I chose... Rapture. [Faith/ Dream]

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Welcome to Rapture. A city where the artist can roam freely, the scientist can create with the sky as the limit, and the power is with the people. Such a place could never exist on land therefore it was literally built on the bottom of the ocean, as far away from the governing powers as possible. Out of every jurisdiction. The extreme of extremes. It is a massive place with buildings that tower over head and long walkways that link different areas of the city together.
Everything you could ever want you can find in Rapture. There are stores, restaurants, hotels, spas, housing units, art galleries, markets, sports centers and for those who enjoy a little bit of nighttime excitement there are bars and love-houses. Everyone is welcome in Rapture! There are no minorities. Everyone is equal. Everyone gets a fair share.
All of this is thanks to to the hard work and dedication of our founder Andrew Ryan!

At least..that's how things used to be. Before the revolution. On New Year's Eve, at 12:00 on the dot, just as the clocks were ticking down and the champagne bottles were about to be popped, explosions rang through the entire city. The whole foundation of Rapture was shaken to its very core. Those explosions marked the beginning of what would be a long battle throughout the streets between those who supported Andrew Ryan and those who supported a man named Frank Fontaine. Soon blood coated every wall on every corner of the city. The year 1959 was off to a great start.

Hundreds died and those that didn't die..were left to slowly go insane. Driven only further to insanity by their addiction to Adam; the genetical stimulant that once kept the wheels of Rapture turning.
The side-effect of this drug was both an overwhelming addiction to it and a range of horrible disfigurations due to the way the drug affected the human body. Those addicted where named Splicers and those Splicers are all that are left in this city. They do whatever they can to get their hands on Adam..even if it means killing each other. Many have banded together in order to overpower those who are weak, making them even more dangerous.

The revolution was two years ago. There are now those who are merely trying to get by and those who are trying to escape. But to escape means going through hell and back again...straight through the center of the city. Can you make it out?
Let's see, shall we?

My words struck her with a realization she had never thought of before; the fact that I had worn this helmet for much longer than just a few days. It had been years and even when during the time I was alone with most of my senses about me, I had only been able to take it off once or twice. Never as much as I had been able to while around Mira though.
She realized that I was tired of being a prisoner to that cage of metal that marked me as a scientific experiment gone horribly right. A helmet that I had grown to hate but also one I had grown to rely on for my survival.

Reluctantly she agreed to allowing me to leave my helmet off but she made sure to make it clear that she was going to keep me to my promise. A smile came to my lips and I nodded my head in agreement with her words. I was fine with that. If she really wanted me to wear my helmet then this was a compromise I was willing to accept.
All things considered I was more likely to fall victim to attack than she was so long as we were together. Splicers tended to swarm the strongest of a group first so that the rest could watch their leader fall. Not that they were going to have an easy time taking her down, no, she was going to give them a run for their money.

My companion moved back into her room to grab the last of her gear, which consisted of her shotgun, and I was left alone in the living room to observe the place for the last time. Even with the rustling sound of her movement in the background the silence in the room was still quite eerie. A silence that spoke for the memories this place still held.

As I stood by the door, looking back into the darkness of the living room we were just fixing to leave behind forever, I wondered briefly whether I had done the right thing by not asking Mira about her past. The subject had been on my mind for fleeting moments but never had I allowed myself to ask her about it. The blood on the floor, the shape on the couch, the name on the door to her room.. I felt as though none of it was my business in a way. This woman, beautiful but dark as she was, had lived a tough life even before the fall of Rapture and that was not something I could understand. Just the way she couldn't understand what it was like to be a Big Sister which she, interestingly, had also not asked any questions about.

I blinked myself out of my train of thought as my companion entered the room and headed straight for the door I was standing by. My eyes followed her for a moment before they dropped towards the weapon strapped to my arm. I lifted it and pulled back the bolt on the side to chamber a fresh round into the barrel. From now on anything that wasn't the two of us was going to be considered hostile.
Once again we were going to be surrounded by death, darkness, and silence.
I was ready for it.
Mira spoke and I nodded my head with a smile.
"Let's get out of here." I replied as the door opened and I moved to follow her.
"If you can get me to the northern edge of the Drop I should know the way from there." I murmured quietly.

Ooc- I forgot to tell you that I had to pick up my older sister from the airport today.Her plane was supposed to get here at six but there was a delay and she's still not in. I'm posting on my phone, but I can't type out a good response on here. She's about to land now. Its a two hour drive home from the airport. I'll post tomorrow if I dont get a chance tonight, but I'm not even sure if were going to head home tonight or get a room. Sorry.

Once the door to the apartment opened and we were both out in the hall, it was very apparent that we weren’t in safety anymore. The peeling wallpaper and the creaking hardwood floors indicated that we were back in the action. There were so many doors on these floors. At any moment, one of them could open and we could get stuck in a firefight. It’s not something that I wanted to be a part of. If we were fast (and incredibly lucky) we might be able to get out of this place without a fight.

I don’t look back to Apartment 467. I don’t look back to those bad memories. I just walk, turning right after I get into the hallway. The next stairwell was only about ten feet away. I hear the girl talking behind me. I needed to get her up to North Pauper’s. I could do that. It was in our luck that we were very far north already. We were at least farther north than the restaurant that we had been in a few days before. In fact, that place lined the very south of Pauper’s drop.

The North was far more dangerous though. You had thicker territorial struggles and the gangs were much larger. Getting in the middle of two of the gang’s firefight would be suicide. The men were pumped up on so many gene tonics that you could barely tell they were human. Most of them were like beasts. Most of the gangs moved around in the later part of the day, since they were probably still sleeping now. If we could get up there and through their area while they were mostly out of it, then we could get through with only a minor fight. I doubted we would get very far without finding some kind of splicer that wanted to kill us both.

We make it to the stairwell without alerting anyone else to our presence. We’re doing good for the time we’ve taken already. We can be precautious and fast, and that’s what made us a good team. I make it about halfway down the steps before slowly coming to a stop. I turn slightly to watch the Sister a moment before speaking.

“We’ll be making a stop in the Lobby” I give her a nod before turning and starting back down the stairs. My words were quiet and simple. Too much talking could alert the wrong kind of people, but I didn’t want to just end up stopping in the Lobby without giving her any warning.

Just like I had planned, I was going to be hacking the Circus of values machine. A kid had taught me how to get free stuff and reduced prices simply by moving a few of the wires around. It was much easier than I had thought it could have been. Since then though, Ryan had upped the ante on people hacking the machines and the security was getting outrageous. If you pulled the wrong wire, they would send a security bot after you because, ‘Only the Parasite undermines Rapture’s capitalist values.’ It was a risk, but I had faith in my abilities to hack, I had done it many times before.

The moment the door opened a wall of air colder than that inside hit me in the face and I immediately realized that we were no longer safe. Nothing from this point on was going to be safe unless we found a room with only one entrance and exit that we could barricade from the inside. I was struck by a daunting sense of just how much of a journey we had ahead of us. Even if we did make it up to the northern part of the Drop, we were going to have to push our way through the Fairground. Through the fairgrounds we'd have to navigate our way through a hall or two of Fort Frolic. Hopefully from there we'd be able to find an unobstructed path to Fontaine Futuristics where many of the bathyspheres were built, kept, and used.

