When was the last time she had slept the night through?
Every little noise caused her to wake up, ready to face one of those creatures that had been humans once upon a time.
They had already made it impossible for her to leave her laboratory, causing her to sit in this cul-de-sac that had once been the place where she had brought beautiful things to life. She didn't have a weapon and wasn't very skilled at fighting them, either. The only things she had to protect herself were the machines downstairs. Somehow they always managed to find a way inside, stealing her things and destroying everything they had no use for.
Once she had been out there, to see what was happening to her beautiful gardens. Where once children were playing hide and seek, corpses lay scattered all over the grass. She saw some of them - Houdini splicers, they called them - dressed up in leaves, chanting "Harness the flames, harness the mist", hiding in their little shrines that had once been romantic hideouts for couples.
There were others, too - horribly deformed people, all over Arcadia, killing each other without batting an eye. She had been too scared to leave, and she couldn't leave her trees. Without them, everybody in Rapture was doomed, anyway. As long as they were fine, she could sit it out and wait until they were all gone.
Unlike most people in Rapture, Professor Julie Langford didn't come here to fulfil her dreams, or because she was sick of her life on the surface. Julie had been hired to grow trees at the bottom of the sea. Ryan had offered her an insane amount of money, and there was no way she could've turned this offer down. If she would've refused, he would have found someone else, for sure.
A static noise caught her attention. It was coming from the radio she had found outside while looking for something to eat, back when she still was able to leave the laboratory.
She left her spot in a corner of the room and crawled over to the narrow table, taking the radio.
She sat on the floor, looking at it. It was the first time it made a sound.
Julie didn't know how to use it, but there were only three buttons. She pressed the first one, saying "Hello?" and waited. Nothing. She did the same thing with the other two, but was only greeted with silence.
With a sigh, she was about to put it away again, but then there was the crackling noise again.
"-ello? Who is- ... -ere?" The signal was weak, or maybe it wasn't adjusted correctly. Julie got on her feet and paced the floor, looking for a better signal while adjusting a little wheel at the side of the device, until it got better.
"Here is Professor Julie Langford in Arcadia," she said, hesitantly. She had no idea who was on the other side of this. But she had never seen the splicers using any kind of technology.
"Nice to meet you." The person on the other end seemed to be just as surprised as Julie was. It was a woman, with a foreign accent, she figured.
"Is anybody with you?" Julie took a look around, just to make sure, but she was alone. She had been alone for over a year, now. If you don't count the spliced up morons downstairs.
"No. Nobody. What's your name? Where are you?" She sat down again, unbelievably happy to talk to another human being for the first time in ages.
"I cannot tell you. Do not lose hope. Help is on the way."
Julie looked at the radio for several minutes, not able to utter a word. She had never met this woman, and she had not a single reason to trust her, but she found something comforting in her words.
She hadn't heard from her for several days, as the static noise reappeared.
"Julie? Can you hear me?"
The botanist set down the potted plant she was tending to, and walked over to the radio, wiping her dirty hands on her dress.
"Yes," she said, waiting.
"You need to do me a favor. Go downstairs, please. Deactivate your security camera."
Julie was reluctant to do so. It was dangerous to leave her office and she only did so when it was necessary. But she had no reason not to trust this person, either. Hesitantly she punched in the code to deactivate her security system and walked downstairs, cautious. She was alone here, or at least she thought so. There was a noise coming from the back of her laboratory. With her heart beating rapidly against her chest, she gripped a crowbar one of the splicers had lost and peered around the corner.
A little girl was climbing out of a hole in the wall. Julie had always wondered what those were for, and why on earth she needed to have one on her laboratory, but now she understood. She had seen the little girls with those big monsters wandering Arcadia, but this one was different. Her skin wasn't sickly green, her eyes weren't glowing and instead of a Big Daddy, she had a teddy bear with her. And something else.
Carefully, Julie approached her, trying not to scare the little thing, but she wasn't scared at all. The blonde girl turned around to her, smiling widely. She had a basket in her hands, filled with food and three syringes, filled with some green liquid.
The radio crackled again.
"I hope you have found the little one by now. We will provide you with food as long as we can, but you need to help us as well," the voice explained as Julie crouched down in front of the girl with the basket.
"It is risky, but if you find a Little Sister, these injections will save them. They will find their way back to me on their own. Bitte, try to save some of them."
Julie reached out and caressed the girl's cheek, with a soft smile and watery eyes. "You look so much like my Becky when she was little," she whispered, absentmindedly. The girl didn't say a word, but hugged the botanist and returned to her hole, disappearing again. Julie was still where she was, looking down at the syringes. Save them? She would have to go out there, and face those splicers and Big Daddies in order to do this.
Maybe it was time to learn how to use a shotgun...
