position of Captain's Personal Mechanic, a position that many people on the Mactire coveted. Many of them had been working their way up through position after position for years just for a chance. But it was me who got the job. Me, a 23-year-old kid from a completely different ship on the opposite side of the Sprawl. As far as the muggle crew members were concerned, I was the 'new kid' on a very 'well oiled' ship that I had no place on. Everything I did was wrong, despite the fact that I easily completed every job the captain assigned me. From what I could gather, everybody felt that my presence was unneeded. Everybody, that is, except my own kind.

The wizards and witches I encountered were particularly warm to my presence. Most people on this side of the Sprawl were out of the loop of what was going on, mainly because the Mactire spent so much time on the move around the cracked moon. So people were hungry for news from the outside world. Many of them would catch me on my way to different jobs the captain assigned me and ask me what was happening there, though there wasn't much to report. EarthGov, the muggle government, kept everything they did under wraps until the plans were put into action. It was an ongoing debate in politics how to handle the fact that this side of fifty years, our stored basic resources would be depleted. Usually the dispatched plans would be packaged as something new, when in fact it was the exact same plan they'd done for years; send out a new ship or crew to a newly discovered planet to mine for resources.

As for the Ministry of Magic, their main focus was dealing with radical witches and wizards attempting to reveal our world to the muggles. They called themselves "The Unveiled". The Unveiled felt that our reliance on muggle technology was pointless since magic could easily take care of us. If anything, they believed that muggles should be relying on us for survival. An ongoing debate between The Unveiled and the Ministry was that eventually the resources would all be depleted and muggles and wizards alike would die. The Unveiled believed that we needed to use our magic to duplicate and grow the resources we had now. The Ministry's official statement is that they agree with this idea. However they wish to do it in secrecy whereas The Unveiled want for us to take our 'rightful place' above the primitive muggles. I'd recounted this political story so many times since my arrival on the Mactire, it started to irritate me. You'd think these people would gossip about what I'd told them. But apparently they weren't much for gossip. Maybe they feared discovery by the muggles if they talked too much of wizarding matters.

The only other important thing even worth mentioning was that a rumor was going around about how the Ministry would be sending people to infiltrate and study the Church of Unitology, which most witches and wizards distrusted. Unitology was a relatively new religion, being only about 200-years-old, but it was one that I was not falling for, nor was much of the Wizarding community. I didn't know much about Unitology except what I'd heard and seen from the believers I'd encountered. They were very open about their belief, I'll give them that, but to the point of annoyance. Always walking right up to you and praising some guy named Altman or 'the Marker', which I assumed was the deity. And they kept going on and on about 'convergence', how all believers would cease being individual and come together as one in death. However nonbelievers, like myself, would just cease to exist. Generally it was this point that I'd dismiss them or just walk away. I did tend to notice that those who were believers of Unitology seemed to be rather simple-minded. I'd wondered from time to time if that had anything to do with their belief. I myself didn't know what to believe. I believed in some kind of God or creator. I didn't think we all just suddenly appeared here and started along with our business. But there were so many religions to believe, I wasn't sure which was true.

On the whole, the entire Wizarding community rejected Unitology on the simple fact that we have proof that we don't 'converge' or cease to exist when we die. We have ghosts to prove that. However, some few witches and wizards have been known to fall under the influence of Unitology, and again I noticed that they were rather simple-minded. There was only one Unitologist wizard on the Mactire, but I rarely came across him. And even when I did, silencing him was fairly simple if he ever annoyed me.

Other than that, those of magical descent on the Mactire were on good terms with me, but none had really made an effort to be friends with me.

Except one.

One particular witch had gained my attention very quickly. In my first week, the captain had sent me down to the engine room to fix the firing mechanisms, which was simple enough for me. I'd expected it to be a half-hour job at most. What I hadn't expected going down there was a feisty witch who wasn't too keen on somebody coming down to her section and doing her job for her. To say my presence was unwanted by her would be an understatement. When she found out who I was and what I was trying to do, she transfigured my head into a venus fly trap. I quickly managed to change it back before the muggle operator came around the corner.

After a brief, heated, but quiet exchange of choice words, she reluctantly backed off and let me do the job I was assigned to do. Still reeling from the unexpected encounter, I performed some complicated wandwork, and the engines were firing like new again. And if I had done my job right, they'd be firing like that for many years to come. My job finished, I turned to walk out from the engine room and away from the crazy girl when she grabbed my arm. Instinctively, I pointed my wand at her, but saw that she wasn't angry or upset at all. Her face was apologetic and curious.

