Welcome back, guys. This has been sitting in my computer for a while and I thought those of you who liked this story might appreciate it. It's not an extra scene; it's actually the start of the "sequel." I put "sequel" in quotes because, although it runs parallel to Symbiosis, the two rarely cross paths.

This story is in the Bioshock universe, but it still exists inside my own warped storyline. Check it out; it'll all make sense and seem real familiar to you. I sort of maybe promise. This story will also be up rather soonish, if you want to continue reading it.

-A Day Like Any Other Day-

"Emil?" a voice called from somewhere behind me.

I leaned into the couch as I gripped the controller in my hand, biting my lip as I mentally willed the bullets the bad guys were firing at me to miss.

"Emil?"

"Hmm?" I hummed out my answer, paying almost no attention to who or what was talking to me.

"Emil, honestly!" my mother's voice sighed as she walked closer to me and maneuvered around the coffee table that stood off to the side of the television. I took too much damage while I was distracted and my character keeled over, the screen switching to a girl prepping a needle in the air over top of the camera. I hit the pause button on my Xbox controller and looked up.

"What's up?" I chirped, flinching under my mom's penetrating gaze. "Sorry, I was…focused?" She rolled her eyes at me and moved to switch off the TV set.

"I was asking you if you wanted to go with me into Seattle to pick up your father," she explained. "His meeting is going to be over in about an hour and we need to leave now if we want to get there in time."

"There's no way we'll make it into the city in an hour," I scoffed, setting the controller down and thumbing my tennis shoes on. "At least an hour-and-a-half!"

"Yeah, well, if you actually answered me instead of playing Call of Duty…" she muttered to herself as I dodged into my room and gathered my wallet and cell phone.

"It's actually Bioshock!" I shouted.

"Whatever it was," she shrugged and turned off the lights before walking out of the apartment door. "It's all Xbox to me."

"Yeah," I chuckled and grabbed my jacket off the rack as I shut the door behind me, giving the knob an experimental shake to ensure it was locked.

We loaded up into the minivan and mom took off out of Sequim like a bat out of hell. I stared out of the window like I normally did and tuned out as best I could with mom's eclectic blend of pop, rap, and oldies music playing on shuffle through the outdated car speakers.

I let out a yawn after about ten minutes of driving. It had been a long night for me, since the last downloadable content for Bioshock Infinite had just came out. I had completed the campaign in under 24 hours, though I had to consciously pace myself and get plenty of breaks from the game. It still went by too fast, so after another play through in the hardest difficulty, 1998 mode – in which the only thing I did was back-smack the bad guys while I was invisible – I had restarted the main storyline of Infinite again.

After my second play through of Episode 2, I had gone online with my laptop and purchased a t-shirt from the game, since I had read that the company was going to close its doors and disband. Irrational Games, the genius behind one of my favorite game series I had ever had the pleasure of playing, wouldn't be churning any more content out for Bioshock.

Was it weird that I was a little depressed at this news?

I didn't think so, but then again I spent most of my time either playing games or surfing the net. My parents hounded me occasionally about being too lazy, but most of the time I had the apartment to myself. I had researched game development and design careers at their insistence, because let's face it: I play enough of them and I certainly didn't want to be a lab geek like my dad.

He was a chemist, formally, and he had a whole slew of degrees and accomplishments in the field, but he had very recently acquired a lab of his own in Seattle. Mom and I had been nervous, since it swallowed up most of our family's savings during the first few months – not including the loans we had to get with the bank – but apparently things were going very well.

I was proud of my father – of course I was – but I couldn't help but compare myself to him. I was his son, but so far I hadn't accomplished much. I was a good student, but not genius good – my grades were usually in the low 'B' range. I wasn't a part of any special club at my high school and I wasn't active at all in the church we went to about four times a year.

I don't know…it was just a bit daunting to be around the man in his element. He was a published scientist and I had worked at Taco Bell for like…a summer.

I did my best to blank my mind for the rest of the drive, tapping along with CCR and AC/DC when the opportunity presented itself. We arrived late, of course, and mom did a sloppy park job in the parking slot against the sidewalk, where a sign clearly displaying NO PARKING was positioned about ten feet down the street.

We jumped out of the van and walked up to the tall building that my father owned. I felt a smile coming onto my face despite my unease around the man, feeling that since my dad owned the place, that made me sort of like royalty. Like a prince or something.

"Excuse me," I choked out as the door that led to the building's lobby swung open and clipped me in the shoulder.

A pale-skinned brunette girl dressed in a black t-shirt and cargo pants, no more than twenty years old, stepped through the doorway with a murderous look on her face. Her hazel eyes locked with mine as she sneered, not uttering a word, and strode past mom and me down the steps and around the corner, out of sight.

What crawled up her ass? I wondered.

I was in the backseat of the van this time, since dad wanted to drive. There was no one back here with me, so my body was allowed to rest halfway against the passenger side door and halfway against the seat, with my legs stretched out across both sides of the floorboard.

It was comfortable, in a weird, lazy way.

"Did you get a fair offer?" my mom asked, drawing my attention.

"Offer?" I prodded. "What offer?"

"Someone was interested in buying the lab from me outright," my dad sighed, pulling off of the four-lane highway and onto the winding road that would lead back to Sequim. "And yeah, it was fair, I suppose."

"How much did they offer?" I could hear the hesitance in mom's voice.

"Double what I paid for it," dad drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

"You took it, right?" I exclaimed. He shook his head no. "What? Why not?"

"Mac," mom said slowly. "It was a good offer. Why didn't you just take it?"

"I enjoy the work too much," my father smiled at my mother. "What would I do with all that free time, anyway?"

"Florida would be nice," my mother smiled. "We could take a long vacation there. Or Hawaii. Or a cruise!"

"We don't need that much money to do one of those," my father scoffed playfully.

"But it would have helped!" I joined the conversation suddenly, surprising myself. "Just think of it – us, millionaires!"

"Emil's right, honey," my mother sighed. "That does have a certain charm to it – millionaires!"

"You'll thank me for keeping it when you graduate and need a job, son," my father smiled at the windshield.

"But I wouldn't need a job if we had millions!" I exclaimed with a roll of my eyes, though the two of them couldn't see it.

"If you think we'd give any of it to you to spend, you're out of your mind," my father scoffed. My mother hit his arm playfully, clearly on my side.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I know how you teenagers are," my dad shook his head slowly. "You'd spend it all on woman and booze!"

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

My head hit the window and my vision blurred, though I felt no pain.

Instead, I felt tiny pinpricks along my skin – like when my arm falls asleep, only all over my body. There was a humming – a beating, whirling sound that had no business being in a car.

Tears and blood blocked my view, but I could feel the twisted metal around me. I could also feel the world closing in and my field of vision began to dim with every second. The humming continued and the prickling sensation grew more frantic.

I felt like I was swimming – or falling – I couldn't tell which, but I knew for sure I couldn't differentiate up from down from within the wreckage.

"M…mom," I sighed.

And then I floated away.