When we began moving however I drew my thoughts away from the future to the present so I could put all of my focus into being alert. One slip up from either of us could result in death for the both of us and I was determined that if one of us was going to slip up, it wasn't going to be me. Which reduced the chances of a slipup happening to virtually nothing.
Immediately I was aware of every little sound in the building around us from the faint creak beneath our footsteps to the sound of a television playing quietly in a room down the hall.

My eyes moved continuously from door to door as we carefully made our way along the hallway towards the stairwell we had climbed not a day ago. Once or twice I stole a glance towards the ground where I could still see dark spots in the carpet from where I had trailed blood on our way into the building. It was a reminder of the danger we were now walking into or could be walking into if a Splicer happened to wander out of one of the rooms while we were out here.
Thankfully we made it to the stairwell without so much as a creak from any of the other rooms and we began our descent down the first of the three or so stairways that lay ahead.

Her voice broke the silence drawing my gaze towards her from the end of the hallway where it had been. She spoke about stopping in the lobby and I nodded my head even though I wasn't sure why we had to stop there. I didn't mind all that much. I trusted Mira to know what she was doing and if she felt that we needed to stop for something then I was going to follow her lead without question. Unless she proposed something suicidal but just a simple stop was sane enough.
And so we continued moving cautiously through the ghost building that was the apartment.

I was very cautious with my movements. Each small noise we made could attract something in our direction. Along those same lines, I knew that if we were to hear something in the apartment, it could turn out bad for us too. I kept my wits about me. I knew this place like the back of my hand and it took little to navigate it.

We had made it down the stairs to the third floor. It was just the same as the upper flood. It was silent, but I knew that something was lurking in the silence, waiting for the right moment to attack anything that breathed. I was becoming rather paranoid in the silence. It wasn’t often that you didn’t hear gunfire or yelling.

My feet naturally take me down the hallway about ten feet before pushing a door slightly and walking into another stairwell. This was the same as the last and it seemed that nothing in the dimly lit area posed any sort of threat.

We only had to go down one more flight of stairs before we hit the lobby. That’s what I was waiting for. I was ready for us to get out of this dump. I knew it wouldn’t be long. I made short work of the staircase, taking the steps two at a time. I have to slow down near the bottom though. Silent memories of the night before make their way into my mind. I turn around to make sure my silent companion was still following me. I didn’t want her to fall behind like she had the night before.

A few moments after I’ve reached the bottom. My feet stop on the flat surface for only a moment. I stop this time, only for a moment to peer my head out into the hallway. I look right and then left and then right again before taking a few steps in.

“I knew you were cheating on me you sick freak!” The sound of muffled screaming breaks the silence. I stop in my tracks, waiting for the sound, just the simple sound so I know where the fighting is coming from. “You’re cheatin’ on me with that harlot down from Midway!” It was the same screaming and yelling that could be heard. Only moments later there are sounds of gunfire, only two shots, before there seems to be silence, only for a moment. Then, the yelling begins again. It took me a moment before I realized that it was the crazy insane fighting and screaming coming from some loony old gal in one of the rooms on this floor. I pull the weapon from my back where it’s been strapped. I hope that this fight will stay in whatever room that it’s erupted in. I take a few more steps forward before I’m out into the hallway. I see no one so I take my chance.

“Come on!” I whisper quietly, starting quickly to the next stairwell. I want to get off this floor before anything bursts out of one of these rooms.

Moving as quickly but quietly as we were I found that my body was surprisingly able to keep up. I had expected much more difficulty but I was glad that she didn't need to slow down so I didn't fall behind the way I had the night before. Although my body was not completely at 100% I knew that I was going to be fine. Even if we did come across some kind of trouble I was now more than willing to give my life to protect this woman in front of me.

I turned my head towards the sound of the voices and listened carefully to the argument that was going on. It seemed like a man had cheated on his significant other and now the two were arguing quite furiously in a room further down the hallway away, it seemed, from the direction we intended on going in. All the same the moment gunfire broke the silence the situation became dangerous and the risk of someone bursting out of a room shooting became monumentally bad. We both knew this and we both prepared ourselves for some kind of a fight although if we could help it we weren't going to let that confrontation happen.

Mira's voice told me we were moving on and I was more than happy to follow her into the next, and what I thought might have been the last, stairwell in the apartment building. We moved into it quickly just before the sound of a door opening in the hallway behind us could be heard. The screaming became louder and another shot rang through the building however it did not seem to get closer. The couple arguing, whoever they were, didn't go any further than a few steps from the room their altercation had begun in.
Much to our luck.

I let out a quiet sigh as we reached the bottom of the flight of stairs we were descending, glancing around quickly as we reached the lobby. Whatever Mira wanted to do she needed to do it quickly just in case the fight came downstairs and they discovered us. I was going to do what I could to cover her though and keep her safe from any threat that might approach her while she was otherwise occupied.

It seems that the moment we both get into the next stairwell, a door bursts open from somewhere. We’ve got to get out of here quickly, or risk getting killed. We both stop a moment and the sound of gunfire continues. There was no point staying here and risking us getting seen. I trust that Echo will watch our backs. I turn, hurrying down the stairs as quickly and silently as possible. There was just too much of a chance that we would be seen in the elevator.

Once we make it down the stairs and into the lobby, I almost pass up the chance to hack the machine. Yes, it would be a great resource, but there was a large possibility that the two fighting lovers would come tumbling down the stairs in their squabble between one another. As much as I fear for our safety, I know that I can hack fast. We would need the supplies a lot more later on. I couldn’t bring myself to leave such an opportunity like that.

So, before I get a chance to second guess myself further, I rush across the room. It doesn’t take me much before I have ran around the drab looking sofa that sat in the center of the room. The dim lighting of the Circus of Values machine tells me that this thing is on its last leg. It wouldn’t be long until this thing was going to be out of service completely anyway.

I take no time, kneeling on the side of the beat up rusty old machine. A hack tool would have been very useful, but they would have been a waste. I start by reaching to the back of the machine and flipping a small switch, turning off the machine completely. I turn two small twists that hold the side paneling in place. It takes three good turns and the metal falls forward, landing in my lap. I place is down on the ground as quietly as I can. The yelling doesn’t seem to have gotten much louder than before, but it’s hard to tell from where I’m sitting.

Now I look into the hole I have made in the machine. I reach in will knowing hands, pulling out the wad of wires that are held together by clamps and twisted together. The old thing had apparently been hacked before, but little had been done to try and keep the hacking to cease. Instead, there was electrical tape wrapped around what would normally have been an exposed wire. I begin peeling back the tape, first with my fingernail until I can pinch it with my thumb and pointer finger and pull on it. The tape unwraps easily, but it is very time consuming.

It takes me a minute of two just to get the tape off the five clamped wires that I need to use. Once I have finished, I begin unclamping and reclamping different wires in an order that I know simply from muscle memory. The red wire goes to the yellow wire, the blue wire goes to the purple wire, and you twist the green wire gets twisted off and taped back up, not connected to the orange wire that it had been connected two. That one was the trick to everything. I take one more second to reach far back into the machine, ripping out the connection between the speaker and its sound chip. Now, we won’t have to worry about that damn clown alerting the whole building to our presence. Now I lean in, pressing the small reset button. The machine does nothing until I reach behind the box, flicking the one switch once more.

