Chapter Text
The first time Grace woke up from the dream, something felt different.
Like there was a shift somewhere in the universe. The feeling made him shiver, made his spine creak under the double gravity of Erid and made his skin crawl as he pulled himself out of the comforts of his precious bed. Grace threw the patchwork covers off of him, and rubbed his calloused hands across his face, worn with age and the stress of just maybe- saving the world.
Once he’d done it, once he’d landed on Erid, and it had processed that the beetles were now on course to earth, he’d collapsed from the relief, and cried for hours till he was dehydrated and exhausted and passed out. The science teacher had probably watched hundreds of movies with the shitty “hero must save the world” prompt, where some superhero has to save the world from a galactic invasion, or some other cringey prompt of the sorts, where the driving force of the hero is the helpless damsel in distress.
Those kinds of films never appealed to him, and so of course it wouldn’t cross his mind, even when he was working on Project Hail Mary, that's what they were doing.
Their superpowers were science, engineering and piloting.
Their driving force was the suffering of the world.
The hero was Stratt. Yao. Ilyukhina. Dubois.
…
Maybe grace was the helpless damsel in distress.
Useless.
He wasn’t meant to be the hero of this story, he wasn’t meant to be the hero of any story, honestly.
The dream had been weird, grace laid in this infinite ocean of what smelled sickly of iron. Blood. An ocean of thick red, that stuck and clung to the scientist's skin, and made his stomach turn. He sat up, feeling the gore streak and pull at his hair, staining and sticking to the back of his head and the entirety of his body. It was probably three inches deep. Not much, barely anything if he was honest, but as grace sat up, he noticed more of his surroundings.
This ichor ocean, was infinite.
The sky was an even darker haze, that faded to a light red-orange over the horizon, and probably 15 metres away from grace was this shadow.
But it wasn’t a shadow.
It was a silhouette, a pure, perfect silhouette of a tree, that was glowing with the light of the heavens, a beautiful white emitted from it, like the symbol of hope. It was odd, Grace never dreamed. And when he did, once in a blue moon, it was him dreaming back some old memories of his life that he’d find useless in the long run.
The curse of Stratt and her amnesia needle.
This was completely new, and he blinked as he stared, enraptured by the tree.
When the scientist tried to stand, ignoring the gruesome noise of the thick liquid around him, his vision suddenly went dizzy, blurry, and he stumbled forwards towards the tree with a sense of desperation to cling to it, a sudden need to touch its light.
As grace was about to fall and hit the liquid floor again, there was a sudden shadow in front of him. A black silhouette fell in front of him too, and the shadow contorted and melted away, revealing for a mere second the terrified face of another human. Tanned, with sunken, worn eyes and black hair that hung and framed his face, but before grace could make any other observations about the man falling parallel to him, he found himself gasping and sitting up in bed.
Grace's hand came up to claw and clutch at the part of his shirt covering his heart, which was thumping in his ears madly. Grace gasped for air, and as he heard Armando’s robotic voice call out from the next room-
“Irregularly fast heartbeat, is medical assistance required?”
Grace groaned and tried to calm himself.
“Nope i’m…im fine…just an odd dream, everything's fine…” he muttered, and took a deep breath.
Today, as usual, was a teaching day for him, and the dream didn’t linger in Grace's mind for very long as he grabbed his usual breakfast, nutrient shake and pulled his knitted fox cardigan over his arms, leaving the door open for Armando as he trudged down the stairs from his house onto the beach.
Today's lesson, one of Grace's favorites, was on cells. It was an easy thing for grace to teach, and easy for the students to learn too because once you got the hang of the differences between animal and plant cells,you could easily list off the structure, label each component and compare them, but before he could even make it to the classroom-cave that the Eridians had made for him, he heard the familiar whistle song of rocky, and he turned to see the eridian and his mate happily trudging along behind him.
“Friend Grace!” Rocky called out, and the scientist turned around, walking back the way he came towards his two friends with a smile on his face
“Hey guys, i didn’t expect you guys to come today, whats going on-”
“Class cancelled, Adrien have surprise!” Rocky chorused before Adrien could speak, their turquoise mate shrilling in a small playful annoyance.
“Oh yeah?”
