Chapter Text
Ryland Grace was floating. Each limb was splayed out, the dead weight of his limbs connecting to the dead weight of his torso. His mind was, for once in his life, blissfully empty. There were no rampant thoughts of unneeded anxiety. There were no feelings of horrific doubt. There weren't even memories of who he was. He knew that his name was Ryland Grace and that he was a teacher. He knew he was more awkward and clumsy than most people could handle. He knew that at some point in his life he had been a molecular biologist and had subsequently thrown it out the window after writing a paper that was honestly just a big middle finger to the scientific community.
But after that? Nothing.
All of his memories of his recent life were far away and faded, like a rock corroded away but the rushing tides of the ocean.
"...Grace..."
He knew he was supposed to be doing something. Something important. He even knew that he had been doing that important something before he found himself in the blissful void he was currently in. Well... if he couldn't remember, it probably wasn't worth remembering in the first place, right?
No, A wretched voice deep in his gut piped up, You can't forget this, idiot.
Ok... So it was something important enough that his body was far more intimately aware of it than even his mind was...
"Grace... Need to..."
He swatted away the errant noise. Maybe he was cooking? He had been making food and had forgotten to turn off the oven? He had been overworking himself to get his curriculum plan finished before the beginning of the next semester so it wasn't abnormal for him to fall asleep in his plate of food without realizing.
Or maybe he was supposed to finish grading the solar system projects he asked the kids to do? If that was the case no wonder his body was terrified. His boss was not a patient person and Grace's tendency to avoid grading like it was the plague had been a frequent conversation during performance reviews.
Glad to have seemingly found the reason for the gross feeling in his chest, Grace rolled over and attempted to slip back into the abyss that surrounded him. He tried not to think about the fact that the ominous feeling in his abdomen had not subsided.
"Grace."
A voice. One that sounded familiar but for some reason Grace couldn't quite place it. Grace let out a groan and curled into a tighter ball.
"Grace ok, question?"
A few harsh taps on a surface accompanied the words now, the speaker clearly trying to get his attention.
"Rock, let me sleep, man. You just called me stupid and grumpy, so let me fix that, yeah?" Grace mumbled, moving to throw his hand on top of the xenonite ball like it was an annoying alarm clock.
Wait.
Clarity suddenly rushed into him.
That's right. He was in space. He was in space with the little alien that had just commandeered a spot on his ship, the Hail Mary. They had just been working together to make the ship more accessible to Rocky(and by that he meant he had been running around and trying to stop the alien from taking over his entire ship). In fact, they had just been in the middle of said argument, weren't they?
"That's weird.." Grace mused sleepily, his arms pulling the warm ball closer to him much to Rocky's dismay. "I don't remember falling... asleep..."
A horrible feeling of deja vu washing over him, and Grace shot up from where he was sitting. Sky blue eyes were alight with desperation as the human frantically looked around his surroundings. There was... Nothing.
Not 'nothing' as in 'Oh everything's safe and I can go back to sleep during a mission that is currently deciding the fate of two words'. 'Nothing' as in 'Oh my gosh I'm in the middle of a blank void wHERE THE HECK AM I-'
Grace whipped towards the plates ball that held his friend.
"Rocky, where on Earth are we?!"
"Grace know we not on Earth! Dumb question!! Mission outside ship make Grace stupid stupid."
Grace decided to ignore the insult to his intelligence and decided to focus on one part of Rocky's sentence.
"Ok, ok, sorry. Better question: can you tell me what happened?"
That seemed to have knocked the agitation out of the eridian, the ambient clicks and slides that he used to see his surroundings going silent. He had even stopped pacing in circles on the totally nonexistant ground cheese and crackers Ryland PULL IT TOGETHER-
"Rocky... Rocky not understand what happened. One minute Grace Rocky argue about failure of biology and then Grace sound very worried."
Grace began to feel a wriggling feeling in his mind, unease building as flashes of what he was sure was just a few hours ago began to paint a picture that he did not like.
"Mary say that something was wrong with fuel tank, and Grace say that Grace would go outside to check. Rocky kept watch, Rocky promise!! But... But Rocky look away. Rocky look away for 5 seconds and when Rocky look back, Grace was..."
Rocky began to lower down, a sign that Grace had eventually learned was the eridian body language for despair.
"Oh, Rocky..." Grace mumbled sadly.
