1 Week Post-Outbreak

All right, that's the last of it, Curtis thought with the final puddle of Necromorph paste sucked out of their room with an industrial liquid vacuum, the kind used to siphon up chemical spills.

Great job. I never thought we'd get it done, Nicole replied, a big smile on her maw as she wiped down the walls with a rag. This place finally started to feel like home. A home, more like. Fine enough to stay in temporarily, but it could never be the real deal. It would either be interim housing… or their tomb. Curtis' mind drifted back to everything that happened to make it so.

After their hard-fought victory, he and Nicole made it back inside the Ishimura, where he immediately keeled over, almost comatose from the worst day of his life. Nicole dragged him to the cleanest cot she could find, tending his wounds and spirit while he lay bedridden. A few days and several surgeries later, he was lucid enough to understand that they'd won.

It had been brutal and traumatizing and unholy, but they won. The scarred, worn surroundings stood in testament to the cosmic doom they'd stared down and defeated. For a little while, at least. There was a lot of crying from both of them for the rest of that day, but they started planning contingencies soon after.

No one came for them. Curtis suspected that the disappearance of the USM Valor, the failure of one of their best agents and Aegis VII nearly blasted to bits made EarthGov think the venture foolhardy. Nicole thought they drafted up a plan of action before committing any more resources. Regardless, nothing came their way yet, and the Ishimura didn't broadcast any signals. They couldn't imagine what'd happen if the government did find them, so they hoped the ominous calm lasted until they found another way off the ship.

Which didn't look likely. They'd spent an entire day poking around the ruined ship for another vessel but came up short; the Executive Shuttle was the very last. Any remaining on the planet would obviously have been atomized by the tectonic load. In short, they were stuck. Their options were to wait until someone (probably the government) found them and try to steal their ship or build one of their own. Attach a shockpoint drive to one of the escape pods? Insane, but Isaac might have been able to pull it off.

The man was dead, though, and with him their best chance of escape. The irony would have been funny if not so painful. They survived the Marker only to slowly rot away in a floating prison. Necromorphs didn't kill them, but isolation might. That's why they'd traded ideas and laid the groundwork for basic survival over the last couple of days. Curtis never read tales of those stranded on dead ships for months or years at a time (which had happened before), but he played some survival video games, so he liked to think he knew the basics. Combined with Nicole actually being smart, the duo was formidable in this, as with most things.

Fuel for the ship ran out and the rest of the systems fully failed around this time, leaving the Ishimura a cold hull without light, heat or even gravity. Curtis found that last one out when he awoke on the ceiling. The plants were all surely dead, but enough air for one person to breath must have been left for years or decades… barring asteroids blasted up from the planet impacting the ship, which they'd already started to do without the ADS. The only good news there was that Aegis VII lost so much mass (combined with the weight of a continent being severed from the Ishimura) that being dragged into the gravity well was no longer a concern.

They needed a base, so they searched as deep into the center of the ship as they could, at the confluence of Flight, Mining and Medical. The last was a convenient to neighborhood so Nicole didn't have to trek hours to find painkillers or whatever. However, the main purpose of such a locale was the fact more than a mile of metal protected them from space in every direction. Few asteroids could punch so deep, which protected them and their air supply. Emergency bulkheads operated on independent power systems, so those wouldn't fail, though trying to find ways around them would be annoying.

They'd scrounged up enough preserved food to last him about a week if he rationed it, and bottled water and soft drinks for about two. Rigging up a portable emergency generator from the Valor got done a few hours prior, so this single room wouldn't drop to subzero temperatures in the next couple days, and they could walk instead of float within.

Which brough Curtis back to the now, where he and Nicole had just finished cleaning their little cabin to get them through the winter. I think it's pretty good, Nicole thought now that it was free from the protoplasmic slop that filled the rest of the ship shin deep. As expected, the Corruption and few remaining bodies just melted without the Marker. In their place was a thin, watery soup of organic fluid with denser bits at the bottom. That was the only thing left of the Necromorphs.

Except Nicole, of course. Curtis turned to look at her, though that was almost unnecessary with the connection they shared. She was beautiful, graceful, powerful, amazing. A creature unlike anything known to exist and as close to an alien as humanity had yet to find. Now she was the last of her kind.

A pang of loss stung them both between the ribs. Curtis almost wished some of them remained around. Even if they hated and exiled her, they were still her people, for she came to identify more with them more than humanity. Her world was empty. The thousands of voices in her head had now gone silent; the only voices throughout the stars were far-off whispers too faint to understand. Whatever controlled the Necromorphs? Their ancient foes? Some other eldritch terror lurking in the dark? Regardless, they didn't make for good conversation.

