Alignment Tracker;

bennystango

          ;⚜—ℒ⊱

                          “ No.  No.  Definitely not… “

          A sigh, followed by the crossing of arms, is all           Rosalind needs to express her displeasure.           She’d been looking at images of criminals           for what seemed like two full hours by this           point, and not a single one of them was the           one who’d broken into her lab.  He hadn’t           even stolen anything irreplaceable—some           old notes she’d exchanged with Brigid on           ADAM, a few flasks, one of her favorite books           about eugenics—it was all material of little           importance, and yet here Benny was, flashing           pictures with a disgruntled look that matched           Rosalind’s perfectly, she imagined.  They were           both sick of this process, but it was “necessary.”

                          “ I’m telling you, Detective,                              I’d never even seen him                              down here before.  He                              has to have recently                              arrived in the city. “

◤The more people got hooked on ADAM, the more crimes and chaos he expected. All cases were slow and tedious, but still he had to spend hours investigating the scenes. ❝ I’m sorry ma’am, it just makes no sense. Ryan’s got enough problems with the current number of citizens on Rapture, there’s no way he’s acceptin’ new arrivals.❞ The other option would be to have some kind of stowaway, a man completely out of his mind that would have found a way into that hell on his own. He sighed, frowning before giving up. If she couldn't identify the suspect with one of the pictures they already had, there was no other choice but to ask. ❝ Give me a detailed description of the burglar. We'll try to find him as soon as we can.❞ ◢

     There’s a little under 300 of you following me and I have to say wow. Cause when did this happen, who sent you. I’m thankful to everyone that’s been following me from the beginning. I wouldn’t have kept this blog going for as long as I have without you, friends.

The Black Book - my dear friends

Sinclair Solutions - honorable mention

Through A Door - Non-Bioshock

i really want an “i accidentally broke into your house/apartment because my friend lives next door to you and i was in the area, drunk, and i thought i was climbing into the right window and falling asleep on the right couch (and i did wonder when my friend got two cats but i didn’t question it) so now i’m hungover and shirtless in your living room so um hi howya doin” au

Heather King, Parched

I never get tired of Mark Meltzer overusing punctuation marks

ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ʙᴜᴛᴛᴇʀғʟɪᴇs ᴅʀᴏᴡɴ.

Diane didn’t jump at the sound of his demanding voice, although it broke the deathly silence of the city around them. It seemed like it echoed for a moment before dying away, although that may have been within her own mind — a desperate attempt to lock that sound away, to continuously play it on repeat, for she so very rarely was spoken to anymore. She would take the voice of even a man over another harpy, if only because it seemed so much more… present than their disembodied whispers.

There was no hesitation in her revealing herself, although, perhaps, there should have been. She no longer feared death, and by extension, paid no mind to the gun he blindly waved around in front of him, searching for a target. Calmly, she stepped out from behind the corner she hid against, dark eyes watching him with muted curiosity. She must be such a sight for a butterfly, she couldn’t help but muse. A woman, battered and bruised, in a dress that was even more-so. Were it not for the blood that had long dried into the fabric, she’d likely be pitiable… but it took no genius to decipher that blood was not her own.

     “You shouldn’t be here,” she mumbled,        her head cocking to the side.

Would he shoot her on sight? That’s what the other butterflies had done, before the harpies had believed them all to be dead. If she were him, she’d shoot. Back as she was herself, she did not. No hand went for the gun she had strapped lazily around her waist with a piece of cloth ripped from the remains of her dress. In retrospect, she probably didn’t even appear hostile… yet.

She was waiting. Curiosity was such a pain in the ass. Made her patient. Patient with people who didn’t deserve her consideration.

     “You’re not one of us. You a-aren’t… aren’t        a harpy. Y-you’re a butterfly. Thought…        thought all the butterflies w-were dead. How        are you… a-alive? Why haven’t the harpies        killed you yet…?”

He heard his own voice dissipate into the void, sepulchral silence only broken by the distant metallic sounds that seemed to be Rapture’s own weeping for help. If only he’d known about that dystopian fantasy before. Benny could think about more than a thousand choices to change, and still be aware of the crude truth. Mayhaps he would have tried to stop Meltzer from continuing on his stupidly impossible and self-assigned job of looking for the little girls, but nothing else would have changed. Rapture drowning all the same, lives wasted and talent forever forgotten. So the detective could not bother on torturing himself with such thoughts. Only keep going now that he was trapped there, wait for something to happen, try to sort something out before losing his own mind. Then it did happen.

                         First a shadow.                                  Then a shape.                                            A bloody woman,                                                     with torn clothes                                                               and a broken mind.

