-Chapter 2: Entropy-

I gasped as I woke suddenly, doused in ice-cold salt water. My stomach muscles contracted and I pulled myself up into a seated position out of reflex, though I wish I hadn't – my head was spinning. I blinked away the burn the water caused and licked my lips, coughing as the strong taste of salt touched my tongue.

Water sprayed me again from the left and I flinched, smacking my right shoulder against something quite solid. My arms wrapped themselves around my chest and I shivered hard, my teeth chattering. My hair clung to my head in clumps and obstructed my view; I shook my head to clear it away, but only gave myself a headache.

What was going on?

I tried to stand, but I tripped over something wet – some kind of cloth that was wrapped around me like a toga or a much-too-tight towel. It was too dim to see, wherever I was, and the only light came from overhead, shining through the cracks that I knew to be some sort of wooden shed.

If this was a shed, then why was I wet? Where was all the water coming from?

I looked down and eyed the row-boat that was ducking in and out of a body of dark, shiny water, halfway up on my level and halfway flooded, and the underwater trap and coil of rope that rested against it. I braced my hand against the wood I was leaning on and stood on shaking legs, tripping toward the light and out into what was obviously colder and wetter.

It was…no. No. This couldn't be right.

I was on a dock. I shivered hard and ducked my chin into my chest, feeling the cold of my skin where it had only been exposed to the roaring winds for a few seconds. The dim light that was overhead, at the mouth of what I had woken up in – a small boathouse – illuminated the choppy, churning water that surrounded me on almost every side.

My eyes were drawn ahead, though, to the massive lighthouse that dwarfed the small pier and boathouse considerably. The spinning light was too high to have shined in the space I had been sleeping, but I could see the mist where the light hit in the far distance. There was nothing else that I could see for…miles.

I didn't stand there for more than two seconds, I just reacted. Now wasn't the time to wonder why I happened to wake up in the middle of what looked to be an ocean, sleeping on the wet boards of a boathouse and probably getting pneumonia. Now was the time to run for sanctuary and hope to God that it wasn't as icy and miserable as it was out here.

I ran much too fast, though.

The uneven boards of the pier creaked and my foot – bare, of course – collided with a warped section, sending me careening over the edge and into the black depths of ink below.

My arms flailed and I caught myself before all of me went in, though my left side was soaked through again and was beginning to grow entirely numb. The big toe of my right foot pulsed and spiked with pain – it might have been broken, but I had to get up.

I had to get up.

I rolled back into the middle of the narrow pier and pulled myself up, tripping again over the long, heavy toga-thing that clung to my legs like a…like. Oh fuck it, like something that was wet.

I think I might have been crying at this point, but I staggered back to my feet and pressed on, rejoicing in the feel of the winding steps that lead up to the cold, rough concrete of the base of the lighthouse. I rammed the wooden door with my shoulder and fell inside, sprawled on the much warmer bare floor.

My vision began to fade again, but I held on long enough to kick the door closed, hearing the damn thing latch and shake from the force.

We all started to laugh, when suddenly something hit us from the driver's side of the car – hard. The world started to spin.

The car was tumbling and my parents were screaming. We were dying inside the crushed van, but I couldn't even say anything.

"Whatever it was, it's all Xbox to me."

My eyes opened to the dim light of dawn shining through from somewhere above me. As I became reacquainted with my surroundings, I rolled onto my side and winced. However long I had been lying on the concrete floor had numbed my lower back and head. I reached back to massage the spot, when my fingers became entangled with my hair.

I pulled a strand in front of my face and squinted at it, not understanding how it could have gotten so long and…wavy. My hair had been straight and no longer than a couple inches when I had last combed through it. I couldn't understand, so I tried to sit up again.

The loose, still-slightly-damp cloth impeded my movement and I reflexively reached down to pull it away from myself. In my efforts to both stand and fix the strange clothing I had woken up in, I failed to remember the very-sore, possibly-broken big toe that I promptly put my weight on.

I let out a gasp and hopped backward, flinging myself into another something or other that was quite solid, and shoving my left hand into a bowl of water that had been sitting on whatever I had bumped into. I turned to watch the bowl tilt where I was pressing down on one side and felt the luke-warm water spill over my hand and splatter onto the floor below.

My eyes were drawn to my hand, which was much smaller and paler than what I knew my hand to be. My right hand reached out to caress the damp left one, and I was only more confused as I felt the smooth texture of my skin and the longer and narrower fingers.

I completed the turn and stood erect, peering down at an…impossibility.

I was in a dress – a black dress that was ruffled like curtains and reached the floor. I was wearing a dress. I…am currently wearing a dress after I was in a major car accident and woke up inside a boat house.

And I had boobs.

