Chapter Text
Simon opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling. He stares and stares, as he does every morning since he’s arrived here. He loses himself in the dark ceiling. He prefers the interrupted expanse of the ceiling to what appears behind his eyelids when he closes his eyes.
He’s not even sure where “here” is. An artificial rendition of a crazy man’s perception of what Earth looks like, created by alien rocks. The only thing that feels real enough is the tree. Tall and beautiful, its branches spread upwards like wings. Like thunder striking from the earth to the skies. Simon sits on his bed, rubs the meat of his thumb over his eye and sighs. His body aches. Everywhere. He hurts from his toes to the tip of his fingers. Every joint, every muscle pulls uncomfortably as he moves. The burns on his body make it hard to stretch. His skin is dry and flaky, thin and itchy. He feels like the SM-13, held together by hopes and dreams.
A flawed, broken piece of crap.
And that's Simon’s routine, every single morning. That’s not quite true, actually. His first few days here, he had barely registered the pain from how out of it he was. The last thing he remembered was viscous warm liquid leaking down his throat, coating his lungs and filling his stomach. Then, beeps and monitors everywhere. Walking rocks. Fresh air filled his nostrils after they had taken the tube out.
One would’ve thought that it would be quite the relief, being alive. Surviving. After all, it’s all Simon has ever wanted. To live. However, upon coming back to himself enough to realise that he was, in fact, alive, all Simon felt was despair. An unbeatable urge to give up, and go back to the sweet dark calling his name so sweetly. The C.O.I, they had found him, somehow. Brought him back up to finish the job.
What do you do when the man sent to the gallows doesn’t break his neck instantly when you pull the stool from under him? You wait for him to asphyxiate during the last hours of his life. This is what Simon had expected from the C.O.I when he was caught. A slow, boring death. They had offered him the rope, and pulled the stool.
He was disillusioned very quickly of that notion when moving balls of rock had fretted over him, changing his bandages. Applying cool, soothing gel to his boils and scratches. Of course, he’d freaked out. He had swung wildly, ripping the wires stuck in his body as he fell face-first on the floor, gasping for air. He was cool, cold even. The room was clean and well-lit, made from transparent glass all around. Under him, some more rocks watched him.
He assumed they were, despite not seeing any discernible eyes on them. Or faces, for that matter. Was the radiation making him hallucinate? Was he now in a constant state of derealization? Perhaps he was still inside that submarine, suffocating to death, high as all hell. Simon stretched his arm, trying to crawl forward, but found no purchase.
A wet, disgusting sound rang in his ears. Skin ripping from muscle and bone popping out of its socket. The stringy feeling of his veins and tendons snapping as they broke free from his flesh. He puked up nothing but bile while the rocks scurried away with the help of their many limbs while Simon was confronted with the loss of his.
A hissing sound. Something thick filled his nostrils, and that sweet black claimed him. His head hit the floor with a thunk, and everything went black.
—
His neighbour is a very odd man. Neighbour is a big word for it, really. Cellmate would be more appropriate. They are both kept in this habitat, though the other seems a lot happier about it than Simon is. It’s vast, yes, but Simon sees the blurry edges of it. Glass-like material. He walked to the barrier once. It took him the better half of an hour because he kept taking breaks, but he had made it. He’d found nothing but more foggy glass, of course. The other side was unperceivable. He wonders if he’s on a station. It wouldn't be one he knows. Maybe he’s made it out of the silent rapture. But he doubts it. It is very silent in this place.
Nothing feels real or tangible anymore. He’s felt himself explode and spread into something bigger, something rooted deep inside the blood moon. Except that he’s in one piece, if perhaps not whole. It is easy to doubt, to ignore all that he’s experienced and toss it under the pretence of hallucination, but there is the permanent reminder of what he’s lost fighting it. A scar on his body that reads like a story. Undeniable proof that there is some truth to it.
The first time he dares to peek under the bandages covering half of his face, he crumbles on the floor, clutching his hand to his heart. His breath comes short, and his heart beats strong and fast. He stares into the eyes of the beast haunting his dreams. He bears her on him now.
He holds onto the pendant. It’s the only solid thing he can get a grip on. It’s his, it’s always been his, and it will always be his. It is all he has left from a time before AT-5, before the C.O.I. It keeps him there, in his body, in this space. This house, those sheets, this place, it isn’t real. It was made for him to give him a false sense of ease and security.
Simon may be out of the ocean of blood, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t still drowning. Slowly, asphyxiating one day at a time. His body is healing, strengthening, but he loses it a bit more every day. He can’t tell the difference between dreams and this false reality they’ve put him in.
The only other thing that feels realer than most is the other guy. Human, undeniable by his morphology, but nothing like any Simon has met, through his behaviour. He walks around his house all day, talking to himself, to his machines. He seems to be able to converse freely with the rocks and spends most of his time in their company. A small gathering of them comes every day for a few hours, sitting around the man. He talks to them, and they answer. He’s teaching, Simon realises. He recognises it from his own brief time in formation.
Thankfully, the stranger steers clear of him. He goes and comes, taking daily walks with the same rock, now that Simon recognises it. He looks like a perfectly normal man. His facial features are hard to make out from this far, but Simon can see that he is blonde and wears spectacles. He dresses in colourful, light clothes. Shirts, but sometimes a bigger, soft-looking white shirt. Simon has been provided with large, soft robes. His own clothes were torn and bloodied. They’ve been washed, but they need to be mended. It is not his biggest priority at the moment.
He doesn't get the impression that the man is in any way a threat. He seems perfectly content to keep to his side of the cliff. By day three, Simon has memorised his routine.