It was all clear to him now, the lost memories now back in full force. Mary had alerted Grace and Rocky about a problem with the fuel tanks during their argument and Grace had immediately thrown on his EVA suit to check on the problem. He had thought it was going to be something normal and easily fixable, like a hole in one of the tanks that was letting out the astrophage. Sure that was still a problem, but it was a problem that would have an easy solution. But, when he had finally made it outside, there had been nothing wrong; physically, at least. Grace had checked over every single container and had done it two more times only to find absolutely nothing. There were no holes, no punctures, no anything.
But there had to be some kind of problem. The Hail Mary had not malfunctioned in the slightest during his trip to Tau Ceti, not even with his... previous crewmates. What had happened to Yao and Ilyukhina was an absolute tragedy, but it had not been the ships fault. He highly doubted that it would start now. So, with painstaking care, Grace had individually removed each lid to carefully inspect each viewing panel to make certain that it really was just a reading issue on Mary's part.
He wished it was a reading issue. Holy cripes did he wish it was that simple.
"What in the world...?" Grace whispered with shock.
What should have been an only black mixture of astrophage and jet fuel was instead an electric blue mist that was letting off heat through the viewing glass so intense that it felt like it was freezing.
Grace tried to yell something, yell anything to Rocky, but he never had the chance. The very moment that his eyes had landed on that strange sample, his world had gone dark, and he had ended up here. Rocky wouldn't have been able to know or tell what happened. He couldn't see light or differentiate colors like Grace could. He probably wouldn't have been able to even feel the heat pouring out of the fuel tank due to his own intense atmosphere. For all Rocky knew, Grace had just disappeared into thin air.
It's a miracle he isn't freaking out more... Grace thought to himself.
"Hey, don't worry, bud. I'm sure we can think of something! Everything is going to be okay." Yeesh, that didn't even sound convincing to his own ears. It clearly didn't convince Rocky either with how the Eridian seemed to drop even lower.
"How Grace know, question? Not enough time for Earth if stay here! All Earth and all Erid die, we die-"
"Woah, buddy, calm down!" Grace said as he bent down, trying to stop the nearly 400 pound alien from trampling him in his worry, "I know it's scary, but let's have a look around before we start panicking. Who knows, maybe we're just at the bottom of the 'Don't-Go-Crazy' room and we just can't see the walkway for some reason!"
Grace also did not believe that, but he knew that they just did not have the time to spend it all panicking. If there was absolutely nothing they could do, and they weren't on the Hail Mary, then they could start going crazy. It really didn't help either of their planets if they both succumbed to despair before either of them even tried.
Rocky was silent for a while as invisible eyes scrutinized the human in front of him. Eventually, the eridian seemed to have found what he was looking for, and he raised himself out of the slump his body threatened to pull him into. He made what sounded like a slide whistle noise(the eridian equivalent of a sigh, Grace guessed) and began to to look around the area they found themselves in. Grace contented himself with this reaction and joined his friend in giving everything around them a once-over..
And he immediately fell back into the floor in shock as a world formed around them. It was like reality itself was ripping down wallpaper to show the original paneling that the house was intended for.
The endless void of nothingness that they had barely grown accustomed to was falling away, and the paneling that was behind the wallpaper was... a house? Grace rubbed his eyes and balked even more when the familiar world he had grown up in had stayed in his visuals.
No, he thought, there's no way...
But here it all was, right in front of him.
He was sitting on the floor of a sparse, white bedroom. There was a normal twinned against a normal wall with a normal desk and wardrobe opposite of it.
"Rocky... Rocky does not think that this is Hail Mary ship..." Grace could not comment on the obviousness of the statement because his eyes had locked onto something else. Something more alive.
There were trees outside of the window.
"Grace? Grace okay, question?"
There were trees. It wasn't an endless sea of stars that had become his normal. It wasn't a million miles of an unfamiliar frontier with a million stars and galaxies and planets he could never hope to visit in his lifetime. It wasn't the environment he had forced himself to be okay with becoming his new life. It was none of these things.
It was home.
"Grace face leaking, statement."
A startled laugh broke out of Grace's throat. He hurriedly wiped away the tears that didn't seem to want to stop and turned to the xenonite ball.
"We're on Earth, Rock!!" Grace exclaimed, as if he could make Rocky understand just through sheer tone of voice, "Those are trees out there! I'm home!"
Grace could almost visualize the shocked face on Rocky's carapace just from the Eridian's stance alone.
"But how how how, question?! Grace Rocky just at Tau Ceti system! Sol system is 11.5 years away!!"
"I don't know, Rocky! But we're home and... and..."
