[leksbronks]

Chapter 24, part 1
--------------------------------------------

Isaac couldn't comprehend why he followed her. He now thoroughly despised Kendra, knew that every word that came out of her mouth was a vicious lie, and he simply could no longer stand to be in her foul presence. All he wanted was to get away from her. Still, something within him felt compelled to follow, strangely enamored by the ominous, cryptic references of her speeches, her unbreakable, confident aire, her inexplicably inflamed sense of independence. He knew she was like the others, he knew she should be under his control, and yet she refused to respond to him the way the others did, and he couldn't understand it. He had a small hold on her, but for him, it just wasn't enough. He perceived that her apparent depth of knowledge about what was happening aboard the Ishimura could only mean one of two things: either she was a worthy potential ally to his cause, or a serious threat to his existence. Either way, it made him feel very uncomfortable and exposed. He simply marched behind her silently with an instinctive finger perched constantly upon the plasma cutter strapped to his belt, and watched her warily with darkened eyes the entire way.

The realization of his deteriorating condition also had begun to haunt him progressively. He winced at the painful sensation of his exhausted, aching muscles as he walked, an arduous feeling he had not regarded for a quite a while, and it made him feel anciently old. He also noticed an increase in the occasional bouts of involuntary coughing that would seize him, causing him to stop repeatedly to regain his breath while Kendra would simply turn to glare at him. Though he felt more alive and full of energy now than he ever had, though he detected the eternally warming presence of the Hive Mind within him keeping him going, and even though he had now entirely lost his desire to sleep, he became very much aware that his outer bodily condition appeared to be declining rapidly in contrast. He silently began to wonder to himself if his recently acquired gift of immortality was somehow ironically consuming everything about him, burning his own vessel alive within it's incendiary blaze of insurmountable power. Maybe that's why the Marker existed. Maybe the Hive Mind was just too powerful for transmigration, simply ate through its living resources until nothing was left, and was forced to take refuge within a rock it couldn't destroy, waiting for its next hapless host. If that was the case, how much longer did he have? And when the time came, what would happen? He began to feel like an invalid, frustrated and suffocating, a perfectly sane man trapped within the malfunctioning machine of a body that simply no longer had the capacity to properly support him. A perfectly sane man.

Perfectly sane. Sacrifice is inevitable. Perfectly sane. Perfectly sane.

His fevered, wide eyed trance was disrupted as his attention was drawn away by a small snicker from Kendra ahead of him, full of vice and wickedly amused as she listened to his deranged thoughts. He looked up at her with wild eyes, just shook his head and wiped the bloody perspiration from his temples as he realized he had fallen several feet behind her. Vexatiously trying to clear his mind, he kept a blurry eye on Kendra as she led him through the ship.

They made their way down the backside of the Ishimura, following along dimly lit secondary tunnels and through hallways and doors that Isaac wasn't sure he previously knew existed. He recognized the type of maintenance panels along the walls as belonging to industrial sterilization regulation systems, and he knew they were now very close to the backside of the Medical Deck. Where was she taking him? He watched her as she made her way steadily through the hallways, looking around and taking note of the Ishimura's revitalized and immaculate conditions abound everywhere.

"Wow Isaac, I like what you've done with the place. How cozy. You have such an insight for interior design - almost looks like you even have a little feng shui thing going on. I didn't know a thick headed engineer like yourself could be such an artist."

He balked and scoffed at her comment, no longer amused by any of her taunting probes at his conscience. He stepped up behind her and forcibly pushed her on, urging her sternly with his mind to keep moving and remain quiet. Fortunately for him, she took the hint without retaliation and continued silently, leading him down a few more corridors until she stopped before a small grate in the floor and pointed down to it.

"This is it. Sorry for taking the long way around, but I didn't really want to run into any of your newfound devouts. This, Isaac, is a moment for just you and me."

She smiled and smacked her lips darkly, then stooped to her knees, removing the grate and peering down into the shaft. She then slid her legs into the opening and dropped down, and Isaac heard her hit the ground below. He looked down into the hole, trying to see where it led and he heard her voice echo back up through the shaft.

"Are you coming or what?"

Isaac sighed and followed suit, making his way in through the hole and sliding down the shaft until he landed next to her heavily, about fifteen feet down from the floor above. He didn't quite expect such a drop, and he sunk slightly to his knees in an effort to absorb the force and pain. He looked around the darkened room, faintly recognized it. It was surrounded by four tall, solid walls of metal lined with a number of equally rowed and columned, rectangular hatch panels that appeared to be drawers or cabinets, and towards the rear was a small recessed operation room surrounded by what once were glass panels, now shattered into countless pieces, the glass shards strewn about the floor. A single examination table smothered in blood streaks sat within the recessed room, the blood stained sheets illuminated eerily by the inconstant light of the artificial fluorescent that flickered above it. The broken tile walls were smudged with Marker scrawl, and the floor in both areas was heavily stained with dark blood trails, as if many bodies had been dragged through this place on more than one occasion. He saw a few overturned hospital beds lying about on their sides, and the floor was littered with broken cargo crates and various medical paraphernalia.

The morgue. Isaac instantly became alarmed, as he knew that Kendra's little surprises never seemed to yield anything benevolent.

[leksbronks]

Chapter 24, Part 2
--------------------------------------

"What are we doing here?"

"What's the matter, Isaac? You worried about something?"

She stood in front of him, crossing her arms and smiling with maleficent lips slightly parted to reveal a wall of teeth behind them. Her deep bruises stood out in the darkness with vast contrast to her pasty white skin, and even moreso against the dire, almost manic excitement spread across her face and cast within her lightless eyes. She walked past him and looked around the demolished room.

"Well, I see you haven't touched this place yet. I understand. You've seen enough death in your time, haven't you, Isaac?"

Suddenly, Isaac heard it again; the faint, reverberating chanting in the back of his skull. Though it had been unceasingly constant for the duration up until this point, it was the first time in quite a while that he recognized it so strongly. His breath weakened, his eyes rolled and he put a hand to his head.

Sacrifice is inevitable.

"Kendra, let's just get this over with. What do you want?"

Again, Kendra just smiled, pleased to hear his sour tone. She put her hands to her hips and slowly began to make her way towards one of the refrigerated storage walls, never departing her stare from him.

"Isaac, I have come bearing gifts for you. And they're the best gifts you will ever receive - they are the gifts of truth, of acceptance. These are the gifts that will set us all free. You wanna see?"

Her face cracked into an unsettling cheshire grin as she reached for one of the hatch panels and pulled it open. With an anxious aire of sickening delight she reached into the storage cache, her figure momentarily lost amongst the released cloud of refrigerated, condensed air, and retrieved a rollout gurney, covered with a bloody sheet that obviously silhouetted something very reminiscent of a body beneath it. As the gurney slid all the way out and stopped on its rear bearings with a loud, abrupt click, Kendra turned to Isaac with a frightening grin.

"Well, what do we have here? This one looks promising. C'mere, Isaac."

He clearly had no desire to approach; but again, he was powerless to stop the intrigue that compelled him. He slowly, warily, made his way over to Kendra, glancing down uncomfortably with darting eyes at the concealed mass beneath the sheet. Though somewhat unsettled, he was also half expectant. Kendra gave him a hard glare, peering into him, trying to see what he was feeling, and she frowned at her baffled attempt. She was stronger than the others, that was definite; but still, there were depths to Isaac that even she could not penetrate, and it bothered her. She finally, slowly, pulled back the sheet to reveal the body of a small, young female, a member of medical administration judging by the dress, and though thoroughly mangled beyond recognition, Isaac knew instantly that it was Nicole.

