[ SOME OF THE FOLLOWING SITUATIONS CONTAIN SENSITIVE TOPICS.
Isaac Clarke may have been used to being a man of the man, but now? Now he is also a man of himself, a man who is determined, and one who will stop at nothing to achieve that underlying goal of his that beats at his heart's core--control. Between the severe PTSD and schizophrenia, hallucinations of his dead wife, and the alluring hum of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Isaac is, and will always be a man who is never quite holding the reins of his mind. He will strive to complete himself again and again with a dogged determination the likes of which has never been matched. He wants a life, his life, whatever that may be, but sometimes it will get the best of him.
i. Danvers, 1880. No, please, no. It's not right. He knows it's not right, to sit here in this chair and shake and shudder with his arms painfully around him and the straight jacket just too tight (should be tighter, they say). It's a funny place, this hospital, a funny little place, but it's where he belongs, they say. They can fix a mind like this, they can fix a poor man like him. After his wife died it all went down hill--father gone, mother found dead, and there he lay writing on the walls in his own blood Nicole Nicole Nicole. Octavia Clarke does not survive and most think that the budding engineer should be put to death.
But maybe maybe they can fix him. They can fix him with just... a little cut here. And a little slice there. Oh, he can hear it, the murmuring, the hushed whispers and the clink of metal instruments and he shakes and trembles and whispers her name between chapped and bitten lips.
It could work, they say. Still under development, they say. Who better to test it out on than him? He's a detriment. An occupational hazard. A danger.
No one will miss him.
Isaac Clarke dies with her name on his lips and pieces of his mind missing. They burn his corpse.
ii. North Atlantic Ocean, 1912. All 46,000 GRT of her splits open as she upends herself in the water. The strain on her keel is unimaginable, yet he can see it all the same as she cracks with a deafening screech. The RMS Titanic. A beauty. A work of unparalleled engineering. His breath is held, perhaps from the cold settling into his skin as he flails in the water, trying to stop his body from seizing, trying to keep himself afloat. He screams her name. "Nicole!" It is ragged and harsh and he sputters, coughing, feeling his muscles protest as he tries to churn the icy water he's been unceremoniously dumped into--spared the sharp blades of the propulsion system flying off and slicing into his skull.
He's about to give up with a warm (by comparison) hand reaches out for him. He screams, and more hands reach out, grab at his soaked clothing, press him in between bodies that are already crammed into an over-packed lifeboat that teeters precariously on the frozen water. Nicole, he has to find Nicole. He has to find her even though he saw her in her casket, saw her with her hair beneath her head, short and blonde and soft, and her face lily-white and her hands folded. He saw her and he wept and he blames himself. She died because of him. She died because he wasn't there to save her.
It's alright, she says, a girl with dark hair, a patch over her eye, a smile all her own--but all Isaac sees is Nicole, her skin, whiter than death, her hair of blonde, plastered and wet, and bright, sunken eyes grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, throwing him back into the water where he screams and his entire body finally seizes up, stops. She drowns him.
Isaac Clarke is pronounced dead: a suicide. After being rescued by a nearby lifeboat making its way from the Titanic, he throws himself back into the water, paler than a ghost, and sinks.
iii. Boston, present day. Northeastern. North-fucking-Eastern. He's got the acceptance letter in his hand.
Dear Mr. Clarke,
Congratulations! I am pleased to inform you that you have been accepted for full-time study in our mechanical engineering...
"You can't go," his mother says with a soft smile. Why? He asks. "We simply can't afford it!" And he furrows his brow. You know, he thinks, years ago we could have afforded it, before Poul jumped ship and you went on the straight path of some bizarre religion--No, no, I don't need to be told the name again. But you'll like it, Isaac! She says. It will save you. It will save us. No. Thank you. Isaac decides that, despite his desire for prominence, to be the best, he'll take the more affordable road, the one he can pay out of his own pocket. It's community college and night school and it's his own place in South Boston, away from his deranged mother, curled up among thick tomes of mechanical engineering and papers with various equations and cups of coffee that are turning into fast-growing science experiments. During the day, he works as a mechanic, at night he studies. He's a man of all work and no play--especially when there are bills to pay.
He lives out his life with tattoos on his arms, working under cars and motorcycles and for some reason, beyond himself, he is content. He never marries. He lives alone. He always seems very far off, the man, too far off, like his head is in the clouds. Over his lifetime, he has a growing affection that is tossed towards the stars, the great, black expanse above.
Isaac remembers the days when he wanted to be an astronaut and an engineer and a fireman and an ice cream truck driver. Someday, he says as he reaches his hand up at the window. He is a working man until the day he dies.
iv. The Sprawl, 2511. Isaac knows no fear at this point. Fear is only a hindrance. It trembles in his bloodstream, courses through the head atop his shoulders as he leans around a corner, feels the comfortable weight of the plasma cutter in his hands. His breath comes silently--always silently (they can hear, you know). The lights over his head flicker poorly, the tell-tale bzzt bzzt lets Isaac know that something (something, can't you hear it?) is coming.
It wails and Isaac runs. Today is not the day to die.