The bright lights of the machine greet me happily, and our spoils of war come falling out into the catching tray in the bottom of the machine.

We rushed our way into the lobby so quickly that I thought Mira had opted to leave her task behind in favor of just getting out. When there was no sign of us being followed though she quickly turned her attention towards the vending machine that was half-hidden in the corner. As she approached the thing I turned my back to her so that I could cover her, glancing back and forth at couple second intervals. Nothing aside from the two of us moved though thankfully.

Every now and again I stole a glance towards the workings going on just a few feet away from me. Whatever it was she was doing to the machine it looked a whole lot more complicated than anything I had ever seen done before. The wires alone would have gotten me lost let alone trying to rewire them so that I could get the contents from the inside of the machine without paying a cent.
Quickly I turned my gaze towards the entrances to the lobby where I still expected someone to emerge with a weapon drawn from the fight going on upstairs. None came though and we were left to our own devices.

When the contents of the machine began to spill onto the ground I crouched down to take note of everything that was coming out. Nothing in particular seemed to catch my attention. Many of the things that slid into view were more geared towards Mira's needs as opposed to my own in terms of ammunition and such things. The only thing I had seen that was valuable to us both was an Eve Hypo that clattered to the ground last.
"Good find." I said quietly with a smile as I kept my weapon trained on the door we had just left while keeping my eye on the door behind us.

We were going to need all of the supplies we could get our hands on at this point. If she needed me to carry anything, though that was doubtful seeing as her pack was bigger than mine, I was ready to carry it. Once everything was packed up I was eager for us to get on our way. The sooner we got out of this apartment building the sooner we could get into the shadows where we were far less likely to be spotted as opposed to being in a relatively brightly lit room.
"Let's get on our way before that mess comes down here. " I murmured with a bit of a joking smile, referring of course to the fight that could still faintly be heard in the distance.

Echo crouches quietly next to the machine. I can tell that she’s trying to tell what the contents of the machine are as they come spilling out into the collection trough. I don’t bother worrying with it; I’ll take everything it’s got and check on everything later. Our main priority is to get out of the place right now. I am fast about pulling the backpack off my back and pulling at the drawstrings. I know that those two maniacs could be coming down the stairs at any moment. This was our chance to go and I was taking it.

I just start shoving things into the bag. In my swiftness, I can tell that we’ve acquired a little more ammunition, food, and a single eve hypo. There’s a little bit more, but in my swiftness I have chosen to simply shove it in my pack and not waste any more time thinking about its contents. I can tell, however, by the increase in weight in my backpack that there is much more than what had originally been sheltered inside. I can hear Echo calling for me to hurry up. She grows just as frantic to leave this place as I do, I can tell by the tone in her voice. I do not blame her though; the shouting in the upper stairs is much more violent. There seems to be another two voices added into the mix. If we aren’t careful, this could very easily turn from a suicidal domestic outburst into an all our fire fight. I pull my pack back onto my back before turning and meeting Echo by the door.

"You’re oh so very right, Darlin'. Come on." My words are quiet and simple as I start quickly to the door. I take point, just like before, pushing the small button to force the door to slide open, we didn’t have time to wait. I take very fast steps out into the open area. The air outside is even cooler than the air inside the building. The water makes it always chilly down here especially since the heaters, if they were working at all, spit out a little bit of warm air and circulated the rest. I make sure that echo gets out of Sinclair Deluxe before turning slightly to press myself against the wall. It would. Be harder for her to blend in now. Her helmet that she had strapped to her side would probably keep her from pressing against the wall. I wasn't sure though, we would simply have to see.

Soon enough, I make it to the end of the building. I pull my back off the cold brick, stopping to check the street that runs past the building.

"Watch the pawn shop. Splicers like to sleep there through the night." I don’t look away from where I’ve posted up, looking into the darkness. I simply point my finger back in the opposite direction. I have faith that she’s already watching our backs, but I didn't think a simple reminder would hurt.

Now that I’ve had the chance to experience and think about the delights of speech, I don’t think it’s too bad. Before I couldn’t have told her were the splicers might have been hiding or that we were going to be stopping some place. I never had the chance before to explain myself or give her quiet and friendly commands that I was able to do now. However, it did pose quite the risk. As much as I enjoyed the freedom of being able to communicate with her, it had its downfalls. Our quiet whispers carried, not much, but they carried. Our words echoed just enough through the silence of Rapture’s streets that it could pose a great threat. Anyone in the street could easily tell that someone was coming by the simple speech that we shared in attempts to control the situation. Anyone could use our words against us.

Mira sensed the urgency in my voice as I spoke to her and she hurried herself up in response. I was glad that she agreed with me about wanting to leave the apartment complex. Nothing remained here but bad memories and what could potentially become a bloody fire fight. Neither of which we wanted a part of.
So as soon as she had everything packed away she came to join me at the door, uttering a word or two into my ear, before she led the way out into the streets of Rapture. Through the door we had entered little more than a day ago with one of us staggering and the other one dreading what they might find inside.
Together we left as companions on what would either be a journey to the surface or a journey to our imminent deaths. Although we assumed the second would happen, we both secretly hoped the first would be the reality.

"Roger." I whispered back as I trained my weapon towards the pawn shop she had motioned towards with her hand. It made sense for Splicers to hole up in a building like that. Boarded up windows, a source of supplies, and probably a number of places for them to sleep so that a whole gang could sort themselves out without being squished for space, which really, was often a problem with the larger of the groups. The more far north we got the more dangerous the Splicers were going to become and the more better organized they were going to be. After all we were going right towards the exact area the civil war had begun in. A scary thought on its own without even taking into account the fact that fighting was rumored to still be going on in certain places.

We continued to move at a relatively quick pace despite the fact that we were in a high traffic area. It was surprising how quiet it was. Almost too quiet if it weren't for the fact that every now and then you could hear something off in the distance that sounded like a person coughing or a word or two. Even the softest of whispers could carry through the streets at night when there was little more sound in the air than a moth idly ticking against the glass of a flickering street light.
I knew we had to be careful if we wanted to remain unnoticed by those sleeping in the surrounding buildings.

There was still no movement in any direction I looked but I kept my eyes moving constantly. It was a bit weird not having my helmet on while the rest of my body was fully covered in the armor I wore every day. I could feel the cool air against my face and when I wanted to turn my head quickly towards something I thought I saw, I didn't have to angle my body along with the turn of my head. Instead I could simply turn my head at the neck a full 90 degrees.
The freedom was welcome but with the freedom came the risk of being killed in an instant. For now it seemed the pros outweighed the cons but such things could quickly change.

I take no time for us to stall to get used to our new environment. If we weren’t used to it now we would never be used to it. I can see much in the small side street that juts off the main road. There doesn’t seem to be much moving. On the right, the building turns into a café, with an open dining area in complete dismantlement. On the other side of the street, to the left was a building, about three stories high. It wasn’t marked to be any building in particular, but I knew from experience that in the lower floor was a butcher shop, the middle floor was a book shop, and the top floor had space for the butcher and the book keeper to live. Their lives were all wrapped up in one building. The closer I looked at it, the more I could tell it was in shambles. All of the windows seemed to be broken, and by the looks of the outer brick, the building had caught on fire at some point. It was sad simply because I had gone to that butcher many times for mother.