"Well, there's a familiar face, huh? God... poor thing. I hope she didn't suffer too much."

Though Isaac distantly sensed his rage awaken at Kendra's tortuously sarcastic bites, at this point he was simply overwhelmed with an inability to feel anything. The sight before him wrenched his heart to some degree, but the fear was absent; the apprehension was nonexistent. He just stared blankly at Nicole's lifeless, frosted and shattered body, noted how the torso and hips were malformed due to severe decomposition, how the bones of her forearms were jutting back clearly past the elbow joints, broken and twisted in several places down their lengths, how the face, though entirely eaten away by decay and striped with aged lacerations, still carried a few wisps of blonde hair that clung to the chaffed skin of the cheeks, glued in place with dried blood. When his eyes had had enough, he closed them and turned away.

He heard Kendra move away behind him as she reached for the next hatch, opened and pulled out a second gurney. He turned around curiously at the sound, wondering irritably who she was going to show to him next, wondered what the point was... then suddenly saw Kendra's face. It was unexpectedly filled with a venomous glee, a sight that instantly alarmed him again. Who was she going to show to him next? Kendra continued to smile through bloodless lips, then opened her mouth, flashing her vile, white teeth. Her subdued demeanor vanished, replaced by a growing sense of sheer madness burning in her eyes that spoke of something leagues beyond wicked.

"And, who might this be? I wonder... well, let's see..."

She uncovered the next body - again, it was Nicole's. Isaac's eye's suddenly widened, the familiar panic of complete unexpectedness rising at the back of his skull in direct response to the increasing sounds of the Marker chanting. The body, though differently afflicted than the first, was unmistakably that of Nicole. This particular body was not so traumatized, only slightly mangled in a few places and overall in better condition. Blood was still smeared amply across it, but Isaac eerily noted that these blood smears formed a distinct pattern across her chest - a Marker symbol. Kendra stepped around behind the body and leaned in close to Nicole's head, looking her over and tauntingly petting the side of her decomposing face, glancing up coldly every so often at Isaac to judge his reaction.

"Aww... isn't she just precious? Like a little baby."

Isaac was too stunned to respond. He just stood and stared at the corpses of Nicole, glancing back and forth between them in a frantic attempt to tell them apart.

No. Maybe Kendra was wrong.. These are just two different people, that's all. That's all.

Kendra, again listening to every word that slipped through his mind, smirked brutally as she stepped back and reached for the third hatch, licking her lips and locking her stare again right onto Isaac. At this point, Isaac's utter confoundment had combusted into a irrepressible loathing for this wretched woman who was so filled with a malice that rivaled even his own. She opened the hatch and retrieved a third body, again concealed beneath a ghastly, bloodied sheet. She playfully uncovered it just enough to peek for herself, then quickly covered it again and scornfully squeezed her tongue between her teeth.

"Oh, goodness - will you look at this! Such a busy girl."

She uncovered it before him, and again he was met with the cold, hard corpse of Nicole. This one was incomplete, missing everything from the waist down and drenched in putrid, rotting blood, clearly well on its way to total necromorph transformation before it was destroyed. What little remained of the corpse had again been vandalized with blood scrawl in Marker language across its torso and remaining limbs. Kendra stood poised behind the gurney on the other side of Isaac's position, gripping the gurney's bars and swinging back and forth on her heels with a childishly demonic playfulness. The blood red fury of her eyes had grown to a point of near self illumination, reflecting sinisterly in the dim beams of the morgue's overhead lights. Isaac, thoroughly convinced it was some sort of trick, felt his muscles again tense, and he began to step towards her, his dark eyes now burning with the morbid desire to see Kendra's own dead body laid out in one of these drawers. Kendra stepped back at his approach and quickly waved her hands, waggling her fingers at him and smiling madly.

"Wait Isaac, the induction ceremony isn't over yet. There's a lot more where these came from. A LOT more. And, I've got a very special gift still left for you. I think you'll like this one."

She jumped back to the last hatch in the row and pulled it open. She retrieved the contents and pulled off the sheet, revealing another very familiar body. But this one wasn't Nicole's - he saw it was his own.

"Ooh, a bonus! Looks like you've been pretty busy, too."

[leksbronks]

Chapter 24, Part 3
----------------------------------------

He ignored her words as he looked it over. At first, Isaac thought it was the one from the pilot's nest and therefore wasn't surprised at first, but he quickly realized that this corpse was differently afflicted. Though bloody and clearly having been ripped apart in some places, this body was not decapitated and the engineer's uniform was different, slightly more modified than the previous one he had seen. He watched with frenzied eyes as he recognized his own beaten and battered features, saw the empty stare of his own dead eyes. His gaze drifted down, seeing the bloodstained tracing of another Marker symbol painted across the chest, and he tried to make sense of what was happening here. He then noticed as Kendra stepped around to the other side of the gurney, and with a crazed expression leaned in close to the face of the corpse, looking at it with a soft eyed stare as she hovered over it, speaking with an insolence dipped in pure poison.

"My god... Look at him. Isn't he just the most captivating creature you've ever seen?... So powerful. So peaceful. So very... dead."

He watched in horrified disgust as she leaned in and kissed the corpse long and gently on its decayed lips, her passionate aire slathered with pure malevolence, then shot a hideous glare back up at Isaac. Her lips were now stained with the corpse's own decrepit blood, and her blackened eyes were filled with an intense insanity that utterly rattled him. He listened to her voice as it arose over the chanting from the back of his head.

See, Isaac? See how I adore you, safekeeper. See how I give myself to you unconditionally, even as you kick me away like an unwanted dog at your feet. Over and over. Over and over, despite your heartless lack of remorse. And now, I bring you the gift of liberation, Isaac. You owe me. You owe me the gift of unity. I want to be made whole, too. At least, give me that, safekeeper.

Isaac realized with dread that he had only experienced this extreme level of evil before from one source. The Marker. He stepped back, very much disturbed by this girl who clearly was far madder and consumed by the Marker's grip than she had led him to believe. His eyes drifted warily around the room to all the remaining hatches, wondering just how many more of Kendra's dirty, foreboding secrets riddled the walls, and she noticed his frantic examination, just nodded her head with a grim smile as she gently stroked the forehead of Isaac's dead body, looking into its lifeless, cataracted eyes.

"Yes, I've got a nice collection going. Last count, it was 953, including the both of you. Of course, I couldn't keep them all, but I did keep a tally."

She reached for her sleeves, undid the clasps of her cuffs and rolled them up, revealing lengths of battered flesh that were scored with countless lines of deep, red scars etched into her skin, some fresher than others, and surrounded by various symbols of Marker language. She looked back up at him, her dark, piercing eyes filled with a maddened sickness he suspected was acquired from being forced to witness a horrifying truth far too many times before.

"There's a few more of yours than hers, so unfortunately I haven't been able to pair all of you up...yet."

Isaac, still succumbing to complete revolt and disbelief, just stared her down, growling through his teeth.

"These are all lies... Who put these here??"

Kendra pulled back from the corpse and stepped around the gurney, slowly heading right for Isaac.

"I did. I told you - I've been working on this little pet project for quite a while now. My gift to you, Isaac. To demonstrate to you that I care enough to show you the truth. The first few hundred times we went through this, I didn't even keep track of them. I didn't care. But after a while, I started collecting them. Eventually, I got quite enamored with our little game and every time you sent me back, the first thing I did was track down your cold, dead bodies, and bring them here. All for you, Isaac. Because I knew you deserve to know."

Isaac remained silent; confused and angry, he could do nothing but stare at Kendra, all the while listening to the painful pounding of his ravaged heart and the wicked voices of the Marker inside his head.

