I went back to watch the ending of Dead Space 3 again because it made me cry, and then I ended up crying again. Argh. Well, anyways, even though we all know Isaac survived, this is my take on what would happen to Ellie if things had turned out differently. There are mentions of some adult themes, so be warned.

ELLIE POV

Emptiness.

That's all there was. In her heart, her mind, her soul, her body, there was nothing except a black expanse of sadness and grief that threatened to crush her under its weight.

Her mind was in a fog, stunned and dazed by the news. It was almost as if she were dreaming - she moved slowly, like an elephant in water, and her vision was constantly blurry and unfocused. Her throat ached like she'd swallowed a lump of clay, the result of all the tears she couldn't shed. Her heart was in splinters, fragmented by the pain of parting, and inside she was screaming her loss.

She had never wanted to cry more badly, to try and release some of the turmoil inside her, but she couldn't break the diamond wall encasing her heart. Her face was as stoic as ever, and she just couldn't muster any expression other than tranquility.

Over and over in her head, she heard the words again, the words that would change her life.

"Ellie, I turned my back on the world because I was afraid of what needed to be done. Ellie, I'm not afraid anymore."

'But I am,' Ellie wanted to scream. 'I'm terrified of losing you! Don't do this, Isaac.'

But he already had.

Her limp hand brushed the letter on the table. She'd memorized its contents, however much she wanted to forget, and now she couldn't stop the letter in its entirety from flowing through her head.

Dear Elizabeth Langford,

On behalf of the CEC, we regret to inform you that Isaac Clarke is dead. He was killed during the events of Tau Volantis, when the Brother Moon crashed back onto the planet. His body was found in the wreckage, and it appears that he died on impact. We take it as our duty to inform you of this due to your relationship with him.

We are very sorry for your loss.

They were empty words, just a form letter to be filled out in the case of death and loss. They didn't mean anything. They had no idea what she felt, how broken she was on the inside. They didn't know how much she had loved him.

Only she knew how much love destroyed a person.

Love changed people, it made them do different things and feel different. Love stabbed those peoples' hearts and burned them to ashes, scattering them to the wind. Love obliterated the souls of those afflicted and consumed their spirits.

Love was more painful than anything. And when love took away the person you needed, you were nothing but an empty shell. Love brought down even the strongest people, it lowered them to absolute nothingness.

She had been strong and tough once, but now she wasn't even a shadow of what she had been at some time in her life.

It all came back to emptiness.

Ellie's life had no meaning in it anymore. The only person who had brought happiness and light to her world was gone, and the light had been extinguished, the happiness had been chased away by demons of the dark.

She had no weapons to fight the demons.

They were crushing her, slicing into her dreams at night and cutting open the flesh of her mind. They bled out the remains of her emotions, they drank up every last drop of her voice and soul. They screamed at her in their voices of metal and hatred and tears under a silver moon, demanding to know why she'd left him when they only had so much time left. Their eyes were red, their skin black and burned, their hands topped with claws like spears that matched the fangs in their mouths.

And when she woke up, her heart pounding dully, her breath coming in gasps, the other side of the bed was empty. There was nobody there but her, and that was all.

Sometimes, if she had the energy, she'd imagine that a certain aging engineer would come and blow the bastards to bits with a Plasma Cutter. But he always faded to black smoke and the hissing whispers and sighs of the defeated, and she was alone again.

And if she wasn't dreaming about the demons, she dreamed her memories of the time she'd spent with the man she loved.

She loved it and hated it.

She loved it when she was dreaming, filled with a sense of reassurance and a warm glow that could only be described as love. She loved dreaming of his bright blue eyes, his graying hair, his voice. She loved dreaming of the protective way he'd held her, the way that he looked at her with caring and understanding in his eyes. She loved dreaming of waking up to find him at the windows, staring at the beautiful sunrise. She loved the connection she'd had with him, that she was so sure it was the real thing. She loved knowing that he loved her and she loved him and their lives were simple.

She hated it because she knew she'd fucked it all up, she left him because he was already traumatized by the Markers and their cruel manifestations and yet she'd pushed him, goaded him to where it'd all gone wrong.

She hated waking up. She hated realizing it was all a dream and that the rooms beyond her sight didn't house the one person she wanted to see above all. She hated waking up to a cold room shrouded in the cowl of a dark night. She hated lying alone in bed and realizing he was gone. She hated not being able to cry for her loss. She hated the fact that other people were happy when she was dying slowly, she hated that they were blissfully unaware of the silence in the other room.

The silence was too much for her to bear occasionally, so she'd amble off to the bathroom and take a shower. It wasn't like she had anything to do anyways.

She showered in the dark now. The light was too bright for her eyes, and she didn't like the invasion of brightness to her closed eyelids.

As the water rained down around her, she would almost be able to hear his voice in the dark. "Ellie," he sighed. "Jesus - Ellie!"

She could nearly hear her own quiet gasps in the dark, feel the gentle touch of his calloused fingertips on her skin from the water drops.

When she opened her eyes, darkness greeted her. There wasn't anybody gazing into her eyes, into the fragments of her soul. Not that she had expected there would be.

The water was cold, too. It was always either burning hot or ice cold, and she preferred the latter because the heat reminded her of their passionate love. She didn't want any more of the memories; she would cut them out of her head and not have to be grief-crazed anymore.

Then, like she was now, she would dry off, half-heartedly trying to dry her hair, and crawl into her bed, trying her hardest to stay warm. More often than not, she ended up curled in a ball, her arms wrapped around herself in an attempt to keep herself together.

