A/N: We're back again, dear readers! When I wrote this chapter, I couldn't help but think of the first Dead Space story I read: Ouroboros. I hope you enjoy.


Chapter Twenty-nine: Sudden Death

- A tribute chapter to Leks Bronks -


Isaac was not sure how he managed it, but he juggled the pulse rifle at the same time he climbed up the ladder and cracked open the hatch to peer at the floor. Darkness spread out in every direction and it seemed thicker, more terrifying, for the simple fact that the docking bay was so enormous and the black was endless. And he knew what went bump in the night. He could hear the soft shuffling and quiet grunts of twitchers as they stirred, and occasionally an orange light would wink out at him or a flicker of blue. However, his immediate surroundings were clear of Necromorphs.

This was such a bad idea, he thought, opening the hatch noiselessly then hoisting his lower half up and out, but it was necessary. If the Marker had initiated an attack on Ellie, it would not relent until her walls cracked and crumbled. He had to get to her and take the brunt of its power against her. Whatever the cost, he would keep her living.

A large overturned crate was a meter or so to his left and he huddled next to it, the pulse rifle gripped and ready. Pitch black cloistered around him, but at least his visor gave him a cloud of visibility. The corner of his eye caught a bright glow, and unsettled, he swung the rifle up and around, his forefinger tightening on the trigger. It was a stasis refill station. With a sigh, he cautiously stepped across the floor, keeping as much to cover as he could, and activated the refill.

He searched the dark for a moment, but he was clear. His waypoint was a brilliant blue slip that shot off over the hatch and along a cleared aisle, more towards the deep blanket of lightlessness. Before coming up the ladder, he'd double checked the map on his RIG and his coordinates; he was very close to the repair station. Licking his lips, Isaac swallowed down his palpitating heart. There was nowhere else for him to go, only forward. One foot in front of the other, he moved like a wraith into the unknown. Glow from his visor gave him that limited visibility and he wondered if it helped pinpoint his position.

Where the upended crate ended was a huge wall of stacked containers. Overhead, each tower was clamped between a claw's spindly fingers, hanging from the ceiling on a track. With the power out, he could not use telekinesis to shift the containers. Shit. His map had not displayed this obstacle. Briefly he considered circumventing the containers, but he didn't know how far to the side they were stacked. He also did not know if going through the middle would save time, or if he'd have to backtrack.

After a moment, he decided to follow the stacks' perimeter because he could imagine some violent demise in a hidden dead-end somewhere inside that maze. He chose to go left, and keeping the sandwiched stacks on his right, he crept forward. Minutes crawled by as he kept a continuous lookout for twitchers. None showed a face, but Isaac knew they were close at hand. Had he made the right choice going around? It felt like it was taking him forever. Just as he decided that after this next two meters he would turn to go back, the stacks ended.

In the distance, something big and heavy crashed to the floor- -a precariously stacked container, maybe? Whatever it was, it startled him into motion. He slipped around the corner. The further he went, the more he felt as if he was on the verge of running out of luck. What was worse was that he was stuck between saving time or being caught by the twitchers. As much as he wanted to save Ellie, he should avoid letting footsteps signal twitchers to his position. Thankfully, the stacks had shorter width than length, and Isaac abruptly came to the end of it. A few lower crates had created a sort of alleyway for him to walk between.

He felt, more than saw, a wide-open area ahead and when he checked his waypoint, it glided forward, straight, with no turns. But then multiple flashes of blue erupted, like lines of fireworks, and he shuffled back to nestle out of sight. Dammit. Twitchers here. To make sure he was on track, he queued up his map and saw that he was smack at the doorstep for the repair shop. Finally.

Now he had to negotiate a path across. He doubted he could distract them like he'd done the last time, and besides with the power off, he might not even be able to get into the door. By the millimeter he peeked out to scan the far wall of the bay. The holographic locking mechanism was not visible. Even if he could make it across, how could he open the damn door without being sliced and diced?

"Please wait as main power is restored to all areas," a man's mechanical voice informed pleasantly on the loud speakers. "All areas will have restored power in sixty seconds."