His first impulse was to keep the weapon pointed at her. Although there was no gunshot, no quick moves, no nothing. One mistake there meant the end, yet he was allowing himself the lux of doubting rather than just pull the trigger with no second thoughts. His whole body tensed when that woman started to speak, clear answer on his mind despite not daring to pronounce the words out loud. What a god damned joke of a detective, paralyzed by fear. No one should be here, darlin’. Not you, not me, nor anybody else. There was a fairly good reason why dreams were fiction after all, and now it was tangible for all citizens to see.

                   One of us. Butterfly. Harpies.

It was just confusing, words that meant nothing to him and were only making it harder for him to understand the whole situation. Her situation. But oh, he did attempt to, as if there was a part of him wishing to believe there was indeed something to save.

                    ❝I am not one of ya.  But I—                      I don’t want to do any harm,                     understand? I’m here to help.                     Who‘re those harpies you talk                    'bout? The ones leaving behind                    all the dead bodies I presume.❞

       ❝Ryan has to know that this city is        doomed to fail.❞ It’s a murmured comment––– obviously not meant for audience,   and Elizabeth fails to notice that  it’s  in  earshot  of  a  newcomer ( silent?   she didn’t hear him come in ) to the room.

◤All  kind  of  rumours  could be heard lately. And still some would try  to  deny it,  no  matter  what.   ❝ In my opinion there's absolutelly  nothin'  to  worry  about,  ma'am. In  no  time  we'll  deal  with  the splicers and their mess, then we'll all  be  back  to  our  regular  and  normal lives. This city is everything but doomed.❞  Better being blind than scared to death when there was no way to escape their fate after all.◢

ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ʙᴜᴛᴛᴇʀғʟɪᴇs ᴅʀᴏᴡɴ.

{ bennystango }

Of one thing, she was sure; he had yet to notice her. Or, if he had, he paid her no mind. A curious decision, if there ever was one. A stupid one. One that could get a butterfly killed. But it wasn’t just his inability to realize he was being watched that caught her attention. It was how out of place he seemed. It almost made her { laugh } how put together and well-dressed he was. Didn’t he know where he was? This was Rapture! Butterflies did not dwell here any longer; only the harpies remained.

     { yet he didn’t look          ——————— spliced. }

That alone had caught her interest. Stronger than her desire to hunt for that which she desired above all else (( adam, the choirs in her head would whisper to her in soft, broken voices;; A D A M )), was, in truth, her curiosity. She was not unlike a cat in nature, the way she slunk along behind him, almost soundless save for the few times her gun would incidentally scrape against the walls she stayed against, her cheek practically pressed to the cold, wet surface.

She had not been following him long, but she had been following him long enough. He seemed unsure in his steps, yet determined in his resolve. Not that she was very good at reading people any longer —- her assumptions were only that. Still, there was something about him. He was not broken. He was not beaten. He was no harpy.

And she could not contain her curiosity; her need to see the wings he bore. When she finally spoke out to him, her head poked out from around the corner she had been watching him from, her voice was quiet, unsure —- underused.

     “Buuuutterfly…”

                    ❝ All good things  of this earth  flow  into the city ❞

There was no doubt that once, that city had been beautiful and thriving. He could almost imagine the scenes as he went down. Fancy parties, elegance no matter where you laid your eyes on, music playing softly on the background, the word ‘problem’ being nothing but one useless addition to the dictionary. Yet the fascination did not last much, a profound feeling of regret replacing it as soon as the detective stepped out of the bathysphere.

The stench of salt and death brought a bitter taste of bile to his mouth, made his legs feel weaker, his mind to get filled with unanswered questions, and only one sentence repeating itself again and again as a silent mantra and condemnation. Ya should‘ve stayed at New York. God fuckin’ damn it. And for the first time in ages, the gun between his fingers gave him no feeling of safety, nor control over the whole situation. Each step he took, his breath, the throbs of his heart, every single gesture seemed way too loud.

                                            Such an unpleasant sensation,                                                                    Feeling observed                                                          When no one is around.

But he had to keep walking. Somewhere, on those apocalyptically crooked streets, more than then little girls were trapped, or what could be worst, lost. The one taking them away, presumably the one who built that monster that didn’t even flinch when shot, had to be criminally insane, sick.  Why would anyone want to bring kids to a place taken straight out of a horror movie? They had to be terrified, if not already as dead as those rotten corpses he kept finding everywhere.

                                          A whisper.                                         A simple word.                                      That sent a shiver                                        down his spine.

His voice sounded surprisingly sure, harsh, although he was pointing blindly with his gun, eyes wandering almost erratically. Perhaps Stango was too nervous to actually see. What a shame, after all the solved cases, that one felt like his first and probably last one.

                               ❝Who’s there? Show yourself!❞

   ”You’re going down a path I can’t follow.                                                   Please, come back.”