"I've never seen someone fix something so well in such a short amount of time." She whispered with a small smile.

"Yeah, well I've had seven years of practice." I said quietly, not sure what to think. I didn't particularly feel like talking to this witch who had just assaulted my head. But still… "The muggles think I'm an extremely talented engineer…well, the ones on my last ship did."

She looked down. "You're really good. I-I'm sorry about earlier. I was afraid I was going to be replaced. You know how fickle the captain is. He usually fires people right away if they can't fix what they're supposed to fix."

"He's a nice guy" I said, turning fully to face her. "He just has to do what's necessary. I can teach you how to do those spells if you want."

She looked up at me, pushing strands of her blonde hair from her face. She was still looking a little ashamed, but she grinned. Her green eyes sparkled ever so slightly. "That would be nice." She held out her hand. "I'm Liza. Liza Lovegood."

I extended my own and took hers. "Byron Cheak. But you can call me By."

Fast forward three months to present day, and Liza and I have been a couple ever since. Spell lessons on the job quickly moved to off the job, in our own quarters. Long story short, spell lessons went into meals together, to discussions about each other, until about two weeks after our meeting, I finally leaned in and kissed her. She and I have been inseparable ever since, which thanks to our schedules being on similar times, all of our off time istogether. She's nice and gentle, but she can be feisty from time to time. She had quite a knack for transfiguration. If I ever got fresh with her, she would remind me just what it felt like to have something else for a body part than what was supposed to be there. And it wasn't limited to my head anymore. Still, Liza is pretty much the only friend I have on the U.S.G. Mactire.

The muggle superintendent's stupid face still lingering humorously in my mind, I arrived on the bridge of the Mactire. The bridge was massive; it looked more like an atrium or aquarium than a control room for a ship. The walls to the entire room, save for the one I just walked through, were clear as day, giving an ideal view into space. Saturn sat serenely outside the hull windows, its' rings floating peacefully. To the left of the ship, quite a distance away, was the Sprawl. I stared at it for a moment or two. It had been over a month since I'd seen the Sprawl. I'd grown up there, gone to school there, learned how to control magic, lived my life up until I turned 17, which was when I was hired as an engineer for the C.E.C mining crafts. I'd been working with them ever since.

I glanced around for the captain and found him pacing on the right side of the bridge, monitoring some people sitting at panels.

"Captain Tracy!" I called out. The aging man looked up at me and smiled.

"Byron, good morning my boy! I take it you're ready for another hard day's work?"

"As always, sir."

"Good man." He said with a grin. Captain Nathanial Tracy seemed to me a very kind man, though definitely not one I'd want to make angry. There was a knowing about him, as if he knew things I didn't. I suppose that's how he got to be Captain in the first place. I often wondered if he was a wizard and was just hiding it.

"Byron, I want you to head down to communications today." He checked a panel. "The satellite seems to be misaligned. We can't hold a clear transmission with anybody on the Sprawl today. After that, head to Life Support. It appears they're having issues regulating oxygen control."

"Yes sir." I nodded before turning to the elevator in the center of the bridge.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Seven floors down, I entered the satellite control room. There were only three workers in here, all of them muggles. I knew they were muggles because the second I entered the room, they all exchanged pointed looks with each other before turning away from me. I heaved a sigh and rolled my eyes before stepping over the threshold. I walked up to the balding man at the center control console.

"So what's the problem?"

He didn't answer me.

"Excuse me. Captain Tracy sent me here to fix the satellite. What's the problem with it?"

The balding man glanced over at me but looked right back at his panel. My fingers wrapped gingerly around my wand in my pocket. I slipped it into my sleeve and tapped the man on the shoulder. He didn't even look at me.

I glanced over at the ceiling, making sure there weren't any cameras. Lo and behold, there weren't any.

Finally…a chance to have some fun!

I poked the tip of my wand out of the sleeve and jabbed the man with it, whispering "Confundus."

Instantly, the man's eyes went out of focus and he relaxed his body significantly. I slipped my wand back into my pocket and tapped the man on the shoulder again. He turned dimly towards me, his eyes remaining out of focus.