This was followed closely with a repetitious SSSHUNK that resounded through the bay. Isaac glanced overhead and saw the lights blinking to life, one long row at a time. More lights blinked on, chasing off the dark, and when he craned his neck, the sign to the repair workshop was lit as well as the door panel. It was locked. Seven twitchers stood, hunched and large, on the cleared deck, enough to worry him but few enough to make him think he could take them out with some careful planning.

"I'm coming Ellie," he murmured. "Hang tight."

Silently, he searched his immediate area and found two slim metal rods that would come in handy. He could TK the rods into two of the twitchers, and use their blades on the others if he was lucky. While he hacked the door, he could use stasis and the pulse rifle to dismember two or three, maximum. From experience, pulse rifles were a weaker weapon than some others when it came to separating a limb from a torso.

Adrenaline pumped into his blood. He breathed a couple deep breaths, just to steady himself, before he TK'd the first rod into the nearest twitcher. It screeched as its body was flung away. By the time it was pinned into the wall near the repair shop's door, Isaac had repeated the favor on the second-nearest twitcher. He had the others' attention. To lessen the range for his TK, he sprinted nearer to the opposite wall, where the twitcher hung like some macabre sculpture. Five hulking, angry monsters roared at him, but Isaac had already stopped four in their tracks with stasis.

He was near enough that he could rip out a blade from one that was on the wall and send it into the most mobile one. Another furious bellow as a third twitcher flew backwards, the blade punching its entire body. The TK was powerful enough to nail it against the shipping containers that went up to the ceiling. That twitcher was too far for his TK to reach. His stasis held on the other four, three of which he dispatched with the three remaining blades.

Okay, he had to do this before the stasis wore off the last twitcher. He reapplied his last shot of stasis on the remaining twitcher and tromped to the terminal. It was then he noticed that the outside of the terminal had been shot to shit. A jagged hole the size of his fist opened the siding and telltale scorches marred the machinery. At first, he didn't know what to do because the shock hammered him a breath-stopping blow.

Long seconds ticked on as he stared in disbelief at the ruined terminal. From behind him at many points, he heard the rallying cry of more twitchers, the whole lot of them notified of his presence from the others. No matter how hard he wanted it, he could not will that terminal into functioning again. Whatever power had been endowed to him from the Marker deserted him. He was with his back against a wall and the entirety of the Necromorphic station zeroed in on both him and Ellie.

As he stood there, his mind a roaring blank, his RIG opened a holovid. A woman with her hair tucked under a cap glared at him. "What're you doing? You'll lead them right to us!"

The parasite must be damaged, a distant thought told him, but he could only blink behind his visor, unable to reply. Rapid clomping snapped his attention to his right. Automatically, he raised the pulse rifle and took out the twitcher's legs. It roared with inhuman vocals at him, and as he aimed, his eye exploded with pain. The migraine hit with such force that Isaac saw spots crawl across his vision and he sagged to his knees.

Where was it…where was it coming from? He didn't know. Couldn't think over it. Heat poured through him, a feverish hotness that broke out sweat under the sec-suit. His whole world spun, the floor wavering under him, and the walls swelling and contracting, beating with rhythmic pattern.

Whatever this pain was, he couldn't stop it and he screamed from the razor-sharp stabs into his brain. In front of him, the legless twitcher crawled towards him, the blades like the legs of a black widow on the floor. And then it was on him. Agony seared white-hot pain across his stomach, but was a vague undercurrent compared to his head. Yelling with the pain, crying from it, Isaac twisted, bringing up the rifle to block a descending scythe. He didn't see where the other blade was and his brain told him not to worry about it.

They were locked together. Face to face with him was twitcher's robotic features, its body overgrown with blackened tissue, a perfectly round orange eye rotated up and down. Tentacles squirmed, little worms wiggling in the dead flesh. It held its head at an unnatural angle with a toothy maw primed to chomp his tender flesh at his neck. Blood and fluid slavered out of its open mouth and dripped on his visor.

As he strained against the one blade, Isaac wedged his foot between their bodies and kicked. The twitcher staggered; it was enough for him to use the pulse rifle to devastating effect. But…something was very wrong. He could only get one arm up to use the gun. He felt…faint, breathless. Dizzy. His vision had taken on a smeared quality. Far away from his body, he saw a curved bone protruding out of his abdomen. Blood welled from the edges where the blade cut. Oh, he thought. Oh, I've been hit. That can't be good. He had time to think how large the blade was in comparison to a javelin before the humming of bees swarmed over his eyes and he fell, weightless, into nothing.