"Fuck you! And fuck your Marker!" he screams as he destroys it, obliterates everything that has kept him prisoner in his own mind.
isaac clarke | dead space
Isaac Clarke may have been used to being a man of the man, but now? Now he is also a man of himself, a man who is determined, and one who will stop at nothing to achieve that underlying goal of his that beats at his heart's core--control. Between the severe PTSD and schizophrenia, hallucinations of his dead wife, and the alluring hum of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Isaac is, and will always be a man who is never quite holding the reins of his mind. He will strive to complete himself again and again with a dogged determination the likes of which has never been matched. He wants a life, his life, whatever that may be, but sometimes it will get the best of him.
i. Danvers, 1880. No, please, no. It's not right. He knows it's not right, to sit here in this chair and shake and shudder with his arms painfully around him and the straight jacket just too tight (should be tighter, they say). It's a funny place, this hospital, a funny little place, but it's where he belongs, they say. They can fix a mind like this, they can fix a poor man like him. After his wife died it all went down hill--father gone, mother found dead, and there he lay writing on the walls in his own blood Nicole Nicole Nicole. Octavia Clarke does not survive and most think that the budding engineer should be put to death.
But maybe maybe they can fix him. They can fix him with just... a little cut here. And a little slice there. Oh, he can hear it, the murmuring, the hushed whispers and the clink of metal instruments and he shakes and trembles and whispers her name between chapped and bitten lips.
It could work, they say. Still under development, they say. Who better to test it out on than him? He's a detriment. An occupational hazard. A danger.
No one will miss him.
Isaac Clarke dies with her name on his lips and pieces of his mind missing. They burn his corpse.
ii. North Atlantic Ocean, 1912. All 46,000 GRT of her splits open as she upends herself in the water. The strain on her keel is unimaginable, yet he can see it all the same as she cracks with a deafening screech. The RMS Titanic. A beauty. A work of unparalleled engineering. His breath is held, perhaps from the cold settling into his skin as he flails in the water, trying to stop his body from seizing, trying to keep himself afloat. He screams her name. "Nicole!" It is ragged and harsh and he sputters, coughing, feeling his muscles protest as he tries to churn the icy water he's been unceremoniously dumped into--spared the sharp blades of the propulsion system flying off and slicing into his skull.
He's about to give up with a warm (by comparison) hand reaches out for him. He screams, and more hands reach out, grab at his soaked clothing, press him in between bodies that are already crammed into an over-packed lifeboat that teeters precariously on the frozen water. Nicole, he has to find Nicole. He has to find her even though he saw her in her casket, saw her with her hair beneath her head, short and blonde and soft, and her face lily-white and her hands folded. He saw her and he wept and he blames himself. She died because of him. She died because he wasn't there to save her.
It's alright, she says, a girl with dark hair, a patch over her eye, a smile all her own--but all Isaac sees is Nicole, her skin, whiter than death, her hair of blonde, plastered and wet, and bright, sunken eyes grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, throwing him back into the water where he screams and his entire body finally seizes up, stops. She drowns him.
Isaac Clarke is pronounced dead: a suicide. After being rescued by a nearby lifeboat making its way from the Titanic, he throws himself back into the water, paler than a ghost, and sinks.
iii. Boston, present day. Northeastern. North-fucking-Eastern. He's got the acceptance letter in his hand.
"You can't go," his mother says with a soft smile. Why? He asks. "We simply can't afford it!" And he furrows his brow. You know, he thinks, years ago we could have afforded it, before Poul jumped ship and you went on the straight path of some bizarre religion--No, no, I don't need to be told the name again. But you'll like it, Isaac! She says. It will save you. It will save us. No. Thank you. Isaac decides that, despite his desire for prominence, to be the best, he'll take the more affordable road, the one he can pay out of his own pocket. It's community college and night school and it's his own place in South Boston, away from his deranged mother, curled up among thick tomes of mechanical engineering and papers with various equations and cups of coffee that are turning into fast-growing science experiments. During the day, he works as a mechanic, at night he studies. He's a man of all work and no play--especially when there are bills to pay.
He lives out his life with tattoos on his arms, working under cars and motorcycles and for some reason, beyond himself, he is content. He never marries. He lives alone. He always seems very far off, the man, too far off, like his head is in the clouds. Over his lifetime, he has a growing affection that is tossed towards the stars, the great, black expanse above.
Isaac remembers the days when he wanted to be an astronaut and an engineer and a fireman and an ice cream truck driver. Someday, he says as he reaches his hand up at the window. He is a working man until the day he dies.
iv. The Sprawl, 2511. Isaac knows no fear at this point. Fear is only a hindrance. It trembles in his bloodstream, courses through the head atop his shoulders as he leans around a corner, feels the comfortable weight of the plasma cutter in his hands. His breath comes silently--always silently (they can hear, you know). The lights over his head flicker poorly, the tell-tale bzzt bzzt lets Isaac know that something (something, can't you hear it?) is coming.
It wails and Isaac runs. Today is not the day to die.
"Fuck you! And fuck your Marker!" he screams as he destroys it, obliterates everything that has kept him prisoner in his own mind.
He has never felt more alive than today. ]