I turn down the walk, taking light steps down the small bit of sidewalk that wasn’t covered by the café. Soon though, the chairs and tables that had been thrown about littered every bit of the walkway and I had to take careful steps not to step on or trip over any of them. I take each step, one at a time. I don’t catch the sight of the unopened bottle of wine that had hidden itself in the shadows on the ground. I take a wrong step, my foot landing on the bottle, making it roll forward. I fall back, landing hard on an overturned chair. Somehow, I’m able to control the cry out that almost erupts from me out of shock. The only sound that comes from the area though, is the bottle rolling away. I close my eyes for only a second. A small pain pulls up my back from the sudden jolt, but soon, it’s passed. The bottle however could be enough to alert even the dumbest splicer. I knew we had to get out of here and take no time in doing so. I stumble to my feet, trying to ignore the embarrassing feeling that has unforgivingly sunken into the pit of my stomach. I would of course be the klutz to fall on her butt.

I turn to her slightly, waving her forward, trying to give her the most apologetic look I could give her while still remaining silent. I turn around once more, making it through the graveyard of broken chairs and overturned tables. This time, I am very careful to watch where I step. I look up to realize that we’ve gotten very far in our travels. Still, we are nowhere near done with our journey, but it’s farther than I could have hoped get without any sort of incident.

“Who’s that?” The words echo through the air, harsh and morphed by age. It’s a female’s voice, but it’s not mine and I can tell by the tonality that it’s not Echo’s voice either.
“It’s just a rat, come on” I can hear them, they’re behind us. I’ve continued going, hoping that maybe the second man has called off the woman. We would have to be ready to turn around and fight if the occasion called for it.
“I’m tellin’ ya, that weren’t no rat” The woman’s voice calls out, even clearer this time than the last. I pull myself towards the closest wall. It’s the wall of some sort of fishing shop, but I don’t know exactly what kind of fishing shop it is. I press my back to the wall, crouching down. It was best to hide now and hope they passed then just jump out and fight them. I just hoped the Echo followed suit and kept her head down as well.

For the most part we continued to move without much of an issue in the ways of our presence being noticed. Most of the streets were dark with flickering lights that made it relatively easy to remain hidden in the shadows. The further we went the more I began to recognize where we were. Although there was no way for me to take the lead at this point, I knew that soon we were going to reach the tunnel that led right into the fairgrounds. For now though I kept myself as close to Mira as I could without hindering her movement all while keeping my footsteps as much as possible.

We passed into a particularly trashed area where the furniture had been defenestrated and now laid all over the sidewalk and street. It was impossible to move quickly without bumping into something so we were forced to move slowly and carefully. At first everything seemed to be going well but suddenly the figure in front of me tripped on something only to fall back on a chair. Thankfully she fell on a chair and not the broken glass on the floor next to the chair however the bottle made all the noise needed to attract attention.
At first it seemed like no-one had noticed but then voices came down the street heading in our direction.

I could hear in the distance that the footsteps were getting closer and closer. If we weren't careful we were going to get ourselves into a fight with two Splicers who seemed more aware than we were. If we kept to the shadows they would either keep going without noticing us or they would notice us and suddenly we would be at the disadvantage. Neither of us knew what kind of weapons or plasmids the two voices, or more voices, carried with them as they wandered through the dark silent streets.
It took Splicers with a certain amount of courage to walk the streets at night though and that's what caused me some concern. I did not want to find myself in a fight against well-equipped creatures like them.

"Be ready.." I murmured under my breath as I crouched down and let my fingers slide across the floor until they came across a bottle of some kind. I drew the bottle up in front of me and as quickly as I could I brought my hand back and threw the bottle off into the distance down an alley across the road from where we were hidden. My strength sent the bottle a block or so before it crashed against the concrete.
As soon as the bottle left my hand I crouched back down and pressed myself as close to the wall as closely as I could. The sound echoed through the streets and immediately the movement that was once footsteps turned into running as the two Splicers headed towards the sound speaking excitedly.
"Go.." I whispered quickly knowing that although it had drawn attention away from us, it would have also drawn other attention.
"I'm starting to recognize where we are." I added quietly.

My heart was starting to beat against my chest. It wasn’t out of a straight fear, but more out of embarrassment. I was supposed to be the one light on my feet and yet I had been the fool to get us noticed. It was a bad feeling that was fermenting in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t like it, and for a while I knew I would feel guilty about it. I would probably end up apologizing to her a million times over later, but right now I knew that we needed to keep our minds moving forward.

My mind, instead of thinking of a plan, was crouching next to the building, trying to blend into the wall like I was nothing. I was hiding, which was probably easier to do in this case than just walk out and fight the group that was now coming down the alleyway. Echo on the other hand was thinking of a plan. I can tell by the way her eyes move back and forth, watching for signs of movement. Her orders are for me to be ready, so I do just that. Gripping the weapon in my hand I wait. I see her moving, fiddling with something that is littering the ground. It doesn’t take long before she stands, towering over my head. She is up just long enough to make it over to the other side of the street, and down a side path that pushed between two buildings. I hear the sound of the bottle, breaking into a million pieces in the alley, and so do the Splicers. The two run towards the path to investigate and I hear the quiet whisper telling me to go.

I don’t really wait for her to tell me twice. I know the urgency of the situation. I hear the quiet words, telling me that she recognizes our path just before I shoot off, down the side street in the opposite direction that the excited talking was coming from. I know very well not to linger in a place with such danger.

The kid seemed to be learning a lot; she was being smart. On the completely opposite hand, I was being an idiot. In such times that I should be at the top of my senses, I was being a child. She was definitely surpassing me now. If I didn’t wise up then I would end up getting me and this kid killed. I knew very well what the problem was. I was getting way too involved with this girl. I saw her more as a friend and a comrade than I should have. The thing that kept me smart was that quiet fear in the back of my mind. It was the fear of her stabbing me in the back that had kept me smart before. If I needed to box in my emotions from her to keep us alive, then dammit, I would do what had to be done. I needed to be what I had been that kept me alive for all this time. I needed to get back into my old habits. We weren’t friends…We weren’t comrades…We were two people going to the same place and that was all we were.

I take in a short breath. The path I’ve taken is fairly dark and the only light that can be seen is the flickering of a neon sign advertising Incinerate! Plasmids. It flashes slowly, and sometimes, I don’t think that the light will come back on at all. I’m still running quietly as I pass the advertisement, slowing quietly to a stop.

I only stop long enough to pull my head around the next corner, looking for anything that was moving. Anything that could have heard the noise in the walkway the few blocks away would have gone to investigate, but I check quietly. Once I’m sure we are safe, I turn the corner and stop, leaning against the building. My face has lost its expression again, I don’t show her anything.

“If you know where we are then you know we’re only two blocks away” My voice is quiet as I watch her a moment with an expressionless face. “We should keep moving” I don’t wait for a response, I simply turn and start quietly down this next street.

Mira seemed to appreciate my quick thinking as I distracted the Splicers behind us with the bottle and as soon as I gave the word she was off running quietly down the remainder of the road ahead of us. After taking a second to look over my shoulder to make sure that no-one had seen us, I followed after her as carefully as I possibly could. The difference between her being unarmored and me being armored made it difficult to follow her closely without making noise but I did manage to keep at least a few paces behind her.
We only stopped once she was sure that we were not being pursued and even then she only slowed for a moment to regain her breath. in that time I kept my eyes on our rear just in case.