"Well, technically I shouldn't say that I put these here - I should say you did, because since you set the rules for this little circle jerk we engage in, nothing can be done here without your sanction. If you ask me, I think you really wanted to see this... somewhere, deep down inside you, you've always known that you needed to see the truth, which is why you keep torturing me, keep dragging me through this. Who knows, maybe that fucking Marker does have a mind of its own. Maybe it knows, just as much as we both do, that you were a mistake."

Again, her enigmatic words insulted him, and he simply stood hunched and looming before her, boring deep into her eyes with his own. Kendra wasn't phased by his menace; she simply grinned to the side and walked past him, looking around the morgue and holding her arms out to her sides.

"Behold your mystic opulence, safekeeper of this holy vessel! Witness now around you the sacred records of your journey - your godlike monuments of eternal failure! You are just too fucking divine, Isaac."

She circumnavigated around Isaac, her head locked on him.

"So, have you figured out what your problem is, Isaac? Does any of this help you at all? Are you ready to stop this shit and let it all go, so we can finish this once and for all?"

Her voice rose as she spoke, her madness now replaced with a very grounded sense of anger and frustration.

"You broke the cardinal rule of the Marker, Isaac. The first fucking rule. Make us whole. Make us whole. Not make you whole."

Caught off guard by her sudden shift in character and harsh, condescending words, Isaac just blinked his blurred eyes, not sure he understood what she just said.

"...What?"

"C'mon, Isaac... look at what you've been doing all this time. You were given a gift. A very special, sacred gift that is meant to be used for a specific purpose. And you tripped at the starting line. The very first time you knew you harbored the Hive Mind, what was the first thing you did? Do you remember? Can your tiny, insignificant brain even reach back that long ago?"

Isaac just stood silently. That long ago? How long ago did she mean? The realization was there, but he couldn't bring himself to say it or even think about it, even as the Marker's harrassing chants tore at the back of his head, screaming at him with the indictments of his own unspeakable crime.

"You know what you did, you fucking petty, weak-minded egomaniac. You asked yourself, 'what can this do for me?' You were given a choice along with your gift, Isaac. And you chose the wrong one. As soon as you knew what you could do with the Hive Mind's power, instead of doing what you were supposed to do, you decided to suit your own needs, to embark on this insane crusade through time over and over again to try to correct a single mistake - a mistake that you have no right to redeem yourself for. And when you did that, you abused your very first rite of power - you unleashed all unholy war here, and turned this entire planet into some fucked up, timeless ouroboros to serve as your playground. You were destined to fail, and your sad attempts to rectify it only grew into more mistakes, and when you tried to go back and correct those, you made even more. And you just kept going and going until you didn't even know what the fuck you were doing anymore, without any regard for the consequences. Even now, at this very moment, you're still doing it. And now we're all stuck in your endless web of chain reaction fuckups. All because you can't stop compulsively feasting upon yourself. All because you just... won't... let go."

[leksbronks]

Chapter 24, Part 4
--------------------------------------------

Chain reaction fuckups? Timeless ouroboros? Isaac was irritably baffled by her words. He simply couldn't believe what she was saying, though he understood her intent. It was just too illogical, it didn't make sense. Of course, he had also felt at one point the same way about the Hive Mind. He just watched himself within as his sense of reality slipped past, never to return, and trapped in his own swirling thoughts, he chewed the inside of his cheek with wracked nervousness until he tasted blood.

What... was she suggesting that he had the ability to manipulate time? He tsked cynically with disbelief. It was absolutely ridiculous. Manipulate time. Sheer madness. Physical matter. She was absolutely out of her fucking mind. Miraculous.

Miraculous.

He suddenly froze - and in that moment, the layers of flesh and blood finally receded from his vision, his resolute sense of denial shredded by the razor sharpened blades of the Marker's ominous whispers tearing through him. All of the memories within him flooded back, he now saw the vast collection of knowledge pooled within his scattered brain, spread out over unknown expanses of time and space, overlapping and layered upon each other exponentially; countless, varied memories of the same events, as different people and with different outcomes, the repetitive dreams and premonitions, the undeniable feeling he had been on this planet for so much longer than he thought, his intimate knowledge of the Ishimura and the Colony that could have only been acquired through centuries of self discovery... everything now seemed to whisper of a multiplex of consequences, set in action eons ago and only now just beginning to converge on his position with a catastrophic intensity. He now began to understand what Kendra meant - how his misguided sense of action had cast an endless loop of time over this place, a redundant cycle that he now could not seem to stop, condemning himself and everyone upon Aegis7 and the Ishimura to endless revolutions of phantasmal death and rebirth within its field. And the fact that they were all still here only hinted at the unbroken continuity of his grevious error - that every single cycle passed had ended with failure to make the Marker whole, only to trigger yet another loop of events, starting everything all over again. He now saw the absurdity in his own actions, his failure to perform as the trusted keeper of the Marker's divine power, repeated over and over, again and again.

How long had he been doing this? How far did his influence reach? How many times had he been aboard the Ishimura, engaged in the holy pilgrimage over and over to lay his hands, eyes and soul upon the Marker, only to fail at his final moment? He glanced with wild eyes at the body of his own self stretched out in the gurney next to him, saw the bloodied Marker graffiti painted across its chest, and was terrifyingly reminded of his countless hours spent scribbling his 'apology letters' to the Marker across the halls of the ship. How many times had he sinfully rebuked and coerced this divine energy, denying it access to its own destiny in order to satisfy his own savage desires? How many times had he died, only to wake up and find himself again in this godforsaken place? All because of him? All to find her? All to bring her home alive? All to be together, the way it always should have been?

With absolute horror, he finally realized the head of his inevitable failure, the pivotal point upon which his phenomenal, endless recurring nightmare had begun its pendulous momentum - the one, single mistake.

Nicole. Nicole. Nicole.

Kendra stood silent for a long moment, at first glaring at Isaac coldly. Then noticing the utter gravity of his solid, dead stare as he came to his insuperable realization, she watched as his entire constitution within him fell completely apart. She slowly dropped the grimacing harshness of her face and replaced it now with a blank, concealed sense of concern. Wow. He didn't know. He really didn't know. This hit him hard. Harder than she thought. Pinching her lip with her teeth, she shook her head, lowered her eyebrows.

"You better wake the fuck up, Isaac. You're the only one who can stop all of this. You need to forget about her, and not make the same mistake yet again. You need to protect the Marker, Isaac. The Marker. Not her."

She fell silent and took a deep breath, fighting down another urge to erupt, and contemplated for a few moments, slowly sinking to the ground and squatting on her knees.

"I don't want to do this again, Isaac. As many times as I've watched you die, with as much delight as I've taken in repeatedly witnessing the pain in your eyes as you fall time and time again... I just can't do this anymore. I need to be done. You know... if you would have had any brains in your head at all, you would have never even stepped foot on the Kellion that day... you'd have done us all a big favor and just stay in bed. This one was too big for you, you just couldn't fucking handle it... and it should have always been mine. You hear me, Isaac? It should have always been mine. I earned it. I earned it. Not you."

Isaac's deep concentration was shattered as he faintly heard her words, and looked slowly down at her with a dawning realization of her own position in this; her own deep seeded and depraved desires now came to light. He sneered at her, his anger bubbling to the surface of his inflected tone.

"So... all of this is about the Marker...? All this hatred, because you didn't get to it first? Well... that certainly speaks very highly of your character, Kendra. I'm impressed by your reserve."

She leaned towards him with gleaming dark eyes and parted her lips with great disdain.

