Chapter Text
Simon reemerged from the crimson depths that claimed his mind, blinded by a shining light above him. The blood that previously engulfed him was gone, his surroundings replaced with white walls and orangey glass(?) boundaries that seemed to be made from the same geometric material that he photographed with the x-ray camera. They protruded through the white walls, rigid angles and textured surfaces reflecting the light from above. It was quite dazzling to see all the colours that bounced off its surface, pinks, oranges and yellows all shining off the glassy material, but at the same time, the eyestrain hurt his still reeling head.
A disoriented Simon attempted to lift his head, but his neck was much too sore, a sharp shock of pain shooting down his spine when tried. He opted to move his eyes instead. Looking down as far as he could, he spotted something attached to his right arm. Multiple things actually. Thin white tubes that were held down by small square patches. Simon tried to move his arm. It wasn’t that painful, but his movements were still weak and unsteady. He hated the vulnerability of his current position. Out in the open, unable to move, not being familiar with where he was or how to escape if danger were to come his way. He felt so… exposed, threatened by the idea that if something were to happen, he would be defenseless. Again.
A memory resurfaces. He’s at Filament Station again, a blaring siren ringing through the halls. He’s frozen in fear, glaring at a heaving lump on the ground. A charred figure that is wheezing, gasping desperately for air. Its face looks like it’s being melted off, a mix of burning skin and cysts on the verge of popping covering its skin. Or rather, whatever skin is still there. It reaches out a bony, flaking hand, pleading at Simon.
He only stares at it, entranced by the way the glistening cysts pulse and burst and ooze. Thick, darkened blood drips down his face, but it’s mixed with something else. Something less viscous and opaque. It’s a cloudy white liquid that smells absolutely rancid. The scent invades his senses quickly; it makes him want to throw up. But still, he does nothing but stare at it and its decrepit and rotting form. He doesn’t even notice it inching closer, breathing ragged and loud. It touches his leg. He kicks it in the face, startled by the firm grip it had on him. Now it lays 40cm away, its whole body twitching and heaving as it tries to breathe. Then, it goes limp, a puddle of blood and that mystery liquid pools beneath it.
The sirens are still going off. They are ringing through his head, masking the sound of heavy footsteps and shouting. Simon just continued to stare at the organic lump on the ground, even when the back of his shirt is getting tugged at, and he gets pulled into a restraining grip by someone he doesn’t recognize. The events that followed were all blurred in his head, but what he did clearly recall consisted of muffled voices and stinging pains.
Years after the initial incident, he understood what really happened. That lump of rot and blood soaked ash was one of his brothers from Eden. One of the perpetrators that caused the destruction of Filament Station and escaped the consequences through the sanctity of death. In his earlier years he might’ve resented his fallen siblings for dying on him. For leaving him in the clutches of the C.O.I. But now, he simply envied them. If only he had died from the radiation and explosion like the rest of them. Maybe then he would be able to avoid this torment.
Simon huffed, lying still on the bed, head still pounding while the rest of his body ached. How long would this last? How long until he could close his eyes and be greeted by the omnipresent darkness of the afterlife? He couldn’t tell. Somewhere, in the ocean of blood, his body was still limp and stuffed. Sometime soon, he would decay and become a part of the ocean. And when that happened, this world inside his head would wither away, and he would finally sleep peacefully. All Simon had to do was wait. He closed his eyes, exhaustion washing over him. Lord, he was so tired.
As much as he wanted to persevere through whatever layer of hell he was trapped in, so much of him just wanted to give up. He was aching all over, missing a limb, stuck in an illusion built in his own head, while suspended in an alien ocean of blood. How could he dream of freedom? How naive did he have to be to ever dream of freedom? At every point of his life there had always been a higher power holding him in the palm of their hand. The Father, carefully nurturing the few children left after the Quiet Rapture, and then turning them into soldiers to fight for Eden before they were even 18. The Consolidation of Iron, keeping him prisoner for years, then sending him to his death, disguising it as a job for him to ‘earn’ his freedom. Then, of course, the eel. The fucking eel. That disgusting thing. It toyed with his mind, made him see things, fed into his idiotic fantasies of ever gaining freedom while keeping his life.
