Foreword: Surprise! I did mention that I might be writing another chapter for Song of Sorrow in my profile, but it only really took shape a couple weeks ago. Now, this one's technically set in Chapter 3, between Burial at Sea Episodes 1 and 2, if the title hadn't given it away. Also, I'll be cleaning up the previous chapters shortly.
9/6/2017: There is now a timeline of sorts for the various chapters and stories of Unbroken on my profile page, just an attempt to make it a little easier to see what happens when in relation to other chapters.
?, Sea of Doors
"No… I'm sorry!"
Elizabeth wakes with a shout and bolts upright, scrambling to get away from the group of eerily similar little girls she'd seen and pressing her back against a hard, curved wall. It takes the panicked young woman a moment to realize that the children calling to her were only a nightmare, but as she breathes a sigh of relief, Elizabeth finds she doesn't remember how she came to be lying on this rough stone floor.
Then it all comes back to her in a rush; Anna, Rapture, Cohen, Comstock… then Sally and the Big Daddy. Elizabeth touches her right hand to her chest where a piece of rebar had impaled her, after the hulking monstrosity had thrown her through a wall. She remembers waking up in the Sea of Doors a moment later, alive and well with the ensemble she'd taken in Rapture as pristine as the day she'd first put it on. Even her hair is the same, Elizabeth running her fingers through the long, dyed-black tresses as she gathers her wits about her.
"I… it was dark out… and I was so, so tired…" Mumbling to herself, Elizabeth rubs her eyes only to find tears she hadn't realized she'd shed dampening her cheeks, "I wanted to get away from any reminder of Rapture, the ocean… so I came to this sort of lighthouse…"
While she still resides in the Sea of Doors, Elizabeth's sitting in a room about halfway up a different sort of lighthouse; she'd seen architecture like this in books she'd perused in Columbia and Rapture, this sort of design appearing in books about Arabia and the Ottoman Empire. The soft, sandstone-looking structure was an accidental find on her part before going to Rapture, but Elizabeth doesn't care now one way or the other; she wanted a reprieve from the horrors that she's suffered through, and this place would do as well as retreating through one of the doors. As such, the room she sits in is completely barren, with only thin vertical slits for windows and a spiraling staircase following the curvature of the room.
"When I arrived, I…" Now Elizabeth grits her teeth and holds a hand to her forehead, "I looked for Booker… but… I couldn't find him…" Reclining so she's resting against the cool but slightly irregular sandstone wall, Elizabeth shakes her head slowly, her long black hair providing a bit of padding against the rough surface, "No… it's worse than that. I kept seeing… seeing her."
Elizabeth had opened Tear after Tear in her search for Booker, but like before all she kept finding were the wrong Bookers; they were similar enough, but they weren't her Booker. So she kept searching, opening more Tears in the confines of this dark, empty lighthouse. "But the Tears began to… to change…" A grimace pulls at Elizabeth's features; more and more, her thoughts turned to the Little Sister Sally, and the Tears seemed to reflect that. The doors showed her Sally, Elizabeth gasping in surprise as the Little Sister appeared before her eyes; she was being pulled from the vent by a group of men, crying and shouting. Elizabeth had closed the Tear almost immediately, but it was far from the last.
More and more of the doors opened to reveal Sally, and shortly Elizabeth was seeing the Little Sister as often as she did Bookers and Annas. "Why? There's nothing I could… it's not my fault!" Pulling her knees up to her chest and crossing her arms on them, Elizabeth curls up and rests her forehead against her arms as her plaintive voice echoes in the empty room. It'd become too much for her then, despite her claiming the Little Sister wasn't her responsibility, and she'd curled up against the wall and cried herself to sleep as she whispered 'I'm sorry' over and over.
"It's not my fault… it's not my fault… I… I did what needed to be done. I accomplished my goal… Comstock paid for what he did… so why do I feel so awful?!" Pushing herself from the floor as she shouts at no one in particular, Elizabeth paces around the dark room with her arms crossed. Her heels clack on the sandstone floor as she goes, and Elizabeth grimaces as she shies away from the staircase leading down, "I should be happy! I can go anywhere I want now, I can go look for Booker, go home… I can…" Her voice falters as tears well up in her eyes; she'd witnessed the fate waiting for the Little Sister she'd used to exact her revenge, and she can't deny it anymore. She'd abandoned Sally once she was done with her, used her like a tool; Elizabeth realizes she is the only one to blame for Sally's fate.