The Black Marker was also there, but ditto on the "not very interesting to talk to" part. Amicable enough, in its own way, but it didn't speak unless spoken to. Mostly, they sensed it tried to keep its distance for now. It knew nothing of trauma and loss, at least not the way they did. It would be there when they needed it. For now, maybe forever, the only person in her life was him.

He walked over and gave Nicole a hug. I agree. It's nice. It could use some décor, though. No idea what they could add, but anything would look nicer than bare metal walls. Honestly, he could go the rest of his life without seeing another industrial bulkhead.

Maybe we can find something later. She pulled back, revealing her lovely face. Though it was a skeletal, mandibular mouth topped with exposed muscle and four eyes, it was somehow the sexiest he'd ever seen. I'm flattered, she thought back. You're pretty cute, yourself. His heart melted. He still hadn't regained the strength to have sex (or figured out how that would even work), it was now mostly a matter of when than if. Perhaps it was irresponsible to be thinking about fucking when their lives were at stake (though that didn't stop him when the Necromorphs were around), but he had to look forward to something. Might as well have been dead if the future looked as bleak as the past.

Something weird happened before the flirting got into gear. A sound, one it took him a second to recognize because he hadn't heard it for a week: the sound of a log trying to come through his RIG. Well, not his old one. The vacuum-rated, heavy-duty prototype suit sat in a pile in the corner, along with his Line Gun, but he'd appropriated some new clothes.

"It's Isaac," he gasped at the holographic name which popped up. This was so unexpected and sudden that he thought it may have been a dream… or a nightmare. Nicole said nothing, but the wobble in her legs and mind awash in joy did all the talking for her. He pivoted the screen toward her and took the call.

…

The week had been a rollercoaster for Nicole. Good and bad crashed in alternating waves along the shore of her existence. The biggest blow was Isaac's death. But maybe that didn't happen? The only way she could know for sure was to ask.

"Isaac?" she croaked. "Isaac, is that you?!" The moment between her call and any reply hung in the air far longer than it should have. Her skin prickled with pins and needles the whole time. At last, a voice intertwined with static broke through.

"Yeah, I'm here," he replied, sounding like he tried to convince himself more than them. Nicole needed no persuasion, though. She knew from those words alone that Isaac returned from the dead. She wasn't the only one.

"H-how is this possible?" she wondered, nonetheless. "I saw what happened to the planet. Nothing could have survived that!" Curtis had similar questions, but he thought it right to let her ask them. She was grateful for that kindness.

"The Marker stopped paying attention to me once you deactivated the gravity tethers. I'm, uh, sorry about that, but I guess everything turned out OK if you and Curtis are there." Yeah, no one else got hurt, fortunately. He coughed. Now that the white noise evened out, she noticed a jagged edge in his speech. It sounded like he'd spent the last week gnawing broken glass. Or screaming, bawling, etc. "I broke free and managed to make it back to the shuttle when the tectonic load hit the troposphere. Another minute and I'd be ash."

Nicole could scarcely stop shaking. Hope was simultaneously so difficult and a necessity to survive here, a dichotomy she had to learn to accept. Even so, she never expected anything like this. Perhaps some force in the universe did look out for them.

"This is wonderful! Can you fly the shuttle to us?" she exclaimed. All she could think about was seeing him again. Then, with a stuttering breath, he broke her heart.

"The reason it took so long to call isn't because of any systems… well, the engines are damaged, but that's not the point." He started hacking; sounded like he coughed up pieces of his lungs. "The Marker infected me, Nicole. I won't become a Necromorph – I don't think – but it broke my brain. I'm seeing things. Hearing things. They're hurting me."

He started crying, slowly and softly, for he had never been one to wear his heart on his sleeve. She wouldn't have been able to tell with her normal human hearing. That was OK, for she would have wept if she still could. "I've been trying to make them stop all week, and now I only have the strength to keep it all at bay for a few minutes."

"Isaac, baby, please come over here! I can help you!" She had none of this! They'd survived everything so far! Surely he could come back to them and everything would be all right. It had to be all right. Otherwise, all they did… meant nothing. They may have saved humanity, but they couldn't save themselves.

"I don't think you can," he said bitterly. "Even if you could, there's no way I'm lucid enough to patch up the motor." The sound of footsteps started as he paced around his squalor. Stuck in the same cramped shuttle for a week… Nicole couldn't imagine. "There's no food here, but there is water, and the air filtration is working. I'll be around for a little while longer." Curtis hugged her as she trembled. She'd felt weak before, but never utterly powerless. The odds were always against them, but they were odds, nonetheless.

There was nothing she could do for him now. No way to reach or save him. Her anger would have boiled if not drowned by sadness. It felt like a sick joke. Isaac survived the destruction of a planet only to die of starvation. "I don't mean to be morbid, though. I called because I care about you."

