Chapter Text
Simon’s legs burned from heaving himself up crumbled pieces of cement. It was early in the morning. Early enough that the birds were chirping, without any distractions that would cease the beautiful noise.
The air was still crisp, Simon's breath visible in the air by white puff of fogs that floated away into the soft breeze. Shifting his weight between both of his feet — a nervous gesture from the military he hadn’t been able to shake — his gaze shifted to the sunrise in the distance.
Sometimes he couldn’t fathom that a world, as destroyed as this one, was able to create something so beautiful.
Shaking his head slightly, he glanced to the abandoned facility. He couldn’t help the way his head tilted slightly, curiosity finally catching up to him.
He hadn’t even meant to stumble into it; a quick morning stroll in the woods had left him here, wide-eyed and breathless with amazement (and running).
Hopping down from the big cement block, Simon sauntered up to a broken window, eyeing the broken glass suspiciously. He’s had his fair-share of infections from small pieces of glass or shrapnel lodged in his skin, and he didn’t want to deal with it outside of the military.
Carefully wiping away the glass, he quickly and quietly vaulted through the window, being careful to land lightly on the ground. Once he successfully managed to get in, he looked around nervously.
He let out a small chuff of amusement. He was now getting scared from being alone in an abandoned building, when his entire career before used to be based off of killing people? Funny.
Shaking the thought, he began moving around, the stale and dusty atmosphere of the deserted building making him cough and sneeze a few times.
Eyeing the room, Simon crept forward to the entryway. The door consisted of rotted oakwood, the putrid smell causing his nose to wrinkle. Without any thought he kicked down the door. It gave easily underneath his shoe, the decaying wood falling to the ground with a loud thump.
Exiting the room, he found himself in a big, open room. It was filled. Tables were littered around the large space, all having some trinkets scattered around, some having been seamlessly thrown about.
Stalking up to the table, he lifted a bauble up, observing it with narrowed eyes. It looked to be a small box, pink paint beginning to peel off. It had an equally small lever on the side, looking as though it was windable. It had a line and hinges, as though it could open up.
Simon lowered to carefully back down to the table, brow furrowed slightly. Was it just a box with a lever on the side? Hesitating to set it down, he carefully brought it back up to scrutinise. Pinching the lever, Simon slowly began to wind the arm.
It was old. And rusty. Simon gritted his teeth shallowly as he pushed down on the lever with a bit more force, and after that it seemed to wind fine.
Nothing happened.
Simon couldn’t help the small bit of disappointment that hit him, pursing his lips slightly and tilting his head in displeasure.
Gently setting the box on the table, he turned around to explore more, and —
Music, eerie and uncanny, drifted into his ears, and cold dread washed over him for a moment. His entire body had tensed, anticipating something latching on to him, or at least something touching him.
Closing his eyes and huffing a small mumble under his breath, he turned around, albeit slowly.
He was met by the box, this time popped open showing off a faded ballerina without an arm on the platform, twirling crookedly. Simon’s body immediately relaxed, as he let out a nervous, forced laugh to himself.
His eyes followed the toy as it spun. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he slowly pulled himself away to survey the rest of the big room. He ambled towards another door, planting a hand on the old wood hesitantly. Curiously, he brushed his hand against the door, revealing a thin layer of dust had grown on the door.
Removing his hand, he smirked smugly at the handprint it left. What if someone came here and saw it? Would they get scared? His smirk deepened as he pondered it for a moment; and Simon decided that yes, he would leave creepy things around the building just for the sake of somebody finding it and getting freaked out.
Letting out a small breath of contentment with his plan, he strolled around the building getting an idea of the area. He gazed around, brow furrowing slightly as he nibbled on his bottom lip.
The building was big, having a large perimeter with two stories. Both floors were the same, a big room off to the side that connected to a long hallway, multiple doors all to the sides. Most rooms were pretty much the same. Old, rusty bedframes in each room, yet each was pushed around, in one room, Simon had to shoulder the door since it wasn’t budging. Someone had put a bedframe up to the door. And guessing by all the spray paint filling each room, it looks like some people come here often.
At one end of the hallway there was the entrance — which was locked off, much to Simon's disappointment — and at the other was a door, when opened, led to a stairwell.
Wow, Simon thought, amusement crinkling his eyes as he scanned the rancid slurs written all over the walls as he climbed the stairs. Kids are quite artistic these days.
Finally reaching the next floor, he gave the lock on the door an unimpressed look. There weren’t any windows on the side of the door, so the quick solution would be to pick the lock. Luckily, Simon always brought a knife with him. Wherever he goes, at least one is coming with him. Drawing the knife out of his pant pocket, he unsheathed it, and strode up to the door. Gathering the rusty lock in hand, he raised the sharp tip to the keyhole and jammed the point into the hole.
It took a few moments of jangling — Simon internally mourning his knife that would end up crooked at the head by the end of this — before the lock finally gave, unlocking and falling to the ground with a loud thunk that echoed in the stairway.
He gripped the door, pausing for a moment, then opened it.
He was hit with the putrid smell of decaying wood — no, not just wood, it smelled as though everything was moldering.
The coats of paint on the walls were chipping, white turning into a light, dusty grey. The concrete underneath was fairly visible, and as Simon walked towards the wall, he picked off a piece, observing it before flicking it away and focusing his attention elsewhere.
Again, similar formatting as the floor below. Just cleaner. No graffiti. It had an almost fresh undertone compared to the other floor.
And for the next few hours until the sun raised to the sky signaling midday, Simon crept around the abandoned asylum, writing all over the place, trying to make the place "spooky".
He would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy it.