He wakes right after the light does, walks in his underclothes to make himself food. He seems to have a fully functioning cooking unit, while Simon has a cooler with a year’s worth of nutritional bars. Maybe he’ll earn the right to use heat, eventually. The bars aren’t gross, nor particularly tasty, but they do the trick. They feed his body, fattening him up. He eats his fill for the first time in his life. He’s unfamiliar with the drowsy, heavy feeling of having eaten too much. He thinks he’s been poisoned the first time it happens. He just sleeps it off.
After making food, the man sits on a large padded seat, kicks his feet up on his table and drinks while either looking outside or doing something on his rectangular machine. Then, the rock arrives. It always seems to come from the far edges of the habitat, just walking up to the house. It is in a flexible glass bubble. A sort of suit, keeping it safe from their atmosphere, maybe. Now that he thinks about it, the rocks taking care of him also had that glass-like suit.
Simon watches him from inside the house for a few days before he feels fine enough to go outside for the first time. The fresh air hits him hard, making his knees falter. There was soft, soft grass under his feet. There used to be some grass under The Last Tree, until it started to die.
Now, the green went and went until Simon couldn’t see it anymore. He gasps, something wet stuck in his throat. There, so close, was a tree. Unmistakable by its shape, though it had no leaves. Simon clutched his pendant, blinking hard to keep his vision clear from the tears swelling up. Simon tries to run, but falls as soon as he stands up. How could it be? Was he back on Eden, somehow?
Simon stayed on the ground, trying to keep his composure. He could tell the man was watching. He had been keeping an eye on Simon, as well. He just stands there in his window, watching. What is he hoping to see?
The next day, Simon makes it to the edge of the cliff. There is a sharp drop, and under him, a bank of sand framed by something Simon thought was the stuff of legends. Water, so much water. At least, it has to be. Simon isn’t sure that he would know if it wasn’t. Blue and dark, tumultuous in its body while softly licking the shore, a sea. An ocean. He spends the better part of the day sitting on the cliff, watching the sea move and rock with a rhythm of its own. Simon’s breathing syncs with it without his wanting to. Something deep and primal inside of him answers to it. It is both the most beautiful and eerie thing he’s ever seen. He far prefers the dark blue of it to the deep red he dreams about every night. He wonders how it would feel on his skin, on his wounds. How big is the contrast between it and AT-5?
He wants to know, very badly, but when he loses too much of himself in it, when the rocking of the waves takes away his thoughts, a monstrous fear takes hold of him. The fear of what could be hiding under the dark surface. Sharp teeth close around his chest, constricting his breath. He has to pull himself away from the sight, but ultimately can’t keep himself away for long. He plays this game of push and pull, coveting it while too afraid to take it for himself.
Upon the beach, the man often walks. He walks on it every evening as the light dims in the sky. Simon wonders if they feel a similar way about this sea.
Eventually, he makes it to the tree with a sort of deference. His hand shakes as he touches it. He rests his forehead on it, reciting prayers he thought he had long forgotten.
Something holy blesses this soil, fed by the pious rotting bodies of Eden.
Simon climbs down the cliff, letting his body and mind meet again. The closer he gets to the sea, the louder his heart beats, the stronger his blood pumps. It isn’t all of his, the blood. He knows it as he knows hunger, thirst and fear, by something deep in his body. It is the reason for both his sad state and his fast recovery. That and the fast-acting anti-radiation sickness pills that the rocks have him swallow every day.
— Simon will learn, eventually, that he was the guinea pig for those pills, which were developed shortly after Rocky’s return to Erid as preventive measures. Thankfully for him, Eridians are nothing if not excellent scientists —
The texture of the sand under his bare feet is unfamiliar. Pinpricks stimulate every nerve in his body. He finds, as he walks further onto the beach, that he likes the feeling of walking on sand. He sinks a little with each step, the ground unstable and soft under him.
He sits within a safe distance of the water, breathing deeply. The smell of it is unfamiliar. He can taste the salt in the air, hypersensitive to the sounds, sights and smells surrounding him.
Overwhelmed by something that isn’t sadness, isn’t joy, but a stranger feeling, Simon brings his knees to his chest, digging his toes in the cool sand. There’s a small wind throwing minuscule droplets of water on his face. He closes his eyes and lets the sound of the waves take him elsewhere, so clear now that he’s among them.
He thinks of his Brothers, of the many nights they spend talking and planning a future they would never get to see. Of the future Simon has ruined. Blood stained his skin long before he stepped into that submarine. He’s been given something else, something to make his own, outside of Eden, outside of Filament Station and the C.O.I.
Simon looks over his shoulder, where he sees his neighbour watching him curiously.
Perhaps, he has been given the same as well.
“I see that question in your eyes. “For what purpose do we remain alone in the dark?””
As Father’s voice rings in his head, he stands and makes his way up the cliff.
—
Simon wasn’t really expecting anything when he walked in, but everything that ensued has surprised him on some level. Grace’s friendliness, the frantic cleaning of his space, as if Simon’s looks any better. He had left his dirty bandages everywhere. That coffee, from Brazil. Whatever Brazil is. Simon hadn’t tasted anything like it before, and had trouble seeing the appeal of it.
He found himself acting nervously. Social skills hadn’t been a priority on Eden, not like blind loyalty and faith.
The man, Grace, was open and friendly. A lot more than Simon could ever see himself being. He seemed unburdened and content. He was generous and kind. Kindness was the rarest of things in space, and Grace seemed to be overflowing with it.
Then, he asked Simon’s name.
Hearing it from another’s mouth, someone real, and not through a speaker or some disembodied voice, it felt… surreal. As if Simon was this other man, left behind. He left like an imposter inhabiting this empty shell.
The explanation of what he was doing here did nothing but confuse him even more, as did Grace’s sun-eating-something-line.
Oh, and Earth.
Grace was from Earth