The meaning of the two of them being on Earth slowly dawned on Grace, and the fresh air turned the insides of his lungs to ash. Not enough time for Earth, Rocky had said. He was right. The two of them ending up on Earth would have taken them another 11 years. It would take them God knows how long to get another ship, breed more astrophage, and return to the Tau Ceti system. The very fact that they were standing in this very room and simply existing had doomed humanity. Grace ground his hands into his face as his tears of joy transformed into ones of sorrow.
"We're here... and Earth is going to die because of it."
Rocky stared at Grace with an unseen feeling of horror. As suddenly as it had stopped, the Eridian's pacing had returned in full force.
"No. This make no sense!" Rocky fumed, "We not on Earth, STATEMENT. Rocky not know Earth but this not Earth. Faulty human brain easy to trick."
Grace felt a well of anger surge at Rocky's words, the feeling only intensified by his overwhelming grief and the knowledge that he knew he was acting irrationally. It also didn't help that he already had begun developing a real fun insecurity about his memory. Each moment that he was certain happened was tinged with underlying uncertainty. So, the fact that his friend had implied that he couldn't even remember what his own home was like felt like a stab in the back.
"I know what my planet looks like, Rocky! I would be able to pick out my planet easier than I could my own family. How could I possibly be tricked into thinking this was Earth if it wasn't the real thing?"
The eridian stared up at the human with a growing sense of annoyance, clearly preparing to get into an argument with Grace. The human didn't want that, not really, but it would genuinely be a cold day in Hell before he acknowledged where exactly his feelings were coming from.
"Grace know that this is Earth? If Grace know so well, Grace can explain to Rocky very simple thing!"
"Oh, please. There's absolutely nothing you can say that I can't explain. For example, I can explain that it's very rude on Earth to say that someone can't recognize-"
"Why Rocky no hear anything?"
"-his own... planet... Wait, what?" Grace was completely thrown off by Rocky's interruption. What in the name of anything did the eridian mean??
"Rocky not hear anything. Grace said Earth have life, but Rocky not hear any. Rocky only see strange wall that way."
The Eridian pointed with one of his appendages somewhere in the distance. Suddenly, as if he had just needed someone to point it out, Grace could see an impossible sheen reflect over a large area in the distance.
Not for the first time, and certainly not the last, Grace felt like a total idiot. One for doubting Rocky at all, and two for believing that he had been magically able to return to Earth. You can't just travel another 11 light years in a span of... however long the two of them had been out of commission.
Grace let out a huge sigh, completely drained from the roller coaster of emotions the day had already brought him. But this- this was good, then. They weren't back on Earth, which gave him a slightly better chance of the Earth not turning into a glacier again!
See? Positive thinking!
All he and Rocky had to do was figure out where they were.
Maybe another alien race was nearby and giving them both a shared hallucination? He had seen that a surprising amount in media. Ok, that wasn't the most scientific thing to think, but literally nothing about their situation was-
Grace froze.
Sky blue eyes immediately shot to Rocky and he found that the little alien was also listening instantly, his carapace faced towards something beyond the walls. A brief image of a cat staring into nothingness flashed into his mind then, but Grace quickly shook it out of his head. He could worry about that later. He had to focus on the far more important things, such as the fact that he was hearing voices. In a space that they had both established to not be on Earth. What was even more horrifying was the fact that the voices sounded familiar.
"What do you see, Rock?" Grace asked with an odd lilt to his voice.
"Rocky see... Grace plural..."
Grace felt his heart skip a beat. They- they had to leave, right? This wasn't Earth and those weren't humans. They couldn't be.
A strange sort of fear filled Grace's body, and he whipped around the room to try and find an exit. His mind had immediately latched onto the window, but he didn't even need to look at Rocky to know that he wouldn't be able to fit through.
Rocky watched as Grace fumbled around the small room, concern practically oozing from where annoyance and anxiety had been before.
"Grace acting 🎼🎵🎶🎵!! Explain. Grace need more sleep, question?"
"No, Rock, I don't need more sleep!" Grace whisper-shouted, "Look, we need to find a way out of here."
"But, why, question?!"
Grace usually took comfort in the small moments that reminded him of when he was a teacher, but the constant repetition of that singular question was not a fun reminder. What was worse was the fact that he couldn't distract Rocky with a fun activity to get him to stop like he could with his kids.
"Because we have no idea where we are. We're obviously not on Earth, and yet you're saying that there are more humans outside. We were in the middle of deep space, and yet now we are hearing people when it should be impossible! Doesn't that freak you out?!"
Rocky rolled closer to Grace.
"But what if Grace plural like us? They wake up and not know where? Or they are friendly and want to help like Grace?"
