Disclaimer: I don't own Bioshock or any of the characters associated with it.

"What are you doing!?"

Davian hardly had time to react when his father grabbed the vial out of his hands. Before he knew what was happening, he was hoisted in the air to meet the man's gaze.

"What the fuck did I tell you!?"

He had never seen his father this angry before. Not when he had been harassed all day at work. Not when Davian had accidentally broken mother's vase. Not ever.

"What were you thinking!? I said never touch this stuff! Do you hear me!?"

Davian wanted to try and explain. He had gotten the vial after helping Doctor Thomson move some of his equipment up the stairs to his new office. Instead of money, the old man had given him this. But his voice wouldn't come out. He was nothing more than a terrified child struck dumb by his father's outburst.

"This isn't a toy! It will KILL you!"

His father was shaking now. The vial of red liquid sloshed around in his hand, threatening to break the seal and spill all over the floor.

"Answer me goddamn it!"

Davian apologized entirely out of reflex. He couldn't control himself as he swore he would never go near the stuff again. He promised that no matter what happened, no matter who offered it; he wouldn't ever use the red substance.

After several more minutes of angry yelling and desperate promises, the man finally cleared the haze of anger that had been consuming him.

"Davian." He said softly.

"This is serious. I know what you've been hearing but this 'Adam' isn't some magical solution to all life's problems. Nothing comes without a price. I need you to remember that."

Davian agreed. What else could he do? He was just a boy in his father's household. He couldn't go against the man's wishes, especially when it had provoked such a dramatic reaction.

Again, Davian made an oath that he wouldn't use the miracle drug under any circumstances.

Somehow he knew those words were a lie.

Another sleepless night.

Davian lay on his back as his eyes tried to trace the cracks in the ceiling. Rapture had no specific time marking the day to night cycles, but there seemed to be an unspoken agreement among its inhabitants.

The day would be started by the lights brightening to a level that was just enough to get by without bumping into things. This was when the main body of the city went to work. They foraged, patrolled, and killed most commonly during these hours.

After ten o'clock the lights would dim and the night cycle would begin. This was when sleeping was supposed to happen. Unfortunately some individuals were unable to relax enough to drift off.

Heaving a sigh, Davian rolled over onto his side. Try as he might, he couldn't get his mind off the problem that was plaguing his thoughts. He had resources to last for at least a few more weeks if he spaced things out, but what would happen after that? Where could he possible go to keep Wren safe?

The answer was nowhere.

He wasn't a big daddy. He wouldn't be able to protect her like one, no matter how badly he wanted to. Even so, he had no other choices left. If they stayed, then both of them would end up starving to death.

Realizing that he was fighting a losing battle, Davian got up from the desiccated lump of cloth that he generously referred to as a mattress. His internal clock wasn't the best, but he estimated that there were still several hours before the day cycle began and Wren woke up.

Until then he would just have to find something to keep himself busy. The first order of business was his morning exercises. Start with stretches, move onto push-ups, then to sit-ups, pull-ups, and finally back to stretches to finish things off. Adam had a nasty way of tearing your body apart if you didn't stop it, and he wasn't about to let himself deteriorate to that level.

For some time the only sound that could be heard in the house was Davian's labored breathing as went through his routine. It was times like this that he was able to relax. During the day, he had to worry about what to do with his time. Where to go. What to look out for. It was all one big stressful job after another.

During the night, he had to deal with planning and his own paranoia. Nightmare scenarios would play through his head as he tried to recuperate after the day. He would often find himself wondering if there was someone outside the door right now, listening for any sounds coming from inside. Waiting for the perfect moment to slip inside and cut the throats off everyone they found.

In this moment at least, his mind couldn't haunt him with those images. He was so focused on the simple act of pulling, twisting, pushing, and contorting his muscles that no other thought could work its way into his consciousness.

Well, almost no other thought…

The constant enticing draw of Adam never left him.

