Hey everyone! I'm really excited to be back writing this story. I thinks it's been months since my last update and almost a year since I actually started it. I had to go back and read my own story to give myself a feel for it and to remind myself of where I was in the story. Sorry for this massive gap and this new chapter is pretty short. Hope you like. I've not written anything in a while so any errors and mistakes are because of that
Swimming in Rapture
Chapter 6
Rapture 1955
"Andrew Ryan reminds us: We all make choices, but, in the end, our choices make us."
The public address announcement system sounds throughout Rapture as tiny droplets of blood fall to the floor. Apart from that all is silent. The kids going to school. The parents going to work. Everyone. Recent horror stories swimming through the halls of Rapture haven't prepared any of the cities citizens on any level, for what they're seeing. The girl with blood stained feet, a bleeding nose and a smashed in face walks painfully and aimlessly through the midst of their gasps and their stares. Her arms have been awkwardly brought up to her face as she cries quietly. She barely makes five more steps before collapsing to the floor.
Blue sparks emit through and around the fingers of the girls hands. The nurses around her ask to her stop as they apply bandages, stitches and some medicine to Joyce Lynn's broken body. She doesn't listen and continues to play with the blue lights her in hands. She can barely hear or even understand the world around her anyway. The people around seem to be panicking, or at least very scared. They're talking to each other fast and seem to be working hard at tending to her injuries. But she can't understand. They sound muffled and she's slipping in and out of conscience. Where are my Mommy and Daddy?
"What's your name?"
Joyce opens her eyes. Darkness. She blinks. Darkness.
"Wh-What's going on?" she groans. She pulls her hands up to her eyes and discovers that she's wearing a bandage. It's covering the entire top half of her head, she asses it with her hands. She winces at the feeling of dry blood.
The woman speaks again.
"Easy honey. Relax. You're safe here."
Joyce swallows, anxious that she can't see who the mysterious woman is.
"Where am I?" Where's Mommy. Where's Daddy. What's wrong with me?
"You're in my home. You've been sleeping all day." The woman warmly replies.
I wouldn't call it sleeping. "Why. What happened?" Joyce asks. When waiting for a response an uncomfortably numb feeling in Joyce's mouth prompts her to investigate. She uses her tongue and feels a delicate string of stitches running through her lips. In a panic, Joyce quickly removes her head bandage, sits up and begins gagging loudly. The woman instinctively grabs Joyce and prevents her from doing anything else.
"Easy, easy," she says softly "Just calm down. Your Mother will be back soon."
Joyce breaks aggressively from the woman's arms and, without looking at her, shambles awkwardly to a nearby mirror. Looking at herself, Joyce gasps.
"Oh my God!"
Areas of her face have become swollen and a dark shade of purple has plagued her naturally white skin. Her right eye has become so swollen that it has sealed up, leaving behind an ugly red bulge. She's missing some of her top and bottom teeth. Joyce lifts her hands up to her scarred and stitched lips. Her mouth has become fat and looks ready to burst into an eruption of blood.
Crouching, Joyce begins to sob.
"I'm ugly." She chokes, before letting herself roll over onto the floor in a ball.
The forever pulsing blue light shining in from the bedroom windows illuminates the two as the friendly woman sets about comforting the weeping girl, openly disagreeing with the harsh and cruel words that Joyce Lynn mutters about how she feels about herself.