Grace let out a long sigh. Rocky didn't understand. How could he possibly explain the concept of fearing something you know looks like you but isn't? He decided to try another approach to dissuade the eridian.
"Look, Rock... Some humans..." A flash something appeared in his mind just then. An image of being pressed into the dirt with his arms painfully held behind him; a memory of his life that he couldn't begin to understand. He tried to hold on to it, to try and glean anything from it at all, but it quickly slipped through the cracks like water through his fingers. All he knew now was that whatever bull honkey excuse he was going to use now had real fear behind it. "Some humans aren't good. We can't risk that."
The human and the eridian just stared at each other. Two unlikely beings whose meeting was only brought on by the most unfortunate of circumstances. Yet, despite it all, they had become the closest friends that either could have in the middle of space. Eventually, Rocky let out a sliding whistle before staring up properly at Grace.
"Okay. Grace Rocky find exit. Any ideas, question?"
-
In the end, the best thing Grace could think of was to crawl out of the open window and to scope out the outside of the 'house'. If there really were other people here with them, then it was a good idea to figure out where and what they looked like. They could keep track of where they were with Rocky's echolocation, of course, but Grace felt better about seeing things for himself. The eridian really only had Grace as a reference for what humans should look like, and that did not inspire the greatest of confidence for their safety.
Though, even if it was the best idea that he could come up with in such a short timespan, Grace still felt ridiculously stupid as he pulled his tall and lanky frame through the small opening. He could hear a few low vwoops from Rocky and thought, Oh, good, he's encouraging me. Of course Grace was lying to himself with that one. He had learned enough Eridian to know that those sounds were born out of disappointment instead of encouragement. But, it felt better to think that the only thing that he could trust to be real was rooting for him. God, that was sad.
Grace shook himself out of his self pity, and then promptly fell nto a bush.
Now properly taking a proper look at his surroundings, Grace honestly felt a little unnerved by how... normal everything was. Disgustingly so. Each plant from the swaying trees to the far too perfectly cut grass had felt and looked exceedingly real. The suburban style houses that surrounded them were all individualized, but they were all an HOA members dream with how uniform their lack of flaws were. To the naked eye, or Grace's apparently, nothing seemed at all out of the ordinary. Nothing except one thing.
There was no noise.
Of course there was the sound of Grace himself interacting with the environment around him, but that seemed to be it. There was no sounds coming from the area around him. There were no honking cars, no birds chirping in the early morning light, and- most alarming of all- there were no sounds of people anywhere... except for inside of the house he had just escaped from.
Right. The whole reason he was out here.
Grace didn't immediately go to the front windows. He knew that he would immediately get the answers he wanted, but it made him feel better to check out the entire perimeter of the house first. He had even went out of his way to test the 'barrier' that he and Rocky saw with no luck of egress. When he had exhausted all of his options, feeling somewhat like a game character that had just done a bunch of side quests, Grace sneaked over to a window he believed to be the living room.
It was located in the front area of the house, a beautiful bay window that easily let him take in the simply furnished space that held far too many places to sit than was normal. But, that wasn't what really got his attention(not even the gorgeous lazy boy that was practically singing his name). It was the people.
People that, most disturbing of all, he knew.
Despite his foggy memories, the faces of both Carl and Stratt were at the very forefront of his mind. And now there they were, arguing with a short pale woman with hair the same shade of electric blue as the stuff that was inside of the Hail Mary's fuel tank.
Well, Stratt, was arguing. Carl was mostly standing there as support and occasionally chiming in. Just like when he was on Earth...
Graced wiped away an errant tear that escaped at the site of the two people he was certain he spent years with. This was not time to cry, Grace cursed at his stupid leaky body. To distract himself, space the man turned his gaze to the rest of the large group. There were two people that he could not make out as only the back of their heads were visible from his vantage point, space so Grace instead focused on the people around them. His mind instantly clicked upon seeing a tall, stern face man with dark skin and a woman with a black braid trailing down her back; DuBois and Shapiro. Okay good, that was two more people that he knew. That seemed to be where his familiarity ended, however. The last three people in the room were faces he did not recognize. They looked as if they had stepped straight out of the Sci-Fi movie, the two men and one woman wearing what seem to be space jumpsuits. What was even stranger was the woman. She was the near carbon copy of Stratt, but somehow even more intense.
Grace shivered at the thought of the two of them, but felt a smile creep onto his face anyway. Maybe Rocky had been right... Maybe they were just.. normal people. Maybe that was really his friends in there, and they had all just somehow got pulled into another place of existence. Why not? Literally nothing else was making sense, so might as well throw some interdimensional bull honky into the mix.
