Chapter Text
Eye movement detected
Simon’s eyes… well remaining good eye that is… fluttered open. Harsh white lights, a dome of geometric glass, and loud musical sounds assaulted his senses as he slipped back into consciousness. Don’t freak out. Assess the situation.
Simon looked down to see what only moments ago were his ragged, bloodstained, clothes swapped for a pale yellow hospital gown. The second thing he noticed after the lack of blood was the lack of… an entire appendage. His left arm was severed above the elbow, wrapped tightly in bandages. White bandages. Fresh. Adding to the left side damage was the reddish blurriness that now obscured the vision in his left eye. That being said his right side was shockingly intact. Two legs, one arm, and what seemed to be no significant brain damage. It was certainly more than Simon was expecting to wake up to. Given he was expecting not to wake up at all.
Now the question was how and why he was somehow cleaned up, patched up, and inside a glass dome. From what he could see outside the glass he was in some kind of laboratory. Much cleaner and brighter than any of the dingy depressing rooms he was shoved into at the COI. Among the lab equipment he could see something moving. Something small and brown, almost like a pile of rocks come to life. The musical noise seemed to be coming from the moving rock pile… Surely Simon was just seeing things. Or dreaming. Or dead? Maybe time to reassess the “no significant brain damage”.
“Woah buddy, calm down! We don’t want to scare him!”
Simon heard a human voice say from the distance clear as day.
“How would you feel if you woke up and a freaky alien was yelling at you huh?”
The musical noise quieted down as the rock-creature-thing parked itself uncomfortably close to the glass Simon was now feeling anxiously trapped in. A human figure entered the room and handed a small device to the rock creature.
“Here, use the translator. Remember, not all humans are as cool as me and understand Eridian ok?” the human said gently to the creature. The human looked up and addressed Simon, “Glad to see you awake! Rocky and I were starting to worry, with all the radiation damage your body took you might not bounce back. But here you are! It's just.. So weird to see another human… I haven’t seen one in so long.”
Simon stared blankly, taking it all in. He tried to focus his now subpar vision on this fellow human. He was a tall, blonde man, wearing a yellow jumpsuit tied at the waist with a t-shirt bearing some kind of graphic that was unintelligible through the glass. He had glasses that were slipping off his face, barely hanging on, but somehow still balanced like he was holding them there for safekeeping. The man must have seen the shock and confusion on Simon’s face because he started back up with his yapping.
“OH I should probably introduce myself! My name is Ryland Grace, I’m from planet Earth. This is my friend Rocky, he’s from the planet Erid.”
“Rocky find your garbage ship and save you. Grace there too. No help, just cry over seeing other human.” Rocky’s musical noises filtered through the device, turning out a human voice.
“Thanks Rock, he definitely needed to know that.” the man, Ryland Grace, replied flatly. He returned his attention to Simon, “Sorry, we’re being so rude! We didn’t even ask you what your name is. What is your name?”
Grace smiled, patiently awaiting an answer. Before Simon responded, he took another look at his surroundings. Despite the sterile laboratory setting and his current lack of pants, these guys were still somehow offering him more dignity than the COI. At least they asked his name.
“Simon.” He finally managed to say, throat scratchy from being unconscious for who knows how long. It felt strange hearing his own voice again.
“Nice to finally meet you Simon! Welcome to the Hail Mary.” Ryland Grace said cheerfully. Did he always have this much… energy? Simon wondered.
“I’m sure you have a million questions, and trust me, so do we. But don’t push yourself, ok? You’re still recovering from a frankly impossible number of major injuries. And radiation poisoning.” Grace said in a more serious tone. Not mean-serious, more like, caring. Like he was genuinely concerned.
“Why are you holding me captive?” Simon said bluntly. Sure this man and rock creature alien thing seemed innocent enough, but he did just wake up trapped in a glass bubble. Last time he woke up in an enclosed space he got tossed in the blood ocean.
“What?? What do you mean-OH! You mean this?” Grace flailed around, gesturing to the glass enclosure, “You’re not our prisoner or anything I promise!”
“Or maybe he is.” Rocky chimed in.