"I'm here to fix the satellite. Can you tell me what's wrong with it?" I asked very clearly. I noticed the other two men in the room had turned their heads ever so slightly towards us to hear better.

"The wiring below this panel here is completely severed." His voice was lazy and slurred. "Probably some rodent. Other than that, we can't find any other problem. We've deactivated communications until we can get the wiring fixed."

"Thank you." I said with a devilish grin. "That wasn't too hard, now was it?"

And with that, I removed the spell. The man's two colleagues in the room were staring at him like he'd just spilled some huge secret nobody was supposed to know. Satisfied with myself, I got down on my back and slid under the panel the man gestured to. I grabbed the flashlight from my utility belt, the only muggle tool I'd ever found any use for, and took a quick glance around for the loose wires. Sure enough, it looked like something had been chewing through them.

Too easy.

I pulled out my wand and glanced up at the muggle on the right side of the room. He had a clear view of me, but luckily he was facing the other direction. I pointed my wand at the few loose wires.

"Reparo."

The wires snaked back to each other and fused together, fixing themselves and looking like new. I smirked at myself. A regular muggle would have taken at least ten minutes to fix that, fumbling with solder and other band-aid types of fixes. It took me less than five seconds to fix it.

Without even bothering to check to make sure it was absolutely fixed, which I knew it was, I slid out from under the panel. The muggles I hadn't confounded looked around at me, expectant looks on their faces.

"Done." I said with a grin.

Their faces fell. Clearly they were expecting me to fail or have some kind of issue.

"Bullshit." The one on my right said, glancing down where I'd just slid out of.

"Nope. It's all fixed."

"You were down there for thirty seconds." The chubby muggle on my left said angrily. I suppressed a laugh as his multiple chins jiggled in his anger. "I didn't even see any sparks or nothing."

"I can prove it if you want me to." I said, still smirking. I turned around and shooed the bald muggle out of his seat before taking his place at the monitor. Within seconds, I'd entered the sequence to start up the communications satellite. I may not have liked muggle technology, but that didn't mean I didn't know how to use it. I wouldn't have gotten the job I had now if I didn't know how to use it. Sure enough, the satellite signal started feeding out to the Sprawl.

"Are you shitting me?" The bald muggle behind me said in complete disbelief.

"I shit you not, my friend." I said, bathing in the glory of my success.

"How did you do that so fast?" The chubby muggle walked up next to me and looked down, his expression somewhere between awe and anger.

"Seven years of practice." I said. It was partially true.

The monitor began to flash suddenly.

"Incoming transmission. Identification unknown." The computer's voice spoke over the intercom. Then the monitor flashed white and was then replaced with static. The static hummed for well over a minute.

"Is this some sort of joke?" I asked.

"If it is, the joke's on all of us, isn't it?" The other muggle said as he appeared on my other side.

A picture started to come in through the static. An empty chair. Behind the chair was what looked like another communications room. Then a woman appeared from the right side of the screen. She slumped into the chair unceremoniously. She had very short red hair, wore a jacket that looked far too big for her, and an expression of the utmost exhaustion and desperation. She sat with her eyes squeezed closed, as if she was in a great amount of pain.

"Wow…she's hot." The chubby muggle said.

"Shut it." I snapped. Something was up. We never got transmissions without some form of announcement beforehand. This had come out of nowhere.

The woman opened her eyes, leaned in, and began to speak directly to the camera.

"My name is Alissa Vincent. I was...am the security chief on the Ishimura. I may be the sole survivor. We encountered an alien life-form. They've taken over the bodies of the crew."

The camera then flashed to security camera views of what I assumed was the interior of the ship. My mouth fell open at the images.

Every single shot showed hallways, rooms, quarters, torn apart, shredded, nearly unrecognizable as a part of a ship. Even more shocking was that the floors and walls of each of these rooms was smeared with what was unmistakably blood. Body parts, tattered bloody clothes, ripped pieces of metal…something horrible had happened on this ship. The camera flashed back to the woman.

"The colony was lost. My team is dead. The Ishimura is under their control. It is my belief that the artifact we discovered on the surface is somehow responsible."

The camera cut again to another security image, and what I saw next confused me even further. The Marker…the symbol of Unitology, sitting in a large room onboard the ship. It was a large, deep red, stone obelisk, covered with thousands of symbols. But as quickly as the image appeared, it was gone, replaced again with Alyssa's face.