"Isaac, shut the fuck up and try for once in your life to see something beyond just yourself. While it's true I may be... slightly put off by the fact that you somehow managed to usurp what's rightfully mine, that doesn't make me wrong. I was always the better choice, because I know what the Hive Mind needs. I understand the concept of unity, while you only understand the concept of you. You and her."

Isaac somehow became very much amused by the repressed feeling he felt her trying desperately to conceal within herself. Despite her own strong resolve, she could not hide from him. He leaned back, tightened his lips and smiled wryly.

"I see. Of course. I'm sorry I was so blind to your impeccable position, Kendra. I'm so enlightened now, god bless you. Because we both know you don't have any mistakes to answer to... right?"

His eyes shrunk to dark slits and glared at Kendra, who momentarily paused, sublimely struck by the words, feeling his presence shaking her viciously from within.

"... Actually, Isaac... I do. And I've been trying to fix those, again and again, just like you. I've been following you, Isaac. I've seen you time and time again... I've lost count how many times we've gone through this from start to finish, and clashed every time. And that's not even considering all the times before those that I wasn't counting. My mistake was simple - I just never got to you soon enough. Over and over I've watched myself race the clock and lose - every time. No matter how many times I stopped you, you always managed to start everything over - and we end up right back at square one. Your power should be mine, Isaac. But you're a spoiled child who just refuses to be gracious and accept defeat, running around in circles trying to hold onto what you think is yours. And we've been fighting over this ever since the first time you laid your eyes upon that bitch."

Her emphasis upon the final word struck him deeply and again sparked his inner hatred for her, but was at a loss for words. He had now been entirely consumed by the terrifying realization of his fate, and those of everyone else aboard the Ishimura. Overwhelmed with a rising sense of contrition, he simply glared down at Kendra, then turned around to leave. As he stalked away, he heard her rise again to her feet, heard her malignant words clawing their way across the base of his skull.

You mark my words, Isaac Clarke - one day, I will get you. One day, you're not going to die vicariously through some accident or unfortunate circumstance - one day, I will kill you with my own bare hands. And then, what you have will be mine. You will be mine. For all eternity. Unity is forever, Isaac. And one day, I'm going to show you exactly what that means.

He hardened his face, troubled slightly by her sense of self righteousness, but refused to look back as he opened the hololock of the door that led back to the main medical atrium. As he stepped across the threshold, he heard another round of savagery tossed at his brain from behind him.

By the way Isaac, I forgot to mention - that's a pretty nice suit. I certainly hope it's served you well during your time here, and you should be thankful that someone was considerate enough to think of you in your dark hours.

[leksbronks]

Chapter 25, part 1
----------------------------------------

Nicole peered around with great curiosity at the flood of life in the Engineering Deck as she and Jacob arrived. Every machine that she saw was alive and working in harmony with the systems, and the floors were packed with workers as they toiled about the ship. The sound from all around was almost deafening - she was quite surprised that she had not heard it before. Surely this level of noise pollution would have had to resound throughout the entire Ishimura. She looked at the people surrounding her, all engaged in their work and taking no notice of her as they darted past her on the floor. She looked up towards the ceiling and could see over the tall, segmented walls separating the various bays, recognized the vast spans of sleek skinned biomass as it clung to the entire ceiling, looming from above like a cloud of flesh. Her face was plastered with amazement at the exotic transformation of the ship, apparently something she had not really noticed before, at least not to this extent. She barely heard Jacob behind her as he prompted her.

"Hey, this way."

She turned and followed, listening to the clangorous bellows of the mechanical contraptions all around her, and with a dropped jaw she turned back to Jacob.

"Wow... How is this possible? How can the ship even work in this condition? This is amazing."

Jacob cocked his head slightly at her statement, a little confused. He turned back to her.

"Condition? The ship's fine, I mean - it's got its issues, but nothing that's gonna cause us to drop out of the sky."

Nicole's puzzlement was slightly diverted by the giant gravity tether engines as they passed between them, whirring loudly and encircled by engineers. She walked in Jacob's wake, slowing down as she noticed that the entire Engineering Deck appeared to be practically untouched by any sort of damage at all. Sparked at the cognition, she began to think back on her trip to the bay with Jacob, trying to pinpoint when she might have first noticed the decrease, then eventual disappearance, of the Ishimura's cataclysmic condition along the way. A specific moment never came to mind. She bent her brow in deep thought, glancing all around her, wondering if what she was witnessing was real.

"You guys... fixed all of this? When??"

Again, Jacob seemed a little puzzled by her question.

"Well... it's always been working, Nicole. I don't think we've had any real problems with this part of the ship."

He turned around and noticed her bewildered look, tilted his head.

"You okay? You look a little... uh, lost."

She returned to him with a small, uncertain smile and was about to step towards him when her path was suddenly interrupted by a large, cylindrical engine piston and two workers as they carried it across the hall. It was several yards in length and being toted horizontally by one worker at each end. They seemed to come out of nowhere, and Nicole leapt back in surprise to avoid being crushed by the massive load and its apparently engrossed lifters. Her eyes scanned the side of the piston, watching her own distorted reflection on its smooth metal surface glancing back at her as it floated past her vision, then noted those who were carrying it, seemingly without effort. The one in front was dressed in a standard issue engineer's outfit like Jacob's, fully geared and the kinesis module upon the wrist activated to assist in the weight load, but the one in the back was unlike anything she had ever seen - it was a very tall being, easily several heads higher than the tallest man in the bay, and it's skin was flawlessly smooth and featureless. It was prepped with a RIG of its own, slightly modified to fit its large stature, and bore long, thickly shouldered and defined arms that seemed to suit the purpose of carrying such large and heavy cargo very well. Though it seemed almost human in appearance, it's presence was very much formidable and alien to her. She was awed by it, had no idea what it was or why no one else seemed phased by it, and began to feel a slight twinge of fright, noticing its dark, burning ember eyes.

As it neared her, the creature turned and hissed at her ravenously without warning, bearing long, sharp fangs and glimmering its eyes with a fierce sense of aggression directed right at her, and for a moment she thought it might attack before the it's attention was drawn away by the voice of the engineer up front, speaking something tersely to it. She couldn't understand what it was the engineer said; it appeared to be in some bizarre language that she didn't recognize. The creature immediately returned its attention back to its work, prompted by its partner, and the pair with their load eventually passed her by. She stood still for several moments, completely baffled and caught in the grip of a slowly waning fear as the creature drifted farther and farther from her vision. Once she was able to retract her eyes she looked around for Jacob, but he was already gone.

"... Jacob?"

She looked down the length of the hallways in all directions, but couldn't find him anywhere. Wondering where he was, she continued on down the main hall, making her way deeper into the bay.

[leksbronks]

Chapter 25, Part 2
-------------------------------------------

Isaac slowly stalked his way down the hall of the Medical Deck, distantly examining the activity around him, but mainly focused inward on his disparaging thoughts. He was relieved to finally be out of Kendra's presence, at least for the time being, but he couldn't escape the sensation of drowning he felt. He was trapped in a revolving door of ignorance and enlightenment, concerned by the fact that everything he learned about himself only seemed to be trumped moments later by some new, terrifying truth, and none of the pieces seemed to fit together without force. He wondered how many more baneful secrets encompassed his journey, how many more layers there were to all of these reactions that began to weigh very heavily upon him. As he glanced from one person to the next, sensing his culpability for their fates compacting, the shame of his transgressions began to spread virally throughout his conscience, and he again returned his train of thought to Kendra's ominous speeches. Her words bit deep into him repeatedly, and he was unable to shake her evil glare from his vision. How did she know all of this? Was it all some trick? Was this all some sort of dream? He was constantly burning alive inside, trying to make some level headed sense out of it all, but he was always met with failure, and he resistingly began to wonder if perhaps, somehow, she was right about his actual ability, or lack thereof, to control what was happening.

