"In the house of upside-down, cellar's top floor, attic's ground."
The Little Sister was bent over an angel, her double voice ringing throughout the ballroom. The high, feminine side of her voice echoed off the hard surfaces whilst the low, bass tone dissipated into the gloom. She didn't know what part of Rapture she was in anymore; she'd wandered for what felt like days, crawling though vents and stumbling though bulk head doors. Some forgotten district, long since deserted, leaving behind the ADAM ripe angels.
And as all Little Sisters know, good girls gather.
"I'm a good girl," she whispered, only half understanding why she'd spoken at all. She thrust her needle deep within the angels heart, exactly how she'd been taught to kiss.
You should only kiss angels. Never kiss your Daddy. He won't like it.
That had made her cry at first. How could she not kiss her daddy? But eventually she understood. These were special kisses that only angels could receive. It would be bad for Daddy if she kissed him, and she never did.
But still, she missed her Daddy so much it hurt.
In the house of upside-down, laughing cries and smiles frown.
Where was he? She kissed the angel again and again, suddenly using both hands to thrust the needle into the angel's heart. Rose petals repeatedly flew from the angel's chest, fluttering to the ground and caressing her face as they fell. They tickled as they stroked her cheek, but for some reason she didn't like it. These were the things that she had to gather; she had to drink as many petals as she could because it would make her feel happy, and the petals would be later used to spread happiness throughout the population. The rose petals meant the angels liked the kisses, but upon seeing them they only made her more upset. How could she even consider happiness without him? Where was he!? She pushed the needle in so far that she heard something crack, and she suddenly couldn't pull it back out. She pursed her bottom lip and tried to take the needle out of the angel. She grasped the handle in her left hand and the base in her right. She pulled as hard as she could, but she couldn't dislodge her needle.
With one last try, the Little Sister grasped her extractor and heaved, Arthur yanking Excalibur out of the stone.
She felt something give and she fell backwards.
She hit her head as she fell, the extractor grasped tightly in her hand. Light dazzled behind her closed eyelids and she could taste something that reminded her of the rose petals that had erupted from the angel not moments ago. She smiled and raised her right hand to see her extractor…and froze.
She was only grasping the handle.
She quickly raised her head, only to experience something she'd never felt before. A strange sensation that seemed to change which way was up and made her tummy hurt. It passed quickly, but the Little Sister looked up slowly to avoid such an odd feeling in an otherwise beautiful world. There, sticking out of the angel's chest was the needle part of the extractor. The Little Sister scrambled on her hands and knees, ignoring the same odd feeling.
"Nonononononono…" she whispered, kneeling beside the angel. She inspected the needle. Perhaps it had simply been pulled off, something that could easily be repaired by jamming it back on. Tears began to fill her eyes. The end of the needle had sheared off, wicked shards of metal poking out of the end.
Without her extractor, she couldn't gather.
"But good girls gather!" she whispered, "I'm a…bad girl."
The realization was crushing. She was a bad girl. She was a bad girl!
Petals that clung to the end of the needle suddenly began to melt, as though the petals had been made from shavings of red ice. Liquid slowly tracked down the side of the metal, which had begun to darken from a gleaming chrome to a dull rusty bronze, evidently tarnished with age. Like a pestilence, age seemed to spread from the melting rose petals. The Little Sister slowly rose to her feet, her breath coming out in sharp sobs, her eyes wide with fear. The marble floor cracked and yellowed as the fingers of age spiraled away from the angel, whose halo and wings faded. As age and devastation spread throughout the room, the angel began to transform before her disbelieving eyes. Sculpted features began to run as though a freshly painted masterpiece had been doused in water, becoming something grotesque.
"Daddy!" she screamed in horror, watching as the angel transformed into a monster, its face contorted with anguish and mutilation.
As if on cue, the entire room transformed in a flash of light.
What she had perceived to be a beautiful ballroom had twisted and buckled, as though attacked by the devil himself.