Try as he might, there was one simple fact that Davian couldn't dispute. No matter how he justified his actions, or tried to reason with himself, he knew it to be true.

He was a splicer.

He had willingly injected vials of Adam into his bloodstream in an attempt to arm himself for the coming storm. Early on he had tried to convince himself of foolish self-assured predictions.

Just a bit won't hurt.

You need this if you're going to survive.

You won't end up like all those others

You'll be fine…

Just fine…

Physically, he was very lucky. The effects of the Adam had left his skin pale, with a sickly pallor, but it could have been so much worse. He had often seen the vile growths and spurting tumors that developed on others who weren't quite as fortunate as he was.

Despite this, he still held a fair amount of mental damage. As a child he had never even considered harming another living thing. Now, he took a shameful amount of satisfaction in killing those who tried to hurt him. He could no longer bring himself to care about their lives, or empathize with their sickness. At best he felt a distant apathy. At worst, an outright contempt. After all it was them or him, and he had no desire to leave this life yet.

Then of course, there was Wren. If someone had told him several years ago that he would be spending most of his time looking after a nightmarish copy of a little girl, he would have laughed in their face.

Now however, she created a very serious issue for him. At first taking her in had just been out of pity for a child that was woefully unprepared to face Rapture alone. Very soon she had become something far closer than that. More than once he had willingly put his own life at risk in order to keep her safe. His desire to survive often clashed with his protectiveness of her.

And then there was the Adam.

Consuming the drug was like walking on a knife's blade. Standing in the balance was agonizingly difficult, but if you slipped too far in either direction you would plunge into the depths of madness.

It didn't help when you shared a roof with a living Adam factory. In Davian's weakest moments he had sometimes contemplated how easy it would be to take that Adam for himself.

He hated the drug for creating this mess.

He hated himself for even thinking about committing such an atrocity.

And he hated the fallen city for existing in the first place.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Davian finished up the last of his morning exercises. He was tempted to go and check on Wren to see how she was doing, but he was in a bitter mood at the moment and didn't want to hurt her with it.

Instead, he turned his attention to his maps of the surrounding area. If he was going to leave the safety of the Chimera housing complex, he was going to give himself a better understanding of what was out there.

Silence.

Was there ever a more oppressive sound than that?

It weighed down on every corner, every bar, and every surface as Protectorate M2 Epsilon-04 made her rounds.

She knew the madmen were out there. They watched and skulked in the shadows, waiting for her to pass by so they could drag their sorry carcasses back into the open safely. She knew, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

Occasionally she would break into one of their dens, and bring the family's wrath crashing down on them. It was a great way to distract herself from the perpetual solitude that she had to endure.

Even so, it was a temporary reprieve.

After they were all dead and gone, she would still be there, alone in the darkened hallways of a once great city. And it was all his fault.

Delta…

That metal bastard had taken everything away from her to satisfy his own selfish desire. He had killed her sisters, kidnapped Eleanor, destroyed her home, and stolen her mother.

Epsilon had wanted to fight him, to tear into his damnable monstrous hide and end the life that threatened everything she held dear. But mother had different ideas. Epsilon and several of her sisters had been deployed to sections of the city to keep order while she dealt with the rogue daddy.

Grudgingly, they had gone. While Delta rampaged towards his target, they ensured the splicers stayed in line with Lamb's will. At least, they had at first.

When news of their first sister's death in Ryan Amusements had reached them, Omega-02 had become inconsolable. She had flown into a fit of maddened rage so strong that her other sisters couldn't hold her back. Screaming her fury to the winds, she had rushed headlong to meet the beast in battle.

It was the last time Epsilon had seen her alive.

One by one her sisters went out to hunt him down. One by one he cut them down with heartless cruelty. Epsilon had wanted so badly to go and fight, to do something other than watch her sisters die, but mother had spoken. She was to stay.

That wasn't the only thing holding her back either. She had refused to believe it at first. She had railed against the very notion, but eventually she realized…

She was scared.