As he slowly stormed through the halls, trapped within the deep, entwined nest of his brooding thoughts, he saw as those around him automatically receded at his approach, repelled effortlessly by his emanating rancor, and stepped clear of his path as he passed. Though they responded quite keenly to his presence in this manner, Isaac did not detect any fear or distrust among them. He instead felt a sublime sense of consideration in their actions, noted a stiff, respectful aire as he peered within them in an attempt to discern their underlying inclinations. While the human folk never removed their eyes from their tasks and simply retreated out of his way undistracted, he saw how those who hovered on the plane of necromorphism still eyed him curiously, as if to scan his own thoughts in reciprocation. Again, he heard their arcane dialogue as it carried across the heated air within the ship like pollen, planting upon and taking root within the back of his mind and unfolding into harmonious bursts of poetic prose.

Less than zero, we are your vessels.

Isaac continued on, briefly trying to remember where he was headed. Distracted by the bizarre behavior of his fellow inhabitants, he found himself having momentarily lost track of time. He slightly hastened his pace, though he still wasn't sure where he wanted to go, and he was ultimately inspired to just to keep moving regardless of his destination. Eventually, he would get there. As he passed through an area encumbered by a large span of biomass, he reached out his arm and ran it down the length of one of the tendrils, the tips of his regenerated fingers brushing lightly against its softened skin clinging to the sides and weaving in and out amongst the separated beams and other protrusions. He took a sort of delight in how it seemed to respond instantly to his touch, it's repetitive, almost breath like motions accelerating at his contact. He smiled to himself. As brokenhearted and lost as he felt trapped within this nightmare from which he couldn't seem to awaken, it was nice to have such a pleasant intermission, to see some sort of beautiful life come out of all this hellish death.

He was unexpectedly caught off guard by a sudden reprisal of his sickness as he felt a sharpened pain in his chest, one that robbed his entire body of oxygen, and he immediately became lightheaded. He leaned his weight against the wall, fighting through darkening vision and trying to maintain his balance. Unable to support his weight as he strove to catch his breath, he slumped to one knee and looked down at the floor. He listened to the raspy sounds of his own labored breathing, heard it resound without cadence throughout his chest, and he gripped his skull with his hand, digging his nails into the flesh in some desperate attempt to ameliorate his pain. His concern of passing time now returned with great urgency, and he closed his heavy, troubled eyes.

As Isaac sat perched upon the floor battling to regain his composure, he sensed a presence approaching him from behind. He suddenly became aware of hands upon him, grabbing him gently by the undersides of his arms and helping him to his feet, all in a quick, fluent motion that seemed without effort spent by whoever it was. His malady diminished slightly as he stood up, and now again able to breathe and see he turned around to meet the dark eyes of a rather large and gangly humanoid necromorph standing before him. He eyed the creature, intrigued by its massive strength that seemed oddly contrasted with its unassertive and frail appearance. It's torso was thin and streamlined, nearly devoid of any definition and almost translucent at its thinnest angles, and nondescriptly shouldered with long, highly flexible arms that draped beyond the point of its knees. It's red eyes were deep, dark pits, and the frame of its face was very slim, almost emaciated as the sleek skin pulled tight against its interior skeletal structure, outlining highly detailed bones and teeth and forming sharp angles at its corners. He glanced down the lengths of its arms and legs, covered with small clumps of skin-layered tentacles and indented with deep creases at its joints that indicated an ability to dismantle fractions of its own body at will, and he concluded that this creature might have at one time been a divider. Its rumbling, deep vocal sounds further asserted his theory, and he examined the rest of the creature. Though it wore no clothing or uniform to speak of, it was prepped with RIG, stasis and kinesis modules, all modified to fit its irregular bodily stature, and he assumed it must have been a laborer, or an engineer, or... something.

As Isaac stood puzzling over it, the creature prompted him soundlessly to turn around, and he likewise responded. He then felt a slight tugging at his own RIG as the creature examined it, placing its sleek, elongated hands upon it to recharge the system. The blinking red warning light, which Isaac had been completely unaware of, now cycled gradually from yellow to blue as the light level rose to fill the entire length of the meter. Isaac remained still for a moment until he was again prompted by the creature's telepathic reply that the process was complete, and he turned back around, listening to it's voice as it traversed his feverish brain.

Incompatible anomaly. More time. Not much.

The necromorph then stepped back away from Isaac, now visibly stumbling as its own disorientation appeared to be disrupted from the experience. It pitched forward slightly as it turned away, limping on its feet and now breathing noticeably heavier than before.

Not much. Send your message, safekeeper.

Isaac just watched with a buried sense of concern as the necromorph stumbled away, returning to its own duties. He noticed the eyes of all the others around had momentarily paused in their activities to stare at him, and as he met eye contact with them all they silently, immediately looked away from his glare. He took a deep breath, feeling a substantial return of energy within him that currently negated his affliction, and he slowly turned back around to continue down the hall. He was confounded by the creature's strange words. Message? What message? He briefly recalled his meeting with Mercer and Kyne, how they had also mentioned something about a message, but they had never elaborated - and strangely enough, he had never asked. He wasn't sure what it was they were trying to say to him, but he began to feel the anxiety creeping up on him again, the unavoidable certainty that he was running out of time.

He eventually made his way to the end of the Medical Deck and found himself out by the tram station. Deeply engaged in his own thoughts, it had not even occurred to him that a tram shuttle stood parked on the tracks, fully operational and with doors wide open. He instinctively made his way with no regard towards it and entered, taking the first seat directly accessible across from the doors. Isaac peered darkly out between the diminishing gap as the doors shut, staring blankly at the dock until he could no longer see it, and the tram slowly departed, making its way back down the length of the Ishimura.

[leksbronks]

Chapter 25, Part 3
---------------------------------------------

Nicole had by this point nearly wandered the entire length of the Engineering Deck, still baffled and amused by the bustling activity around her, but quickly became dejected as she could not find any sign of Isaac or Jacob. She was lost amongst a sea of people she never knew, and some who seemed familiar, but when she tried to approach them none of them regarded her presence, either far too engaged in their work or otherwise simply not hearing her. The only ones who did seem to notice her were the frightening humanoid creatures that wandered the deck, and she shied away from them as they all bore hateful, evil glares at her with burning red eyes, threatened her with flashes of terrifying fangs. Feeling highly unwelcome and frustrated, she eventually decided it was time to leave the Engineering Deck and find somewhere else to cast her search. She came back to the cargo elevator and activated the lift, ascending the various levels and eventually arriving at the top floor. She passed through the storage locker room and out through the main entrance doors by the tram station.

She stood at the foot of the tram deck, thinking to herself and trying to decide on the next place to look. She glanced up and down the emptied tram shuttle track, sighing with discouragement and absently wishing the trams were operational. She realized now that she had become quite spoiled during her earlier days aboard the Ishimura, having used the trams to get virtually everywhere she needed. But now, during her darker times within the bowels of the crashed ship, being forced to reach everywhere by foot really made her appreciate, though not without disdain, just how big the Ishimura was, and how much effort it took to navigate it. She took a deep breath and huffed, tossing the hair in her face wildly for a few seconds or so, and smirked to the side, realizing that she would have to backtrack through Engineering to get to the rear access ways of the ship as Isaac had shown her.