When he returned home, he was smiling (quite a rare sight for someone like him) as he unlocked the door to his house on the edge of a small neighborhood. He entered the house quietly. The house wasn’t big, per se, but it wasn’t like Simon was sharing it with anyone.
Well, not if you don’t include Maxilla.
Maxilla (Max for short) was a Children’s Python — relatively short for that type of breed, only measuring out to be around 33 inches. Simon found her knocked out, curled in the middle of her enclosure.
Simon watched her for a few moments, before quickly going to the bathroom and hopping in the shower, afterwards getting dressed and nestling into his bed — completely forgoing dinner.
Pulling out his phone, he quickly typed up ‘abandoned building exploration’, only for his browser to correct him. ‘Urbex’, is what it's called. Hmm.
This time, he typed up ‘Urbex’. A bunch of videos came up almost immediately.
“Exploring Abandoned Hospitals?!?!”
“Bringing my GF’s mom with us to do URBEX!!!”
“We went ghost-hunting!”
Simon stared blankly at the titles, scrolling past multiple. Most of them had fake thumbnails, all not interesting, despite the millions of views they had. He was about to log off his phone in defeat when he saw a video.
“Exploring an abandoned facility.”
It was just shy of a million views, but at least it actually looked interesting.
He clicked on the video, waiting as an ad played through before the video actually started playing. It was dark and, in the recording, the sounds of steps on gravel and light rain were the only sounds heard.
The man making the video didn’t even bother with an intro, just leading right into getting into the abandoned place. It took Simon a few moments to realize that there was a GoPro attached to the person's head.
When the person spoke, Simon was happily surprised.
“We’re at some random abandoned place my friend found in Birmingham,”
His accent coated over his words softly, and Simon didn’t know why he smiled, but he did. Albeit sheepishly.
The man stopped talking after that, just scrabbling around the building. Like Simon, he had to jump a window, grunting softly as he did. And for the rest of the 12 minutes of the video, the man strolled through a random, abandoned building. It was eerie, different from when Simon went. Belatedly, he realized this person was doing this at night, in the pitch black.
He didn’t even seem fazed.
When the recording ended, Simon just paused it before it could switch to another video.
Scrolling down, he checked the comments. Multiple were boring, all saying shit like, “Nice video!” and, “This seems so fun!” (Simon personally didn’t disagree).
One caught his eyes as he ran through the comments.
“You should invite Gaz and Price back on.”
It was liked by the creator, who had responded with a short “Will do :D”.
…Price? As in John Price? The John Price? Ex-military, Captain Price? Simon’s head blue-screened for a few moments before he refocused his attention on the comment.
No, he told himself. There’s probably a lot of people who go by Price out there. Could just be a nickname.
Scrolling back up, he checked the account name.
“expiredsoap” was one of the strangest names he ever seen before, by far. His thumb hit the subscribe button easily, not really having to think about it that much.
He spent the rest of the night bingeing all of expiredsoap’s videos.
So, his job was practically to explore abandoned places in the British Isles, he’s (very proudly) Scottish, and he indeed has two main friends. There were other ones, but they didn’t show up in as many videos as the other two.
One was about the same age as Soap (that’s what he’s going to call him for now, saying expiredsoap is tiring — and his friends call him that) if he had to guess, and his name is Gaz. His username was “50shadesofgaz”. Simon had snorted at that.
The other one was Price—and it was indeed Captain Price, leaving Simon both shocked and amazed at how the fuck this Soap guy got Price to do urbex with him. His username was “gonefishing”, and Simon couldn’t help the small, disappointed sigh and shake of his head the left him.
In some of the videos with Price and Gaz, the GoPro attached to Soap’s head disappeared. The video consists of cameras from Price, Soap, and Gaz’s point of view.
The first time he saw Soap’s face through the camera, was when Gaz was making a stupid joke, turning the camera to look at Soap for his reaction. He had just grinned, saying something stupid back that Price chuckled at.
Soap had a mohawk, and blue eyes to match it. He was wearing a dark colored coat, a grey hood poking out of the back. He was nicely built as well. Simon couldn’t really tell, the view he had from Gaz’s camera wasn’t really well.
Squinting his eyes, he switched off of YouTube and to his messages. He found Price’s contact easily, clicking on it before typing up a quick:
Capt. Price
Sent at: 2:19
You do urbex???
Scanning the message for a few moments, he turned off his phone and placed it on the bedside table to his left. Stretching and letting out a yawn, Simon heaved the duvet over himself, falling asleep almost immediately.
Simon rubbed sleep from his eyes, glaring at the ceiling above him.
He was absolutely, fucking tired. Guess he deserves it from staying up most of the night.
Reaching to grab his phone, he glanced at the screen lazily before looking away. Then he did a double take, looking at his phone better. Oh, a few missed messages from Price.
When he looked at said messages, he couldn't help the small chuckle he let out.
Sent at: 8:55
Why did you ask that at 2 in the morning?
Also, yes, I do. Only for a friend, though. Don’t know if I really enjoy it.
Simon mouthed an ‘o’ to no one in particular, fingers hesitating over the touch-keyboard before typing a response.
Sent at: 9:15
Found some kid on youtube who does it, turns out he does it w you too
He raised a brow in surprise as a bubble immediately popped up.
Sent at: 9:16
He’s cool
Sent at: 9:16
That’s dry. You sure he’s cool?
Sent at: 9:17
Better than you. He’ll be hearing about this.
He chuckled — well, more like giggled, but he wasn't going to admit that, would he? And he couldn’t remember the last time he had done so, but he did, nonetheless. This was funny. Who knew his old Captain was recording videos now?
Sent at: 9:18
I’m still your favorite
Sent at 9:20
You fucking wish
Rolling his eyes, Simon put away his phone, smiling. Getting out of bed, he wandered into his kitchen and started his day.