Delta had become far more than just an uncontrolled alpha series. He was turning into a living nightmare. He was the horror lurking in the dark. He was the one hunting them now. Epsilon was forced to face the uncomfortable truth that she didn't want to die, even if it was for a greater cause.

And then it was over. Delta had stolen away to the surface on a pillaged lifeboat. He had dragged Eleanor away from her family, kicking and screaming as a grim trophy.

And he had taken mother…

She didn't know what fate had ultimately befallen her guiding light, but if she was at his mercy it couldn't be good.

Without Lamb's voice directing her, Epsilon was lost.

She was a tool without a purpose. A weapon without a target. She had fallen back on the final directives given to her before Delta had escaped, and kept the splicers subdued. Even so, she still had no other goals to follow.

She had tried to contact her other siblings, but none of them answered her. She didn't dare leave her territory to look for other survivors. What if someone came looking for her only to find she had abandoned her post? She lacked the vocal capabilities to try and explain her actions.

A deep rumbling brought Epsilon out of the daze she had fallen into. Immediately on guard, she turned to face the newcomer. The sight that greeted her was one of the saddest ones still present in Rapture.

Slowly drifting down the hallways, with even less purpose then her, was a Bouncer. The colossal knight was another of the innocents harmed by Delta's crusade against all that was good in the world. He dragged his massive bulk along with an air of such crushing sadness it made tears sting her eyes. A brief glance was all that was needed to see the source of his suffering.

There was no little one at his side. His sister, along with so many others, had been stolen by Delta. It would have been bad enough for him to kill them, but he had done something so much worse. With some twisted plasmid he had taken away their lives in a very different fashion. After a brief glowing flash, her sisters had ceased to be. In their place were sickly, feeble, parodies of their former selves.

Beautiful golden eyes were replaced by ugly shades of brown, blue, and green. Fair porcelain skin was changed to a cracked, waxy, substance that was more akin to parchment then flesh. Worst of all, their minds vanished in that hellish light. The happy joyful children were gone. They had become meek, timid creatures that fled from the very ones who lived to keep them safe.

They fled from their true family.

The bouncer turned his unwavering gaze on her in an expectant fashion. When several moments passed without a response, he heaved a groaning sigh and continued on his lonely journey to nowhere.

Epsilon watched him go with the iron clasp of pity firmly lashed around her heart. He was even worse off than she. While she was crippled by the loss of her family, the big daddy had literally lost the very thing he existed to protect.

Feeling thoroughly depressed, she decided that it was time to call it quits on her rounds for the day. Right now, she doubted that anything short of a second civil war would be able to motivate her to any kind of action.

It took only a short while to find a suitable place to lie down for the night. A small store that had once held some sort of food stuffs for those who could afford it made for acceptable sleeping arrangements.

Epsilon was careful to ensure that nobody would sneak up on her while she slept. It was one of the most basic survival skills she had learned when training to be a Protectorate.

First, lay down any kind of noisemaker to block off entrances and give away anyone ignorant enough to set them off. In this case, a set of cans tied together with string tied to the door would serve.

Second, ensure that all weaponry was close at hand and easily accessible. In her case the only weapon she had that could be removed was her needle. She didn't know how long it had been since she had actually taken it off though.

Third, find a small alcove to hide in. Preferable out of site, and in a position that allowed you to watch the entrances. It was a bit demeaning to rest under a rack of what looked to be primeval cuts of dried fish, but she had survived far worse conditions in the past.

Fourth, be sure to have someone keep watch. No matter how well laid your preparations may be, there is still the chance that a determined splicer could slip past them. Epsilon had no one to watch over her while she slept, so she had little choice but to risk it.

Finally, clear your mind of any distracting thoughts in order to fall asleep as quickly and efficiently as possible. This was far easier said than done, but she had practiced it for many years. At this point it had become almost second nature to approach the task with a mechanical detachment.

Slowly, the sound of her breathing behind the red mask of her helmet became slower and more regular as one of Rapture's apex predators drifted off to sleep.