She was about to approach the doors when she suddenly felt the sensation of fluttering in her feet as the ground beneath began to vibrate. She instantly became alarmed, thinking that perhaps one of those incredibly large monsters was tearing through the tram tunnel, and she backed against the door, fumbling for the lock. She paused as she now detected an approaching sound coming from the tunnel, and gradually recognized the familiar magnetic track scraping sounds of a tram shuttle. She widened her eyes and looked around, totally confused. The tram? How could the tram be working like this? She just stood poised by the door, terrified but undeniably curious to see it for herself, and waited for several moments, listening as the sound grew louder and more defined the closer it approached. Her eyes were suddenly drawn to the edge of the station as they caught sight of the tram sliding in from the left, gradually slowing and then finally braking at the deck. As it stopped and fell silent, Nicole again just looked around, wondering to herself if anyone else was around. Her eyes then drifted to the doors of the shuttle, eagerly waiting with pained anticipation for them to open. As she stood slightly hunched with feet gripping the ground in preparation to run should the need arise, she found herself very briefly wishing she still had that pulse rifle, even if it did only have eight shots. After a long moment that seemed like a lifetime in itself to her, the doors slid open silently and a figure stepped out looking right at her, as if having known exactly where she would be.

She knew right away it was Isaac. Her expression danced through a gamut of emotion as she looked at him. At first she was incredibly relieved to see him, but a growing fear immediately began to dominate as his progressively darkened presence took its hold upon her, and she eventually declined into complete apprehension, afraid to move at his approach. Her ascending terror was only further compounded as her eyes now caught sight of his completely regenerated hand, and her jaw dropped slightly in astonishment. Though she was extremely curious to know how it had happened, his frightening presence robbed her of all ability to properly move or speak, and she ultimately decided that it was best not to ask. He slowly walked towards her, watching her chest as it began to visibly rise and fall with increasing breaths the closer he stepped to her, and still she did not move, her eyes locked dead on him and large with fright. Her brows sank as she now succumbed to an overwhelming sadness wrought with frustration, longing so desperately to reach out and hug him, touch him, engage in any sort of physical contact with him, but something about him repelled her attempts intensely. She simply remained frozen with her arms at her sides, her head slightly aimed down and glancing up at him with the blanched expression of a terrified child.

"... Hello, Isaac."

He stood before her silently, looking her over with a solid, unreadable expression across his face. Her voice was quiet, very weak, and he knew instantly just how frightened she really was of him at this point. Though he failed to express it, the sight caused him to melt inside. How did it come to this? Sensing her desire for some sort of response, he opened his mouth slightly for a moment and stared into her eyes, reading her thoughts.

"Hello, Nicole."

Reveling in the sound of his voice, Nicole slightly perked, gave him a small smile. Well, things were going well. She began to loosen a little, now meekly swaying her arms at her sides, continuing to look at him with concern.

"Where've you been? I've been looking for you."

Isaac looked down seriously at her words with slightly widened eyes, his mind distracted still by his rancorous revelations. He blinked a few times, trying to think of an answer.

"...I've been busy."

Nicole lifted her brows at his comment, slightly stirred by his factitious ambiguity. She always knew when he was hiding something from her, as his downcast glance and repetitive blinking were instinctive habits of his that had always served as dead giveaways. He was not a good liar. It wasn't in his character. Still, she smiled at him, and was pleasantly encouraged to see Isaac return it with one of his own. She began to feel calmer, now able to release her stare from his, and began to look him over. Again, her nurturing concern spilled over into pools of tremendous sorrow as she recognized his markedly degraded condition; how he appeared to be constantly sweating pure blood, how his various bruises and cuts had all darkened to near blackness, and how the skin of his hands and head had drained to an almost deathly color, tinged red in places from the near constant loss of blood. Still, despite his failing countenance, she noticed with much disturbance as his eyes burned wildly in contrast, filled with an intense energy that clearly stood paramount to the slaughterous glare of any necromorph she had ever seen. They reflected a fierce resiliency and strength saturated in raw power, glistening in the light of the tram deck with an ageless transcendental vibrancy that seemed unfathomable to her, and its overpowering essence defied her stare vehemently. She looked down and focused her attention on his suit, her eyes fearfully tracing out the Marker symbols etched into all of its surfaces. The rising fear and disgust at seeing them brought tears to her eyes that she valiantly fought back as she tried desperately not to cry in front of him. She began to feel a tremendous hatred rising within herself for these cursed symbols. Every one she saw seemed to be followed by some grave misfortune, by terrible disaster, by something that would ultimately tear them apart. And Isaac was covered with them. She shivered and backed away slightly, glanced up at him again - and noticed with a rising apprehension that his expression had now entirely changed.

His burning eyes were slicing right into her, and his face had darkened into pure stone. The smile had completely vanished from his lips, now replaced with a tensely drawn line of suppressed internal combustion, and his demeanor had become substantially colder, filled with the dangerous unpredictability of a savage predator. He remained unmoving, simply staring into her, penetrating her, breaking her down mercilessly into complete submission. He had heard every word that crossed her mind, felt every emotion that emanated from her. He had also heard her rather insulting comments about the marks of his suit, her direct assaults upon the language of his people. His own people. This wouldn't do at all. They couldn't have an infidel on their hands. His mind became filled with an unspeakable number of heinous thoughts, and he realized that as the malevolence within him began to rise, so also did the credulity of Kendra's wicked logic.

She wasn't real. She wasn't fucking real.

[leksbronks]

Chapter 25, Part 4
--------------------------------------------

He stood staring hard at Nicole for a long moment, reading every one of her thoughts as they all funneled down from her conscience and sank into a pool of pure rejection and fear. He took a small step towards her, and he widened his eyes tauntingly as she immediately took an equal step backwards. He smiled almost undetectably as he could hear the pounding of her heart, smell the blood rising to the surface of her skin, see the hairs all over her body slowly standing erect in total synchronicity as she now clearly began to fear for her life.

"And where have - you - been?"

Nicole blinked at his question, noted his now aggressively provocative tone, and her breath became very much audible, her voice shaken as she tried to concentrate on her reply while keeping gauge on his position.

"I... I was looking for you."

He nodded at her, licking the inside of his torn cheek as he stepped towards her again, watching as she likewise receded from his approach. This was going to be fun.

"What were you doing outside of the ship?"

Isaac glared at her, twisted his head at her lack of response, and repeated himself at a slower, more enunciated and highly intimidating pace.

"Nicole... what -were -you -doing -outside -of -the -ship?"

Nicole's fear had now visibly flooded every inch of her body as she began to tremble and her eyes glazed over with underdeveloped tears. Her voice broke down into whispering gasps between sobs, and he sensed her struggling to maintain herself before him, felt the heat of pure panic emanating from every soft curve of her body.

"I... I just... I needed to get out of here... for a little while. I ran into Jacob... He brought me here... to look for you."

Isaac seemed sidetracked for a moment, squinting his eyes at her.

"Jacob's here?"

Nicole just nodded weakly, never once removing her stare from Isaac's maddened eyes and still fighting desperately to fend off her compelling desire to break down. He looked up in thought, then returned to her, closing in on her position until he had her backed against the Engineering Deck doors. She pressed herself up against them, almost unable to breathe. She had nowhere to go, and Isaac would probably just stop her even if she tried, and she felt limp, defenseless. She looked down, unable to bear his glare at her any further, and with a trembling bottom lip began to cry very faintly, growling through her teeth with a final, frantic attempt to ward him off.

"Isaac... stop it.... you're scaring me."

Much to her surprise Isaac backed down, slumped his shoulders slightly and took a less terrorizing stance before her, blinked his eyes and spoke now with softened words.

"... I'm... sorry... I don't mean to."

