My name is James Deschain, and I am the last free man in Rapture...

I don't know how long it has been since I last saw anyone else who didn't try to kill me. Down here, "where the sun don't shine", as my brother called it, it's so hard to tell what time even is, without the innumerable throngs of crowds depicting our conformities... I remember its sound, all too clearly... The smalltalk of the common folk, the pleas of the many children, the sounds of lightning and crimson fires, as far as the eye could see...

It's so very easy to point blame on what's happened here, but my heart cannot bear to do such a thing... Where is the point, when my darling perished, so long ago..? On that night... The night my wife died... The night when my world crumbled, and Rapture showed its true face...

It was New Year's Eve... That much, I remember. Sadie was wearing a plastic cone hat, and wouldn't stop insisting that I wear one, too. I gave in, of course (how could I ever resist her?) and we danced, and were merry... We all were. It was the dawn of a new decade, an age of enlightenment, of new discovery... Of monstrosity. It can't have been any longer than a few minutes until that magic moment when a sound that will haunt my very dreams shattered our fragile celebration... It came from the Main Stage. We all knew it instinctively, as though our paths were drawn for us by some unforseen hand to that point, that place of horror...

It was a little girl.
She had been stabbed by a man in a mask that, under any other circumstance, would have made a mockery of his act. But his eyes... Those masked eyes... There was no man under there. There was nought but monster. Being the first to get there, I was the only one that saw him do something to that girl... I can't even describe it, but afterwards... My god, afterwards... That's when it just got worse.

Five, ten, twenty... Nay, hundreds of others - all as insanely portrayed as he was - jumped down, and began hunting us, like dumb cattle. We couldn't believe our eyes... We thought this was all some elaborate hallucination; another fine invention by your daily saviour Andrew Ryan, thankyouverymuch. Sadie was the first to get her wits back, and ran for the door. I joined her, while our friends and family just stood and were slaughtered... The only point that they realised it wasn't a dream was when those hooks came down...

I led Sadie to the only safe place that I knew: the Shopping Plaza. The protection of the turrets would make sure that she would be safe, even if I would not be... It fell on me to seal us in, to make sure they would never get us. I didn't know the scale of it all at that point. I had no way of knowing at all... But some primal instinct was controlling my body, pushing me toward survival.

When we finally got to the Shopping Plaza, it was deserted - a miracle in of itself - and was easily sealable, thanks to a large sealing door. One of many, to prevent flooding. We waited for rescue, for someone to come and fight off the Insane Ones and make everything okay again... When I saw the answer. A plasmid dispenser, right there... I thought that I could save us both, that I could use the Power to grant us safety...

So I took them. I smashed the needle into my arm, the pain of it almost relieving after seeing the gore of earlier... It granted me lightning, which I felt almost a sign from God himself. Oh, how Sadie loved the lights..! She would adore this most beautiful way of defeding her... This most wonderous way of killing them all... As I showed her how I would save her, and how we would live happily on the surface, something clicked in my mind...

My mind replayed that event, over, and over... The little girl screaming... The man changing after what he did to that girl... In that moment... My mind was opened.

He got stronger from it.
That had to be it... The little girl gave him power! And my mind turned once again... The only way I would have this power... The Power that only the rich deemed themselves worthy of... Would be to take some of my wife's energy... That way, I could defend her so much more easily... So I took her head in my hands... And kissed her forehead...

And snapped her neck. And oh, how I felt a rush from it... It was bliss... I felt the power surge from my fingers, up through my arms, and into my very mind... I would be able to defend her so easily now... I have the Power... Do you see, Sadie? ... Sadie? ........... Sadie...? No... Wake up... Wake up, honey! Wake up! I can save you!
No, you can't. Leave her. Find more Power...
But I can't live without her... She was my everything...
Then take vengeance, my pretty... Strike back at the world that took her, and become the strongest of them all!
Yes... They took her... And they must pay for their crimes... But I can't do it without plasmids... I can't do it without them! I need them... I need to find more, and get more Power!
I hunger for it... And I will do anything to get it...

My name is James Deschain, and I am the last sane man in Rapture...