Elizabeth V

Elizabeth was only able to crawl forward, past the splicer, a few more yards before banging her head against a crushed-in section of the vent.

"Damnit!" she hissed, rubbing her head and scooching backward to get a better look. 'This lighter is getting a work-out.'

Running her fingers along the metal before he, Liz swore once more. The vent was completely caved in; it was like something had grabbed it from the outside and crushed it like a cardboard tube. There was no opening, nothing even her slender frame could squeeze through, and nor was there any alternative routes in the vent.

...Which meant she'd have to leave the safety of the vents to travel among the splicers and the other dangers of Rapture.

"No way around it," she told herself, already making for the closest vent.

There was a certain comfort in the false bravado she was allowing herself, a refusal to accept the fear burning through Elizabeth's veins and eating at her stomach. Without her abilities and unlimited knowledge, she was just a girl without a pinky and with a few more hints on how the future might unfold. She was just a girl with no mother, no father, and no place among the stars. But the bravado allowed Liz to square shoulders, grit her teeth, and pretend she had this all under control.

With one hand clutching the Hand Canon -trigger finger itching; she was truly was her father's daughter- and Old Man Winter nipping at the fingertips of the other, Elizabeth slip from the vents, landing in a crouch. She immediately glanced at the male splicer, already raising the gun to shoot, but the man did nothing; he just kept with his mindless muttering and banging his head against the wall. Perhaps he didn't see Elizabeth... or perhaps the madness and hunger had clouded his mind so greatly that even the urge to be violent was lost.

"Just be grateful for it and move on," Booker whispered into her ear, though he was still eyeing the splicer suspiciously.

So Liz did, though she still walked sideways so she could keep an eye on the man.

'Alright, if I remember what I saw from the blueprints then it should only be about 70 yards to the next ventilation grate,' she thought. 'Assuming it isn't caved in as well.'

"Watch store, watch store, watch store..." she muttered to herself, eyeing the line of the shops. "Pass a lingerie store and a watch store; go straight until you reach a fountain."

By this point, all the stores had been ransacked and raided for any possible supplies. A few looked as if people had tried to barricade themselves inside, seeking some small amount of safety, but the entrances had been busted in, and, judging by the dried bloodstains, anyone inside had been killed. More disturbing than that, however, were the stores that looked nearly pristine -like they hadn't been touched at all- and served as an eerie snapshot into the not-so-distant past.

Heats of garbage -rotting food, cloth scraps, and busted rubble- lined the walls of the hall. Furniture had been broken down to be used for firewood, along with anything else that would burn. According to Tenebaum, one of the first systems that had gone down once Rapture had begun falling apart was the city's heating system and, at the bottom of the ocean, it was chillingly cold; Elizabeth wouldn't be surprised if plenty had died from hypothermia in the past months.

"Even with the heat, it was always cold," Booker remarked, eyeing the smoldering remains of a fire set to a stained loveseat. "Never really bother me though."

"Did the Devil's Kiss keep you warm?" she whispered back. "I read in Albert Fink's notes that a rise in internal temperatures was a side effect of that vigor; it overwhelmed most people though, that is part of the reason why Firemen had to be locked in those Iron Maiden devices."

"Nah, it's just because I'm cold-blooded," her father said, smirking at his own joke.

Liz snorted, rolling her eyes. "You were never that funny."

"Maybe, but I least noticed-" he pointed to their left "-what we're about to pass."

"Oh! The watch shop! Huh, 'Ticks & Tocks'... Nice name," Elizabeth said, taking in the exterior of the shop.

Once upon a time, it had a combination of sleek, polished wood and shiny modern chrome. But now the wood had been pulled out to use for firewood, leaving only the dented and scratched chrome pipes and chipped bike. Like some of the other storefronts, a thick sheet of metal had been pulled down to seal off the entrance as a security door but, unlike most of the others, it had been mostly successful in keeping both splicers and survivors out. Not for lack of trying though; someone had clearly taken a jack to the bottom of the metal barrier and tried to force it up, but only managed to create a small gap.