They should have been obvious at first, since they partially obstructed my view of my feet, but I supposed the total, accumulated strangeness had overshadowed my sudden acquisitions. The two fat deposits were not large from an objective standpoint, but since I had always been rather thin, the protruding mounds were more than obvious.

It only took my thighs rubbing together and a quick, uncomfortable patting between my legs for me to begin hyperventilating.

"No, no no no no no…" I wailed, gripping my too-long hair with my too-thin, too-smooth fingers while listening to my too-highly-pitched voice. "This is just…just…"

A dream.

"A dream," I sighed. "I'm just in a coma." I coughed to try to clear my throat, but my voice remained high and awkwardly un-masculine.

I wrapped my arms around my torso and scrunched my nose at how different it felt. I let out a breath and watched the fog leave my mouth – it was cold, still, but I knew without going near the wooden door that it was much colder outside. The wind still howled as it broke against the lighthouse, and my eyes trailed the metal ceiling as the structure groaned and creaked.

This was…quite a fantasy I had dreamed up. I couldn't, for the life of me, remember another time that I had had a lucid dream – or even one as vivid as this. I hadn't been cold when I had a nightmare about the zombie apocalypse – I had been afraid, for sure, and had woke with an erratic heartbeat, but I hadn't ever felt a physical sensation so real.

I limped over to the wooden door I had crawled through and dragged my fingertips across it, marveling at the realistic texture of the grain and the rusted nail heads that were embedded deep within.

In a corner of my mind a memory passed through. It wasn't even a clear memory – I had no idea where I had heard it or who had told me; perhaps I had read it somewhere? Apparently it was impossible to read while inside a dream. The brain couldn't generate the correct sequence of letters while maintaining the illusion.

Or something like that.

I ducked my nose into the crook of my elbow to relieve the blistering cold and turned around, searching for something – anything – that could prove definitively that this was all a very realistic dream.

"OF THY SINS SHALL I WASH THEE"

I had read the stitching that hung above the table that had once held the basin of water I had knocked over before I even realized what I was doing.

"Wait," I backtracked, shaking my head. I shut my eyes and opened them, trying again. "Of thy sins shall I…" I trailed off as my arms dropped to my side.

I could read it perfectly.

My head tilted to the spiral staircase that wound upward and out of sight, and my eyes skimmed across another stitch poster.

"FROM SODOM SHALL I LEAD THEE"

My brain must have sort of…overloaded, because I stared at that stitching that was propped up above the railing for at least twenty seconds before I took a limping step forward. I recognized what I was reading.

I closed my eyes again and pressed my palms into my eye sockets, recalling everything I had seen. A lighthouse; I was currently in a lighthouse. I had woken up practically halfway in the ocean and I had no idea how I got here, but still…

My legs carried me over to the wooden door that led outside and I pulled on the metal latch, swinging the heavy thing open with a resistant groan of rusted metal and swollen wood as my hand patted the outside surface and yanked the damp, mushy paper off the door where it was pinned. My eyes roamed over the blotchy scrawl and the blood marks that were undoubtedly staining my fingers, catching the word I had been dreading and hoping for.

Dewitt.

I knew where I was, but I couldn't believe it. I wouldn't. No, I believe I'll just go back to thinking this is all a dream. A very convincing dream where I am female and inside a damn video game.

I said that, but my inner fanboy had other ideas and my legs obviously agreed, because I slammed the door shut and sprinted up the staircase to the second floor, hissing to a stop from the screaming in my toe and the bloody body that was beaten, bagged, and propped up in a chair.

I gagged at the smell, which was the only reason I wasn't frozen in place like I had been downstairs, and ran up the next set of metal spiral steps. The cold air hit me, but my labored breaths and pumping muscles kept me warm enough to keep going. I had to see for sure.

And sure enough, there it was. There they were: the three metal bells that were attached to the 'light' portion of the lighthouse, at the very top of the spire.

"I'm in Bioshock Infinite," I squeaked.

My head tilted up to stare at the ominous storm clouds that rolled across the sky, reflecting the dim light of the sun as it was cresting far away, over the horizon. I studied every cloud, trying for the life of me to catch anything that resembled a floating city – but there was nothing. A seagull squalled from overhead, but there was nothing else moving up there that I could see.

In the distance, about a mile out, I could see the dim outline of land that had been blocked to me from the pier. I hadn't noticed that when I played the video game; I had assumed the lighthouse was in the middle of nowhere.

"Well, this is different," a male voice spoke from behind me. I flinched hard and spun around with my hands raised, ready for anything.

Well…almost everything.

The two people before me were impossibly alien to me while, at the same time, eerily familiar. The man on the left wore pants while the woman on the right donned a long skirt, but the rest of their clothing was identical: tan on brown on white, with a forest green tie that was tucked inside each of their waistcoats.