When we were ready to go I heard her voice next to me and I turned my head to look at her as she spoke. There was no emotion on her face but that was not unusual for while we were out in the streets of Rapture. She was right though.
The more I recognized the more I realized that we were making more progress than I could have expected. We had traveled the distance I expected us to travel in a day or two in what must have been a total of 5 hours at the very most. Regardless, we had made some impressive headway on our dauntingly long trip.

Something was different in the way she spoke to me but at the same time I didn't think much of it seeing as it was the exact same tone she had used when we first met. Although I felt like it was a bit of a step backwards in terms of our relationship I knew that it was important we realized that we could easily die if we weren't careful enough. We needed to work together in order to survive and keep emotions aside lest we make stupid mistakes that could get one or both of us killed.
For that reason I nodded my head and followed after her quietly.

The fact that we were two streets away from the tunnel meant that soon we would be left in one of the most dangerous parts of Rapture. Yes the security was tighter past the Fairgrounds but it was going to be a miracle if we made it through there without getting seriously scuffed up at the very least.
I tightened my fists as we continued towards the first steep bump in our journey. I found myself both scared and curious to see what we were going to find beyond the colorfully decorated doors. What kind of creatures waited for us in the darkness?
There was no telling.

It seemed almost impossible the feat we had managed in just a night’s time. A trip that would usually have taken us at least half a day seemed to be completed in half that. We hadn’t come across much resistance, and all the roads we took were long and very linear. The face that we had only come across splicers on our trip twice was something to thank god for. It was surely a miracle. I take in a deep breath, watching the darkness of the street was we walked. Rapture seemed to have calmed down and become much more forgiving in the past week. Maybe more people had died or there was less Adam so people were just dying off. I wasn’t going to test the string of fate right now on betting that we would get out of this alive. Our first stretch of the journey was only now starting to come to an end. There was still a lot of ground to cover. Between here and where we hoped there was a Bathysphere there was hundreds of thousands of nooks and crannies to hide in. There were hundreds of Splicers to come and kill us. It was only a matter of time before the miracles stopped happening and our luck ran out.

A few moments pass and my fast walking has slowed. The splicers that had been behind us had now seemed to silence with the city. You could hear something quiet in the distance, but it wasn’t much more than a whisper to our ears.

A whisper could mean a lot, but right now, my mind was more on that door into Fairgrounds. At the same time that I was dreading going to that place, a part of me wanted to see what all the talk was about. I had never been there, not even before Rapture went nuts. It was a place that people talked about until they couldn’t talk about it anymore. No one had the kind of coin that it took to go there though. It was one of those places that were just right there, but so out of reach. All the kids wished to go to Fairgrounds.

One the other hand, however, I knew what had become of Fairgrounds now. You could find any splicer imaginable in that place and some that couldn’t even be imagined. It was a place from a fairy tale that was the house for all things evil. It was the place you stayed away from unless you were looking to either get real spliced up or to get initiated in one of the gangs that occupied the area. We were just the two girls caught in the middle. We were the two, caught looking for a way out. It would be hard for the both of us, and I highly doubted that both of us would get out of there alive.

My slow walking comes to a stop at the end of the street. I turn once more, this time to the left. You can see the next street widening even further. The street we had been on was wide, but the one we were about to go on was double that size. It was wide so that vendors and businesses could have their room while still allowing the great sum of traffic to get to and from the areas of Rapture they were going. Almost all of the exits to areas were like that, just so it would be easier for the masses. I look to Echo a moment before turning my head back down the Street. There are lights all down the street. Some are advertisements, some are street lamps, and some are even flickering lights inside buildings. I point down the street, showing her where we are headed. We’ve almost made it out of here. It’s a surprise that we had made this far, but at the same time, this stretch of the journey encourages me more. I hope that it gives up both hopes for something more. I hope that she feels the same way I do right about now.

“Think you can take it from here?”

There was some kind of direct correlation between how close we got to the Fairgrounds and how much damage had been done to the surroundings. Bullet holes riddled the walls, dark stains spattered the ground, large chunks of wall were missing from many of the buildings, and everything else looked as though it had been through a war. Which really it had.
My heart started to race with every step we took towards the place. I was becoming far too nervous for my liking. Never before had I felt so uncertain about my ability to survive something. A battle I could handle but a place crawling with Splicers?
It was too dangerous.
I was so focused on my thoughts that her voice next to me caused me to jump just a little bit.

"Yes, I should be able to get us to through the gates too" I added as I took a quick glance around to get myself situated as to where exactly we were. A moment passed before I recognized exactly where we were in relation to where we were going towards. It was a little ways but we were close enough to where we were going to need to start being careful. The closer we got the more likely there were to be enemies patrolling the Fairground borders.
Word was there was someone within the walls of the grounds that was organizing the Splicers inside. A wild rumor but a rumor that frightened me more than anything else I had ever heard.

Taking the lead I carefully moved along the wall until we came to the next corner on the end of the street. The run down vending buildings still stood empty without any signs of life beyond the blood spattered along the side of a few of them where a poor soul had fallen many years before when the war first started. This was one of the worst hit areas, standing only a few blocks away from the infamous restaurant where the first bomb went off.
The fighting spilled out from there, made its way to this area, and spread even further beyond to the far reaches of the city until only one side was left standing. Or rather, a majority of one side was left standing.

In the distance, across the road, I could see the entrance to the tunnel that lead to the Fairgrounds. There were admission booths as well as the gate with the turnstile barriers that once accepted tokens to allow people into the grounds. The machines had long rusted away and no longer accepted any kind of coin. Thankfully I knew from previous exploring that there was one of the turnstiles that actually did work. That was our next target. To get there before anything could cut us off.
"Follow close, we need to move quickly." I whispered before I quickly made my way from the wall to the nearest vending shack. I hesitated, glanced around, and then moved to an overturned cart that lay in the middle of the wide road. Again I waited before I ran to a vending shack that was on the opposite side of the road.
If we didn't attract attention with our movement we were pretty much home free until we got to the booths.

Echo jumps quietly at my words. She had been concentrating on something rather hard. Her eyes fluttered around to the buildings, looking at the shattered windows and the bullet holes. Was she growing afraid of the place we had to go? I wasn’t going to sound like I was above her. There was a silent fear inside of me that dreaded going here, simply because I assumed I was going to die.

It wasn’t long before she had gotten her footing in the place and was taking point. It was good that she recognized where we were going because the farther I went, the less and less I recognized. Each street we got on seemed less familiar than the last one. Soon though, I knew that I would be completely out of my element. I never ventured to new places like we were about to and I knew that soon enough I would be seeing a part of the city I had never seen.

I follow her silently as she begins up the road. She keeps close to the walls, watching ahead of us for anything that could still be living. I watch our backs, turning quietly and walking sideways to watch the road we had just come from. There was always a chance that there would be a splicer following us, waiting for the right chance to end us. If that were to happen, I would be ready for them. My hands drip the weapon tightly, scanning the darkness of the shadows for any kind of movement that I could see. I make sure to watch ahead of me to make sure that Echo doesn’t make any turns or cross the street without me. It would be very easy to simply fall much too far behind. I make sure I’m a few paces behind her, just enough where she can move without having to worry about me being in her way.