However long he was in the nothing, he stirred when he heard a familiar voice soft in his ear. Ellie, murmuring. Or…singing? His brain woke up a little more. "…star. How I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky. Twinkle…"

What…? Confusion concerned him for a moment before the throb in his eye took over. He hissed from the ache of it, and discovered his visor was disengaged when he pressed a palm over his bare eye. Ouch. Dammit. Then he sat up suddenly at his next thought. Twitchers. He'd been trying to get into the repair shop and he'd been attacked by twitchers. There'd been a…a bone stabbed in him. He'd passed out.

But when his hand dropped to his stomach, patting and feeling for damage, he could find none. The sec-suit was undamaged. Pain radiated from his eye, but from nowhere else. He was fine. Relieved, he sat for a moment in the quiet. His struggle with the twitcher and subsequent injury must've been a hallucination wrought by the Marker.

Somehow, he'd made it inside the repair shop and had been sprawled on the floor inside the doors. When he got to his feet, he noticed the repair shop was a medium sized chamber. Metal shelving units spanned the functional wall, and work islands in an open area were scattered with various tools and parts. A bench and a store sat up a few stairs in a tidy corner. Beside the store were a few lockers, opened.

"I could've sworn," he said out loud. His voice was weak, too small in the too-big emptiness. "How'd I…?"

The thought was interrupted when Ellie came up on a hololink. His surge of joy soured into dismay when he saw that her eye had been gouged out. "Isaac," she sang to him. Blood trickled from her empty socket to drip off her chin. He couldn't look away from it. "Isaac, I miss you. Are you coming?"

He'd been fucking right. The Marker had gotten at her. "Ellie, yes. I'll be there soon. Stay put. I'll fix this. I promise." But how could he promise her? Could he fix it? Everything had gotten so out of control and he had no…

"…way of knowing how to save her," a sinister whisper finished. "It's always been that way, hasn't it?"

"Shut up."

Ellie, still on hololink, giggled. It sounded hollow and it made Isaac sick. "Hurry, hurry, Isaac. Your mother's here. We're having a grand time, aren't we, Mrs. Clarke?" She glanced off screen. "I know. I'll tell him. Say, Isaac. I'm glad I could speak to your mother again." Her smile was too wide, too toothy, when she signed off.

"Shit. Fuck." The cursing helped him feel better, marginally. He rubbed his temples and got a grip on his panic. "Fuck."

First things first. He took a thorough tour of the repair shop, gathering items that impressed him as necessary and collecting them on the very center island area. Towards the back of the shop, he came across a helpful stasis recharge station. After rummaging around for a minute, he dug up a duffle bag that he tossed on top of the parts and things on the work counter. Then he went to the store and bought as many power nodes and pulse rounds as his credits allowed, plus stasis recharges.

He crossed to the work counter and after setting aside his armful of new purchases, he stood assessing his collection of items. Several industrial-grade plasma welders were present. These tools were used for sealing shut the metal crates and containment units protecting products. The design of it was similar to the plasma cutter, except more cylindrical, and instead of discharging shots, a small spark of plasma was used to fuse the metal together. After some tinkering, Isaac disabled the safety mechanism so that the beam intensified tenfold, and furthermore, he could create a sustained type of blade, a meter or so in length, with the plasma.

Also, he'd grabbed another tool that looked as though it was used to cut or dismantle crates, a sort of advanced letter opener for the metal crates. The machine part was conical, with a small point at the very end, and needed a power supply, which Isaac easily rewired to feed off his suit. This piece was clunky and he needed both hands to carry it. With a flick of his fingers, he was able to shoot a precise, red laser that sliced cleanly through metal.

He considered a moment whether to pack everything that would fit into the duffle, but decided speed was his best ally and unclipped the duffle's shoulder strap to fashion into one for the pulse rifle. The pulse rifle badly needed upgrades, so most of the power nodes went into expanding the damage and ammo capacity of the weapon. When he closed up the bench, he glanced around this last vestige of safety, expecting somewhat for a twitcher to drop from the ceiling, but when silence greeted him, he strode to the door.