Content and ready to return to Rocky, Grace moved crawl back through that tiny window. He threw one more glance over shoulder just to keep the sight of the first people he had seen in 10 years- to keep the sight of his friends- as long as possible... And was forced to stop as his eyes connected with those of ghosts.
Yao and Ilyukhina's ghosts, to be specific; the very people he had seen dead on the Hail Mary not even a month ago. Rylan dropped to the ground, the phantom weight of the two bodies he had to carry to their burial crushing him.
"What the fuck."
Yeah, this was definitely a situation we're cursing was required. What in the universe could you possibly ever say when you see people that you yourself sent out of an airlock?!
That same feeling of primal terror took over his mind again and any thought of humoring Rockies theory went out the window. No matter what bizarre situation they were in, there was no force in the world that would bring the dead back to life. Ryland decided to let go of any and all rationality and let the fear in his lungs control his legs as he ran back to where Rocky was waiting. The small Eridan barely gave him a second to breathe before barraging him with questions.
"What happened, question?! Grace breathing sound normal when near Grace plural but pick up again! Grace ok, question?" Rocky asked for what seemed to be the millionth time.
"We have to leave, Rock." Graced began as he started pacing, "I know that there's a barrier, but there has to be a few houses that we can hide in. At least until we can figure out what the frick is going on-"
"Grace-"
"Or maybe there isn't even a barrier and all we have to do is leave the area! Maybe it's an alien with, like, an ability that has a set space it can affect? I'll be honest, bud, I don't even think that's possible, but I don't know what else it could be-"
"Grace not explaining-"
"Whatever, it doesn't matter. I found a back door that I can get you through. If we're quiet we can-"
"No!" Rockies exclaimed. The show was what finally made Grace stop frantically moving around the small room and finally look at the alien that had become his friend. The Eridian was bunched into a tight ball, each of his five limbs pressed tightly to his carapace. Rocky was letting out a low vibrato that clearly show just how upset the Eridian was. Rocky was, and every sense of the word, pissed.
"Woah! Rock, what's wrong? Did something happen while I was gone?" Grace couldn't help the teacher voice that slipped into his speech. He flinched as Rocky grew more agitated, clearly picking up ok the tone.
"Stupid question! Stupid stupid stupid!"
Oh, gosh. That was three stupids... Ryland really messed up..
"Grace act strange and not explain to rocky. Grace not listened to Rocky when Rocky says everything is okay! Grace not listen."
Grace both guilt turned deep in his stomach the longer that Rocky reprimanded him. Honestly, Rocky had every right to. Grace had been so caught up in his own fear, in his own haunted memories of the past, that he had completely forgotten about Rocky. Okay, maybe he hadn't forgotten that Rocky was with him, but he had completely forgotten that the Eridian was in the exact same boat that he was.
Grace at least had the privilege of being able to see his surroundings. He was able to take comfort in the familiarity of the makeshift world around them. Rocky didn't have that. For rocky, they were both still sailing through the void of nothingness that they had when they first arrived. And then, to top it all off, the person that you had become the most close to for the last month or so had started to act like something straight out of a horror movie was absolutely no explanation. Rocky was quite literally flying more blind than Grace was.
Grace had calmed down enough from his own panic to slouch over in his crouched position; the very picture of defeat. He must have looked really pathetic since the very next thing the Eridian did was to make a high to low sliding sound- clearly a sigh- and hunkered down in front of the human.
"Grace tell Rocky not to freak out but then Grace freak out. Explain."
Grace shifted on his knees and comfortably, embarrassment over his earlier reactions finally catching up to him.
"I.. saw them." Immediately tears threatened to spill but Grace powered through at Rocky's questioning hum. "My crew. My friends. Almost everyone I knew from before I came here. I- I held a funeral for them rock... and now they're here and alive. It's just not possible."
"So that why Grace act 🎼🎵🎶🎵..." Rocky muttered out after a few moments of shock.
"What's that mean, bud?"
"Hmm... act with no thinking."
"Ah. 'Stupid'."
"Yes, Grace act stupid, statement."
Grace buried his face into his hands and sighed. The Eridian began to hum something melodic then. Perhaps an attempt at comfort. When Grace no longer felt like he was going to blow up, he returned his gaze to Rocky's carapace.
"What Grace want to do, question?"
Grace thought for a moment, rationality finally taking over instead of that primal fear that it overwhelmed him.