Both of their faces were narrow – not quite heart-shaped; more of an oval – and their slicked-back hair was a red, rust colored hue that matched their look immaculately. Their luminescent blue eyes shined with an otherworldly intelligence that was almost uncomfortable.

These were the Luteces – Robert and Rosalind. They were a couple of the supporting characters from the video game that existed in all possible universes or dimensions or whatever. I recalled that they had always spoken in riddles in the game – they seemed almost like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland, only more British.

"Yes, it is quite the anomaly," Rosalind said, not taking her eyes off me as she conversed with her brother like I wasn't here. "Perhaps there are a few surprises left."

"He is not of this universe," Robert chimed, tilting his head.

"Nor of any other," Rosalind parried. "At least none that we can reach."

"Yes, 'anomaly' is quite apt."

"Are y-" I stuttered. "Did you bring me here?"

"No, we did not," Rosalind shook her head. "But we did notice your entry."

"My entry?" I repeated.

"Something cannot come from nothing and not impact the environment," Robert answered. "Just as an artist's work cannot be affected by his mood."

"She is hardly an artist, brother," Rosalind sneered.

"It was an analogy."

"A poor one."

"I can't fucking deal with this," I gripped my head and squeezed my eyes shut for a moment before opening them and being minutely surprised the two multi-dimensional beings were still here. "Can you just send me back home? As fun as this all is," I gestured to the top of the lighthouse we were standing on. "I'd like to not have to deal with religious zealots and trans-dimensional powers."

"I'm afraid that is beyond our power," Rosalind frowned. "We neither know where you came from, nor how you arrived here in the first place."

"But we do, however, have need of you," Robert said.

"You need me?" I could feel my eyebrows rise. "Why me? Why don't you have Booker and Elizabeth do whatever you need – I mean, they're real, right? They're here, too?"

"You see what I mean?" Robert looked to Rosalind.

"Yes," she replied. "Her knowledge is limited to this universe, but she is quite useful."

"Mr. Dewitt's latest attempt will soon be successful," Robert said.

"And has been successful."

"Though through the girl's actions, this universe will cease to exist – as will all where Comstock was involved."

"You mean when Elizabeth drowns Dewitt, it erases everything that exists here?" I asked.

"Yes," Rosalind nodded. "But that is not why we require your assistance."

"Though much is changed, more still remains untouched."

"The girl will, and has, unfortunately created an existential paradox."

"Which will undo – and has undone – all universes through her negligence," Robert continued.

"What…oh," I bit my lip, thinking back to the Bioshock games and the very confusing story.

After Elizabeth killed Booker in this version of Columbia, she would follow a remaining Comstock to Rapture and hire him to find a little girl that went missing. She would end up killing that version as well – or, well it was actually a Big Daddy that killed him – but immediately afterward, she would die as well.

I was a little fuzzy on the details, but it was something like an alternate Elizabeth wanted to go back to that same universe and rescue the little girl, since it was her fault she was taken in the first place. Or…something like that. But in doing so, and in re-entering a universe she had died in, she had collapsed her abilities in on herself and became a normal, everyday human being – which pretty much destroyed the multiverse-full of alternate Elizabeths and left only one alive.

And then that one was killed as well.

"Wait, but how would that erase everything?" I asked, not quite able to wrap my mind around it. "With Comstock, they killed the 'root' by drowning Booker Dewitt, which made it impossible for him to exist. I get that part. But Elizabeth dies after all of this, down in Rapture. How would that affect what's here right now, in the past?"

"Time and space are not linear," Robert replied. "One cannot expect such devastation, even separated through many years, to not affect all realities."

"Especially since the girl's nature is not linear to begin with. She can travel through space and time, and so her death impacts space and time."

"I…I think I'll just have to take your word for it," I shook my head. "So what, you want me to save her?" I asked. "How? How do I even get to Rapture?"

"Yes, as we've said, we require your assistance," Rosalind confirmed.

"And as for how you'll get there: you will need to open a tear, of course."

"So open one up," I gestured toward them.

"We are unable to do so," Rosalind hedged. "But our laboratory has a trans-dimensional device that you may use."

"It's best if you hurry," Robert held out a worn-down post card to me and I hesitantly reached out to take it. On one side was an image of a golden angel – the one from Monument Island, I recognized. I flipped over the card and my eyes bugged out at the familiar three symbols that were scrawled across it: a scroll, a key, and a sword, with the first having a 'x1' after the symbol while the last two held a 'x2' behind each.

"You want me to go up to Colum…" I looked up from the card to discover no one was there. The siblings had disappeared into thin air. "Fuck."