Nicole was speechless, confounded by his deranged behavior. She was aghast by his expression - he appeared thoroughly exhausted and his distant, forlorn eyes were framed with a serious look of worry, divided between an irrepressible confusion and an aire of remorse, and as his eyes darted to avoid hers she sensed he was struggling violently against something within himself. After a moment, she took a deep breath, suppressing an urge to shatter before him.

"We need to get out of here. I don't know what's happening... This place... it's changing. You're changing. That Marker... it's destroying you, Isaac. Look at yourself. You're dying. Christ, Isaac... you're dying..."

Her voice trailed off into tears, no longer able to hold a steady tone, and she just buried her face in her hands. He stood before her, staring at her blankly and listening to her words as some deeply obscured part of himself strained to hear her. He loved her. God, he loved her. Even now, she was there. She was always there.

"...I... I can't watch you die... Please... let's just get out of here... Fuck the Marker. I love you, Isaac. I would be lost without you."

He remained silent, just stared at her as she crumbled before him. Though a deep seeded desire to comfort her began to bloom within him, he simply couldn't respond to it.

"We can't. There's something that needs to be done. We can't leave until it's finished."

She lifted her face from her hands, looked at him with eyes streaked in tears. She was confused by his words, and became deathly afraid that it had something to do with the Marker. Still, she was desperate to do anything for him at this point, to give him anything she could of herself to make this all go away, leaving just the two of them, together.

"What is it, Isaac? What needs to be done? Can... can I help you? Is there anything I can do... to help you with this? Please, let me help you. Please."

Isaac tilted his head, taking her offer into consideration. She watched him nervously as he repeatedly clenched his fists unconsciously, staring off into nothing, carried away on a far and distant train of thought. After a long moment of silence, he looked back at her, his eyes shaded in glossy darkness.

"Yes. There is something you can do. Come with me. Come with me now."

[leksbronks]

Chapter 25, part 5
--------------------------------------------

She inhaled deeply as he stepped up next to her, activated the hololock and stepped into the Engineering bay. Still terrified but not wanting to refuse him she followed behind, listening with grim despondency as the doors closed behind her, and she wondered with heart stopping trepidation if she might ever step out through those doors again. Still, she remained silent and resolved next to him as they approached the elevator, and they both soundlessly stepped in. The elevator started its slow descent into the bottom of the ship, and Nicole just stood quietly next to Isaac, filled with anxiety and watching the walls as they slowly crept upwards all around her, reading the deteriorated numbers painted across the concrete frame of each level as they passed. She occasionally gave a side glance Isaac's way, wondering what he was thinking, but unable to penetrate his cold defenses she returned her hysterical, wandering eyes to the movement of the elevator.

They eventually arrived on the lowest floor, and Isaac stepped out immediately as the doors opened. Though he never turned back to look at her, she could feel his angst-laden words from somewhere inside her head.

Follow me.

Perturbed but again not wanting to deny his request, she trailed out behind him, again glancing around at the Engineering Deck. They were now in the bowels of the ship near the engine rooms, and the sudden rise in temperature was very apparent to her, almost unbearable as she felt it lightly sear her skin. She also again saw the various human and humanoid crew alike at work, all toiling away at their duties. She noticed as they receded from Isaac's approach in a manner very much like the necromorphs had in the main control room, and the striking resemblance was very alarming to her. She began to wonder if somehow they were all related, and her heart sank as the suspicion grew upon her mind, overwhelming her with the confirmation that there were things going on aboard the Ishimura spanning a depth that she was highly unaware of. She began to feel even more afraid, as she now considered her dangerous situation didn't manifest just from the single point of Isaac, but that the entire environment around her posed as her nemesis.

Isaac paid no mind to the hellish surroundings, made no attempt at communication with the inhabitants of the ship, and just kept a steady pace forward as he led her around the outlying maintenance rooms surrounding the engine chambers. As she followed, Nicole's undaunted fear of Isaac wrestled with her rising apprehension of the others, and while she maintained a steady distance from him, she would occasionally close the gap as she felt the angry stares of the humanoid monsters passing them. They eventually drifted from the hottest part of the ship near the engine fires and soon found themselves in a darkened corridor that was much cooler, dimly illuminated with wall lights and the blue, candescent glow of battery mounts lining the length of the way. He turned a small corner, and she followed, Her heart instantly skipped a beat in panic as she noticed he was leading her towards a dead end with a single door - a small, nondescript storage room. She swallowed hard and looked around, fought back an urge to run as he opened the door and turned to look at her. He made no movement, but his suggestion was very clearly written on his face.

Get in.

Compelled to obey, she slowly walked towards the room and stepped in, looking warily at Isaac as she passed him. He returned the stare with one of his own that set her spine tingling. He followed in directly behind her and closed the door, watching Nicole silently as she stood in the center of the room with her back to him. She was reluctant to turn around, but eventually did as she considered he would surely have coerced her into it anyway, and she was met with his menacing figure at the door. Though he seemed somewhat weak on his knees his stature was still very oppressive, and all of the surfaces of his suit appeared to absorb the light from around rather than reflect it as a result of the carved pits of Marker messages cast across them. The sides of his head were laden with sweated blood, running in small lines down his neck and tracing red streaks across his chest plate and shoulder armor. Again, she saw the vibrancy of his eyes, the darkened retinas filled with an endless energy abound within that astonishingly offset his morbid appearance, and he just stared with an unreadable expression that truly discomforted her. She had never seen such an incomprehensible look, and she briefly wondered if she was actually seeing any part of him at all. He slowly stepped towards her, coming into the dim beam of the ceiling light above, and Nicole noticed how it eerily enhanced his deteriorated condition, making him appear as ominous and alien as any of those strange creatures wandering about the ship.

He eventually came directly before her, looking down at her, taking note of her frightened aire and reading her thoughts.

"There is something you can do for me, Nicole. I need your help. There's something happening here, and it needs to be stopped. Because its what's causing all of these problems around here."

Nicole blinked and looked at him queerly, not quite understanding his subversive demeanor.

"Well... what is it? What's happening here, Isaac? How is the ship working? How is this all happening?"

"The ship is fine, Nicole. There's nothing wrong with it. That's not what I'm talking about."

Nicole looked down, her apprehension steadily on the rise.

"Wha.... is it the Marker? Is that it?"

Isaac raised an eyebrow at her, smiled slightly to the side.

"Not exactly. It's in trouble right now, but I'll fix it."

Agitated by the claustrophobia of her ever rising fear within and sensing that he was toying with her, Nicole began to get very frustrated with his elusive responses. She eventually just huffed with a shaken breath, and looked dead at him.

"Well, what is it, Isaac? Are you gonna tell me, or are we going to play twenty questions about it?"

Again Isaac smiled, delighting in her rising animosity interspersed with tremendous fright. It was something he had never really seen in her calm, collected demeanor before, and while it had never in the past been a desire of his to see it, he now found himself very much endeared by this new side of her personality. He wished very much to see more of it. He snickered to himself, glancing down momentarily from her.

"Well, to put it very simply Nicole - you are the problem."

He looked back up at her with a cold, hard smile, and noticed her face had almost instantly shattered its shield of heated anger to reveal the now exposed terror beneath. She began to lean back instinctively as she again felt his provocative mood rise to the surface.

"Isaac... what...?"