She tells me that I need to follow close and so that’s what I do. She moves to move towards a vending stall and I’m right behind her, silent footsteps following her every step of the way. It’s nice to not be in front this time since she seems to know exactly what we need and where we’re going. I can tell we are crossing the street. Soon after we’ve stopped, she checks our surroundings and juts out toward a vender’s cart that is lying toppled over in the middle of the road. I survey for any movement before following. It was very important that we didn’t attract any attention right through here. We would be caught in a fire fight right outside of the most dangerous place in Rapture, and that was sure to stir up attention.

Soon enough, we cross the road, hiding behind another vendor’s stall. We wait to see if there had been any movement or change in scenery. There doesn’t seem to be any. That’s good; we’ve at least gotten this far without any Splicer that could be hiding seeing us. This seemed to be the hardest part so far. Crossing a street was a very noticeable movement to anyone that was hiding above or watching from further down the street. Most say that if you could master crossing the street in Rapture, you could go anywhere without anyone seeing you. It was a nice trick to have, but I hadn’t completely mastered it so most times, I kept on one side of the street as much as possible.

I could see the entrance from where we were now. I was busy watching behind us before. It seemed like a well enough place. There were two admission booths that used to be colorful and sparkly, but now they seemed to be splattered in blood and broken. There were turnstiles in between the two booths. They might be our biggest problem. If even one of them weren’t rusted so badly they couldn’t work then we might be taking them. Yes, I could probably jump the gate, but I wasn’t sure if Echo could with her armor on. Not only that, but jumping over something caused a lot of movement. It was something that could draw attention to any Splicer that hadn’t seen us yet. If we went through them, the turnstile clicked every time it turned, making one hell of a racket. I looked over to her before looking back towards the way we came. I only hoped that she had some sort of plan.

The booths were going to be the next of our problems but at least I had some kind of a plan on how to get through them without attracting too much attention to ourselves. Although our crossing the road would have attracted the attention of anyone watching over the area from one of the many buildings, it was still possible that they had just been looking away when we made our move. Either way being quiet and inconspicuous was the most important thing at this point. If we could make it into the park without anyone inside noticing us, the chances of us continuing under the radar were much higher.
With this in mind I turned my focus towards the turnstile of the second booth over.

After a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure that there were no beady eyes watching us through the shadows, I crouched down next to the worn down metallic booth that sill had a slot where the entrance token would go. My hand made its way into the bag slung around my waist and dug around in it until finally it emerged with a small burnished bronze coin. An entrance token I had found while scrounging the area the very first, and last, time I passed through it.
I slipped the token into the booth where it made a small metallic clinking noise. The noise was quiet and brief but carried through the street. I froze, listening carefully, but when I heard no movement I let out a soft sigh of relief.

I took a small crouch step forward and placed my hands on the turnstile bar that clicked whenever it was moved forward. If we were to pass through it the way it was, we would let the entire amusement park know that we were coming.
Thankfully I had watched a couple Splicers enter the place and I knew the trick they used to keep from attracting attention to themselves. It took me a second to get the right grip on the metal but once I had, I pulled sharply and with a click barely audible the turnstile shifted about an inch. Another pause to check for movement and I stood, giving the stile a little push to make sure my trick had worked.
True to the actions I had seen, the metal bar moved without so much as a squeak much less the clicking it usually made. We were now free to enter.

I tapped my leg lightly to let Mira know we were moving, who I assumed and hoped was watching our backs while I busied myself with the booth. As I took my first few steps I remembered the promise I had made her when we left. I turned my head to look over my shoulder for a second before I silently sighed, reaching down to unclip my helmet from where I had been carrying the metallic cage I called a helmet.
"I did promise.." I murmured softly and with a last smile of farewell I pulled the helmet over my head. Once again enclosing me in the semi-darkness I had become so used to over the last few years.
As I continued to move through the very entrance of the fairgrounds, keeping close to the walls, I fastened the clasps tightly. The soft red glow began to emanate from the porthole.

The Park was silent, dark, and had an eerie tone to the whole place. What truly made the Fairgrounds a frightening place was how different it looked from the way it had looked back when it was a lively happy place. All of the bright colors were now worn down and grey, the stalls broken and spattered with blood, and the rides shut down completely still frozen in place from when the power was shut-down.
Just walking through the entrance made a chill run down my spine.
Everything was just too quiet for my liking.
As though there were shadows moving through the darkness that we just couldn't see. If that wasn't the case then where were all of the Splicers I had heard about? How could a place known for its Splicer presence be so quiet?
I kept my eyes open though as I pushed towards the main square which was going to be the next big problem in our journey.

When we reached the corner of the line of stalls there was nowhere for us to go other than across the wide open expanse that was the main square of the Fairgrounds. An area that was meant to accommodate the hundreds of children and adults who once came to the park for all of the amusements it offered. The square separated one half of the park from the other and there was no way of going around it. We either ran through it and hoped that we didn't get spotted or we tried to figure out a better way of going through the open. Either way it was going to be dangerous.
I turned to face Mira for a moment and I pointed towards the other side of the square, about a 50 yards away from where we were crouched.
I hoped that she understood what we were just about to do.

I knew that the turnstiles ahead were going to be a problem for us. When they turn, they are loud as if they were made to alert your presence to the entire park. They were proving to be quite the nuisance. They weren't just here though; they were at Ryan amusements and fort frolic at some of the attractions.

She starts tinkering with the machine. I don't stop to gawk at her while she works. I turn to watch the darkness. There were so many places that splicers could be hiding. The darkness possed a great threat. It was horrible when they could see you and you couldn't see them; sneak attacks were the worst thing that could happen to you. If a slicer got the upper hand on you early in the fight, it could be very hard to get the upper hand back and if you were injured early then you could end up dead fast. For that reason, I watch everywhere- especially the darkness.

I watch in silence hearing the tinkering of Echo behind me. At one point, the sound of something falling almost causes me to turn around, but I know better. In that moment that I wasn't paying attentions, something could jump out to attack. I have faith in her. I know that she can do whatever she is doing. A few moments later the dreaded clicking sound emits, but there is something different about it. The sound is dull and silence. It's so quiet in fact that I barley recognize the sound. I turn back a moment to see that the turnstile has moved a bit. I smile, just ever so slightly, to myself before turning back to watch once more. It was very important that I did my job.

After another minute or so, I can hear a light tapping. I turn to see that the Maui e has move completely. She has finished and her handy work has allowed us silent passage. I turn stepping through the space. It was nice knowing we wouldn't be alerting everything in the area to our presence. I stumble to my feet to see her unclipping the helmet she had stepped to her armor. I smiled silently happy to know that she was willingly keeping her promise. It was a good attribute to have in a person.

I don't say anything to her when she speaks. The least amount of talking that we had, the better off we would be. I give her a nod I. Thanks and in a sort of silent goodbye. It was a nice gesture, but nothing more. Only seconds pass and the girl is gone, replaced by the sister that I had met a few days ago. The red glow crawls across my face and soon enough we've begun on our journey once more.