"Monsters killed the angels," she sobbed, sinking to her knees. The extractor handle fell from between her fingers and clattered to the ground, leaking more red liquid as the tiny glass bottle shattered. Nothing had been left in good repair; once glowing white balconies which had overlooked the dance floor were either blackened by fire, sagging with damage or obliterated altogether, lying as rubble below. Every lighting fixture in the room had been smashed, the only light coming from the huge glass ceiling which looked up into the sea, separated into two by a thick band of metal. The Little Sister wailed mournfully, covering her mouth with both hands. All around her, monsters littered the floor, all wearing ball gowns and fancy suits, stained red. In the centre, several monsters were pinned under the twisted remains of a chandelier, limbs tangled in rust stained metal. A steady stream of sea water fell from a rip in the metal band where the chandelier had once hung, washing over the bodies below. She saw that the monsters were splattered with the same red liquid that had spilled from her extractor. She chocked back disgust. The red liquid is what she'd been aiming to drink after gathering, but the smell now assaulted her senses. It smelled of rust and salt, the opposite of the fragrant rose petals. And on top of that, the red liquid that seemed to splatter every surface in the room was leaking from the monsters. She fought the urge to be sick, then panicked as she'd never needed to be sick in her life.
She stared up into the ocean, clutching her stomach. Buildings rose around the one she was in, towering structures that resembled the jagged teeth of some aquatic creature. It made it look like she'd been swallowed, and was looking out into the ocean from the creature's throat.
As she was about to flee the room, something glinted to the left of her vision, flashing gold as it moved.
I never thought that color would exist here.
She turned her head towards the direction of the light. Something was moving though the water, swimming up towards something bronze that bridged two of the buildings close to the ballroom she stood in. She squinted, trying to see whatever it was clearer. The golden figure snapped into finer focus. It was human in shape, two arms, two legs and a head. What she'd thought was gold appeared to be shining armor, with some sort of long weapon at its side. A sword perhaps?
D…Daddy?
She knew it couldn't be him. She'd seen the monsters attack him with demonic fire, using metal poles which spat death to pull him over. But the golden figure…figures now; another had joined the first. But the golden figures looked so much like the valiant knight she'd lost not long ago. The one that she missed dearly.
The Little Sister suddenly sat down with her legs crossed, mesmerized by the sight of these two figures as they tugged what appeared to be a cylinder, just like the ones that Big Sister's had that she drew on, onto the bronze tunnel. One figure took a hose and attached it to the tunnel whilst the other did something to the cylinder. She didn't understand what they were doing at first, but she soon understood. She could vaguely make out the lowering water level in the tunnel if she squinted hard enough. The water was entirely drained from the tunnel within minutes, signified by someone appearing on the inside to give a thumbs up to the knights above. The knight to the left nodded and swam away, dragging the cylinder away and out of view. The other stayed and surveyed its surroundings, its body poised to swim away. The Little Sister's lip suddenly quivered. The Daddies were leaving! She suddenly jumped to her feet and frantically waved in the direction of the Big Daddy, desperate to catch its attention. The Big Daddy turned to leave.
"MR. BUBBLES!" the Little Sister shrieked, desperation amplifying her voice. And high up on the bronze bridge, though water, glass and metal, the Big Daddy's helmet whipped round to face her. The Big Daddy crouched on the tunnel, and with an almighty leap, propelled itself out into open water.
The Little Sister could have cried. She watched joyfully as the Big Daddy soared though the water. The Big Daddy's jump took it directly above the ceiling, where it began to fall, dragged down by the weight of it armor.
Armor? No, that doesn't look right…
Why is Daddy not wearing his armor? But…but he needs the armor, to protect her! It looked more like a suit now, made of material rather than metal.
And why did his sword looks strange?
As the Big Daddy drew closer, the Little Sister stood up and began to slowly back away, her mouth dropping.
That wasn't her Daddy. It wasn't anyone's Daddy.
It landed on the ceiling.
She stared up at the grime encrusted…demon that was now crouching on the glass. She stared into its glowing porthole, which in turn, stared back. She gasped and fell over backwards, her leg caught on a monster's limb. Her head hurt even worse than last time, and she felt it begin to throb. She felt her hair being splattered by sea water, and realized she was lying near the broken chandelier, amongst the twisted monsters and metal. The demon tracked her progress, and she saw its porthole flare as she fell. It walked on the glass towards the source of the pouring water, and reached for the weapon she'd mistaken for a sword. She recognized it immediately. She'd only ever seen one before, and it had been used to take her Daddy down.
