Chapter Text
A submarine.
Out in space.
Simon almost couldn’t believe it at first, but the second it was in the air lock, it was undeniable. A submarine covered in gross fleshy material and a window that, as far as he could see, only showed more blood.
“Might be dangerous,” his Eridian companion warned.
“It probably is,” he shrugged, and pulled on his EVA suit. He carefully went inside, and lowered the pressure of the air lock down to the internal pressure of the submarine. How it had gotten in space was… an entire mystery.
He looked around for a hatch, as most water crafts had, but… couldn’t find one. The only entrance had been visibly welded shut.
He got a bad feeling from it, slowly peering into the window. It was completely full of blood, but there weren’t any holes he could see.
Simon checked over the craft again, then returned pressure to the air lock and went down into the lab to search for any power tools. He found a saw in the equipment pile, grabbed a million extension cords- though he needed maybe three, and brought the bundle of items back to the air lock.
“Simon, careful,” Adrian said firmly, but moved to let him pass.
“I know, buddy. Nothing to worry about,” Simon smiled wryly. He connected extension cords and opened the door. He fed the cords into a slot for them and then closed the door and released the pressure. He turned on the saw and went for the welded parts. Hopefully nothing important would be up against it.
The second he cut a hole in it, hot, viscous red liquid came pouring out.
“Aw, what the hell?!”
Simon stumbled back as red continued to gush out. When it had slowed, he kept cutting and cutting and cutting until it was a waterfall of chunky red. The sight made him a little sick. The red liquid went up to his mid-calf before it finally levelled out in the submarine. Floating inside was a shape. A human-like shape.
He really was going to be sick.
The blood-covered person was floating face-down, with strange fins jutting out of a torned, blood-soaked jumpsuit. It was just so… bloody. It was all bloody, everything was blood.
Simon summoned his courage and tredge forward and into the hole he had cut, gingerly turning the person over. It was a man with blonde hair and… An awful amount of teeth on both sides of his cheeks. Rather revolting.
He carefully wiped some of the blood from his lips and pressed a hand as close to his chest as he could, but the EVA suit made it almost impossible to feel anything.
Simon began CPR against his knee, trying to get his heart going, but when he tilted back his chin and opened his mouth, he was met with two realisations.
One, this pressure may not be good to remove his helmet in.
Two, this man’s mouth extended deep into the flesh of his cheeks.
He gagged in his suit.
He ended up waiting for the airlock to depressurize, when he could safely carry the man out and into the Hail Mary. Blood had dried on him by then, making it only slightly less messy to carry him out. But Simon had to remove his EVA suit in order to prevent tracking blood everywhere, making him just a little more exposed to whatever this man could do.
But he carefully held him bridal-style, avoiding his spiny fins, and brought him all the way to the dormitories.
“Armando,” he called loudly. “I have a new patient for you!”
“Unfamiliar lifeform detected”
“No shit. Give me a rundown, big guy.”
“Bruising, obvious burns, lacerations, blistering, unknown mutations-”
“Can you heal him?”
“Yes, sir”
“Then do that.”
The arm went right to work dragging the man onto a table. Once Simon was sure he was okay, he walked his happy little ass back down to the air lock.
A submarine! IN SPACE!
He got right to work cleaning it and draining as much of the blood as he could into containers- anything he didn’t want, he would just send out the air lock. But dear God, this thing was archaic.
It wasn’t a conventional submarine. It was made out of old rusted metal and had some letters etched into the side.
The SM-13. What an odd name for a submersible. He climbed into the vessel and oh, the inside was even worse.
Shoddily put together controls, a computer that had blood behind the screen, a cracked button on the back wall, and what seemed like a navigational system that was just…
Gross.
He grimaced when he saw just how thoughtlessly this entire vessel was put together. It seemed not able to withstand the pressures it had been put under. Even worse were the implications of welding a man inside with no exit…
This entire situation was concerning.
Simon was tinkering with some faulty lab equipment- it came faulty, it's totally not like he took it apart and put it back together wrong- when the intercom switched on.
“Movement detected in Medical Bed Three. Simon, please report to the dormitories.”
He groaned, setting down the mini-micro-tele-whatever-scope, and walked towards the source of the disruption.
The man on the bed was awake. Armando was ungracefully flushing blood out of his eyes as he cursed the softest curses Simon had ever heard out of a grown man. At least his voice still worked.
When he blinked open pathetically blue eyes, Simon slowly shuffled into focus.
“Uh… hey, there. My name is Simon. What’s your name?”
The man gawked at him for a minute straight, then shook his head and clamped his jaw shut.
“O-kayy… do you know where you are?” Another shake.
“Right. This is the Hail Mary. My ship. I built her myself,”
“Simon did not,” Adrian called from down the hall.
“Shut up! Go back to your maps!” He barked, then smoothed his uniform and put on the best smile he had.
“Welcome aboard!”
The man looked around, absolutely flabbergasted. Then punched him in the face.