We begin now, and I am taking my first steps into a new place. The fairgrounds were quite different than what the children described when they did before raptures fall. They described it as a happy place with fun rides, strange foods, freaks, and fun that seemed to be indescribable at times. Now the place seemed to look like everything was being shown through a black and white portscreen. Blood splattered across the ground and many of the vendor stations. It takes me a moment or two to take in all of the places. It was especially a sight.

We make it to an area up ahead, hugging the wall so we can make sure to keep hidden from any scouts that could be in the area. We run out of wall after a while. It seems that we have very few choices on where to go now. It seems the most obvious is across the wide expansion of area I front of us, but that's very illogical. There was a great chance of us being seen trying to get across the great square. Almost immediately after we stop she turns to me. The dull red glow illuminates my face. A hand juts out, pointing to the other side of the square. My eyes widen; was she crazy or something? It takes me a few seconds to completely comprehend what she's asking us to do before I swallow hard and nod slowly. I would follow her wherever she went. What other choice did I have?

(Sorry about the long wait. My parents had us go three hours away to see christmas lights. I just got back. Excuse any error I missed when re-editing, I originally typed this up on my ipod.)

The wide-eyed look I got from Mira spoke loudly for the surprise and uncertainty she felt about my plan. Immediately I wished that I could choose another route but quite literally there was no other way to get to the other side without being completely exposed. I leaned slightly forward to glance down around the corner just to make sure I wasn't mistaken. As I had thought there was nothing but a line of stalls that led straight to the metal wall that kept the ocean water out. The other direction was much the same.
Even if we did decide to continue along the wall we were easily spotted by anyone on the other side if they so much as glanced in our direction.
The only option we had, that I saw, was to cut our losses and sprint straight for the other side. I hoped that Mira would understand. Before I could really give myself a chance to shy away from the crossing, which would have ended our journey right there, I gave her one last glance before beginning quickly over the open ground.

The first few yards were the most frightening as my eyes could not seem to cover nearly as much of the nooks and crannies they needed to in order to look for danger. The towering rides, worn down play towers, and broken Ferris wheel alone provided hundreds of hiding places.
However there was still no motion. Not even a sound beyond our quiet footsteps against the ground as we continued yard after yard.
When we got about halfway without so much as a hitch I began to believe that everything I had heard about the place was wrong. All of the Splicers had cleared out at some point.

Suddenly there was a loud click as what felt like four or five huge spotlights snapped on and focused on both of our figures, exposing us to the world. The sudden explosion of light caused me to jump though thankfully the visor of my helmet tinted out the intensity of the lights coming down on us from above. I could barely see movement beyond the puddle of light we were now trapped in. I was going to motion for Mira to make a break towards the opposite side of the square with me in the hopes that we might still make it there when a loud voice broke the silence on what sounded like a loudspeaker. "Welcome! Welcome! Come one, come all! Everyone is welcome to the world of Finn Wood!" The voice said grandly as the lights of the entire place started to slowly illuminate. The Fairgrounds went from the dark ruins they looked to be on the outside to a bright and the chillingly lively place it must have been back before things went to hell. "How about you missy? Would you like to take a ride on the carousel of happiness?" As the voice spoke a carousel came to life and began to turn around with the carved horses and chariots rising and falling with the music.

The Music itself held an eerie tone and rhythm, neither happy nor sad. It was the kind of tune that sent a chill up along one's spine. A haunting tune that seemed to perfectly describe the entirety of the Fairgrounds as a whole; black, dead, and nothing but a memory of the grandeur that once was Rapture.
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and I turned my head towards it, finding that there was a person moving out of the shadows on the other side of the square. I squinted as more and more of person became visible.

He was tall, slim, and walked with an elegant demeanor the likes of which had long been lost in the years of fighting. His suit was black and beneath his suit he wore a crimson red vest and tie. His shoes were shining black and his hands covered with satin white gloves. His face however was hidden behind a mask typically seen on the ugliest and most misshapen of the Splicers who walked the streets of Rapture at night. His body seemed to lack any sign of disfigurement however for not a single part of him was out of the ordinary. If anything he gave off an air of charm and his voice the tone of a handsome man.
"Yes.. Yes.. You are most welcome." He spoke as he approached us with his hands open in our direction.

He continued to walk until he was only a few yards away from where we were stood almost on the edge of the pool of light. He tilted his head down to look at us revealing the details of his mask. The Mask was golden and carefully detailed, the expression permanently formed into an evil grin. The face of a jester.
From behind the mask his voice flowed as though there was nothing in front of his lips.
"Now tell me.. to what do I owe the honor of your trespassing?" He asked in a tone that was neither threatening nor particularly friendly either.
The man's gaze was mainly fixed upon Mira as she was the only one able to respond.

As he stood there waiting for our answer, shapes began to appear in the relative darkness behind him. For only a second I drew my gaze away from the man only to see that from the shadows of every corner Splicers were appearing. Some merely perched themselves atop the vending booths while others came to the ground and stood by in case their leader, who I assumed as the well dressed man, needed help.
Soon we were surrounded on all sides by every kind of Splicer imaginable yet they stood by silently in a manner I had never seen before.. Sure I had seen gangs where there was a central leader but never anything of this size.


(That's alright! I was a bit anxious to get this post up, I hope I described everything adequately.)

She had fallen off her rocker with this idea. In a way, I felt like I was obligated to follow, even if it was likely to get us seen. There was a chance that we wouldn’t be caught. That hope is what kept me following her like a lost dog at times. Hope is the only thing stronger than fear; it kept me from running away now and it would probably keep me from running away until I found my end.

It does seem that the look I give her changes her mind slightly. At least, she wants to try and see if there’s another route to go on. She peers around the corner up ahead for a few moments before pulling herself back around. She doesn’t look at me for a while. She is thinking, and I assume that the turn just leads to a dead end. If that’s the case then we have no other choice than to cut across the large area that we had been planning on cutting through.

She doesn’t give me much time to realize what she’s doing. In only a second she turns to me before starting a mad sprint across the square. I grip my gun, feeling the cold metal between my fingers. I have a feeling it’ll be the last thing that I feel. Even if that is so, I run after her, a few steps behind simply because of my late start. It was insane how many places there were to hide in this here. There were broken rides, vendor’s stalls, and even shadows that seemed large enough to fit people inside of. There wasn’t any lighting to make she shadow run to higher places so each building had them. I was surprised we had made it this far without being shot up. I would probably bet my life that there were Splicer’s hiding, and waiting for the command to kill us.

Instead though, there is something else. Bright lights flick on and in a matter of seconds I’m pretty much without my sight. I come to a stop, being unable to see anything in the brightness. Echo had her helmet to block out some of the brightness, but it too my eyes quite a while to change and allow me to see once more. Within the time I had been blinded, if Echo had tried to give me any sort of signals to go or run, they were unseen. By the time my eyes do adjust, I hear someone talking over a loudspeaker. My hands grip hard on my weapon, my knuckles white from the pressure. I didn’t like this at all. I didn’t want to be caught up in this mess.

