Author's Note: I bet ya thought this story was dead, didn't ya? Well, it's been almost a year, and I've finally buckled down and doled out this new chapter. And it's a heavy one. I don't know if fans of this story are even still around, but I hope that I've done this chapter and this story enough justice to gain new ones.

Hope you enjoy. I plan to at the very least try to pick this back up again. I can't let it just die.

Time didn't seem to move here.

At least, not in hours. Not in days. Not even weeks.

Time was not measured in minutes or seconds. Time was not a product of the ticking of the clock. Time was the next fight, the next plasmid, the next fight for my life. The next man carried for the next experiment of the next update of the next scientific breakthrough.

Tick. Tock.

Rumors fluttered the halls. There were whispers of time that did not revolve around our sick little world that seemed to continue moving by, regardless of the hell that we, ourselves, were endlessly trapped in. Fontaine dead. The poor left to die. Ryan killing smugglers. Fontaine Futuristics taken over. Lamb imprisoned.

Atlantis was dying. Everyone in here knew it.

But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing, but ADAM.

It was in our blood, it was in our minds. And it was becoming more and more of an essential to our very lives. Without ADAM, there was no life. There couldn't have been. It was everything.

I remember being shocked when I first saw the fights. Not the fights over freedom. Freedom wasn't so important anymore. What was freedom, but just another illusion? We'd leave this place and find ourselves still stuck in this waste of a city. Eden was leaking. Olympia was tearing itself apart. Atlantis was dying. War was stirring in the air.

No, freedom was not the priority. Freedom was not on our minds. We were not fighting for freedom any longer.

We were fighting for ADAM.

I remember being shocked when I first saw the fights. I remember watching men ripping throats open and feeling sick. It's just routine now. It's just survival of the fittest. Ryan's greatest dream. Every man for himself.

Atlantis was dying.

I couldn't wait until it took me with it.

Gil Alexander turned buttons and nobs and other such pieces of equipment, a frown on his face. Everything was nearly prepared. Tonight it started. Tonight his career was either made, or ruined. He wiped the sweat from his brow. Everything had to be perfect.

The Big Daddies, as had become their official name, were failing. If they couldn't even fill out their primary purpose of protecting the Little Sisters, his experiments at Ryan Industries would be a failure. Suchong had failed. He had underestimated the Big Daddy. Now Alexander wondered if he was overestimating them.

But doubt would most certainly be fatal if he continued. He took a deep, calming breath, glancing over at the straps and buckles on either place, one large and bulky, the other small. Alexander frowned. All this business with the little girls... It was so disconcerting. His face set into a concerned scowl before he turned away. Now was no time to get sentimental.

The Daddy candidate had been a simple enough choice. It had always been Subject Delta. No one was more befitting an experiment of this proportion than Johnny Topside.

And the child was no exception.

He remembered when she had been brought here. When Eleanor Lamb was a frightened little girl, dragged in by that slimy scumbag Poole. She was asking too many questions, he said. She was a liability, he said. Better that she disappear like Topside, he said.

And that was exactly what she was going to do.

She was brilliant, of course. The smartest girl they had. Where the other girls wandered, she led. Where they were herded, she pointed to new paths. The lab aids and Alexander's colleagues expressed concern, and even intimidation for her vigor, but Alexander saw potential.

Johnny Topside and Eleanor Lamb.

The ones who disappeared without ever being truly forgotten.

So many people were gone. Hangings, kidnappings, people plucked from the streets of the city. And he was one of the monsters hiding under the bed, stealing them all away.

After a while, people stopped asking.

But those two. The girl and the tin man.

Those questions still persistently buzzed in the air.

Alexander brushed his fingers along the controls. Today they would not need to disappear. Today, they would be more than just conspiracies. They would be revolutions. They would be something so much more than man and child.

They would be father and daughter.

Presently, Alexander glanced up, the sound of someone clearing their throat meeting his ears. A lab aid stood in the doorway.

"We're ready, Doctor."

