Hello, my little dungeon-rats! Hope you guys packed your best items and stocked up on health; IT'S CHEST TIME! WHOO! Come on, let's get on with the show!

LAWYERBOT SAYS: "Wow, someone's excited to be done with this story."
The Binding of Isaac, including all related characters, items, and locations (c) Edmund McMillen, because he's awesome.
Original story of 'the binding of Isaac' (c) Genesis 22, one of the MANY Biblical fun-facts I learned on this journey.

Please note that the following is simply one take on a novelization of this epic adventure. The game is deep and symbolic, therefore meant to be open to interpretation. Please do not correct my version, merely enjoy it for the experience. :)

CHAPTER TEN: My Innermost Apocalypse

Maggie was right: never jump into strange holes ever again.

The monsters in the chest were brutal; creatures like Gurdy and the Carrion Queen guarded the rooms with their lives, and evil sin-monsters like the coin-stealing shopkeep roamed free, prowling around and desperate to make Isaac their next meal.

The wood and gold labyrinth seemed to stretch on forever. The floors were unsanded and threatened to prick Isaac with splinters with every step, and the sea of fires that populated the rooms gave it a dense, smokey air that was difficult to breathe. Isaac hated that feeling of suffocation.

The worst part was the darkness. Where the Cathedral was bright and warm, this chest was back to being dark and scary. Isaac had to fight the urge to look around and focus his vision on the doors ahead of him. The crackling fires dotted the walls with dancing shadows, all of which seemed to reach out and taunt Isaac if he looked up for too long. With a rub of his dry, stained eyes, they would disappear. Maybe he was seeing things? Nobody could tell how long they had been trapped in this nightmare, all without sleeping.

Except that he would close his eyes, and the voices would follow. Admit your sins. You're trapped. You're one of us.

Where was he going? What was he doing? What was he looking for? All he could find was monster after monster after monster.

Until finally, he found a door. In an odd moment of quiet (luckily, this room was filled with spikes, not monsters), Isaac found himself staring down a large, foreboding door. Skulls and bones made up its pillars, with a larger, horned skull at its keystone. The doors themselves were a blood-red, and seemed as if they would require all of Isaac's strength to push open.

This was the only room left, and it seemed different than all of the others. This had to be it!...whatever he was looking for, anyway.

xxxxxxx

With a heavy push, Isaac managed to force the big, red doors to swing open. At first, the room was quiet, and at first glance, seemed empty.

Then he looked again. The center of the room was filled by the blue baby, the same...thing he spotted dwelling within Mom's heart earlier.

The second Isaac stepped into the room, the baby spotted him. Its face lit up with a spooky, toothless smile, and with a wave of its hands, a line of flies spat out, all rushing straight for Isaac. It was hardly cause for alarm, despite ringing in memories of his first few steps through this nightmare adventure. They had seen more than enough flies at this point for them to be an issue.

"Hey, just calm down a second," Isaac tried to ease, hands out in a sort of peace-offering. The blue baby had none of it, though, and summoned more flies to be quickly dispatched. "Look, I don't want to fight you!"

The look on the baby's face clearly read, oh, but I want to fight you! With another arm-flail, it shot out a sea of purple bullets, all of which directed themselves straight for Isaac, who had to duck and weave his way between them. Seeing that he was still missing his target, the blue baby's grin faded into a toothy scowl, and it hopped to its feet in frustration. It began firing circle after circle of pale tears; not quite the crystal-white of pseudo-Isaac's, but muddled slightly, as if there was some kind of dirt or decay ruining their color. Their color meant nothing, though - they still burned just as potently.

The tired refugee covered his eyes, biting his lip as he fought through the pain of the attacks and stepped closer and closer. Finally within the blue baby's grasp, he reached out.

IS-SAC! Isaac ran backwards with a scream as a bloody angel appeared in front of him, a tattered version of the protectors they found throughout the Cathedral. Instead of a smile, its face was painted with a pained scowl, and it gave a spine-tingling shriek to scare Isaac away from the attacking child.

Isaac backed up, feeling a strange tingle in his hand. It was Judas' book, shaking Isaac's hand, begging to be opened. If he used the dark powers in the book, he could fight the angels. He could defeat this...thing. He could win.

Don't you want to make it out of here alive, Isaac? This thing will kill you! Will you throw your life away? Live up to your namesake as the sacrificial lamb? Or will you strike this beast down and reclaim your life?

Despite the murmurs in the back of his mind, Isaac threw the Book of Belial across the room. He wasn't here to win, never planned on killing everything in his path. Why was he suddenly so obsessed with death, with revenge, with succumbing to this haunting darkness?

No more.

xxxxxxx

Simply too tired to avoid the onslaught of bullets, Isaac rushed into a corner and curled up. The blue baby didn't move, so he assumed this would a safe place to take a ceasefire. However, it was still giving him a look, a taunting smile, as if waiting for him to step back into range.

Whoever...or whatever this blue baby was, it was dead-set on killing him.

Isaac grabbed hold of the Polaroid, which had nearly threatened to slip away during his running. Surprisingly, it wasn't the least bit smudged, despite Isaac's absolute filth. He was covered head to toe in dirt and coal and blood (...but mostly blood), and yet, not a drop of it had reached the picture. It was perfect, just like the happy family held within it.

The sheen of the photo-paper brought him back to the shiny machines in the arcade, namely the crystal ball of the fortune teller. It had seemed so long ago since that first arcade, when they found Cain behind the skulls, when Maggie couldn't play the slots, when Samson blew up the blood bank...

And when he received that cryptic message: BRING HIM THE PHOTO.

"Wait, that's it!" Being careful to duck and weave through the flies and tears that impeded his path, Isaac dropped down in front of the blue baby with an exhausted sigh. He held out the precious Polaroid, causing the baby to cease its attacks and look.

"Are you the one I'm supposed to give this to?" he panted.

The blue baby's eyes...or lack thereof, softened into a look of sadness. It put his hand to the picture, mouthing words that Isaac couldn't hear, but fully understood. Mom. Dad.

Isaac could feel the pain and heartache the strange child was feeling. "I'm sorry," he whispered, though he wasn't sure what he was apologizing for.

The blue baby dismissed the shrieking angels, finally bringing the smoky chest to a deafening silence. After catching his breath, Isaac spoke again: "...Do you know what happened? What's going on? Is there anything I can do to fix it?"

The blue baby got up and nodded for Isaac to follow him.

There was one more chest.

Whoo, we made it! Can you guys believe we survived this long? (I mean, I can't, but I haven't seen the Chest since I cleared it with all of the characters a few months ago.) Anyway, thanks so much for all of the support, guys! Tune in to the epic finale you've all been waiting for next time on Unknown Depths Below!

§ Tucker's Mayflower, signing off! §