"It has driven us mad, turned us against each other. If you find this recording, the Ishimura and the artifact must be destroyed…must be destroyed…must be destroyed…"

The recording repeated itself over and over before the muggle on my left reached over and shut it off.

"What the hell was that about?" He whispered.

"I don't know." I said quickly. "But I do know this…she needs help. I need to find out where that transmission came from. What was the ship's name again? She said it earlier in the recording."

The muggles just looked at each other stupidly. With a groan I went back to the recording and rewound it before playing it over and listening closely.

"…the security chief on the Ishimura…"

"The Ishimura." I repeated. "Computer, lock onto the signal that transmission came from. Send the coordinates to my com-device."

"Command confirmed, Engineer Cheak."

I pushed away from the monitor and quickly strode towards the door.

"Wait a minute man!" The chubby muggle behind me called. "You can't take those coordinates! Only the Captain can…"

I turned on the spot and faced him. He froze as I stared sternly at him. We were about the same height, but if the seriousness I felt was reflected at all in my eyes, the man had good reason not to approach me further.

"I'm the Captain's right-hand mechanic. Believe me, I have the authority to do what I want, when I want on this ship."

With that, I turned back and strode out of the communications room.

It was when I boarded the elevator that my com-link beeped the coordinates of the Ishimura to me. It showed me a hologram of a large mining vessel, even larger than the Mactire. It could have easily held over a thousand people.

"Coordinates confirmed, Engineer Cheak. The U.S.G. Ishimura is located at Docking Bay #42 at the Sprawl."

"How is that possible?" I asked aloud. "There's no way one person could pilot that big of a ship to the Sprawl."

It was all incredibly confusing. An unverified transmission immediately gets picked up when I turn on the satellite, and some horrified looking woman claims she's the only survivor on a ship overrun with aliens. And that the aliens were taking over the bodies of the crew…all of this had something to do with the Marker of Unitology. I was sure that was what the obelisk was. It couldn't have been anything else. What was even more frightening was that the ship was docked on the only human civilization this side of the solar system. If that ship really was crawling with aliens that could take over human bodies…

The elevator doors opened to the Bridge. Captain Tracy was heading down to his quarters below the Bridge. I sprinted out of the elevator and called out to him. He turned to me, smiling as always.

"Finished already Byron?" He asked cheerfully.

"Sir, we have a problem." I said as I caught up to him.

"Is this something we can discuss here?" He asked in a low voice. "Or should we adjourn to my private Nest?"

"I think this is something that should be kept quiet from the crew." I said. I wasn't sure why, but the knowledge of a mining vessel that big becoming that out of control, and the possibility of some sort of monster aboard killing the entire crew was something the Mactire crew didn't need to be aware of.

"Very well." He replied. Together, we walked down the platform to the elevator that lead to the Captain's Nest.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Ten minutes later, once we were in the Captain's Nest, I'd pulled up the recording and showed him the coordinates it had been transmitted from. His reaction was very similar to my own; his expression was horrified when the images of the dead crew and the torn up interior came up. And when he learned that the Ishimura was docked at the Sprawl, he immediately turned to a monitor behind him and began to radio to the Sprawl headquarters.

"Sprawl, do you read? This is an urgent message from the Mactire!"

The window was taken over as the Sprawl answered his transmission. An older man with graying hair, wearing an official white C.E.C. suit answered. There was a silver pendent dangling around his neck.

"This is Admiral Jenson. What is your emergency."

"I'm Captain Nathanial Tracy of the U.S.G. Mactire. We just received an urgent emergency transmission from the U.S.G. Ishimura. I'm sending the transmission right now."

Admiral Jenson's face turned away, presumably to another monitor, as he watched the transmission. However, his face didn't change even remotely. I knew he was watching the same transmission we did, because I could still hear Alyssa's voice faintly in the background. Even now, after hearing it for a fourth time, it sent chills up my spine to think of the horrors she must have suffered on that ship.

Admiral Jensen turned back to face us. "When did you receive this transmission?

I stepped forward so he could see me, speaking up. "I received it sir, about twenty minutes ago. Our communications satellite was down so we had it shut off. I fixed the satellite and when I turned it back on, this transmission played immediately."

The Admiral's face darkened. For some reason, I felt a little uncomfortable.

