Rapture Noir: White Light

        There are days when your life is ruined beyond repair, you think. You lose your wife, or a lover. There's the bottle. You kill a child, there's the bottle, followed by a gun in the mouth. Or you sleep with the wrong person. Bottle calls, like a faithful beacon, a lighthouse in the storm. Sometimes you run too, seeking respite and forgetfulness in places distant and unknown, nothing connected with life past.

        And there's being pulled through time and space and having all of that crammed into your skull in a split second.

       

        Eddie was a generous host. I owed him a lifetime's worth of favors by now, yet he kept the drinks coming. The bar was empty but he kept up the pretense, keeping the doorknobs polished and the lights in the bar on. the bottle standing next to my glass was empty. He didn't bother taking away the empty one, but put down a new, full one next to it. "It would all go to waste anyway," he says, with traffic and the life down in the bottom next to zero. Like rats on a sinking ship, the poor and the dispossessed can smell the fight in the air. Kashmir and the upper streets were still abuzz with the post-Christmas drinks and pre-New year's schnapps, oblivious. I give him a weak half-smile and nod as he gets back to packing up the bar.  

       

        I try not to think too much about anything, but whisky helps in anything but that. I think of France. I remembered every single conversation, every single action and yet, none of it was real. People I remembered and knew, none of it was real. But Wounded Knee was all the more real, the bloodshed and Slate's yelling across the prairie plain. "We will be like the heroes of Sparta, immortal!"

 

        But Rapture was real enough, the life here. The solid decade I spent underwater. I knew Mast, I met Sullivan, Eddie remembered me for a long, long time. Surely they were no phantoms, figments of my fake memories? And there was also Comstock; images of Rapture that was the same yet altogether different. Elizabeth kept assuring me that that was not me, it never could have been me. For her sake, I hope she was right.

        I pick up the bottle with a numb hand and uncork it. I pour myself another shot, spilling a little but I don't care.

       

        "Say Booker," Eddie speaks up all of a sudden. "Where is Elizabeth? I'd thought you two wouldn't go a step without each other."

       

        "She... has a thing to take care of, before we can leave," I answer, before downing the shot in one move. At least my throat isn't yet numb and I can taste the burn of the liquor.

       

        "You know, I wouldn't let her out of sight after what happened," he says. I say nothing back to him and only pour myself another. After all, how could I explain to him that my brain was turned into scrambled eggs in a under a second?

 

***

 

        I remembered sitting on the floor with my back to the wall. I saw white everywhere and I couldn't hear her.

       

        "Elizabeth? Elizabeth?!"

       

        It was strange, after all I never felt like that after a gunshot. Maybe I was in shock, or the feeling of dying? I wasn't sure. I never died before. But I felt a hand on me and someone brought a vial to my lips. The thing poured into my mouth tasted odd, of ether and other things that i could not quite discern. But after a moment as I swallowed the odd solution and felt an odd swelling in my head. The light dissipated and my vision grew clearer again. I was in Rock's office and next to me, knelt Elizabeth.  

 

        I looked at her and smiled, and she smiled back. Those blue jewels of hers looked deeply into my eyes and they radiated with happiness that I haven't seen in a long while. It was then when it hit me.

        The sudden headache stopped my thoughts right in their track. The pain was not only pulsating, but it drilled deep into my skull and I felt something run from my nose. Something changed, and Elizabeth's happiness melted away, replaced by an apprehensive stare.

       

        "Booker, stay with me, don't close your eyes," her voice was loud but I could hear it waver.

       

        "I'm here E-Elizabeth."

       

        I didn't close my eyes, but I stopped seeing her or the office, with strange shimmer around my vision. Instead I saw images of places long since forgotten, images that were buried deep and that I would never have recalled, let alone look for.

        There was pain, shock, and horror. A lifetime's worth of memories and emotions, all returning and hitting home like a bullet. Wounded Knee, New York, the lighthouse, Columbia, Luteces, Comstock and Elizabeth. The images roll past my eyes at lightning speed; I gasp and Elizabeth clutches tighter onto my clothing.

        I touch my lips, all wet and red form the nosebleed. My vision returns and I see her again, still apprehensive and unsure.

       

        "Oh, Elizabeth my dear..."

       

        She let go off my cuffs and almost threw herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck tightly. I could only do the same and my arms wrapped around her. We stayed together in the warm embrace for a long moment. I thought she would cry, but she was sterner than that. I knew after all how strong she was, how determined she could be.

        But my mind wasn't at rest just yet. The close embrace, her smell... I could only recall one place that was similar, with Elizabeth in my arms. There were other moments like this, equally as intimate , but that one instance was the root of it all. The grass and fake trees, the bushes and secluded spot in Arcadia. I stiffened a bit as the vile truth made itself apparent and Elizabeth felt it. She froze too.

       

        "Elizabeth, child.... what have we done?"

       

        She pulled away and still looked at me. This time it was a pleading, almost broken expression. Her azure orbs shined with moisture and I could only guess what her next words would be.

       

        "Booker... I... wanted to tell you earlier, explain but..."

 

        The girl was tearing me apart. She was tearing me apart at seams, but I had no words for her. Now that I remembered everything, there was no need for further words. The woman in front of me was also that little baby that I traded away, she was also that same girl that danced at the beach in the sky, she was also that same woman that ended me in that creek. Yet, we were in Rapture, doing things to ourselves and people around, things we swore to end a lifetime ago.

       

        Was Rapture a purgatory?

 

***

 

        I pushed at the fabric of reality with the same practiced moves as before, giving it a little push and opened another tear. My search was frantic but not in vain, or so I kept telling myself. I step through and find myself in the same alley as before, a secluded spot just off the Fontaine's Little Sister Orphanage.

        I'm not sure whether it will work but at the same time, it worked with Comstock. City was beyond saving but maybe, just maybe, Booker and I had a shot at saving at least some of it.

 

        I step through the tear and it closes behind me. Good, no witnesses, no fuss. I was sure I saw someone trying to photograph me, stalking just as I stepped through a tear Back to 'our' Rapture. Complications were the last thing we needed. I probably will have to tell Booker to go on a last case for me and make sure we are not followed.

       

        Booker... I try not to think of him more than I need to, as I turn corner and approach the Orphanage. I should have told him before, I kept telling myself that I should, but... something changed. I could barely stand his gaze, asking me those questions, his green eyes full of shock and terror. I wanted to touch him, kiss him but when he uttered that word, I knew that anything we did in Rapture was already a past. I felt his guilt and this time it wasn't his fault.

       

        I was close by now and saw the same row of girls standing in front of a woman, with a sign in her hand. Masks on their faces and uniform clothes, to disguise them from their parents. But no matter how much makeup and clothes you put on, these children are always someone's daughters. I approach further and read the exact same sign as before.

        'Little Sister Orphanage: give your daughter a home she deserves!"

 

        I put those thoughts to the side. Damage was done, I had to stay on course, for him and for them. There were few things I had to check about the Orphanage and the time I moved to, to make sure these wee indeed  constants. Once I was sure, I would move to the next spot.

        One would think it foolish to check constants and variables across infinity, but I already knew all the doors. It was merely a matter of getting the details right.