"I want to see how far away we can get. To see if that barrier is real or not. After that... we figure out how to get out of here."
"Good good plan. Very elaborate." Rocky snarked but had moved his ball towards the door, anyway. Grace rolled his eyes before following.
"Thanks, bud. Very supportive."
"You're welcome."
As the door open voice is flooded down the hall. There thankfully seemed to be a door that connected the living room to the hallway that the two spacefarers were now in so Grace didn't have to worry about the the group of people seeing them as they wandered down the strangely long hallway. Every door had seemed to be a bedroom, each having their own name plate- a few of which Ryland did not recognize. To make things seem even more strange and uncomfortable, there had even been a door for him and a door half his size for Rocky right next to it. As if they were meant to be here; as if someone had planned it.
"Is... Is all of this grace crew, question?"
"Huh? Oh, no. There was only three of us on the hail mary. I don't know who half of these people are..." Grace tried to shake away the ominous feeling that was growing inside of him as they approached to the door leading to the patio, but he failed. He took a deep breath and gave Rocky a shaky smile. "Last chance to say 'hi' to the ghost before we leave."
"Grace serious, question?"
Grace choked out a laugh, "Yeah, totally bud."
Grace then grabbed the knob of the door and opened it. The blast of fresh air that his face was honest-to-God addicting. He hadn't taken the time to relish the facsimile when he was previously outside, his mind too caught up in fear and confusion. But now that he was much calmer, he allowed himself to bask in the glorious oxygen before they return to the Hail Mary's slightly stale air. When he had sucked up his fill of that sweet, sweet O2, his eyes trailed around the area he had found himself in. It was an enclosed patio with mesh screens taking place of windows and shelves upon shelves of tiny sproutlets filled the area.
It's a garden... Grace thought.
"At least you'll be able to experience Earth for a little bit, right Ro-"
There was a body on the ground.
Grace rubbed his eyes. Nope, still there. He smacked himself. That's a straight up guy.
"Whaaaat..." Grace muttered in shock.
The man was lying face up on the floor, long black hair spilling around his face like ink on a page. Blood was stained on his face stemming from the gash that marred the man's forehead. Grace's eyes trailed down more and a flash of sympathy struck him as he looked at the men's clothes. They looked like they had been through the absolute ringer, the fiber broken down and reused so many times it looked like it was going to fall apart.
With all of these things added together, Grace wouldn't be surprised if he found out the man was unhoused. The want to keep going flared up just then. He should just keep walking and get to imagine safety. For all intents and purposes, Ryland Grace should not stay in this room and should keep walking to the other door
Grace walked up to the man. Grace suddenly recalled a time when he was almost threatened with the same fate. Grace had published that stupid paper with a full expectation that he would have enough money to support him through the scientific community throwing him out on his literal and hypothetical behind. But then costs kept piling up. Every turn was a new failure, a new expense he didn't expect to pay for. No one wanted to hire a scientist that had published a paper that burnt every bridge in his profession.
Eventually, he had to sell his car and move to a rundown apartment with two loud neighbors, a parking spot other people took, and water that barely knew how to stay hot. Don't get him wrong, he was grateful for what he had. But going from an actual house to that kind of living was a hard adjustment.
His only joy was his kids. They're youthful optimism and new eyes just begging to learn had pulled him out of the deep dark slump that it consumed him. Without the school.. he suspects that he would have been no different than the man on the ground.
Ryland crouched down near the man, eyes are roaming over his body for any injuries. When he could see none outside of the head wound, he moved to listen for breathing and put his fingers on the pulse. Grace's eyebrows scrunched up as he waited. The rhythm was weak, but there.
Rocky would be able to tell better than I could, Ryland eventually thought. Deciding to take the easy way out, Grace's eyes turned towards where he expected his friend to be, completely missing the man's eyes fluttering open.
"Rocky, can you see if there's any, like, internal damage? It's hard for me to-"
He was being choked. Grace's eyes grew wider and he let out a strangled screech as his world flipped upside down and the man he had just thought unconscious was looming over him with more anger than he previously thought possible.
"I'm not going back down there!" The man bellowed, "I don't care what you do to me, you can shove that deal right up your-" The man stopped, confusion overtaking the anger. The hold loosened on Grace's neck, but it did not retreat. Grace tried to appreciate that simple mercy, but his body wouldn't calm down enough to do so.
"R-Rocky!" Grace called out with his straight vocal cords. He didn't know what the Eridian would even be able to do. Rocky was stuck in his ball. Sure, he could probably throw his weight against the man, but all that would serve was Grace ending up crushed, too. But, as he felt the hands tighten around his already thin neck again, any and all logic rushed out of his brain. All that he knew was that he was scared and that his friend that he thought was right next to him wasn't responding.