“Not funny man, you’re gonna scare him!” Grace scolded Rocky who let out a noise that translated to “no fun”. “Sorry about my friend here, he’s only met one human before so he’s still trying to learn the earthly concept of ‘humor’. Rest assured, you’re a free man. This glass was just to keep you safe!”
Simon stared blankly at the two. He tried to unpack everything Grace just said to him. Most importantly, that he was free. In a glass bubble, in a mysterious lab called “Hail Mary”, with a very strange human and alien best friend duo. But free nonetheless.
“When we found you you were in really, REALLY, bad shape. We thought it would be best to isolate you from any outside factors while we did the radiation poisoning treatments. Which by the way, wherever you’re from, humans must have a much higher radiation tolerance than humans from Earth like me. One day on that ship of yours and I would have lost more than just an arm.” Grace continued, “You’re in luck that some Eridian scientists and I had been working on treatments for radiation poisoning. They’re still experimental, but you seem to be reacting very well! In that you’re still alive.”
“Still alive…” Simon echoed quietly as he looked down at his, what he could now see, very scared up remaining limbs. He feared what he would see in a mirror, how monstrous his face had likely become. He raised his right hand to his face. Above his shockingly well maintained beard he felt surprisingly even skin on his right cheek. On the left, less so. He was reminded instantly of Ava, the left side of her face scarred and blinded by the horrors of, well literally anything that went on back home. Now they match.
Grace watched quietly, a sympathetic look on his face. Clearly trying to give Simon some space to take in his surroundings before dumping more information on him. Simon could faintly hear him say something that sounded like “Rocky, can you give us a minute?” Rocky paused as if about to protest, but ultimately exited through the door Grace had entered from.
Grace approached the glass bubble and pressed on one of the seams. It opened in front of him like a door. Without the glass obscuring his vision, Simon was able to get a proper look at the man. The graphic t-shirt appeared to have some kind of silly cat illustration on it. On top he wore a cardigan with a pattern of foxes knitted into it. All this paired with his crooked glasses and messy blonde hair, made for one deeply unserious looking man.
Grace took slow, baby steps towards Simon, like he was approaching a wounded animal. Which was not wholly untrue. Once Grace had found what he deemed a safe distance he spoke, “Do you remember anything that happened before you woke up here?”
Simon thought for a moment, and instantly regretted it. He remembered everything viscerally. Descending into the blood ocean, going days (Days? Weeks?) without food and water, having insane concussion hallucinations of giant eels. At least, he hoped they were just manifestations of a brain injury. Worst of all he remembered the pain of the bulk of his left arm disconnecting itself from the rest of his body. His skin melting off every part of him.
“Bad. All bad.” Simon managed to say. Saying it all out loud would make it feel too real.
Grace quickly launched into an apology, “I’m sorry, again, I should have waited before asking you questions! You just woke up to some guy and a pile of rocks leaning over you in a glass case, and here I am poking you for information. Can you tell that I haven’t spoken to another human in over an earth decade?” he finally paused to take a breath, “I guess what I should have started with is, do you have any questions for me?”
“Do you ever shut the fuck up?”
“Nope. Just ask Rocky. He’ll say ‘Grace being loud space blob, need to learn how to close mouth.’.” Grace returned with a smile. Clear that he was hoping to get a smile back from Simon, who was still staring like a deer in the headlights.
Simon said nothing. He was still taking in his new reality. His head hurt trying to process it all. Although maybe that was just the concussion. Can you sleep off a concussion?
“I’ll just leave you be for now.” Grace finally conceded, getting the hint that Simon wasn’t in the mood for conversation, “If you need anything just holler, Rocky and I won’t be far. Especially Rocky, he’ll probably keep an eye on you when you sleep… Not in a weird way! It’s just a thing Eridians do to protect each other. Ok, I’m probably making this worse. I’ll just say goodbye and I’ll uh… see you later!”
As Grace was turning around to exit the bubble, Simon spoke up “Grace,” he looked his savior in the eyes, “thank you.”
Grace broke into a cheesy smile again, “I am really happy to meet you, Simon.”