"Onto the fountain then?" Booker suggested. "You should probably want to stick around here too long."

Somewhere down the hall, a scream rang out, echoing off the walls until it faded into nothing, replaced by a scuttling, scraping sound, like dozens of giant rats were rushing about.

Liz shivered, "Yeah, good i-UMPF!"

A heavy, warm weight slammed into her back, sending Elizabeth sprawling on the floor. The wind knocked right out of her, she still tried to scramble to her feet, only to be slammed right back down. Skeleton fingers with sharp, jagged fingers tore at her exposed arms, and then there were teeth gnawing at her neck!

Elizabeth screamed as blunt, teeth sawed at her flesh. Tears swam in her eyes but, through them, she could see Booker staring down at her with panic and fear and desperation.

"Help me," she croaked.

But Booker couldn't help her. Because Booker wasn't really there. He was just a figment of her imagination, a manifestation of a shattered, tortured psyche that missed a father who she never really knew. He couldn't help her. No one could help her. Elizabeth was alone and she had to help herself.

Wiggling one arm until it was braced under her; she pushed up and used the leverage to throw her body to the side, knocking her attacker off. A little freer now, no longer completely pinned down, Liz pulled herself forward and out from under the person on top of her. Now she was finally able to stumble up. Not completely to her feet though, something grabbed a hold of her ankle.

"Ahhggg!"

Elizabeth fell once more, only able to turn around so she landed on her butt rather than her face. Despite the fear and adrenaline rushing through her veins, Liz was able to recognize her attacker.

It was the red-haired splicer! Head and face still caked with partially dried blood, he stared at her with blood-shot, unforced blue eyes. The man snarled, lips covered with smears of more blood... Elizabeth's blood, pulling back to show his teeth.

"Go away!" Liz demanded, leveling the Hand Canon at the splicer's head. "Go away or I'll shoot!"

But the man was too far gone to register the threat, let alone the danger posed by her gun, and he lunged forward. Still on all fours like a rabid predator, the splicer grabbed at Elizabeth, gripping at her leps as he howled, "FRESH MEAT!"

BANG!

The man's head jerked backward at the force of the bullet tearing through blood and brain and bone, the upper part of his skull exploded in a cloud of viscera. Ears ringing and heart thudding, Liz took a deep breath and pushed the corpse off of her legs. He was so light.

"Don't get too comfortable," Booker warned. "You're not out of danger yet."

As if on command, Elizabeth heard another shriek. She turned and, to her horror, a pair of splicers -a man and a woman- stumbled into view from the dark of the corridor. The female of the duo spotted Liz first, pointing at her and shouting, "New! New! Get her!" before both charged forward.

Behind the pair, there was the thundering of people running.

"Fuck!" Elizabeth jumped up and raised the gun again, firing two shots.

One whizzed through the air, embedding into a column, but the other hit the female splicer in the knee, causing her to fall forward. The woman rolled across the ground, her lower left leg hanging limply from her bloody, blown apart knee. She left out a feral howl of pain, causing her male companion to pause -however briefly to check on her.

"You gotta run," Booker urged. "You can fight them all off!"

For half-a-second, Elizabeth considered pointing out that he'd fought his way through swarms of enemies without breaking a sweat but, ultimately, decided it wasn't the time. But where? Liz didn't have time to find another vent grate. She glanced down the hall, wondering if it was worth running toward the fountain. She could try hiding, but there was no telling how long the splicers would hang around. She spun around, eyes desperately searching for something... anything to help her- THERE!

Elizabeth sprinted towards the watch shop, throwing herself to the ground and sliding across the dirty linoleum floor towards the narrow gap between the ground and the metal security door. Small as the gap was, Liz was smaller and, with some squirming, she was able to push herself under.

BANG!