His eye had settled at a low throb, an ache that he noticed, nothing that wracked him with agony. He already decided he was going to run and gun. Suicide, probably, but Ellie was falling further and further into dementia every second he wasted. That was not something he would allow. On his arm was the laser, clipped to his suit was a plasma welder, and hanging off a strap to his back was the pulse rifle. For a refresher, he checked his map and confirmed that he was directly across the bay from where he started. If the bay was clear of obstacles, he'd be able to run a straight line to the lift doors.

"Fee, fie, foe, fum," he said, before opening the door. "Here I come."

The second the sides pulled apart far enough to accommodate his shoulders, Isaac charged forward at a full-on sprint. Twitchers had conglomerated around the doors, waiting for him to stick out his neck. Ineffectually, they scissored their blades at him and when Isaac triggered the laser, it had an awesome effect. With a slight sweep of his right arm, he sliced off six or more twitcher legs in a single shot. Blackened bodies crumpled to the floor; he didn't stop to finish them off. The stacked containers were lit, so as he dodged down the familiar little alleyway, he TK'd the one on the corner.

Clattering, as the mountainous stack lurched into motion along the ceiling track, and Isaac slowed his sprint to a jog when no twitchers popped out at him from the sides, floor, or the stacks. Regardless, their noise rolled over him, part of what made them so terrible to face, but his harsh breathing blocked it from his ears. He managed to cover the distance to the access hatch, but as soon as he came to that intersection, twitchers, in their jerky, spasmodic movements, poured out of the hatch to gallop towards him.

"Holy shit!"

Once again, he used the laser, spurting past them as they (literally) lost their footing, clearing a path from him to eek through as the stamp of heavy feet rang in the air. The stacks opened up into the loading section of the bay area, enough so that Isaac could make out a part of the bay that was smoking and in flames. Containers had flown outwards, spilling their contents- -small metallic devices unknown to Isaac at first glance- -and the floor panels were smoking and burned. From behind him, a wave of roaring, howling, chased after him, so he dodged into the easiest pathway he could discern. The lift, and its safety, was a long distance for a desperate, old man.

In his peripheral, a black flicker. Without even registering it, he spun to the side, opening fire with the laser in a long sweep which carved the twitcher into two pieces. More twitchers trundled up in the cramped aisle, so Isaac shot forward to wind through the chaotic bay area. At one point, he came to a dead end. With the twitchers closing in on him, he ducked into a slim opening inside a crashed barge, having to crawl on hands and knees inside a wire-tangled compartment before bursting out the other side. Twitchers were everywhere, and he used the laser until he was too slow to dodge, and a blade connected with his forearm, destroying the cylinder that housed the proper wiring.

Without missing a beat, Isaac shed the laser, reached behind, and pulled free the pulse rifle until he could mount the lift and activate it. Once the lift screeched into motion, he leaned a hand against a rail to inhale and exhale in relief. The constant run had jolted his knees into stiffness, but the feeling of them was watery. He'd been scared.

"When the blazing sun is gone…when there's nothing he shines upon," Ellie sang through audiolink so quietly, so lowly, he had to strain to hear her, "then you show your little…AAAAAUGH!" A violent shriek of terror shredded his eardrums and heart.

"ELLIE!"

"Isaac! Stay with me!" Sobbing, gasping for air. "Don't go!"

"I'm coming, Ellie! Hang on!"

At that moment the lift stopped. There was no noise to indicate that anything was wrong; one second it rattled in its ascent, and the next, it quit. The lights, too, had quit, like someone had flicked a switch. Sharp pain sliced into his optical nerve, a knife's blade forced into that part of his head.

"You're not going anywhere, Isaac." That malevolent tone over his audio soured his stomach. In the distance a pulse of dim, white light, then a shimmer of silvery symbols in a familiar shape. "Ellie is mine, Isaac. She's mine!"

"You can't have her!" he yelled back.