Grace tried to throw his arms and hands against the man's face and chest. They were feeble attempts, ones quickly swatted away by his attacker, but Grace didn't care. He didn't care that the hands around his neck weren't even squeezing, were just using his neck as a way to keep him in place: it just mattered that they were there. That he was being held down in place like a butterfly on display and that he was tasting dirt in his mouth and betrayal in his heart.
And above all, making it so much worse, was the fact that he didn't know why he was feeling like this. Yes, obviously he was in an incredibly stressful situation right now: there was a man holding him down and choking him for Pete's sake!
But this... this fear. It was overwhelming. It was making his very heart stopping his chest and his brain completely blow up in such a way that fight or flight wasn't even an option. All we could do was call for a friend that wasn't there. A friend that could be hurt; that could be in pain. Could be just like he had been before. Grace once again cursed the fact that he still had no idea what 'before' even was.
Grace shook his head in what limited motion he had and went to call for the Eridian again. His lips were just forming the words when a large hand pressed over his mouth. The man was looking down at him with a concern that was so laughably ironic. Did he really look so pathetic that the guy who attacked him was worried?
"Quit yelling and listen to me," the man snarled, though the effect was slightly ruined by the regretful look in his eyes. "Just tell the rest of the C.O.I that I'm going back in my cell. I'm going to let go now, and when I do, you're going to stay quiet. Okay?"
Grace nodded frantically, willing to do anything just to get out of this whirlwind of fear. The man sighed before finally, finally completely letting go of Grace. He had even raised himself off of the teacher's legs enough that, even with the limited access of motion, Grace was able to shoot himself out of the hold so fast that he had hit his head against the metal shelf of a plant holder. Pain exploded inside of a skull and he curled up into a ball.
The shattering of a pot broke the tension that surrounded the two men and Grace's eyes shot to where a small sproutling had plummeted after his impact with the shelf.
"Jesus Christ, watch it!" The man exclaimed as he moved to pick up the broken pieces. "You were already freaking out, you don't need brain damage... too..."
A small feeling of grief welled up inside of Grace at the sight of the sad plant, but when his eyes quickly returned to the other man, his own feelings looked like a small leak compared to the waterfall of emotions that the raven displayed. His eyes were wide, obsidian platelets shining with unshed tears at the very sight of the living, growing proof of life. Grace could understand, somewhat. He himself had grown reliant on the comfort that the plants on the Hail Mary had provided. It was his only shred of normalcy and what was the most insane situation someone could ever find themselves in. But why would that reaction be brought from someone Ryland had thought of as a normal human?
Those dark eyes widened as they trailed upwards and desperately drank in their surroundings.
"How... How did you...? The man trailed off.
"Give myself a concussion?" Grace finished off, hands moving to fix the glasses on his face. Admittedly, Grace wasn't really paying much attention to what his attacker was talking about or looking at. Outside of keeping an eye on what the person next to him will do next, Grace's eyes were making their own journey. He was desperately trying to find any evidence of where his friend might be. Rocky wouldn't have just... left him, right?
"No! How did you do all of this?!" The man gestured to the space around them. "Eden was the only colony that had access to plants and seeds! How did the C.O.I-"
"Okay, you keep saying those letters, but I have no clue what they mean," Grace finally snapped. Okay, maybe he wasn't making the best first impression with the first human that he's talked to in God knows how long, but can you blame him for not wanting to? He had just been put in a chokehold by the man. It didn't really help when everything Grace said seems like he was speaking another language to the other man. Like now.
"Ok, you have to be fucking with me." At Grace's confused look, the raven's features grew more panicked. "The Coalition Of Iron? One of the last human colonies left in the universe? Eden doesn't have grow rooms or access to items like this so this has to be-"
The man grew still as his eyes finally landed on the world beyond the impromptu greenhouse. Shaking arms clutched the fragile plant as those dark eyes drank in the impossibility of the site in front of him. Grace had no idea what to do as he watched the very person that had attacked him not even 5 minutes ago break down at nothing at all.
The raven seemed so human now... He hated the fact that he had apparently not seen it sooner.
What once held sharp expressions and angry eyes now looked as if he was witnessing the very birth of the universe itself. Grace was once again hit with the need to run away. To take this chance and find Rocky so they could get the hell out of dodge. The angry throbbing of his throat and the raw half memories begging to break through his subconscious should have been enough motivation to do just that. But... this man was human.