"I care about you, too," she said. Curtis began to back out of the room (he spun the log to a computer terminal they set up), sensing that what words were exchanged next should only be between them. Thank you. And there were a few. Heavy words. Intimate words. Desperate words. Everything both of them needed to get out of their systems. Time was short, and these were their goodbyes and confessions that no one else needed to hear. Not even Curtis.

"I really hope you two make it out of this," Isaac said while preparing his final goodbye. The voices in his head came back, and he wanted his last words to be from a man, not a mad beast. "I obviously only knew him for a few hours, but he seems like a good guy. Even if he wasn't, nobody deserves what you got saddled with." She agreed. They had all the time in the world to be lost and ponder their failures. That would have been harsh for anyone.

"So do I," she admitted, though the future was still dark to her. "I just don't know what we'll do. Even if all of us manage to get out of here, what then? The government isn't going to let us walk away. Especially not me." She looked down at her meat hook claws, her split ribcage, her mottled, exposed muscle. Yeah, no way she would ever pass for human. "They'll never let the closest thing they have to an alien go."

"At least you have Curtis," he said. "I'm glad about that, because I know you love him." She already admitted to such, but it was the elephant in the room that still needed to be addressed one last time. She didn't need Isaac's blessing to pursue such a thing… but it admittedly helped. Not enough time had passed for them to let each other go. "That's a good thing." He sensed her pensiveness from thousands of miles away.

"I hope so," she admitted.

"You need somebody to look out for you with how you are now." Isaac wasn't being condescending when he said that. He was right. The only way for her to make it on her own was if she became a sewer-dwelling urban legend. "And vice versa. Curtis seems like he'd be a wreck without you." She snorted. That was also correct. Isaac chuckled before his laugh reverted to that hacking cough. His sanity drew short, and her claws dug into the floor. Damn it, she wanted more time!

"That Bond you have is special. Maybe it's selfish, but I wish the two of us could've had something like that." So did she. They could have loved each other more deeply than two people ever could, and he wouldn't have lost his mind. Grief overwhelmed her, something Isaac was keenly aware of without being able to see her. They may not have been Linked, but they'd known each other for so long they didn't have to be. "This isn't your fault. It's nobody's fault. Well, nobody that's still alive."

That coughing came again, longer and more intense. "I have to go now, Nicole." Part of her wanted to object and rail against fate, but this was what Isaac wanted while he was still him. Who was she to question that?

"I love you, Isaac," she said. "You may not feel the same about me anymore, but I always will." She felt him smile from across space. Didn't know whether she wanted him to reciprocate or not. Both possibilities presented boons and banes of their own. For a brief moment, it existed as Schrodinger's love, both extant and incorporeal. Then he answered.

"The truth is, I – "

…

Curtis floated in the hallway outside for several minutes, patiently waiting admission back in. It was fine, though. Whatever Nicole and Isaac said to each other was none of his business. He'd even temporarily severed their Bond for the duration so he didn't accidentally eavesdrop. Yeah, they finally figured out how to do that. A couple days of practice instead of frantic hours granted them a much greater degree of control over themselves.

That was very nice for privacy, but they remained connected most of the time. They were part of each other now. Standing alone without another's comforting presence in his mind… felt lonely. He couldn't believe he hadn't gone mad from isolation before ever boarding the Ishimura. At last, Nicole invited him back in, and he reactivated his side of the Link.

That's much better, he thought while dropping in. Did you two have a good talk?

Yes. Curtis was glad. This might be the last time… he didn't want to think that. Not now. This might not be the end for Isaac, nor for them. It took a miracle to let them survive the ship. Multiple, in fact. Perhaps they'd get another one. They certainly needed it.

For now, though, all that was left to do was wait. And try to find food. And search the ship for other useful supplies. OK, there were actually several very important things they needed to do for survival, yet they didn't matter right now. All that did was them being together. That was enough. Maybe they should have kissed or hugged, but something more dramatic happened before the fancy struck them (and mostly him).

A distant boom shook the ship. One of those meteoroids came in. A shooting star.

People used to think if you saw one, you got a wish, Nicole teased. Well, they heard it, but close enough. He must've been a regular genie after seeing so many in his life. He'd go out on a limb and say that old saw didn't work, considering all the unfulfilled wants in his life. Nicole filled a lot of those holes, admittedly. Go ahead. Make one.

She pulled his leg to get her mind off her own grief. That was OK by him. He had to think for a minute about what exactly to wish for, since such cravings often went wrong. At last, he struck diamond. Nicole was excited to hear it.

I wish for a happy ending.

