Spliced: A Story of Rapture

Chapter One

1959

Lillian was sitting at a table in the Kashmir Restaurant, barely aware of where she was at first. Her eyes were bleary, and she struggled to focus them. The sounds of the establishment drifted in, through the maddening din of her tinnitus. The notes of a song “And All the While I’m Loving You,” played on repeat in her throbbing head. There was some human noise–what was it–screaming? all around her. Lillian could feel the rumble of running feet, like a stampede, and she wondered if so many people making such a racket could threaten the structural integrity of Rapture itself. If they don’t stop, she mused, we’ll end up at the bottom of a trench, or maybe break through to the very core of the earth. Lillian shook her head defiantly. No, that was a ridiculous thought. Rapture had endured worse, hadn’t it? She couldn’t remember.

The commotion made a lump of anxiety rise in her throat. Lillian didn’t know what was happening, or rather, she found that she couldn’t recall. Desperately, she searched her memory for an inkling of what tragedy was occurring, but with no luck. Why couldn’t she remember? Had she gotten too drunk? Had somebody slipped her something to make her forget? Lillian was frustrated by her inability to access her most recent memories, but decided that her priority was to get out of this restaurant. Whatever was happening was not something that she wanted to be a part of. Numbly, and with eyes still blurry and unfocused, she pushed her chair back and stood.

Her sudden movement forced her to recognize a new sensation: a sick wetness on her thighs and belly. She reached down to pull her dress away from the fluids, and found that her hands were sticky. As if in a daze, Lillian held her hands up in front of her face and peered through blurry eyesight at her palms. They were red with what she could only assume was blood. Embarrassment overtook her, a heavy ball in her stomach. Had she gotten her period here? Had anyone seen? Lillian looked around the chaotic room furtively for a set of judging eyes, but only saw people running, and screaming.

She backed against a pillar and tried to maneuver to a side away from the other restaurant guests. There, she reached back down beneath her dress and felt around, curious. Something was dangling from between her legs–something stringy and slimy and moving. Lillian’s stomach roiled. Her knees felt weak with fear and disgust as she pulled up her dress and grasped the wriggling thing.

It was slippery, and at first, she had a hard time getting a grip on it, but eventually she managed to wrap it around her tightened fist, making it much easier to hold onto. She steadied herself against the pillar, the chaos of the restaurant still exploding around her, and pulled.

The object came out slowly, but without much resistance. Lillian pulled and pulled, getting more and more nauseous as she did so. The stringy slug-like thing was long enough to reach the floor now from her standing position, and Lillian wondered how such a long thing could have been curled up inside of her without her knowledge. Finally, it caught inside her, and she felt a panicky rush of stinging bile as her mind tried to envision what the stringy thing was attached to.

Lillian pulled harder. She grasped it with both hands and yanked as hard as she could. She squatted on the floor to gain better purchase as she attempted this awkward act. Finally, something big pulled free. Lillian was knocked back, and would have fallen if it weren’t for the pillar behind her. She fumbled with the terminal object for a moment, almost dropping it, as it was slimy too, and wet. So, so wet.

It was small, about the size of her fist, and she gripped it with one hand as she rubbed her bleary eyes with the other. Blood and viscous fluid smeared on her face, but she paid no mind as the object she held in front of her took shape. Lillian screamed and dropped it, scuttling back away from it in a frantic crab walk.

On the floor, amid glass and shiny multi-hued confetti and Lillian’s own slippery blood, lay a tiny, misshapen infant. Its arms and legs were whittled and blobby stumps. Its face, or the place where its face should be, was featureless, except for a round and sucking mouth filled with rows of razor-like teeth. It thrashed around like a fish pulled from the ocean, its mouth opening and closing noiselessly. Lillian, terrified, scuttled back further, her arms nearly flying out from beneath her on the slippery floor. She screamed again, frantic, the edges of her vision pulsing and threatening unconsciousness. She looked up and around, desperate for someone to do something and absolve her of responsibility for this tiny monster. It was then that she spied a man, unmasked and inhumanly calm. He looked down at her, a twinkle in his eye. “Atlas!” she breathed. The legend stood above her, clean and smiling, and she knew in that moment that he would fix everything.