“Eridian biologists experimenting with Hail Mary plants, big science happen, new part of dome!” adrien chirped, and grace found his hand tapping their zenonite shell in thanks
“Oh?” he blinked, a small grin pulling at the edges of his stubbled mouth he had wondered what had happened to those plants.
“We show now! Now now now!” Rocky demanded, stomping one of his legs, but the motion did not have the effect he clearly wanted, as the usual tapping he made was not recreated by the faux sand beneath his feet.
“What about my class-” the scientist protested weekly, but Rocky pushed himself beneath grace and began lightly bumping his legs to make him stumble forward.
“Fine- hey!”
“Class- no class, class cancelled, class dismissed, grace go see mate Adrien’s hard work!” rocky demanded leaving no room for argument
Ryland huffed, but let himself be ushered forwards, just next to the stairs leading up to his house, there was a new other set of stairs that he somehow mustn’t have notices
“We add new stairs after Grace leaves home to teach” adrien hummed- that explained it.
These stairs went in the opposite direction of the house, climbing all the way up the hill this time, and once the three of them climbed up them, Grace found an arch way made out of stone that acted as a doorway, to a small dip in the mountain that was-
Overflowing with plant life…
Grace was breathless as he stepped forward into the area that looked like a breeding ground for plants, which it probably was. There were probably three different tree types that were almost fully grown, while others were medium length grown, or were still only small plants tied to wooden rods to keep them standing. All the trees were scattered across the garden space like an orchard, with the largest, most grand and grown tree planted directly in the centre, its breaches reaching out like a protective umbrella over the gardens. Other than that, there were bushes and foliage surrounding the entirety of the garden-like place the Eridians had made grace.
Seeing such an amount of life, something so beautiful and alive and real, grace was overwhelmed by the feeling.
“Grace be leaky space blob again” Rocky's chorus came, and Grace just laughed as he wiped away his overflow of tears, “thankyou…adrien- rocky, tell everyone i say thankyou…so much…”
“Grace rocky save stars, save earth, save Erid, Eridians do anything to make grace happy and comfortable, Eridians very thankful…”
Grace nodded, but hugged the triangular peak of Adrien's figure, and squeezed tightly.
After the two mates had left, Grace remained sat in the garden, beneath the centre tree.
Something about it was so incredibly familiar, something so incredibly vibrant and full of life that it made grace want to remain attached to it, like it was his life line.
He spent the entire Eridian day sitting beneath it, and staring up at the leaves and small apple flowers above him.
Grace had never been religious, of course, he never dismissed it, but he never found himself devoted enough to anything else other than science.
Even partners, when he made his very poor attempts to date.
But this tree, its centred nature, the pure magnificence of it. He had to.
“Eden…” he whispered, letting his fingers trace the bark of the stable structure, the texture was of course rough beneath his fingers, and if grace wasn't careful he would get a splinter, but the scientist didn't care.
These were real, living plants. Real, and thriving in Grace's atmosphere.
Grace had life, more life.
His thoughts trailed, maybe he’d take up agriculture? Gardening? Maybe he could really keep this garden thriving the way the Eridians wanted too. They’d already seen how happy and thrilled it had made him, and hard work is the only thing that gets you what he wants. Maybe Grace could skip the three hours of helplessly trying to find something to do when he wasn’t teaching, and he could start his research on keeping this garden as flourished as it was.
He grinned to himself, and sighed.
Already the air felt fresher, and Grace would see himself spending a lot of his time up here.
-
Somewhere slightly far, a space submarine was hurling through space, while the only alive occupant onboard sat, studying.
He had very few things to do. And more often than not he would scream till his lungs gave way, and his throat was bloody raw. He knew he was hallucinating, that he was dying, that maybe he was already dead, but as the butcher stared at the shadowed figure in the corner of the sub he’d been bolted into, he watched for its movement. For it to breathe, for its chest to rise, for its fingers to twitch or for it to lunge at him.
This was another trick the eel had manifested. Another thing Ava had lied about.
The butcher was going to die down here, in this blood ocean with the eel biting, knawing and playing with his sub like its a fucking chew toy for a dog.
The butcher was going to die, not ever knowing if that glimpse of a blonde man in his dream was real, or another fucking trick.