And it was still hunting him.
Simon is plunged back into the blood ocean, ripped away from the safe haven built in his mind. It’s just as suffocating and violating as before, the blood filling his throat and lungs instantly. He can’t see, there is no guiding light through the viscous liquid this time. There’s only darkness, and the impending dread that came with knowing he was going to experience death for a second time. His sight was greatly limited, his eyes only granting him about a meter of vision in front of him. Even then, it was all red. All a sickly blood red tinged with dark brown hues.
“Simon.”
What.
“Simon, come on.”
Simon opened his mouth to respond, but there was no room for words when his throat was bloated and filled with blood. That voice was eerily familiar but at the same time the farthest thing from human.
“Don’t you want to live, Simon? Don’t you want to thrive?”
There was a light coming toward him. It was a small speckle in the distance at first, but it was most definitely getting closer, a brightness growing as the distance closed, scaring away the darkness that hid his periphery. And as the light began to near, the echoing whispers of voices he could remember filled his head. It was a cacophony of sounds and hums and yells that he swore he had heard before. His mother, his brothers, the C.O.I soldiers. They were all there, calling to him from the blinding light in front of him. It was almost comforting, hearing so many human voices at once. At the same time though, it was so unsettling. These people were dead, most he had watched die. Simon knew this was all fake. He knew this was just another trick.
He knew he was being toyed with by that thing. Its teeth were showing.
“Come on Simon, come with us- me. Come with me.” It corrected itself, the voices all merging together into a sickly-sweet ambiguous tone. Who did it remind him of? Ava? The Father? His teachers from Eden? He couldn’t make it out as they all blurred into each other, undistinguishable and yet so familiar.
The light crept closer, the voices blending into one in such an unnatural way and blaring their frankensteined words into his ears. That white light was now right above him, the distinctive red of the blood completely gone from his sight. The floor beneath him was solid and concrete, but still felt wet. It was so bright above him, that blinding glare exposing every gross part of his exposed body. He went to cover his ears, curling in on himself so his knee could replace his missing arm.
“Stay with me Simon, stay with us-ME. Me. You can trust me, you can trust me you can trust me you can trustme youantrustmeyoucantrustme.”
Simon looked up, the light hurting his eyes. Tears streamed down his face, mixing with the blood and dripping down his chin. What was that?
Emerging from the light was a faint silhouette of a person, the edges hazy. The features on their face were muddled up and unrecognizable. It looked like… Like no one. No one in his memory looked like that but there were pieces of faces he definitely knew. It was like they were painted on, stitched together and constantly ripped out and replaced. But the change happened too fast for him to really register properly, so it just looked… odd. Subtle differences throwing him off, no real face to distinguish the real parts from the fake ones.
It reached out. And for a moment, it looked like flaking charred flesh. Then blistered skin, dripping with blood. Then a scratched up arm with many scars and bruises. A gloved hand, a hand with painted nails, a hand with normal looking skin, and so many others. The fingers looked crooked and wrong, different shades of colours. Was it just a trick of the light, or was each hand extremely pale and veiny?
Simon shuffled away, vision still impaired by that light. The voices still rang through his head. He wanted to scream back, but blood still filled his throat. He opened his mouth and it began pouring out, down his chest and onto the floor, disappearing in that white void of brightness.
“Don’t run from me Simon you wouldn’t want to give up on you’re only chance of life, would you? Would you Simon? I’m your savior Simon, you can trust me.”
That silhouetted figure was inching towards him now, squelching and changing and reeking of bloody, rotting scents. His breathing quickened as he tried to stand up, but his body felt so weak, so still, like his limbs just refused to respond to him.
“Deep breaths Simon, you’re going to injure yourself if you keep up with that…” Its hand was now covering his face, gripping at his skin.
“Calm down… Calm down you’re fine… You’re safe.”