THE END

After a year and a half (I technically started Ordination in 2017, as FanFiction says, but a complete rework started in October 2019, if you guys remember), I can't believe I finally wrote those words. I don't think I'll ever get over the shock of making something so big. And it is big. More than a third of a million words. That includes A/Ns and such, but still. Not trying to be boastful, since "long" doesn't necessarily equal "good", but it's still an accomplishment for me. 60,000 words longer than my previous big story in half the time.

More than that, the driving force behind this story was YOU. Yes, you, the person looking at a computer or phone! I love telling these stories, but being able to engage with such wonderful people makes it all worthwhile! Whether you've dropped a critical PM, an encouraging review or just sat back and enjoyed the story, thank you. You've helped me more than you know.

Before anything else, I'll address the Q&A questions I got! Not as many as I expected, but that's fine. Just means I did a good job explaining things the first time around.

JasonVUK: Yes, I will be continuing to Dead Space 2, though not right away, as implied by the cliffhanger ending. There is media set between the two games I'd like to cover!

TheRocketeurE: Firstly, the fact you compared my writing to Tolkien made my day. That might be the single most humbling compliment I've ever received. Thank you. To address the question, most of my expectations from the first chapter were met or exceeded, though not all of them. Curtis and Nicole proved to be as interesting as I imagined, and I was very happy with the way I described the Ishimura changing over the course of the outbreak. I got to show a wide variety of Necromorphs and environments, and I put in details in relevant (though sometimes info dump-y) ways.

The one major thing I wish I could have done better was Nicole's solo time as a regular Necromorph. Her turn from evil back to good took only a couple chapters. The reason for this was because I didn't want to write about her either murdering people or just wandering around, so I fast-tracked her and Curtis meeting again. Still, there's probably a way I could have explored that more if I thought about it, so I do regret that. All things considered, though, Ordination was a big success in my book.

As for differences, there were a few. The main story beats were never in doubt, and I'd done rigorous research on Dead Space lore, but I leave a lot of details in doubt until I start going from one major plot point to another. For example, I originally wanted to make Mercer more sympathetic before deciding I liked him more as a straight up mad scientist villain. As I've mentioned before, the biggest change in this regard was Elizabeth. I initially wanted to kill her off much, much earlier, but she kept sticking around.

End of Q&A. As the next order of business, I'll discuss future plans for this series and my other writing projects. It should be no surprise that I plan on covering the events of the whole Dead Space trilogy in the future, as well as some events in ancillary DS media. I don't have a concrete number of stories that they'll be divided into, but it will be substantial. The ratio of Dead Space to Alien lore will also increase. It's never going to be majority Alien, but it'll occupy more than the tiny fraction it was relegated to in Ordination, if that makes sense.

Before I begin work on any sequels, though, there are a few other stories I have to take care of. These are my D&D and FNaF stories. The former will come first, and that's going to be a quick sex scene/epilogue. I've never written one before (nor actually had sex), and that should be a good place to experiment with the medium. The latter will have several sequels, as well, so my idea is to alternate between the series as they go along. In other words, it could be a while before I return to Dead Space. In hindsight, it may have been a mistake to alternate between several series. Still, that content will come for those interested.

There are a few other things I'm intermittently working on, but I haven't published those and likely won't for a while yet. Many ideas, but I don't think I'll have the time to write them all. The two I strongly believe I'll make are stories about Marvel and Halo. I actually have some art on my DeviantArt account for the latter, even though it's a long way off. Just more things to be excited about in the future! Perhaps I should update my profile with all my ideas, though…

A couple more logistical things before I go. For those of you who've stuck around from A Summer at Freddy's, you might remember that I pondered the possibility of making a Discord server for my stories. I've thought about this off and on for a while… and I still don't have one. Nor do I expect to, at least not now. It would be a fun way to communicate with my fans, but also a lot of work to maintain. I don't know if I want to have a responsibility like that right now. I mostly wanted to say that for people who still wondered about it. On the other hand, I'd be happy to talk to people via PMs on this site or in Discord messages via my account, AnInvisibleMan #8177.

Finally, my Ko-Fi. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's an alternative to P atreon. It supports a one-time donation model that I prefer to recurring monthly payments. I don't expect anyone to pay me for something I love to do, but if you're feeling particularly generous, my account is also AnInvisibleMan. These are in my profile page, along with my other accounts.

I guess the last thing is that I should get a job sometime soon. I've been extremely lazy about that despite graduating months ago. However, I don't think that'll affect my output much. Not sure why, but I feel I can juggle those responsibilities. I'll be sure to inform you all in future A/Ns about whatever does happen, if that even remotely interests people. FanFiction is also my blog :p

That's all I can think of for the moment. Another story down. I don't get to say that often. Hopefully the second of many, because I have plenty of stories to tell. If you're interested in my future projects, I'd strongly recommend that you follow me as an author, so you never miss updates on any of my stories. Until we meet again!