The things he had just done we're not born out of sound mind, and he deserved any help that Rylan could offer. It was not an obligation. It was a want that Ryland desperately wanted to say she ate. So, ignoring any adults survival instincts that told him otherwise, the fox walked towards the jaw of the hound.
"It's... It's not possible..." The man said as he collapsed to his knees, not acknowledging when Grace sat near him. "How is it here?"
"How's what here?" Grace took pride in the fact that he did not flinch at the man suddenly throwing his arms out in front of him to gesture at the world in front of them.
"Any of this! The trees, the plants, the sun-" Grace felt his breath hitch, "All of these things have been gone ever since the quiet rapture! How is it here?"
Any pride that Ryland felt within himself vanished at those words, and a new, disgusting, all consuming dread took its place. I said theory was building in his mind, and, while it was an incredibly unlikely one backed up with no scientific evidence, it was building anyway. What if...
Grace let out a shrill shriek as a loud banging sound came from the door that him and Rocky (he had assumed) had come out of. He hadn't felt as embarrassed about his reaction as he could have been since the man next to him had actually growled at the offending sound.
"Grace is taking too long!!!" Rocky's impatient voice declared.
Grace let out an exasperated grown at the sound of his friend. Don't get him wrong, he was glad to know that Rocky was okay. Grace just wished Rocky didn't scare his flight suit-turned-pants off. With one great heave, the teacher pulled himself from the ground and towards the black haired man.
"Let's start over. My name is Ryland, but everybody calls me Grace." Grace slowly reached out his hand, an olive branch offered, "And... you are?"
Eyes aged A thousand years by what their holder experienced glared at the outstretched limb. There was hesitance and fear hidden by an angry facade, and untold story of sorrow and hardship buried deep, deep within an ocean of inky black. No hand reach back for grace, and there was no blame that he could find.
After all, how are you supposed to act in a time when the very stars themselves disappeared?
Still, that didn't mean that Grace could ignore his heart sinking and guilt from a failure he had not even achieved, yet. (Yet... Grace tried not to dwell on that.)
A small flicker of hope appeared, however. As the man impossibly rose himself from the floor, those arms clutching that broken pot like a lifeline, the olive branch was accepted.
"It's Simon... my name."
Despite his fear of walking through that door, of meeting the ghosts of a past he didn't fully remember, of seeing them; bracelet a genuine smile brand his face. Simon quickly turned away after that, but Grace didn't let the diminish anything. Instead, he used that newfound energy to fuel the courage he needed to turn to that door. With hands that Grace now knew where the keys to either the the future salvation or destruction, he opened the door.. and was immediately barreled over by 400 pounds of Eridian.
"Grace take forever, statement! Make Rocky wait!"
The man in question laughed heartily at his friend's antics, the Eridian's impatience hard to take seriously after knowing how long an Eridian could actually wait for.
"Make you wait? You're the one who disappeared on me! Where the heck did you even go?"
"Rocky do what Grace suggest!"
Confusion painted graces features. What he suggested? What could Rocky possibly mean? His mind rapidly replayed the nightmare of a morning and looked through their previous conversations, searching to find- Oh for cripes sake. 'Last chance to talk to the ghosts'. Of course Rocky took that literally. The entire time Grace had known Rocky he had taken things literally. He had been so caught up in his own emotions- even after promising he would pay more attention- to realize that the Eridian had already been long gone.
"Right... I really need to explain the concept of rhetorical questions." With a loud grunt, Grace pulled himself into a sitting position. "But that's for later. Right now I want to introduce you to-"
Grace stopped. The scared man that Grace had just met was gone, or place once again by hand with bare teeth. All and any lowered walls were built as high as they could; fear and anger motivating the metaphorical stonemasons to continue their craft with no stopping in sight. For the smallest moment, Grace wondered if it was Rocky that was the culprit. It would make sense, after all. Maybe the logs he had been recording with Rocky in them were lost at the same time he was. Maybe the timeline Simon had hailed from never even got to learn that life existed farther than they did. But, no. It was clear the longer that Grace stared that it was neither he nor Rocky that had contracted the raven-haired man's anger. It was who was beyond them. Multiple who's, to be exact. It was the people from the living room.
"Well, it's about time! You have no idea how long I've been waiting to begin!" The woman with striking blue hair parted of the group in front of her, as if her very presence demanded the room. Grace gulped.
"Begin what, exactly?"
Grace felt electricity run through his body as her eyes met his own.
" Watching your future, of course!"