Children's laughter answered him. Darkness cut to light; the lift was in motion, almost as though the Marker had hit the pause button on his life, messed with the lighting and audio, then set everything back again. Involuntarily, he shuddered when the thought that the Marker, at will, could manipulate his perceptions. How had it gotten so powerful? Sure his hallucinations and nightmares were exceptionally vivid, but somehow, this felt different. It was a difference that he couldn't explain.

"You won't be able to save her, just like you couldn't save the others," the Marker whispered. "You're too old. Too tired. Too-"

Upset, a cold twist ripe in his guts, Isaac disengaged his visor, cutting short the Marker's taunt. Inwardly, he toed a precipice that gaped out at his feet, something cold and endless that would swallow him, suffocate him. He would not escape what was down there because it would be defeat, it would be Ellie unsaved, it would be the Marker winning at a cost that he could not bear. He clenched his teeth so hard he heard a few creak before he relented.

Without the visor, his hearing was much more acute. Sound emitted from the PA system, faint, marred with crackles and pauses, but Isaac recognized the tune. Listening to it disturbed him more than he cared to admit. When the lift came to standstill, Isaac hesitated. He didn't recognize this corridor. It wasn't the deck he'd expected to find in Shipment Processing. Instead this corridor was dim, lights buzzed on and off, weakly, and some sections were shadowed in complete dark. Corruption had coagulated like plaque in an artery.

In a shimmer of red-orange, the walls of the place distorted. Pinpricks of light burned through the film and gasping under a sharpened, physical haze, Isaac watched as twin rows of limbs grew from the sagging flesh as far as he could see down the corridor, both sides. The limbs had hands and fingers splayed and thrashing, clawing for release, and the flesh flexed, molded to glob-like shoulders and heads and legs. Skin shaped over muscles and bones, formed into features, and in chilling certainty, he knew that these new-formed bodies would be people he would recognize, maybe even people he loved.

"Nicole," he said. He dared not get close to the contorting bodies- -they were connected to the wall still, but the fleshy blobs of their faces were stretching, molding. "Nicole, what's going on?"

Usually reliable for answers, she didn't appear to him. Panic swelled; his chest felt constricted. As the bodies spasmed, writhed, he shied away. He backed into the lift, and thinking to avoid the corridor, reached out to activate it. But the lift had no power. He had nowhere to go.

"You can't run away this time, Isaac," the Marker announced, static crackles breaking the murmured words. "There is no escape. Nicole knows it. That's why she's deserted you."

The bodies from the wall had finished forming, had detached to take new, uncertain steps forward, and just as he suspected, they were the faces of people he'd known. Streaming dark hair and a stern jaw showed his mother. The bald pate of Tiedemann. Up-done white hair indicated Millicient, and beside her, with a fall of reddish-brown was her daughter, Kendra. Greggs' friendly features and eyes; behind him, Isaac recognized the gruff, stubbly face of Foster Edgars. In the crowd was Hammond, solemn, and Kyne's earnest, rounded face, as well. Faces that he'd met in passing and hadn't thought of since.

"What do you know," he said, out loud. "The gang's all here."

"Y-yes, Isaac," replied a man on his left. Surprised, Isaac turned and came face to face with long-nosed Stross, who had hunched like Quasimodo, unseen, in the corner of the lift. "Everyone's all here. The Marker made them for you, Isaac. Just f-for you."

Isaac grimaced. "Not everyone I'd like to see."

"Come on," Stross said, grabbing hold of Isaac's arm, "she's waiting. She's always waiting."

"Who is?" Isaac pulled away from Stross' hand, but being confined in the lift, he had precious little room to withdraw to. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

Stross didn't answer. With a strength that outmatched Isaac's resistance, Stross tore the pulse rifle from his hands and shoved him out of the lift. Isaac stumbled forward, wheeling his arms, expecting to be torn apart. The others that had gathered reached out. Here it was, he thought, his end, but hands from every direction grasped his sec-suit, wrists, shoulders, his elbows, biceps, and the bodies, material and solid, pressed in on him so that he was forced to move in any direction the collection of them wanted. He didn't like how easily they maneuvered him along the corruption-choked corridor, even as he dug in his heels and struggled.

"Nicole!" At this point, he was desperate for her voice. Her presence. She didn't answer. "Ellie? Ellie!"

