Chapter Text
“What’s two plus two?”
The mechanical female voice is the first thing he’s aware of. Every other sensation is muted. He thinks he drifts back to sleep for a while, but soon enough –
“What’s two plus two?”
He tries telling the voice to go away, but only manages some garbled noises. Why can’t he make words? It felt easier last time.
Last time?
“Incorrect. What’s two plus two?”
He manages to pry his eyes open and once he adjusts to the blinding light, he takes in his surroundings as much as he can from his prone position. He’s in a weird oval bed. And he’s covered in tubes. Most of which are going inside him.
There’s also a mildly creepy robot arm coming from the ceiling and hovering menacingly above him.
“Eye movement detected. What’s two plus two?”
After a few false starts, he manages to croak out an answer.
“Correct. What’s the cubed root of eight?”
He answers that one as well and that’s the extent of his energy. He drifts back to sleep.
Waking the next time feels more natural. He can wiggle his hands and feet on command.
“Hand movement detected. Remain still.”
The robot arm comes for him and a spike of fear flashes through him as it begins removing tubes. That’s not so bad, but he thinks it forgot the one up his butt. And the catheter. He’d like those ones gone, too, please.
He gives some experimental arm and leg movement and finds he can sit up with only slight difficulty. The room is round and very white with bright lights shining down from the ceiling. There are two other beds with him, but he can’t see the occupants. The only door is a hatch in the ceiling with a ladder leading up to it.
“Full body movement detected. What is your name?”
That gives him some pause. He didn’t have an answer.
“I – I don’t know.”
“Incorrect. What is your name?”
A wave of feeling passes through him. Something comforting and warm, but slightly sad.
“Angel,” he answers with some confidence.
“Incorrect. What is your name?”
No? But something about that felt right.
“Bite me.” He tries to get out of the bed and the robot arm must have drugged him through one of the remaining tubes, because he suddenly feels drowsy.
His next wake-up was followed by robot arm evasion as it tried to force him back into bed, some traumatic tube pulling, the discovery that the other bed occupants were dead, and that he was too weak to climb the ladder leading to the escape hatch.
He was now sitting in his bed, eating some kind of nutrient paste out of a tube (it was delicious) and contemplating his current situation. Conclusions so far came to: he had no idea where he was, why he was here, who the dead people were, or who he was. He had been in some kind of coma before and it looked like for a long time, given the level of decomposition of his associates. Friends? God, he hoped they weren’t friends. He had seemingly random knowledge and some flashes of memory of his life, but nothing that would lead to concrete identity confirmation.
Except Angel. That name kept sticking in his mind. Maybe it was someone he was close to?
Finishing his tube meal, he made another attempt at the ladder and successfully got to the top. It opened into another circular room, this one appearing to be a lab of some kind. Looking at all the objects in it, he realizes he can name them all and knows their function! So, obviously he was a scientist of some kind?
He spots another ladder and another hatch and climbs up to that one as well.
“To unlock hatch, state your name.”
Fudge, this again. Climbing down the ladder proves significantly harder than going up, surprisingly, and after taking a painful tumble, he decides to rest once again in his bed. Maybe the robot arm overlord would give him more tube paste when he woke up. He still felt like he was starving!
He blinks awake under the branches of a tree. It takes a while for him to realize that’s what he’s looking at. The light coming through the sparse leaves isn’t familiar, nor is the ground he’s sitting on. He can’t think of why it feels different – he’s not sure what else he would expect.
Sounds slowly filter in from around him and he remembers he can move his head to see. He brings it down and looks at himself. He’s wearing a black shirt with some kind of pun on it and jeans. He sees hands and tries lifting them up. It mostly works. They tremble slightly, but he’s able to reach up and touch his lips.
He opens those under his fingers and grunts out a light sound. He can’t seem to remember how to make words right now, though.
His eyes finally focus on the room surrounding him. He’s facing a wall of windows and can’t quite comprehend what is outside of them.
It’s nothing.
A deep, endless expanse of black nothingness.
Where is he? Nothing about this is familiar.
He looks back at the tree that he’s resting against. He doesn’t know what kind it is – he doesn’t think he knows much about trees at all – but he can tell this one isn’t doing great. Something about it looks sickly. The branches are more bare than they’re supposed to be. The green of the leaves is washed out.
He puts a hand against its bark and starts trying to get his feet under himself. It’s a slow process and he almost face plants into the trunk a couple of times. A few more false starts and he’s able to shuffle his way around to the other side of the tree.
The room he’s in is pretty large. Three-quarters of it is round windows showing the black void he’s trying not to look at too much. The rest is mostly metal. There are some benches lined up with an aisle running down the middle. It looks almost like a church nave.
What is a church nave? He’s not sure, but he feels like he’s been in one before.