That didn't mean she was safe though.

The bloodstains hands of at least a dozen splicers grabbed at her through the gap, causing her to crawl away. When they realized they couldn't reach her, they began pulling at the security door, trying to get it up.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

More splicers were throwing themselves at the windows of the storefront; the glass had been knocked out long about but the metal security grate held strong.

"You got to do something to keep them out," Booker shouted. "Now!"

Elizabeth looked around, trying to find something she could barricade the entrance with. But there was nothing aside from the shattered glass displays. Despite her pounding heart and the sweat breaking out over her body, all she felt was cold.

'Cold... that it!'

Frost clung to her fingertips as Liz raised her hands, calling on the power of Old Man Winter she shot a blast of icy energy. It hit the security door, coating the entire thing with a thick wall of ice that expanded to cover the windows as well. The splicers scattered cockroaches, pulling their hands back before they could get stuck in the ice. By the time her icy barrier was up, their screams and moans had been muffled into almost complete silence.

It gave her some peace, just enough that Elizabeth was able to catch her breath and gather her bearings. On her feet once more, she searched through the wreckage of the dilapidated shop. Nothing of importance remained, mostly it was just a lot of broken glass -some of which had scratched up Liz's arms to hell and back when she was crawling around on the floor- and busted wrist and pocket watches.

'Shame,' she thought, bending down to pick up a gold, ruby-encrusted pocket watch. 'This thing is a work of art, gaudy and impractical as it.'

"Errr," she grunted as the pain a dull pain burned at her neck.

Elizabeth reached up to touch it and, when she pulled her fingers back, they were smeared with blood. There was a large mirror behind what was once the store's main display counter; it was cracked now and missing chunks of its face, but it was still intact enough for Liz to examine her neck.

"Ugh, I swear that guy was trying to gnaw my neck open," she grumbled, lightly probing at the bleed bite marks. Human teeth were actually pretty blunt, especially compared to most animals, but with enough force, they could saw through just about any meat. "I don't want to even think about what I could catch from this!"

"Hunger can drive a man mad," Booker said. "And a hungry man who is already mad will do just about anything to get some food in his belly. I remember, back during the war, when the rations were running low, some troops would go out into the battlefields at night and..."

He trailed off and Elizabeth wondered if that was because she didn't want to hear anymore. Some sick part of her wanted to ask Booker if he'd ever partaken in this... scavenging, but decided against. It's not like he'd be able to answer anyway. Liz had spied on Booker in a thousand different timelines and at a thousand different points in his life; she'd seen him do horrible, unforgivable things, but she'd never seen him do that.

Cr-cr-crack!

Tenenbaum's voice came over the radio; it had to fight through more static now, but she was still able to make out the other woman's words.

"Elizabeth? Elizabeth, where are you?" she demanded. "Have you reached Bancock's Hardware yet? Time is of the utmost importance; there is no time to dilly dally."

"No, sorry!" she replied, glancing toward the icy wall. She could no longer see any shadows of splicers lurking by the windows, but that didn't mean they weren't there. Elizabeth couldn't even use the power of the Peeping Tom plasmoid; she'd already used up all the EVE left in her veins from that first dose.

'And I'm not even to the hardware store yet,' Liz thought. 'This place is a death trap and I need to conserve what little EVE I have; there is no telling if I'll be able to find more of it.'

"What could possibly be so important as to delay your mission?" Tenenbaum hissed. "Need I remind you that this was your idea in the first place?"

"It's not like I'm shopping!" Elizabeth growled back. "The vent you told me to use was caved in! I had to find a different way through, got attacked by a hoard of splicers."

.

.

.

"Are you alright?"

'Aw, she does care about little old me,' Liz thought with a teasing smile. "A little beat up, but yes. I had to barricade myself in that watch store you mentioned though. I need a way out, can you check the blueprints again?"

'I've come so far, I'm not letting this little setback stop me.'