"Used… oh my God…" The clacking of her heels falls silent as she comes to an abrupt stop, Elizabeth finally realizing why she can't simply forget about Sally; she'd used the little girl exactly as if she were a tool, as if she were no more important than a wrench or crowbar. She'd behaved exactly like the man she despises and sought to punish, leaving Sally to a terrible end at the hands of the Splicers. Just like Comstock. Fresh tears well up and stream down her cheeks as Elizabeth realizes the depths of what she's done, what she's become, and she staggers over to the curved wall near the staircase for support.
"No… I can't… I can't be like him!" Rough stone scuffs up her hands as she strikes the wall and falls to her knees, her palms getting nicked up as they slide down the rough surface. "There's… there's nothing I can do for her! Her Big Daddy killed me! And… and where was he, huh? Where was Sally's protector when she needed him?!"
A glint of silver catches her tear filled eyes, a sliver of moonlight finding its way into the dark lighthouse and reflecting off the silver thimble on her right pinkie. And as Elizabeth stares at her finger, severed long ago and the reason she can see all the doors in the first place, an idea comes to her grief stricken mind.
"Booker… he'll understand… he'll know exactly what to do…" Booker had dealt with more guilt than anyone else Elizabeth knew, and he always knew what needed to be done. In the short time they were together, at least. When she was still a naïve, sheltered girl in a terrible, twisted city, when she thought him a monster and even when she ran from him, Booker was always there for her in some manner or the other and did what was needed for their survival. He may not have had all the answers and even lied to her once, but he knew enough. "Even at the end, Booker knew what had to be done… and he accepted it, without a moment's hesitation or the slightest struggle…"
The thought of the river alone breaks her heart all over again, and Elizabeth collapses on the rough sandstone floor. Sobbing openly, Elizabeth remembers that night in her room, when she dreamed of Booker coming to her bedside and comforting her; it's a memory that she cherishes more than almost any other, even though it was only a dream.
"It must… run in… the family…" Whispering to herself between sobs, Elizabeth touches her fingers to her brooch, only to find it isn't there. "No, where… where is it…? Where is it?!" Though the tears still stream down her face and she still sobs, panic takes hold and spurs her to action; she needs to find her bird brooch, she has to! "It's the only… only present Booker ever… ever gave to me…"
Panic's thick in her voice as Elizabeth searches the floor for her brooch, but it's all for naught; even in the dark, the silver brooch would stand out against the yellow-orange sandstone, and Elizabeth's left standing in the middle of the room empty-handed.
"It must still be in Rapture…" The thought of returning to the underwater metropolis sends a shiver down her spine, "Maybe I can ask the Luteces…"
Shaking her head, Elizabeth dries her eyes on her white and black sleeve and pushes aside all thoughts of the brooch, the river, Rapture and Sally from her mind, instead focusing solely on her father. "Here goes… " The darkness of the lighthouse disappears with a wave of her hand, replaced by the shimmering light of a Tear and what lies beyond; the New York apartment of Booker DeWitt, the man himself and his baby girl Anna sitting at his desk. "This… is that…?" Peering closely, Elizabeth watches this Booker and Anna for a moment before closing the Tear; this isn't her Booker, a couple details here and there out of place.
And so it goes, Elizabeth opening Tear after Tear, searching the doors for the man she'd escaped Columbia with. But after the fifth booker she'd looked upon, the next Tear is anything but the same; Elizabeth's eyes go wide in horror as she sees the Little Sister appear before her eyes again. Sally's being held down on a table by a group of men, struggling as another approaches. "Atlas…" Elizabeth has to look away, shuddering as Sally's screams fill the lighthouse, and she slams the Tear shut the moment she can bring her hands up to do so. But still, the sound of Sally's scream still echoes in her ears.
"Please… I'm sorry, just let me be…" Sinking to her knees, Elizabeth manages to keep the tears from falling as she opens another Tear. And a relieved sigh escapes her when she sees a tired, haggard looking Booker walking down a street, a Pinkerton badge pinned to his shirt. "Not my Booker… definitely not."
