Note: This is going to be mostly Ellie's perspective. There are some issues Marker-Isaac needs to bring up. He's kind of a dick like that. I own nothing of/relating to Dead Space. Please review and comment.

Looking Glass

Chapter 2

It was Isaac, but at the same time it wasn't. It couldn't be him. Not really. He couldn't be dead, and he wouldn't look as normal as he did now if he was dead and moving.

She was going crazy. That was it. She was going crazy. But if it was her crazy head, that meant she could still do something about it. She scrambled towards one of the puddles of Unitologist-monster and pulled a suddenly solid rifle out of the liquefying flesh. She swung around and aimed at the thing, the Not-Isaac.

"You stay right where you are." She said, trying hard not to sound scared.


"You stay right where you are."

Isaac wasn't expecting her first reaction would be to point a rifle at him. But, she'd been out here, alone, for how long? He slowly held his hands up.

"Ellie, it's me. It's Isaac. Alright? Maybe you can, uh, not point that at me?"


"How many times have you wanted to do that?" The Not-Isaac asked, snarling. It's voice… like the real him, over a bad transmission of a bad transmission.

She didn't answer. She couldn't. The very idea of wanting to shoot him, the real him…

"Was that it?" It asked again. "One of two options, at the end? Leave me or shoot me?" It demanded.

"No." She protested, softly, weakly.

"You know, that's something I've been wondering about. Why did you leave me?" It waited. "Why did you leave me?"

"I… I don't-" She started to say.

"Don't what? Don't know?" It was angry now. Furious. "If you don't know, who does? Was it because I'm crazy? Because I still have that shit running around in my head? Did you maybe think I was still just a bit hung up on her? Because if that's what it was, I wasn't. I got over her. The only person I cared about was you. And you left."

"You wouldn't come with me." She said, more to herself than to it.

"Oh, don't give me that semantics crap. You knew I wouldn't come with you, knew I couldn't come with you, and you went anyway." It came a few steps closer, dragging its feet through the snow. "You want to know what I think? I think I wasn't the real problem. I think it was you. I think you got a taste. Of being a part of something so much more important than a fucking maintenance workforce. You had the chance to go out and save the human race, and you just couldn't let the opportunity pass you by."

"Shut up!" She screamed, swinging the rifle back up, the laser dot stopping square in the middle of Its head.


"Shut up!" She screamed, swinging the rifle up, the laser dot stopping in the center of Isaac's head.

He stopped. Stopped moving and talking, and looked at her. Her tone, the way her eyes were wide, angry, scared all at the same time. He figured it out.

"Oh, no. Shit. No. Alright, Ellie if you can hear me right now, anything you think I've said, think I've done, it's not real. Okay? You understand? It's not real." He slowly slipped his plasma cutter into a loop around his waist, and held both hands up again, palms out. "It's not real." He tried again.


It was tilting the plasma cutter in its hand, looking at the weapon intently.

"You know what I did that first week? After you left?" It held the cutter underneath its chin, barrel pointing up, ready to tear through skull and brain with the simple squeeze of a finger. "I sat in the bathroom, like this. For a whole week. Barley ate, didn't sleep once. Just sat there, wondering if I ought to just stop dragging things out and get it all over with. And it wasn't because you left me." It let the cutter drop from beneath its chin, holding the weapon at its side again. "Well, that actually was a big part of it," It admitted, "but it wasn't the whole reason; it was what you leaving meant. What it meant about me. It meant that I was just some fucked up, sick man who couldn't mean anything to anyone." It started moving again; she'd let the dot drop away as she took in the Not-Isaac's accusations. She knew it wasn't him, and yet… "Can you even imagine what that feels like?" It asked softly. "To realize that you're so broken that the universe might be better off without you in it?"

She knew it wasn't real, but she couldn't help it.

"I'm sorry." She whispered.

"Yeah. Lot of good that does me now."

"Screw you. You're not even real." She snapped.

It clapped, slowly. "Well, finally figuring things out? Ever wonder just how much is real, and how much isn't? Like those puddles of monster? Like me? How sure are you? That there's a real me out there? That I didn't kill myself after you left?"

"Shut up."

"What if none of this has actually happened? What if you're just some girl who wanted to save humanity no matter what, and your insane and dying alone on some broken ship?"

It crept closer. "That's all you are. Just an insane girl, dying alone out in the middle of nowhere, with no-one around to give a damn. Fitting, isn't it?"

She screamed in anger, lifted the rifle up, and shot it. It was blasted off its feet and fell back into the snow.

Her vision slowly changed. The snow became white, the puddles turned into bodies. The Not-Isaac…

Stayed there, lying in the snow. The suit was changing. The Marker script was vanishing, the blue was changing to a dull tan. A pool of red slowly growing on the side, coloring the snow. His face shifted, from the glowing, bloody, dead one to…

"Oh, god." She whispered to herself, sinking to her knees, holding her hands over her mouth.

Note: Yeah, Marker-Isaac is an ass. Hole. Also, on a personal note: not to rag on you readers, but almost 250 reads between two chapters, and no-one has anything to say? Like I said, not ragging, just expressing surprise at the numbers. Also also, search the image "Dead Space Ashes" by LunaticStar. It's a really great piece and the inspiration for this fic. So, shout-out: great drawing.