That night, she dreamed of Isaac.

"You really want it?" Isaac murmured in her ear, sending chills down her spine with his husky voice as he pinned her down gently.

Ellie stared up into his eyes, her mouth quirking into a smile as she whispered, "Of course I do."

He lowered his mouth to hers, carefully easing his body on top of hers. She whimpered into his mouth, and his hands moved to her collarbone, ghosting over her skin and leaving delicious goosebumps wherever he touched her.

She gripped at his back as the kiss became deeper, her hands clutching at the scarred skin, for once not guarded by a RIGsuit or anything of the sort. Just his bare, warm skin, separated from hers only by a thin layer of sheer cotton.

His hands moved lower on her body, cupping her slim waist through her cotton nightdress. In return, she tugged at the hem of his shorts, sliding them down his hips. He sat up removed the offensive garment himself, then teased, "You're still clothed... How is that fair?"

She raised herself to her elbows indignantly, then stood up and stripped off the dress. "Come and get me now," she said suggestively.

She exhaled as Isaac pressed her to the bed almost forcefully, and she responded by wrapping her legs around his hips. "I'm ready now," she told him, reaching up to kiss his lips hard.

That night was one of the best nights of her life.

She woke up screaming loudly, the tears she had kept for so long now pouring without reserve down her face.

Ellie had almost forgotten about that particular dream, the memory buried somewhere deep. Now that it had resurfaced and was taunting her mercilessly, she couldn't face it any longer.

The memory was precious. It was the first time she'd ever been with Isaac, and she'd been changed forever after that, but in the best way possible.

It wasn't fair, that she should be living without him. Nobody should have been subject to that type of torture, the burning and screaming and ripping she felt deep in her heart.

She would stop it once and for all. There wasn't any use anymore - he wasn't coming back, and she knew that the best. Why would she subject herself to the insanity of grief? She wasn't a masochist, she didn't enjoy pain.

She stumbled out of bed, the strange screeching noise ripping out of her throat over and over again now that her voice was free. The tears dripped onto the floor like blood, and she knew what to do.

She took an old-fashioned gun out from the drawer near her bed. One bullet was left in it, just one bullet.

But it was enough.

When the gun was loaded, she wandered to the bathroom, carrying it in her hand like a limp rag doll. For once, she turned the light on. It flickered to life, just barely holding on with the scant flow of electricity.

She examined her body in the mirror. It was bony; she'd stopped eating weeks ago due to lack of funds. And she didn't feel the hunger anymore either, just the pain. Her shoulders jutted out at sharp angles, like her hips, and her ribs were visible through her thin tank top. Her collarbones were thrown into high relief from the sharp light, and her arms were literally just skin and bones. Her neck was thin, too thin, and her cheeks were severely hollowed out. Her face was too thin, and her lips were a very pale pink, bleached of their normal color. Her eyes... They peered out as if they were a little shy, but they were the defining feature of her whole face. The heterochromia had given her more attention to her eyes, and now they were huge orbs, shiny and large. Her hair was lackluster, not shiny as it once had been.

'Just a shell,' she concluded. 'An empty shell.'

She raised the gun, pointed it at her head. Her lips stretched in a smile, the first one she'd done in weeks. And it would be her last.

Aloud, she said, "I'm coming, Isaac."

Then she pulled the trigger.

Immediately, blackness enveloped her body, but it wasn't harsh or demeaning like the empty blackness she had suffered at another time.

No, this blackness was friendly. It was merely prepping her body, she knew, for when she would open her eyes.

It was soft and comforting, and the more she thought about it, the more she realized.

'He's waiting for me,' she thought. 'I'm here, with him.'

The sound of pounding waves greeted her ears, and she could hear seagulls screeching and taste the salt on her lips. She could feel tiny, soft grains of sand cushioning her body.

At last, she opened her eyes. Though she was not surprised to find herself on a beach at the ocean, she was stunned by the sight of the beautiful blue-gray water washing up against the shore.

She gasped and ran up to the water's edge, smiling as she took in the view of the horizon against a blue sky spotted with perfect clouds. Her body felt strong and supple, no longer weak and sickly as it had been before.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" came a voice from beside her.

Ellie gasped, startled. When she turned her head, hardly daring to believe it, a sight more beautiful than the ocean greeted her.

Isaac was standing beside her, gazing down at her with an impossibly vast look in his eyes. His face wasn't as weary as it had been during their last encounter, although his face was still sporting the slight beard he had grown. But she liked it, and she was finally here, with him.

"Isaac," she whispered, tears springing to her eyes as she wrapped him in a hug.

"Ellie," he murmured, stroking her hair. "I'm sorry it had to end that way... But you're here with me now, and that's all that matters."

They stayed in their embrace as Ellie tried to get a grip on the happiness that was expanding in her body like a balloon. "I'm... I don't know what to say. I missed you so much, and I didn't know what to do with myself," she admitted, her voice slightly muffled.

Isaac only hugged her tighter, clearly unwilling to let her go.

"But I'm okay now," Ellie finished, smiling as she pulled away slightly so he could see her face. "Because you're here with me."

Isaac took her hand, leading them to walk along the shore. "Didn't I say I would show you the ocean?"

Ellie smiled. For the first time in a long time, the emptiness had gone away.

And it would never come back.

It was depressing in the beginning, that's for damn sure, but I hope you liked the end. :)