Some sort of whine ripped the airwaves; Isaac flinched from it, his eardrums ringing with the frequency. Inside his head, he could feel a presence take shape, but it was nothing like the Marker. It was not cold or menacing. A hint of lavender-vanilla wafted through the air. Ellie was somewhere near. Or was she? He couldn't tell. His eye throbbed, sore and angry and persistent. He lost the connection to whatever was in his mind. Crap. He didn't understand any of this. When had the rules changed?

With growing certainty, he became sure that what he experienced was not a hallucination. Instead, he was in a horrific mimicry of real life. Reality as played by alien technology. This confrontation was much different than any in his prior experience. The whole of it felt anticlimactic; a short, clean-cut end to a long battle. Around him, the faces were expressionless. They were quiet, their footsteps slogging on through the diseased tissue, the rustle of cloth and the light clanking of armor were the only sounds in the corridor.

Up ahead, an opening was bathed in fluorescent light which the entire crowd hustled him into. The space expanded considerably since before him, tall and proud, was the Grey Marker in its stadium. Vaguely, a sense of disquiet trickled in as at the foot of the pale Marker was Ellie, seated in a reclined chair. Standing over her was Mercer, looking as sallow as usual. Isaac's bad feelings rose to a queasy crescendo. Helpless at the hands of these minions, Isaac stared at Mercer, who lovingly caressed Ellie's cheek.

"Such a pretty thing," he said with that eastern-European accent, "to be caught in the mechanisms of the greater cause. She will make a fine specimen for-"

"You're fucking insane!" Isaac interrupted. He bucked his shoulders, wrenched his arms, but the hold on him was firm. He was powerless. "Keep your hands off her!"

Mercer chuckled and pointed his short beard in Isaac's direction. "Lock him down."

This was not something he expected, but he understood the method. Between the lot of them, he was forced into a similar chair to Ellie's, except his had shackles for his wrists and ankles. Ineffectually, he tugged and strained, anything he could think of to get free, but metal was fucking metal and would not budge. Directly across from him were Ellie, her face composed, her hair loose around her face, and Mercer. He'd been given a front row seat to Ellie's conversion.

"Last time we saw each other, I had been transformed into a greater creature than you could ever imagine," Mercer said. On top of some various boxes was a toolkit. Mercer reached into this and picked up a syringe. "It was glorious, Isaac. I was finally free, finally at peace. But the holy Marker called me back to duty, back to the realm of the living to show you the correct path." Mercer had also picked up a palm-sized vial that he stuck the syringe into.

"No. No, you…you can't," Isaac whispered. His head throbbed with pulsating agony. "Don't touch her!"

This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be…

"But I must. The Marker needs living tissue, something complex and organic, to survive. It needs a host to help replicate the signals. It wants us to evolve into its magnificent creatures. Ellie is the perfect candidate," Mercer continued. He drew out the plunger to fill the syringe with colorless fluid. "Your mind was very pure, but has been…tainted. Your idealism is not conducive to the Marker's signal. In fact, you neutralize the so-called dementia. The Marker has not been able to understand how you can do this. However, with experimentation…well," he glanced aside at Isaac with a dark gleam in his eyes, "anything is possible."

"Don't…don't…"

Mercer swabbed Ellie's forehead and lowered the syringe so that the needle hovered over the unbroken caramel skin. Ellie's eye was fixated on a point at the ceiling, and even though he dreaded what would happen, he could not chicken out into glancing away. Then something made Mercer hesitate. Tension had stiffened his arm in preparation for injecting Ellie with…whatever that fluid was…but he drew his shoulders back.

"Hm, I do not understand…" Mercer said to no one in particular. "Very well. As you wish."

To Isaac's relief, Mercer dropped his hand from Ellie's forehead. Ellie sat up as if from a trance, accepted Mercer's hand in standing and took the syringe from him. Her remaining eye fell on Isaac, but it was not Ellie who looked at him. She approached Isaac with a vacant, cold expression and drew up to his side.


A/N: Well, I'm sorry about ending the chapter there. Furthermore, I've contracted bronchitis which has caused me too much trouble than being sick is worth. I won't be posting next Saturday, in an attempt to rest. The next chapter will be ready 3/30/13. I hate doing that to you all and I hope I see you then. =)