Chapter Text
He’s not going to make it.
That’s one of the last full thoughts Simon has in this metal piece of shit. Time feels so warped down here, but surely it's been too long; Ava’s gone. He’s going to die down here, and it's not fair. He did everything they asked of him, and they're still going to let him die. They were never going to let him be free. How could he be so stupid to believe that? Maybe the voices were right, and he does deserve this.
The ship is filled with blood, human blood, and it's still rising. Every time he inches too close to a wall, those things get closer; they reach out for him. He makes the mistake of getting too close, and his right palm sticks to it. He tries to pull himself off, and all that does is get his other hand stuck. He reaches for the seat in front of the controls with his foot, but it's not close enough. This fucking blood. He can't get the right traction because this blood is everywhere. His right hand comes loose; it hurts, but it doesn't hurt any worse than everything else does. His left hand is still stuck tight to the used-to-be-metal. He pulls and pulls, but nothing is happening.
Nothing is happening because he’s trying to pull his hand from the metal. He needs to… pull his hand from himself. Yeah, that'll get him out of this.
He pulls again; he wishes this persistent fog in his head would block out the way it feels. It feels so much. Whatever's growing over– or maybe through– his skin cracks, his muscles tear, something breaks, and it all makes a sickening ripping noise.
He’s not attached to the wall anymore. That's what matters. He goes back to the controls, that little orange light is flickering in the direction he’s heading, it's not that fucking fish thing, he’d hear it if it was. He thinks. It has to be Ava’s ship. The binder is still holding down the controls.
He needs to keep the black box close. Ava isn't coming for him out of the kindness of her own heart; she’s getting the black box, and he just happens to have it. He wades through the blood and scoops up the box, it's heavy, but maybe that joke of a life vest could hold its weight. There was a cord with all those supplies, he could tie them together with it. He feels around blindly– like he's been doing with everything– until he finds it. He nods to himself and grabs the useless red thing floating around, it's less hard to find with its little light shining. He puts it on top of the black box and wraps the cord around it, as tightly as he can.
This is just a precaution, he tells himself, he's going to make it, and he’ll hand her that box by himself. Everyone will be so pleased with him for finding and bringing back the information from the SM-8. They’ll all forgive him. For Filament Station, for blasting everyone with radiation, for living this long. They won’t be so mad at him anymore.
He tightens the knot with a shaking hand when Ava’s voice comes in through the speaker; he can’t understand her. The sub shifts, and he starts to panic. Is it back? That’s not fair, not when he’s so close to getting out. He wants to say getting out unscathed, but whatever grew over the button for the camera is on him; he can feel it. And his arm. That’s a whole other category of reasons he should be lying dead in the pool of blood at his feet.
The camera. He wades through the blood, it's past his knees now. Those vines– or veins, or roots, whatever they are– they're still holding down the button. If they really do pull him back up, he doesn't want to do that again. He doesn't know if he’d still have done it if he knew about the radiation, he was so scared. He tries to tear at it from a tiny triangular gap between the vine, the button, and the wall, but it won't move. No, it’ll move, he just isn't trying hard enough.
He forces his index finger into the tiny gap and pulls as hard as he can. It hurts, he thinks it might be slicing into his finger, but he keeps pulling at it. It breaks, and the adjacent one comes off a little easier. It's even easier to pull off with two arms of the X broken off. The camera stops going; the camera shutter that’s been accompanying him for so long is finally quiet. He can't tell if it's comforting or if it makes him uneasy.
The sub hits something. Or something hits it. It's not really an important distinction. Before he can spiral, a crackling voice comes from the speaker, pouring blood.
“We’re attached, convict, prepare for ascent.” What? No, this had to be another trick of that thing that keeps finding him. It's one of the crueler ones so far. He falls against the wall by the camera, forgetting about the things that keep trying to attach to him. He remembers when one of them wraps itself around his arm, and he kicks off the wall to get away from it. They don't want his legs, maybe because there's no skin to dig into? Again, it's not important why. He’s tired of why’s. He's tired of all of it; he's so tired. Maybe he could just take one second to lean against the wall…
The metal death trap around him rattles and shifts violently, throwing him back-first into the rising blood. He sits up as quickly as he can, but he’s still stuck choking and coughing it up while he tries to wipe the blood away from his eyes.
There are faint voices from… somewhere. It's a little nice, a voice that isn't coming from the bleeding speaker overhead, no yellow-orange light flickering, not in this hallucination. Or maybe he’s finally run out of oxygen, and he’s being given something nicer to bring him into death, like a soft lullaby. He can’t remember if his mother ever sang him lullabies.
“Conv- Simon! Are you there?” This voice sounds concerned. That's nice, other than now he knows it's a hallucination. Who would be concerned about him?
“The box is over here, wrapped up in… bullshit.” A male voice says. Hey, he worked hard on that bullshit. It's hard to tie an extension cord drenched in blood, and even harder one-handed.
“You get him, I’ll get the box.” A stern female voice says
“Look at him, Ava, he’s dead. Hell, even if he’s not, I don’t think he’s worth dragging out of-”
“It's my ship. Get the convict.” Even in his hallucination, he doesn't get to have a name, of course.
“It’s not worth it.”
“He got the information. We owe him this much.”
“Did you forget why he’s here? We don't owe him shit, especially not after what he pulled with the camera.”
“He didn't know.” He’s just listening to them now. He doesn't think he can say anything to them anyway; he hasn't tried, but he just doesn't have the energy. What happened? The adrenaline wore off that fast?
Arms go under his, whatever’s left of them, and he’s being dragged in some direction. He braces for it, expecting to feel the blood flood his senses and eventually his lungs, but it never happens. Instead, the only thing invading his senses is a bright light. At least it feels bright. The brightest lights he’s seen in days were the flashing indicator on the sub controls and the flashes of the camera. He winces at the light.
“Simon? Simon, I saw that. Are you actually alive?” Ava says, yeah, that's the voice, it's Ava. She stuck him down here. But she also came to get him, and it doesn't seem like the popular choice. Especially not when whoever’s dragging him lets him go, and he feels his own head bounce off the hard floor. She sounds shocked. It hurts, but everything does. He goes to push his hair– soaked by drying blood– off his face with his left hand, but it doesn't… work. So maybe that was real.
He tries to move his right arm to do it instead, but it doesn't respond, not moving more than a couple of inches off the ground.
“You are. Oh my god.” He pries his eyes open a little more, it's no less blurry than before, but he can see shapes. Two human figures. One of them is beside him, far away, maybe with its arms crossed. The other one is sitting down something that lands with a wet thud. The second figure steps closer.
“I don’t understand how, but… he’s alive. Take him to medical.” She says. She told him she wasn't in charge of this, but it’s a little hard to believe that right now.
“That’s a waste of resources.”
“Yeah? Keeping the person who got us this alive is a waste of resources?”
“He’s not a person.”
“Take him before I have to drag him there myself, David.” She states with an air of finality. Simon is more inclined to agree with the man’s voice, who he is now vaguely recognizing as the man who pretended to be friendlier to him on the radio until Simon didn't act how he wanted him to. He feels dead, he can't move, he can't talk, no one can tell how much blood he’s lost because he's drenched in it. But his body is being moved.
He tries to speak, but he can't. He wouldn't know what to say anyway. He fought so hard to stay alive, but this doesn't feel like he’s alive anymore. He closes his eyes, just to blink, but he can't seem to open them back up. At least he’s not going to die in that metal coffin.