[leksbronks]

Chapter 25, part 6
------------------------------------------

She barely had any time to respond before he lashed out with his left hand, gripped her tightly about the neck and stepped forward, forcing her farther into the room until he had her up against the back wall. She gasped as the wind was knocked out of her by the force, and she weakly grabbed at his arms, trying to pry his fingers from her neck, but his strength was insurmountable. He could feel the pressure of her throat as she tried to scream, but was unable to due to the grip, and simply hung in his grasp, breathing intermittently as she fought against him. Though his mind raced with all sorts of imaginative thoughts, his face remained completely disconnected, locked in a deep, blank stare that bore no emotion or feeling in any way. He slowly began to lower himself to his knees, dragging her down the length of the wall with him, until they both now squatted on the floor. His hand remained firmly around her neck, and he just stared into her strained, terrified eyes. She begged as best she could, spilling forth her pleas through her widened eyes as she was at this point unable to speak, trying desperately to convey some sort of affection to him in order to subdue his anger. His face however, remained cold and heartless, staring right through her and paying no regard to her attempts to communicate. He leaned in a little closer and began to look her head over, never once meeting her stare but simply glancing all around the mass he held tightly in his hand. She noticed with alarm as he reached for his plasma cutter with his right hand, withdrawing it from his belt and holding it up, activating it with his trigger finger. It's ominous illumination sparked to life immediately at his touch, casting its blue light out across both of their faces. As she watched him carefully, she suddenly realized what his cold, analytical expression was suggesting - he was scanning her, trying to find an optimal aiming trajectory that would produce the most successful result.

After a long moment of silent deliberation Isaac paused, and then pressed the cutter to her skull. As she felt the icy cold touch of the plasma cutter's blunt metal edge dig into her forehead, her overwhelming fear now exploded with enraged panic, and she immediately tried to leap out of his grip, but his hold was solid upon her. Her entire body shivered violently, her skin instantly glistened all over with a solid layer of sweat. Her eyes stretched wide and shed heated tears, and she flailed her arms wildly, trying to push him away and now screamed emphatically through her crushed vocal chords with a mouth forced wide open out of sheer, unrefined terror.

"NO! Isaac.. No!! Oh God.. No!! Please...!!"

Isaac remained unmoved and silent, simply stared at the point on her head with which the cutter made contact. His face remained unstirred by her horrified, heart wrenching pleas as he ran over the position of his cutter in his mind, and he placed his finger on the trigger. He felt absolutely nothing; he was entirely vacant, and her outright piteous display did nothing to awaken him. He leaned back slightly and tightened his grip on the gun.

Sacrifice is inevitable. Sacrifice is inevitable.

Now totally having blocked out the sound of her voice, the remaining senses of his body followed suit, completely disregarding everything about her until he no longer even recognized her, and with no hesitation he pulled the trigger. At the abrupt click she screamed a raucous, panic-stricken outcry that reverberated offensively in the enclosed space, and Isaac blinked his eyes instinctively. He pulled back nonchalantly as he realized with much dismay that the cutter did not go off. He lifted the gun and looked at it, suddenly noticing something that disturbed him.

The safety was on.

He just looked at it as Nicole's tear flooded eyes followed it in his hand, filled with abysmal shock and she continued to wriggle with weakening resolve in his grasp. Disappointed, Isaac's brow furrowed and he sighed, he lowered the gun. He sunk his head slowly, again lost in thought as he perched on the floor in front of her, the fingers of his left hand still tightly wrapped around her neck. As he sat silently and without movement, Nicole gradually calmed, understanding he didn't have it in him to try again, and took a very small sigh of relief. She stopped squirming, trying to relax herself in an attempt to loosen his grip on her and forcing back residual tears. Though his eyes were aimed at the floor he could still see her terrified face in his mind. He still felt a feeble trembling beneath the fingers of his hand, and he slowly, gradually released his grip on her. Once free, Nicole pressed back against the wall a little tighter trying to catch her breath, but she dared not move otherwise. She just sat and watched him, darting her frantic eyes between his face and the gun in his hand. Isaac had by this point lost all nerve, and the gun dropped from his fingers. He stared down without focus, trying to explore the depths of what he was feeling, and noticed as his vision blurred slightly with warm, red tinged moisture.

He couldn't do it. He just... couldn't do it.

He took a very long and arduous sigh, leaning back on his heels and looking up at the ceiling. Nicole could see in the dim light the collected bloody moisture lining his eyelids and threatening to manifest into full fledged tears, and her fear retreated as deeply profound sorrow again took its hold. She felt so helpless before him, unable to bear the pain and crazed anguish she felt coming from him, and her lips hung heavily with unquestionable sympathy. She loosened her defensive posture and decided to try and approach him. Before she even moved however, Isaac suddenly lashed out without warning, ramming an enraged fist into the wall behind her, landing his blow just centimeters from her head. She jerked and shrieked at the impact as she felt it vibrate the wall, and again trapped frozen in fear just sat there, staring at him as she watched the anger reboil to his surface. His breath grew heavy and agitated, his eyes glimmered and with an uncontrollable fury he repeatedly began to smash his fist into the wall again and again, each impact more fierce and power driven until he had managed to tear through one of the solid metal beams welded into the flattened frame. Nicole had by this point managed to slide out of the way, darting her wide eyed stare right at the sight of his impacts in the wall, noting the shattered beam as well as the now rather noticeable dent he left behind. She was completely dumbfounded by this new sense of strength he had, and she recognized with much fear that this was something beyond human. She glanced at his hand, now bloodied and lacerated across the knuckles and clearly injured to some degree with possible bone fracture, but he did not seem to feel it, or at least did not express it if he did. As his rage subsided, his frightening, wide stare slowly relaxed into an ambiguous sense of blankness, and he fell completely silent save for the hastened pace of his breathing. He leaned back, releasing the tension of all of his muscles, and again just sat before her, emotionless.

Nicole, clueless as to what to do, just kept her eyes on the dent in the metal wall, her terror and anxiety now blanketed by a layer of total confusion. She dared not move, and as she glanced at him with worried eyes, she hoped he might make some sort of response, something to set her line of action. A long moment passed between them, and eventually Isaac rose to his feet, turned around and made his way for the storage room door. Nicole, now consumed with a new sense of fear, immediately stood up behind him and prepared to step forward but was instantly stopped as Isaac raised his palm at her, glaring at her darkly, then extended a finger and pointed directly at her.

"You... stay here."

Nicole froze, stood with eyes framed in panic, watching his deranged look as he stepped out of the storage room. He closed the door behind him, and she heard the sounds of his hands across the hololock as he deactivated it. She was suddenly jolted by a loud, explosive sound coming from behind the door as he fired his plasma cutter directly at the lock mechanism, destroying the circuitry and fusing it shut against the door panels. Nicole took a few shallow breaths as she realized that he had sealed her within the room. After a few seconds of electrical circuit shorting sounds across the door, the air fell silent, and she began to wonder if he had walked away. She took another step closer to the door, and suddenly heard his voice again on the other side of it.

"Stay in there until I come back, Nicole. Please. If you come out...I will kill you."

Nicole stood silent and unresponsive, and listened with strained ears as she detected the heavy, metallic clunking of his boots making way back down the hall. As the sounds diminished and eventually vanished, her fear began to dwindle, now becoming replaced with a growing sense of childish, feminine spite. She stood there, undignified by her improper treatment and tightened the muscles of her face and body, clenching her fists. Still afraid to raise her voice, she viciously waved her arms and flashed obscene hand gestures at the door meant to be directed at him. After she worked it out of her system, she huffed indignantly and threw her back against the wall, sliding down and sinking to the floor in aggravated defeat. Wiping her eyes and nose on her sleeve she smirked and glared darkly at the sealed door, fighting back small sniffles and mouthing hurt words with affronted insult.

"Fucking psycho... if he thinks I'm moving back in with him after all this shit, he's got another fucking thing coming."