But the visions of Sally do not abate, and soon Elizabeth's staring numbly through a Tear to Rapture once more. Sally's sitting in a closet somewhere, Atlas' men outside the door and keeping her prisoner. The Little Sister is singing some sort of song with her tiny, distorted voice, and it takes Elizabeth a moment to focus on and recognize it; a normally lovely French song she'd heard in Rapture on a few occasions, "La Vie en Rose…" Elizabeth finds herself humming along to Sally's song as she listens, the tune and lyrics lingering in her mind.
A touch of a smile tugs at Elizabeth's lips, but the song is abruptly cut short, the closet door swinging open and Atlas' Splicers approaching the little girl. One of them sneers at the Little Sister, "C'mere, girlie; no fair hogging all that tasty ADAM!"
"No!" Elizabeth shouts as she watches the Splicers haul Sally away; all she can do in the Sea of Doors is peer through the Tears. Even she has to travel to the lighthouses to enter the various worlds, though she normally needn't a boat like the Lutece twins do.
"I can't… I can't go home…" Still on her knees in the middle of the lighthouse, Elizabeth closes the Tear with a listless wave of her hand, "I have to save her… I can't let her die…" And I can't be like Comstock, she adds silently.
Rising slowly, Elizabeth trudges down the spiraling sandstone staircase and out the wooden doors of the lighthouse. She peers through the doors as she goes, watching what will be should she return to that terrifyingly insane city: Elizabeth sees herself lose her powers, her finger returning to normal; she sees herself fail time and again should she try to save Sally without returning to Rapture; and she sees the fate awaiting her even should she succeed. The sky is rife with dark, menacing clouds that block the sun as she realizes what she must do, and the ocean is gray and filled with choppy waves, the Sea of Doors seemingly in turmoil just as she is, "I suppose this place is affected by me…"
"It would appear so. What is it that you plan to do?"
"I'm going to save Sally, Lutece." Turning to Robert Lutece, Elizabeth heaves a quiet sigh; she wouldn't call the twins her friends, more like acquaintances who share her particular circumstances and occasionally her allies.
"But returning to that city will cause you to collapse." Rosalind Lutece chimes in, her words and voice very calm, even, and as always disinterested.
"The doors will be closed to you; there will be no way for you to escape Rapture. " Robert, the male Lutece managing a touch of concern in his voice.
"You will forget. You will be mortal again, without any powers to speak of. And there will be no second chances; no alternate selves to try again, no waking in this place between worlds again." Rosalind nods, and Elizabeth can only wonder at the twins' sudden arrival and attempts to dissuade her.
"I know, and I'm still going. I… I have to. I've already looked through the doors, seen what will happen… to me, to Sally…"
"What will happen," Rosalind interrupts, surprising Elizabeth, "is that you will die, most assuredly. You may save the girl, but your life for hers hardly sounds agreeable."
"Indeed. Hardly an improvement," Robert takes a step closer, "you don't have to do this. You desire to be reunited with your father; we shall assist you in finding him. There's no reason for you to do this."
"Yes there is!" Glaring as she snaps at the Luteces, Elizabeth turns away and heaves a deep, exasperated sigh, "I have a debt I owe the girl. I must repay it, that's all there is to it." Neither of the Luteces have a retort, but Elizabeth can feel their gaze on her back. "And it isn't just Sally's life… let me show you something… incredible."
Elizabeth waves her hand and a Tear opens into the side of the lighthouse. But even as she makes to show to the Luteces what will happen, not just to herself and Sally but to so many others, Elizabeth finds the tune the Little Sister had sung coming back to her. The sound of her voice slowly fills the air around the Tear as Elizabeth begins to hum, and she only stops as she turns back to the Luteces, "I've seen what can happen… let me show you."
Author's Note: Now, I know I said Chapter 3 was the end as it came up to Unbroken's beginning, but I kept feeling I should touch on Elizabeth's decision to return to Rapture despite the consequences. As such, this is more of an epilogue, and is more in line with the chapter lengths of the previous chapters than with my more recent works. There's also a few other reasons I wrote this one, but that'll be revealed later.
For those who are first reading this story, the first three chapters were written and posted as I was doing the same with Unbroken, but this chapter came a hell of a lot later. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thanks for reading.