"Good evening, my friends.
I hope you are enjoying your New Year's Eve celebration; it has been a year of trials for us all.
Tonight I wish to remind each of you that Rapture is your city. It was your strength of will that brought you here, and with that strength you shall rebuild.
And so, Andrew Ryan offers you a toast.
To Rapture, 1959.
May it be our finest year."
-Andrew Ryan

I spend a lot of time with my eyes closed until I feel as though I am moving. I open up my eyes and realize it’s a huge mistake. There is a literal Rainbow Explosion surrounding me and there is a vague feeling that I am moving faster than the mind can comprehend. The Rainbow around me parts and I vaguely see a giant flying Mechanism charging two regular people, then the view changes and shows the same three figures but the Flying thing resting on its feet and allowing the two others stroke at what one would call its face. The tear closes with the same static noise followed by a shockwave that spins me about. There is another static noise and I am surrounded in rather warm waters and some slight light as I sink into the water towards the bottom. My porthole glows green and illuminates a mess of algae and fish on the bottom just before I hit it with a squish followed by a plume of murk from the bottom. I lay there feeling renewed and oddly light. I crawl across the bottom on my hands and knees leaving a path of debris and slightly panicked fish. There was nothing I could do about that as I trudged up the slope and onto my feet. The lightening water is wonderful as I feel the crush of water dissipate from my back. Then in a flash I clear the water and all of my body weight falls on me once again.

This world was bright and the air above me was totally unrestrained by a glass ceiling and the sun burns high in the sky. That is the most perfect thing in the world, and the mere sight of that orb drives my mind to the night things changed for me.

I was clutching the little crayon drawing to my chest as close as I could to my heart as I listened to Ryan announce the shutdown of all the Bathyspheres to the surface. The world was ending tonight for me and there wasn’t a damn thing I can do about it and then I heard Atlas speak once more over the radios. Tonight it was the day that Atlas called out Andrew Ryan on his damned hypocritical takeover of Fontaine Futuristics. The Fontaine fella had been found dead with some of the smugglers and after Ryan muscled in and took over the Plasmid industry Atlas took his chance. His swift action stole the combat plasmids and with his ingenuity the revolutionaries had the upper hand. Except for the Big Daddies, Ryan ran this place just like he ran businesses, ruthlessly. Rapture was a hell and I saw the men who worked in Hephaestus, coming home scorched and totally exhausted, some never came back at all.

I digress I was nervous and prepared to do whatever it took to tear this hellish city to the bolts that held it together and let the cruel deep blue decide who lives and dies. Atlas is in the middle of his rant at this point.

"Some people have taken to calling me a liberator but I am no liberator. The people of this city will liberate themselves." He calls over the station. "Shake off this 'Great Chain' Ryan praises harder than some of the 'Parasites' above praise God. Ryan has become what he hates most. And in doing this He invites revolution in the halls of Rapture. Now my people we will rise up and take back what is rightfully ours, we strike as his world crumbles. Good luck my friends and our ascension is within our grasp." The line cuts out with the crackle of static.

That was three weeks before the assault on the bathysphere. I had never died before, I mean becoming a Big Daddy was close but I knew I wasn’t dying I mean the pain was unimaginable and I thought that I would rather die than survive such a monstrous transformation. But apparently fate is a unfair and forced me to be a pawn In the world Ryan had made. After a few years I stopped praying and instead began cursing every deity that existed.
I attempt to stand and nearly accomplish the simply task of taking a few steps before I trip. There was no real pain just the embarrassment of feeling a bit like a newborn relearning how to walk. I groan and look at my hands as I push myself up onto…
My hands are gone leaving stubs with a metal plate along the bottom…

…

…

…
WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE? WHERE ARE MY HANDS? WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO ME? I frantically check myself up and down and see that my legs are doglegged and I am still able to clutch things as I pull all the straps holding my pack on me. My pack is slightly different but only just. The helmet is more restricting and the air is actually really clean that is pumping in from the air compressor. I struggle to think of a time when air seemed this precious to me in this way. I just wish I could feel it on my face. I just imagine the helmet portion of my suit just sliding off when I hear a clink noise…

The glass portholes fog up and a cool jet of air whips my hair up and runs across my face before I reach up and pull it off of me… I have no words anymore I just silently set the brass helmet on the ground and lay on my stomach to look at it. My eyes still poured out green light and I poked the gods damned thing I called my face at last. I start laughing in a rich guttural way that I can feel is bordering psychopathic. That is until I realize I am actually laughing. I open my suddenly dry mouth and whisper into the warm, delicious air that flows about me

“My name is Richard Smith.” The voice is much more resonant and deeper than the mid-range baritone I once called my voice; it’s much more like a low-range baritone that still sounds like the whales song I guess isn’t going anywhere. I grab the helmet and plop it back onto my head and hear the light hiss as the seals reconnect. I note a short little walkway not too far away and following it I see there are homes not that far away. I weigh the options of staying here or going into town until my stomach rumbles, telling me I am going to town before I starve. Smiling at the plan in mind I start trotting off on all fours which in all honesty is not nearly as hard as people believe when your legs and arms are the same general length.

I am making good time to the town and I pass by a decently sized cottage on my way there. I hear birds chirping along with a light voice singing beautifully. I smile inside the mask until I see the lemonade coated Pegasus trot out from the side of the house. Unfortunately the noise of surprise is a half-choked roaring ‘what’ that comes out incomprehensible. That startles the Pegasus and she just sorta passes out from the shock. I just sit there dumbfounded that the wonderful singing was coming from a creature that shouldn’t exist and even if it did lacked the ability to sing. I just pop the seal on the helmet so as to not frighten the creature even more upon her awakening.

I sit there for around an hour or so before I succumb to the need to drink something and perhaps find a bite to eat. I patrol the area and find a bucket of rainwater near the gutter spout and some apples on a small table. I grab two apples and munch them down as I head back to the rain barrel. I polish of the second apple whole just like the first one and lean in to drink some water.
I am not ready for the brown furred muzzle and freakishly glowing yellow eyes. So I do the only sensible thing a man can do in this instant.

Scream like a total pansy.

“AAAAAAAAAGGHHHH!!!!” I bellow in a mildly high pitched attempt at a screech. I will be honest that ‘screech’ was more like an elk having intestinal problems. In an instant the yellow Pegasus was up and screaming too… Well crap that didn’t work out well did it. I am still deep within panic mode when I feel the need to ask questions.

“What am I? What are you? Where is this place? Why did this happen to meeeee?” I moan as I drop down onto my stomach and cover my face. These emotions that I haven’t felt in a long time are so confusing and mentally draining to maintain the level of panic I had a few minutes ago. I see the yellow thing look at me and then just up and take off sprinting away from me towards the town.

"God damn it. Why do they always run off screaming?" I bemoan and flop myself onto the ground.

Now all I gotta do is wait for the angry villagers to come kill me.

Author's Note

I know its short but this is what I have been working on in my spare time.... Not alot of that right now