The tube that spat death.
She screamed and covered her face with her arm, trembling with fear. There was a flash of bright light, and she couldn't feel the water falling on her head any more. There was no pain, just the darkness and silence. She lowered her hand, and rested it on the floor beside her, relaxing into the floor. No one could hurt her now. No monster, no demon.
No one could hurt her again.
She could see her Daddy again.
She frowned. She could still feel the water and cold tiles under her fingertips, much to her surprise. Her eyes flew open to see that she was still in the ballroom, rather than back with the angels.
She hadn't been killed.
She looked up. The demon was looking at her, its tube aimed at the metal band. The metal was glowing red where the water had fallen from. Its head was tilted sideways, a look she recognized from her Daddy. It was a quizzical gesture, and she knew the monster was asking; what was wrong?
"I'm fine. Just a little hurtey," she muttered. She heard the demon growl in response before swimming away.
The Little Sister stood, dumb founded. She recognized that growl. She couldn't place it, but she knew that it was a common sound for her, the memory teetering at the edge of her mind, just out of her reach.
And just like that, it clicked.
That was a Daddy. It wasn't a demon. It was a Daddy, just like her Daddy had been.
Her Daddy had been a demon.
Just as the bile rose to her throat, the world contracted back into itself, retreating back into the needle as though it was extracting all of the evil from the room. Heaven was restored around her, the monsters switching back to angels in the blink of an eye and the hellish devastation fixing itself in a second.
But now, she knew differently.
She now knew that there were two worlds. One was the epitome of heaven, the other, the living embodiment of hell. Daddies could transform into demons, presumably to fight the monsters when they transformed from angels.
She heard a noise behind her.
She turned around in time to see a man appear out of thin air. He picked up a nearby angel and disappeared with the sound of wind chimes. She grasped her head, afraid it was going to hurt again. She'd seen too much already today, and less was making sense as it continued. The man returned moments later, only to pick up another angel and disappear again. She heard wind chimes behind her, and whirled around to watch a woman vanish with a male angel in her arms. Wind chimes on the other side of the room, only to overlap with the wind chimes that sounded nearby. She whirled around helplessly, trying to track the source of the noises as several people kept appearing and disappearing, taking angels with them.
Perhaps they are being taken back to where they came from.
Most of the angels were gone when her vision flickered, and she descended back into hell. Monsters covered in red were appearing with the sickening sound of tearing and dragging other monsters from the ground, disappearing again. Monsters were tearing monsters from the rusted chandelier, ribbons of rotted flesh flying in all directions. She bent over and retched.
Her world shifted yet again, and she watched as glitter streamed from her mouth, fluttering to the floor and covering her gleaming shoes. Wiping glitter from her mouth, she reassessed her environment. There was only one angel left, lying on the floor directly beside her feet. She collapsed on top of it, determined to cling onto the angel for dear life. She heard wind chimes again.
She slowly looked up. The man in front of her had warm brown eyes, with chocolate colored hair. He wore a black suit and stood with a regal posture.
A Prince, she gasped.
"What's your name, child?" the man's voice was beautiful, instantly soothing her.
"H-Holly," she said, scrambling to her feet. She didn't think it; the name was a reflex response, "What's yours?"
"Frond," the man smiled, his teeth a spectacular shade of white, "Where's your protector, Holly?"
Holly's face crumpled, the pain on her face was a clearer answer than if she'd vocalized it.
The Prince stooped down and wrapped an arm around her. She cried onto his shoulder, conscious that she may have been ruining the material of his suit.
"Do y-you know w-wh-where I a-am?" she managed the whisper between sobs.
"I believe we are in one of the ballrooms of The Seven Muses. Do you know how you got here?" Prince Frond asked. She held up her hands, palms upwards, showing that she didn't know. The Prince sighed.
"Come with me," he said, and scooped her up into his arms. She scrambled onto his back, just as she would have done with her Daddy. The Prince laughed and leant forward. He held the hand of the last angels and then there was darkness, the sound of wind chimes echoing in her ears.
In the house of upside-down, found is lost and lost is found.