"Are you two the only ones who've seen this?" he asked, his voice significantly darker as well.

"No." I replied. "The three operators in the communications room saw it as well."

The Admiral sighed. "Very well then. Captain Tracy, please notify the three operatives that a ship will be coming to pick them up as well as you and your mechanic here. The ship will arrive in one hour."

The transmission ended.

"What the hell was that?" I asked, dumbfounded. "They've got torn-apart ship there crawling with monsters, docked into their station, with a possible survivor onboard, and he didn't even seem fazed by it! And now he's sending someone to pick us up? Shouldn't somebody help them? Or at least get that ship away from the Sprawl!"

"Calm down Byron." The captain said. "I have a feeling this is a lot bigger than it seems. We have to be careful. He's a Unitologist, the Admiral. Did you see his pendant? The one around his neck? It's the Marker, exactly like the one in that transmission."

"I noticed that." I said quietly.

"Unitologists are incredibly secretive about their faith." He replied, looking out the window.

"Not the way I've seen it." I said, looking out as well.

Captain Tracy looked back at me, and there was something sinisterly sad in his eyes. "Oh they evangelize their religion all right, but do you actually know what exactly it is they talk about? Do you know what Convergence is, or what the Marker is? What it does?"

"Well…not really, sir."

"Neither do they." He whispered.

"I don't understand, sir."

"The leaders of Unitology keep certain parts of their religion a very big secret. I think we've just stumbled across one of those secrets. Did you hear what Alissa said about the Marker? She said she believed it was the source of what was happening on the Ishimura. The alien life forms were taking over the bodies of the crew."

I stared at him incredulously. "Do you think that whatever happened there…it's something to do with Unitology?"

"I'd bet my life on it." He said with a dark smile.

Then something struck me. "They keep parts of their religion secret. The Admiral asked who else saw the transmission. So what do you think is going to happen when the ship they're sending comes for us?"

The Captain's smile darkened. "I doubt very much that we'll ever see this ship again."

Something cold seeped from my stomach and through my entire body. What did that mean? I had a feeling I knew what it did, but I didn't want to jump to any conclusions. Still…

"We're the only ones who know about this." I said slowly.

"Indeed we are. Apart from your friends in the communications room."

That wasn't too comforting. If the Unitologists really were coming to silence us, I doubted very much that the three muggles who were also involved would stand much of a chance. I knew I was going to put up a fight if what I thought was happening would happen.

The Captain sat in thought for a moment. Then he spoke up. "The aliens she talked about...the ones taking over the crew's bodies...they sound like some sort of parasitic creature. And those can be the most dangerous kind. You don't even know you're infected until it's too late."

"So what are they thinking, docking a ship with something like that onboard?" I asked in frustration.

"I don't know."

"Do you think the Unitologists will find a way to quarantine the ship?"

The Captain sighed. "I don't know what they'll do. But I do know this." He stared at me intensely. "One wrong move on their part, and the Sprawl will be lost. That is, of course, if there really are parasitic life forms on that ship, which I believe there are. A video like that would take a lot of effort to fake. What we should focus on now, though, is what will happen to us once their ship arrives. Because if they intend to silence us, we'll have to put up quite the fight. Unitologists are very effective in keeping their secrets quiet."

"So what do we do?" I asked nervously.

The Captain reached into his jacket and pulled out a wand.

"We'll just have to improvise, now won't we Byron?"

I couldn't help but laugh. "I knew it! Somehow, I just knew it!." I pulled my own wand out. "So what's the plan?"

So basically...this is make-or-break time for me. I'm really hoping for reviews that will tell me if I've meshed the two worlds together well. Obviously this isn't all I'll be writing about it, but this is just the opener. There will be more info about how the Wizarding community came to be on the Sprawl and integrated into muggle society, but we're also going to delve further into Byron's journey.

As far as the timeline of Dead Space goes, this takes place well after Issac's encounter in the first game. Hence why the Ishimura is docked at the Sprawl. They haven't started decontamination of the ship yet, though that's the idea so far. I don't know if I'll ever have Byron meet Issac or not. At this point, I just want to keep with my original characters. But hey, who knows?

By the way, the transmission Byron received...it's actually canon. It's the beginning of "Dead Space: Downfall", which is a pretty good movie!

Hope you enjoyed it so far!