Chapter Text
It’s too quiet.
The rock hasn’t come back in a few days. He thinks. It’s all very subjective. The drugs are really good.
He doesn’t like this. The drugs are great at keeping the pain away, but the longer and longer he is here in this room, the more he becomes aware. Deeply aware that he is in a location he has never seen before, one far too clean to be anywhere in the COI or any other station. Aware that yes, rock aliens are not really that far fetched compared to what he is already dealing with, but that does not make them any safer. Aware that he is hurt, somewhere he does not know, and being drugged docile.
It’s not good. He needs to get out of here.
But first, he needs to observe.
There are tubes and wires all over him. They’re jabbed into his arm mostly, but he could feel some in his back as well. One of them had to be administering the drugs into his system. He didn’t know if any of them were strictly keeping his lungs breathing and heart beating, but it didn’t feel like any were deeper than a few layers in. He wasn’t sure if he would know if a tube was in any organs, but the bottom line was that it didn’t feel like any of them were.
Simon went to reach for his arm, only for nothing to happen. He can feel his shoulder move, but his hand never came into view. He looks to his left and stares at the empty space taking up what should be his entire left arm.
Right.
He turns back and quickly makes up a plan B.
He brings his arm up to his mouth and bites down on the wires, tearing them out of the crook of his elbow with his teeth.
Blood immediately starts gushing from the torn skin. The pain strikes him hard, but he pushes past it. He uses his now free arm to reach around his back and gather the other tubes, ripping them out as well. It hurt. Really fucking bad.
Simon grinds his teeth, clenching his jaw. He takes several deep breaths and then pushes everything down. He can worry about injuries later. He needs to get out.
His body tries to protest any movement. It’s all sluggish and delayed, like it takes a good ten seconds for his muscles to obey his brain’s commands. A mental timer ticks by the second, rushing him to get up and get going. He uses all his effort throwing his legs off the side of the cot, and slides onto his feet.
He crumbles to the ground like a cracked wall against a sledgehammer.
Simon shouts out as the pain suddenly triples in agony. He’s hyperventilating, gasping and panting. Spots dance in his vision, blinding him. It feels like he was just set on fire, like someone pulled the lever down and he was electrified.
He hears a growingly familiar sound. Stone claws clacking against the ground.
Simon makes a split second decision and drops flat against the floor, using his one arm to push him backwards and drag himself underneath the cot. It doesn’t take too long after for some door to open and that rock creature to come clambering in.
“Loud human? Loud human okay, question?” It rounds the cot. Then there's a loud screeching noise. “Blood! Blood! Loud missing! Loud hurt and missing! Human? Human?!”
The rock starts scrambling around the room, five legs stomping around the ground as it searches. It circles the cot. Once, twice. It rounds its third cycle and then abruptly stops.
“Can still hear human’s heart. Loud human?”
It can hear his heart?!
Fucking shit, he’s doomed.
The rock makes its way to where the bloody drag marks begin. Then, very unexpectedly, it folds in its legs and sits on the ground, about a foot away from touching the blood.
It’s facing him. It found him in seconds.
Simon breathes heavily through his nose, staring the alien down. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to fucking do about this.
The rock reaches two arms out towards him, causing him to flinch back, but it doesn’t try to grab him. Instead, its claws wave around in his face.
“Jazz hands.” It says. “Jazz hands means good. Human is safe. Rocky will not hurt.”
Simon pants, carefully watching it wiggling in its spot on the ground. He does not move.
It doesn’t deter the thing. “Human bleeding. Rocky can fix. Armando fix. Will not hurt.”
He still doesn’t move.
“Human can trust Rocky.”
Like fucking Hell he can.
It stops waving its claws. They fall to the floor in defeat. Then, it pulls them in to fold in front of its…body? Head? Who the fuck knows.
“Name, question?”
Something pings in his head. He hatches a new plan.“Don’t you know it?”
The rock lifts itself up a bit. “Human speak! Hello, human! No, Rocky does not know name.”
“You do.”
It tilts its head-body-whatever. And shakes it. The disturbingly human way it moves makes his skin crawl.
“Human never said name. Rocky team not find any name on ship. Human need name. What is name, question?”
