Chapter Text
Hull breach. Hull breach. Hull breach.
The sound of the rapidly beeping proximity detector thrummed in his head, yet it seemed to serve as background noise. He slowly opened his eyes, brain in a haze. The taste of copper filled his mouth, a warm liquid surrounding him entirely, making the SM-13—
...The SM-13.
Something in his stomach lurched at the familiarity. The rusted, blood-stained metal; the creaks of the hull; the grainy camera flashing over and over again from the tendrils that had trapped the button down; the pictures on the computer that he’d downloaded from the shredded SM-8.
Of course he wasn’t out. Why the fuck would he be? What type of hallucination did he stir up to imagine that he was on some– some farm, with Ava, of all people – you’d think it’d be with his mother – even though he barely even saw her? Was she still alive? How long had he been out of it?
He dragged his eyes over to the speaker, staring as the blood sopped through the wiring.
It felt like the blood was pinning him down. It probably was.
Yet, despite being thrown back here, God be damned if he wasn’t going to keep trying. Quite literally— there was some fucking eldritch being out there that decided to have its gaze upon him, and he wasn’t having it.
He struggled through the sludge, his knee knocking something as he tried to stand up.
The blackbox.
He immediately dropped back down, the blood splashing all over him again, scrambling to grab hold of it, minutely glancing up to see the locker.
…Fuck it, he’ll do the same thing. The blackbox surviving wasn’t the problem. Him surviving was. He yanked the locker open, pulling out the forever-faded orange life jacket and shoving the box into it, only having hopes and prayers that it would work. He didn’t know if it would, really— would he ever?
A sharp ringing stabbed through his ears. He gasped, instinctively bringing his hands— he still had his arm?— to cover them, which only served to pour more blood into his body through his ears.
That was just a glimpse of what we can show you, Simon
The voice echoed in his skull. It felt like it was trying to shatter his brain.
We can bring you everything you ever want if you join us
He pried his hands away from his ears, struggling to even move, and the blood wasn’t waist deep yet. Why was it louder than it’d ever been?
You need to see the Light, Simon
“Fuck off,” he hissed, staring at the blackbox as if it would help. As if it would do something.
You need to see US, Simon
Look at us
Look at the Light
This is where you belong, Simon
Join us
"FUCK OFF!"
He abruptly spun, using as much momentum he could gain despite the fact he was knee-deep in blood as he swung his fist full force into the camera, nearly doubling over as he cradled his hand. Whether it was bleeding or if it was the blood from the ocean, he couldn’t tell.
The camera was heavily dented, resulting in the screen to simply look like white noise, no matter the photo taken.
The creature shrieked.
The sound stirred his bloodstream. It made him want to throw up. It made him want to tear his skin off.
YOU WILL SEE US, SIMON
Through blurred vision, Simon frantically looked around and shakily reached for the blackbox.
Something whacked the sub before he could reach it, making him jolt across to the other side—
...
—and firmly fall face-first onto the floor. He could’ve sworn he heard something crack.
He simply laid there.
His pulse was ringing through his ears. Sure, he hadn’t lost his entire fucking arm that time, but for what? He just died all over again. Was this the afterlife he was granted? To die, be given a glimpse of something so much better, only to be dragged back to death again?
…The metal of the hull felt strangely smooth, he noticed.
His hand twitched, fingertips grazing the floor.
It wasn’t the jagged, rusted metal box he was just in.
Was this real? Was he actually back at that farm, or was this just another hallucination? Was he still alive? Okay, no. He’d decided that already.
He, very carefully, pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, not wanting to shatter the silence. If he hadn’t already. With how quick his heart was going, he wasn’t too sure that it wasn’t audible, bouncing off the walls.
His nose was stinging. His whole body felt hot. His hands were damp with sweat.
Subconsciously using the bed beside him for leverage, he shifted himself up to be sitting back on his heels, wiping his hand near his mouth. It felt kind of weird, with all the scars along his hand.
A smear of blood stared back at him when he pulled his hand back.
