Hellooooo Alien Isolation fandom, good to see all 14 of us again
Hey so I had another super fun definitely lighthearted and not sad idea about our dearly beloveds Amanda Ripley and Christopher Samuels
An alternate reality, where Ripley dies (before Samuels ever gets to the Apollo reformat chamber, but after Taylor is already injured and things are quickly getting further out of control), and in his concern over not hearing from Ripley for a long time, Samuels makes the decision to go look for her in the last place she told him she was in. As he searches he feels an anxiety that he’s never known before. He tells himself she’s fine, likely hiding from the Joes or the Alien itself. But then he finds her, bloodied and unresponsive in a corner and feels his entire system freeze up. He feels a strange and desperate urge to check her pulse even though he can tell from here that she’s dead. She’s dead. No, this wasn’t supposed to happen. This was supposed to be quick, in and out, just like Verlaine had said. But now, now the one time he makes a personal decision to help someone, he damns them instead. The story of a young girl, losing her mother under mysterious circumstances and searching for her for 15 years had spoken to him and for the first time in his life, he had wanted to make a difference in someone else’s. He suddenly finds himself in front of a gurney, where he’s moved Amanda’s body so she won’t be left to rot on the cold metal floor. He also finds he can’t move, eyes glued to hers, which in turn are fixed on a point no one else can ever see.
“I’m so sorry, Amanda. I only wanted to help.”
And he stays there beside her, unwilling to leave her. He knows they have no chance without her anyway. There’s nothing for him to return to. No point in returning to his post even if he could. He’s failed to recover the Nostromo’s flight recorder unit, but more importantly, far more importantly - to him anyways - he’s caused the death of the one person he had wanted to help. So he remains there, beside her, as the ship continues to disintegrate and tear itself apart around them, the screams, gunfire, explosions, and alien shrieks all slowly being drowned out by his own thoughts:
I failed her. I failed her. I failed her.