Simon swallows hard. He readies himself for the reaction, whatever it might end up being. “Convict.”
The rock does not move. It sits completely still. Simon waits on baited breath, heart pounding against the cold floor.
“Convict means prisoner, question?”
He breathes. “Yes.”
Silence. Again.
It shifts on the floor.
“Hello, Convict.” It says. “Rocky welcomes Convict to Erid.”
Erid.
God, where the fuck is he?
Simon gets out from under the cot when his head starts to swim. The rock doesn’t say anything as he drags himself out and weakly crawls back up. He notices that the cot was bare, bloodied sheets removed while he was off it.
He jerks back as something else moves, something whirring and dragging itself across the ceiling. It’s black, lined with intricate details he couldn’t even begin to take in. It has a three clawed hand like the rock, and some sort of glimmering crystal in the center of it.
“That Armando 2,” the rock says patiently. “Armando 2 robot. Fix Convict injuries.”
Right. Sure.
Simon tries to stay as still as possible as the robot arm shifts around him, whirling quietly as it touches him. He couldn’t stop the shudder that shook his shoulders at the feeling. He keeps his eyes on the robot, but doesn’t want to be caught unaware by the rock, so he starts talking to it.
“Where am I?”
He hears it clacking on its feet. “Convict is on Erid. Erid is Rocky’s home planet.”
That catches him off guard. He fights down spots in his vision as he whips around to stare at the rock. “I’m on a planet?”
It nods quickly. “Convict on planet! Convict in place for human to heal. Eridian Anthropology Center. Grace call EAC. Safe place for human.”
Anthropology. Simon isn’t familiar with the word. He’s not familiar with the word eridian either, but he could put together that aliens from Erid would be eridians. He also has no clue who Grace was. He’s pretty certain he’s only met this rock thing so far. So he was in some sort of medical bay? It said this was a place to heal, so he must be, right?
Alright. He’ll take that for now. “Where did you find me?”
“Eridians send signal. Convict answer. Convict sound in danger. Eridians send towards light to save Convict.”
Simon sits up straight. He has no memory of any of this, but he has a feeling he knows what happened. “You pulled me through The Light?”
That…cannot be true. The monster wanted him nowhere near that light. It was trying to kill him to keep him from getting it and bringing it back to the COI. That black box—
“Did you find anything else?”
It shakes its head. “Eridians only find ship and Convict. Eridians find no other life.”
“None?”
“No other life.”
His heart sinks. Ava—Ava couldn’t have been too far behind him, right? She was supposed to be right there, ready to grab the black box. She shouldn’t have lost him. She needed that box. For all of humanity.
She wouldn’t have stayed back for him.
Maybe she did find the black box in time? Maybe that was why the eridians couldn’t find anyone else. That has to be it. They wouldn’t have missed an entire space station. Ava got the box. She had to have gotten the box.
“Convict heart elevated.”
“Stop listening to my heart!” Simon shouts.
He grows cold immediately, already knowing that was a mistake without a word from the creature confirming it so.
“I’m sorry,” he apologizes chillily. His chest stutters. “I’m sorry I yelled. I didn’t mean it.”
The rock doesn’t respond to his behavior at first, but it soon shakes its head. “Convict loud human. Rocky okay.”
Simon does not feel like that’s enough. “I am sorry. I just—I don’t like you listening—just stop it.”
He’s screwing it up. He’s on thin ice with this planet already, they know he’s a criminal (why the fuck did he give them that fucking information?!), and they know he’s weak. They could decide he’s not worth the trouble or the resources. And Simon knows he’s not worth it at all, but he’s selfish. He made it through The Light, he’s found a planet of all things, and aliens that are willing to help him. He needs this. He can’t lose this.
“Please,” he begs. “Please, I’m sorry.”
The rock stands there still. It’s quiet. He feels his heart drop.
“Convict not well.” The thing says in a flat tone. “Rocky okay. Rocky will leave Convict to heal. Will come back soon.”
It picks up its claw and places it on an empty space on the cot. Simon couldn’t stop himself from cringing away from the hand, pulling his arm away quickly. The rock doesn’t say anything else, simply pulling its arm back and trotting off to the exit.
Simon just knows he fucked everything up.