He cursed out loud to himself in a pitch higher than he thought he could go, scrambling backward as if he could escape his own limb. Whether he really wanted to or not was a strange thing, seeing as he was still staring right at it.
Or, maybe it was the fact it scared him.
Maybe, he thought, sitting in the middle of a supposedly-cozy wooden cabin, that he wasn’t truly here. That he was still in that fucking submarine, if you could even call it that. It was so dysfunctional it might as well be a tin can that they threw him in and then threw into an ocean, labelling an execution as research. Maybe the blood was already part of him. Maybe he’d already looked into the Light, met God, and it decided this was the fate he deserved. As a result of that, maybe he was being forced to relive his moment of death over and over again. Giving the illusion of being able to change things— and he could, but the outcome would be all the same.
He would not survive.
He hadn’t survived.
And he was sure he wouldn’t survive.
He was so damn certain that he would be stuck in this loop until his body was either one with the blood, until he was rotten, or until he would succumb. Or, it’d be none of those, and instead he’d be stuck in this fucking thing for all of eternity—
"Simon!"
A sharp sting bloomed across his face, blinking at the impact. The hand hovered near his cheek after the fact, hesitating before deciding to settle on his shoulder.
Ava.
Ava was crouched in front of him. The scar that dragged along her eye seemed to be more noticeable; the moonlight made her greyish eye have a shine to it.
He could only stare at her. He didn’t know if this was— surely it wasn’t real. Surely it was just another shitty attempt of hope being dangled in front of him, just to be thrown to the other end of the universe.
Now, quieter; “Simon.”
Her grip on his shoulder tightened slightly.
Very, very slowly, he brought his hand up, just barely touching her arm. Testing it was there. Testing that he wouldn’t somehow phase through it.
He didn’t. Truth be told, his hand grazed across a scar, trailing it for a moment.
His eyes blurred from something other than blood.
He dropped his hand, trying to swallow down whatever was rising up in his throat, staring wide-eyed at nothing particular, yet also staring at everything in the room.
Ava herself seemed to tense for a second, only watching. She knew how to give orders — she didn’t know how to comfort.
Simon curled into himself, a messy sob choking out of his throat as he brought his other hand, the one that was covered in burn wounds, over his mouth.
…God be damned if she doesn’t try.
She slowly lifted her hand away, shifting so she was roughly sitting beside him. She paused for a brief second, not exactly sure what she was doing, before gingerly placing her hand on his back. She could feel the few sewn patches on the back of the jacket he had on, noting how it was soft. Not rough like all other clothes they had to wear on the Consolidation. Especially not rough like his old clothes were, either, considering he was a convict. They’d given him the most thrown-together-within-an-hour batch of clothes they usually did for everyone else.
He leant towards her, his entire silhouette trembling slightly. His sobs were nearly silent, like he’d gotten used to muffling them.
She said nothing.
Instead, she found herself staring ahead, her hand absentmindedly tracing the stitching patterns.
His hiccups and sobs would break through, interrupting the silence of the night every now and then. Ava would rest her palm flat on his back when that happened, just as a small reminder. A reminder that they were both there. That she was breathing. That he was breathing.
Only the walls would remember how long they stayed like that. The blood on the back of Simon's hand had long since dried into a more darker, brownish colour. Not that you could tell in the dark.
Simon had practically ended up curled into a ball directly next to her, head just shy of her shoulder. Ava found that she didn’t mind.
Eventually, he drew in a shaky breath, simultaneously calming himself down and willing himself to speak.
“I think I’ll… I can try go back to sleep.”
Ava’s hand paused, carefully falling back from Simon’s jacket.
“Okay.”
Neither made the effort to move for another moment.
Ava opted to break that. She pushed herself up, standing upright, silently giving Simon a hand to help him get up.
They looked at each other, just one more time. Simon gave a minute nod— with Ava responding in kind— before they both walked back to their beds, the planks beneath them creaking lightly with their weight. Ava shuffled about for a second, settling in a comfortable position facing the wall.
Simon only stared up at the ceiling.