Since there is really nowhere to run now, I’m forced to stand and listen. Maybe there was something useful in what he was saying, whoever this person was. Finn Wood? The name rolls around in my head. Had I met him? Had I heard of him? Had I stolen from him before Rapture went to hell? I couldn’t think of where I had heard the name before. The bright lights of the entire park seem to slowly draw to life. A carousel nearby livens up. Normally, if I knew exactly what I was going up against, I would have had a few things to say about this ‘carousel of happiness’ that the speaker offered. Right now, however, I was in no place to take a chance at talking out of my ass when there was obviously more to this whole park than I had known in the begging. With the carousel comes an eerie music. It’s something you might hear in a horror play about killer clowns or something. It messed with my nerves even more than what they already were.

Echo catches sight of the male before I do. The movement she makes draws my eyes over to the other side of the square. I could see the movement that she spotted first and before too long, a figure forms from the movement just outside of the bright lights. Within his movements and dress—especially his dress, the man sort of reminded me of Sander Cohen before Rapture’s fall. He was elegant and simply looked as if he was above everyone else. His movements were calculated in a way that made him almost glide across the stone beneath him. He was tall and slender, and even from a distance I can tell that he towers over me. He’s closer to Echo’s height, even with the extra few inches added on with the helmet. From the distance though, it seems that he even towers over her.

It is not only his height that makes him seem different than the Splicers. His voice, as it calls out through the open hair, seems to have a gentlemanly air to it. Soon though he slowly comes to a stop a few feet away. It seems now that he looks at me more than Echo as if seeing a Big Sister like she was just didn’t bother him. The golden smile that the mask wears sends another jolt through my nerves.

He speaks to the both of us, but directed at me all the same. I am the only one that can really respond since Echo put her helmet back on. In the predicament we are in, I’m glad that she has put it on. That thing could be the only thing saving her life soon.

I look up to the man; the grip on my weapon is still just as tight as it was before. I debate in my head whether or not it would be worth killing him before he gave the order to kill us. It seemed almost inevitable now that we were going to die, seeing as there were splicers coming from every hole in the ground that it seemed they could find. It was a promise of death for me if I decided that I was going to shoot the man in front of us, but I didn’t want to condemn Echo just because I felt like being an idiot.

“We’re just travelers. We’re just passing through. We didn’t mean any harm” My voice is much stronger than I had expected it to be. That’s good. Maybe that’ll show them that we aren’t afraid.

The moment the light clicked on overhead I immediately regretted the decision I had made to cross the square. Although truthfully there had been no other option, for the most part, I felt as though I had let Mira down. My choice had gotten us caught in the middle of what was arguably the most dangerous part of Rapture. Now I could see exactly what all of the talk had been about.
This man, Finn Wood, was the leader all of the Splicers in the surrounding areas had begun to flock behind. The combination of his elegant tone, his composed mannerisms, and the frighteningly detailed mask he wore would have been exactly the kind of person Splicers would want to side with.
Someone who seemed like they could lead them to prosperity and aid their survival.

They surrounded us now and although it would have been incredibly easy for them to tear us apart with their bare hands, none of the Splicers moved so much as a finger. They all stood motionless simply watching the scene unfolding before them. Their leader had not given them the signal so they dared not attack those he spoke to.
I turned my gaze back towards the man hoping that Mira would not make any mistakes while she spoke to him. He had our lives literally in the palm of his hand. Perhaps if we could talk our way out of this confrontation, we'd be able to survive this whole ordeal without a fight.

Mira's answer to his question seemed to trouble the man as he tilted his head slightly, regarding her carefully through the dark slits that were his eyes on the mask. A second or two passed before his voice filled the air to reply to her words.
"Simply travelers? For travelers who do not mean any harm you bear more arms than many of the Splicers around us." He spoke while making a sweeping motion with his hand towards the surrounding creatures.
"And for a traveler you are accompanied by a creature I've never seen so..docile.." He turned his attention to me.

As his eyes came to focus on me I felt a shudder run down along my spine though I did my very best to keep still in a posture typical for a Big Sister; legs slightly inward, arms at the ready, and head cocked just a bit to the side. One would never know that I was different from any of the Big Sisters that mainly hunted in the shadows of Fontaine Futuristics.
"You were able to domesticate what is supposedly the most powerful being in Rapture? How? It does not make any sense..." As he spoke he took a few steps towards me until he stopped, leaning forward for a closer look.

Something suddenly changed and he snapped back, observing me with a posture of surprise. There was something different about his attitude all of the sudden when he made a silent realization.
"Ah, but soft, I know you.." He muttered more to himself than anyone else before turning his head towards the woman next to me.
"Do you truly know what walks with you, my dear?" He asked her with a tone that was much more serious than the playful tone he had used only moments before. Finn turned his head back in my direction.
"I'd recognize that armor any day.."

I didn’t realize the massing of splicers that had grouped around the square. There seemed to be every kind one could imagine. There were tall ones, short ones, fat ones, and skinny ones. They varied greatly from one end of the spectrum to the other. None of them moved either, they all watched, waiting silently for the word to attack. It was as if they were all well trained dogs, waiting only until their master was in danger before attacking. Right now, all of them knew that the two of us didn’t stand a chance. All of them knew that we would be dead before we got even the chance to kill this Finn Wood fellow ahead of us.

I can see that the man in front of me doesn’t like the response I’ve given him. I don’t see why though. Really, he thinks that the weapons I carry are too extreme for my cause. I shake my head, he really didn’t understand. It looked to me that he had no reason to worry about what weaponry he used. He was protected no matter where he went.

“You must know that in Rapture, you need to be ready to protect yourself if you need it.” That’s really the only response I give. Before I have a chance to say much more, his attention has moved to my companion. He looks at her with curious eyes. I don’t speak for a while, I wasn’t sure if it was better to lie or tell the truth. Since he was a stranger, I would think that it might be easier to lie, but what if I lied incorrectly. The way that he looks over her is different. He’s picking her over for every little bit of information he can get from what he sees.

I can feel myself tense. He wants to get a better look at her. He wants to see why she is so still, why she does not cry out to protect herself or scare off the splicers that are around us. He wants to know why she is so special, why she does not attack like a normal big sister would.

“Well…You see…” I’m trying to come up with a lie on the fly, but it doesn’t seem to be coming with me. It would be very unbelievable for me to simply say that she took a liking to me. Really, if he decided that we were going to become captives or something he would surely learn the truth. It doesn’t seem to take him even that long to realize that there’s something different about her. He begins talking to himself quietly. He is quick to change his posture. He looks almost surprised about what he sees. I take in a short breath, not letting my weapon fall from where it had been pointed the entire time. He turns to me now, looking me over for only a moment. The golden smile that seems to scour over me sends a chill up through my spine.

He ponders a question, looking at me. Did I really know what I was traveling with? It was a hard question for me to answer really. She was a girl, but a Big Sister. Was she human? Did something change in her? I wasn’t really sure.

“Yes, Sir. I do know.” I respond simply. It’s the safest response I can truly come up with. By the time the words have crossed my lips though, he’s already turned his attention back to Echo. He looks over her before making another small comment. I keep silent though; it seems he is more interested in her than in me, that might be a good thing for later on.

ooc: I was half-way through writing my post but I've got to go and pick up someone from the airport. I should be back in an hour or two.
I apologize for the mess today and I'll get a post up as soon as possible.

(Its totally fine! I kept you waiting yesterday. I'm going to see legendary guardians (or something like that) with my boyfriend and my sister. It'll probably be nine or so before I get out. sorry)