Chapter Text
Chapter I
The blood rose higher. The pain of his not existent arm was radiating through his entire body. The blood reached his ears. The metallic, cold taste filled his mouth. The suffocating liquid ran down his windpipe, flooding his lungs. He heard the female voice of the monster in his head. Mocking him. Celebrating his demise. Enjoying what it did. "You could have joined us, Simon. You could have seen your brothers again. But you saw the light."
His nostrils filled with blood, and blood clots were stuffing his ears. It began to ring, or was it already ringing and he just now realised it?
He tried to grasp for air but all he was doing was pushing water in and out of his lungs. Simon's head was thumping. The world felt like it was spinning. "Black box. I just hope the black box survives"
"Simon!" It echoes in his mind, "Why did you do this?" The voice grew more distant.
The darkness and unconsciousness wrapped around him. And he was gone.
He ripped open his eyes and screamed in pain. At least he tried. But something was shoved down his throat. The bright white light was blending to his eyes.
"Oh shit. This fucker actually lives!" Someone yelled in surprise near him. Simon tried to get up. To get away. To move. To do something. But his body was weak. It didn't listen to what he was telling it to do.
He heard the same surprised voice saying something. A few minutes later the door opened. Simon could hear people entering. Probably two or three. And something he wasn't able to say what it was.
"Conv... Simon?" A female voice called out. How? She died. The eel ate her. But on the other hand, what was even real at this point. The voices he heard before weren't real.
The voice, Ava, spoke again "Simon. Can you hear me?"
He tried to move. But he couldn't. He tried to open his eyes again but they felt glued shut.
"You said he opened his eyes and made a sound?" She asked someone in the room.
The voice he heard first when he woke up answered. Simon could not tell if it was male or female. "Yes. His vitals also jumped up."
"Ava. Can I do my job or do you just want us to look at him from afar?" said a male voice from Ava's direction.
"Yeah sure. That's why you are here."
Two of the people left the room and the door closed. The man stayed behind, apparently. He opened a few cabinets and pulled out some stuff.
"Rocky, how are his vitals looking?" The man asked his companion.
A melodic, non-human voice chirped back.
"Good. What he should have as a human."
"Good. Keep an eye on it and on him. We don't know how is physiology might have changed. So tell me everything that seems odd to you."
Another chirp.
The man said something again but his voice grew distant. Simon felt something puncturing his upper arm. His head began to spin and he felt dizzy. The world began to blur before everything went black
"This is so fascinating. He is still human, but also not. It's incredible what happened to him." Grace talked to himself while looking through the microscope at the cell sample he took from Simon's skin tissue.
"Grace. Grace. You need to eat. You forget to eat again," hummed the artificial voice of his stony friend from behind.
"What?" Grace looked up.
"Eat. You forget to eat" Rocky crawled closer.
Grace looked at the clock on the wall. "Fudge. Is it already so late?" He got up. Not really wanting to stop his work, but feeling his empty stomach. Leaving his room, he walked down the hallways to the cafeteria. It wasn't really a cafeteria, but he preferred to call it one.
Yes, he did arrive here about 3 years ago, and after everything that happened back in his universe, like finding energy eating microbes and a sentient rock as his best friend, he wasn't that surprised by an ocean of living blood.
But he missed Earth. He always knew he would not come back. But calling the eating area a cafeteria, gave him a feeling of home. Like the times he was watching over his kids in the junior high cafeteria.
The door slid open and he stepped into the cafeteria. Despite the fact that Rocky didn't eat with him, he was following Grace into the room. There were a few mechanics at one of the round tables. Still covered in grease and probably blood. At least their hands are clean, he thought while filling up his plate from the self-serve buffet-style dinner. He wanted to get back to his work. A loud grumble left his stomach. Looking down at his stomach, moving his eyes over to where he imagined Rocky's face. A hum. He knew by now what that meant and they went back to his lab.
Sitting down on his chair again and looking back through the microscope.
"Eat. Grace. You eat," Rocky complained from behind.
"In a minute. I want to see what happened." Nothing. Nothing had happened while he was gone. The same as all the other skin samples he took over the past week after Simon woke up for a short time. He was disappointed. He knew it was to be expected. And he was glad for Simon. It would be horrible if his DNA would start to deteriorate or his cells would start to fall apart. But the scientist in him wanted something to happen. Something new to explore and explain.
He turned to his food. It was the same grey mush he had every Wednesday. It tastes a bit like chicken. It did not. But he told himself it did. It was easier to eat a gray slime when you lied to yourself and said it tastes like real food.
"Damn. I'm tired. I think I'll head to bed." Yawning, he got up. A chirpy sound made him sit back down.
"Thanks. Nearly forgot the report for Ava," he opened a file. On the first page was a picture of Simon before he went into the ocean. Under the picture was a number,"M-27-07/SOE". Grace had written the name beside it. Why was he just a number? He never understood that part of science. But also naming things gave them a value. And that wasn't great for a lab rat.
"No, he, Simon, was not a lab rat. Yes he did a lot of bad things. But what happened to him? Not fair," Grace said to himself and flipped through the folder, landing on the correct page and filling everything out.
He rubbed his eyes. He was tired. He was working, from before dawn till after dusk, every day. Well, the sun and stars didn't exist anymore. So they had an artificial day and night cycle to keep the station running and give it a feeling or normality.
Closing the file and getting up he looked and his friend still seemed to be full of energy. No one was able to read him. For everyone else he was just a spider made out of living rock. But that was wrong. He was way more than that.
Taking off his lab coat and hanging it up on the hook next to the door, he left the lab, rocky following him.
They again made their way down the long hallways. Up a few floors, till they reached the captain's office. Knocking once. "Come in."
He opened the door and they entered. Ava was hunched over a pile of files and spread out papers and maps on the large desk in the right corner.
"I got today's lab results. They're on your desk if you want to read them," he said. By now he was used to Ava's behaviour. She was nice if she had the time and energy to be. But when was that the case? She answered with an acknowledging grunt and Grace left the room again. He headed to his room. Up two flights of stairs and left to the living quarters. He followed the way he walks every morning and night for the past 3 years. He entered his room.
"Rocky?"
"Grace"
"I'm going to sleep now. Good night" he fell down on his bed.
"No self cleaning before bed, question?" Rocky hummed.
He sighed, getting up again and doing his night routine. Despite the end of the bloody universe. Humans still have to brush their teeth.
"Happy?" He asked Rocky ironically.
He got a hum back he knew ment yes.
He lay back down and fell asleep a short time after.
Rocky was in the tunnel next to him, watching him sleep.