They led me away as usual, but there was something in their eyes. I still noticed little things like that from time to time. Maybe today they would kill me. Maybe today I could finally die.

I didn't understand why I didn't just do it myself. It wasn't like there was a point in life. Yet, any time I tried to do something to end my life, throw a fight, overdose, attack a guard... I would remember something. Something that nipped at my ear and chirped away.

"Endure..."

I sighed, slumping in the arms of the men that dragged me towards the labs. The halls were so dank, like I was in the laboratory of Doctor Frankenstein, himself. There were a few leaks around that dripped along the walls, echoing along the rooms, a constant reminder of just how weakened Rapture had become.

I asked halfheartedly where we were going. This wasn't a part of the usual rounds. Of course I wasn't answered. With a groan of the doors, I was pushed into a new room altogether. I blinked as the bright lights flashed into my face.

"Subject Delta."

My head twitched at the call of my name. It was my name now. I couldn't even remember if I was ever anything before that. I was Subject Delta. My mother must have named me that, herself. That was, if I even had a mother. I was beginning to even question if I were not born into these prisons, trapped in these bars since the very beginning of time.

Tick. Tock.

They led my staggering body towards a place to rest. I relaxed against the embrace of the table. Around me, I could see my suit, opened like a tin can.

That was when she came.

They brought her in, holding her hand tightly. Her ponytail bounced behind her head as she walked along, her dress soiled with dirt and blood and gushes of ADAM. Her soulless yellow eyes gazed about the room curiously, her dirty pallor practically glowing under the bright lights.

"Where are the angels...?" she asked softly. I had seen many Little Sisters, but somehow, her voice, twisted as it was, held a sweetness to it. It was as though she not only harvested dead bodies, but I could imagine that she lured them to her, herself. She hummed a little tune, oblivious to everything around her, as they all were.

Gil Alexander knelt by her, offering his hand to take the small needle. She was reluctant at first, her face forming into a pout as she clung to the tool. But he was gentle, patient, carefully wrapping his own strong hands around her and pulling it away, stroking her hair as he did so.

"Subject Delta." My name was called again. I looked up to see Alexander, still stroking the girl's hair, glancing up at me. "I would like you to meet someone."

I blinked my eyes once, looking down to the small child. Our eyes met. I felt cold under the stare.

I looked away.

"Delta, this is Eleanor. As of today, she is your daughter."

I snapped my head up to look at him. Daughter.

My mind clicked.

I mouthed something.

I whispered something.

I shouted something.

I screamed something.

Words spilled from my lips. I fought, my arms suddenly straining under the buckles I hadn't realized were strapped over me. I wailed and raged, veins popping from my neck as my blood boiled over.

No.

No.

No.

Not me.

Work was suddenly done much faster around the room. The girl was carried and strapped down herself. I heard nothing from her but a persistently confused whine. It hurt my ears.

Not me.

The suit seemed to move on it's own, like a monster trying to envelope around me. This was the suit I had gone to hell in. And now, I was going to become this suit.

For the love of God, please, not me.

I had seen them be dragged away. I had seen them come marching back. They had no eyes. They had no soul. They just stomped. They just followed. Not me. Please. Not me.

I couldn't tell what I was saying or what I was screaming anymore. My body grew hot as fire. I want to die. Please let me die.

The suit continued to gobble me up. It ate away at my soul. My being. No soul. No me. Nothing left. What would be left?

The helmet was the last. It finally came over my face, muffling my screams. In a moment, my voice was gone altogether. A wale-like moan broke from me. No voice. No being. No soul. Just a suit. What was left?

Tick. Tock.

Images filled my head. Thoughts turned to mush. No thoughts. No voice. No being. No soul. Just...

Just...

I was losing consciousness. What was left? The images persisted. The emotions faded. Something fired inside of the very core of my being, and filled me from my toes—my boots, to my helmet.

No emotions. No thoughts. No voice. No being. No soul.

Just...

Just...

Just one thought. One feeling. One being. One soul.

...Her.

Everything faded into darkness.