His attention finally focuses on the sound he had noticed when he first woke up. There’s a man sitting on one of the benches. His head of dark hair is bowed down and he seems to be talking quietly to himself. His hands are clasped together in front of himself and a round glass pendant swings gently from his fingers.
He slowly walks closer to the other man, who doesn’t look up or seem to take notice of him at all.
When he gets next to the man’s bench, he opens his mouth again.
“Hello.”
Oh! That’s how you make words!
The man startles and jerks up, staring at him in shock. He wants to try making more words, but doesn’t know what to say and the other guy isn’t making any conversation either. He focuses on one of the only things he knows right now.
“That’s a tree.” The other man blinks, and he helpfully points to the sickly-looking tree in front of them. His eyes focus out into the blackness beyond it again and he quickly looks back to the man still sitting on the bench. “I don’t like the windows.” The making words thing is coming along great so far!
“Who are you?” The man finally speaks. “Where did you come from? You’re not from Eden.”
He points to the tree again. “I came from there.”
The other man scowls. “Who are you?”
He opens his mouth to answer, but nothing comes out. He doesn’t know what words to use.
Who am I?
Why doesn’t he know the answer to that?
Who am I?
He was looking at the tree again. That’s where he started out. Maybe something over there would give him an answer, even if none of this place felt familiar.
He starts turning to shuffle back down the aisle – he was still getting used to walking – but movement from the other man caught his eye. He was reaching toward him, trying to grab his arm and stop him from leaving.
The other's hand went right through his arm.
The other man screamed in shock and he screamed right back. He didn’t know who he was, but he knew that wasn’t supposed to happen!
He grabbed his own arm, but it felt solid. He had touched the tree earlier and that felt solid too.
He reached out and tried to grab the man’s arm in return. His hand passed right through, just like before.
His breathing was coming fast and blackness was curling at the edges of his vision. He met the eyes of the other man desperately.
“What’s happening to me?”
Blackness filled his sight.
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His eyes opened, once again looking up at the branches of a sad tree. It didn’t take as long for him to get his bearings this time. He patted his hands along his torso and arms. Touched his face and knocked his glasses askew. Glasses? Was he wearing those earlier? He never noticed them.
How’d he get back to the tree? Did the man put him back over there?
Getting to his feet and walking around the tree was easier this time. The other man was still sitting on the benches, but now he was in the one closest to the tree. He cleared his throat when he came closer, but stayed out of reaching distance this time.
The other man’s head snapped up and a look of awe filled his features. The expression made him feel uncomfortable and he rubbed at his arms.
“You’re back.”
He blinked in confusion. “Back? I didn’t go anywhere.”
The man shook his head. “You were gone. After I tried to touch you, you vanished. I’ve been coming back every day to see if you were here.”
“Every day? How… How long was I gone for?”
“It’s been five days.”
He took a moment to process that. Where had he been for five days if not here? Where was here anyway?
“Are…” His gaze went back to the other man, who was looking at him intently. “Are you an angel?”
A surprised laugh bubbled up and he waved his hands in front of his face. “No! No, no, no! Definitely not! I’m just a person!”
He paused. He was just a person, right? But people weren’t supposed to have other people’s hands pass through them. But he felt like a person. Faces flickered in his memories, too fast to really grasp any of them, but he knew they were just regular people, too.
“Why would you think I was an angel?”
“When you appeared last time, I was praying for guidance. You said you came from the Last Tree. The last of God’s gifts to humanity. And you’re -” The man cut off and his face turned slightly red. “Well… I can’t touch you. What else would you be?”
“Definitely not an angel! But…” He shook his head and fiddled with his glasses. He really wanted something to do with his hands. “I don’t know what’s happening. The no-touching thing isn’t normal for me. At least… I don’t think it is?”
“Then why are you here if it’s not to answer my prayer?” The other man had mostly lost the look of awe now – thank goodness – but his black eyes were still very intent on his own.
“I don’t know!” he answered truthfully. “Where is here exactly? I don’t think I’ve ever been here before.”
“This is Eden.” At his blank look, the other continued. “The station? The one closest to Mars?”
“Mars?” He looked out the windows into the unnerving blank darkness. “Wait, space station? We’re in space?”
The other man looked confused now. “Where else would we be?”
“Oh, I don’t know! Earth, maybe?”
The man shook his head. “Earth is gone. It died with all the stars in the Quiet Rapture.”
Mr. Grace, what’s the Petrova line?
So, the black dots are eating the sun? The sun really is dying?
The memory was vague. Children’s voices with notes of fright, asking him to explain… something bad. Something that was causing the sun to dim. Was that what the man was talking about? Did the sun really die and Earth with it?
“No.” He rubbed at his eyes, trying desperately to recall anything else. “No, I’m definitely from Earth.” That felt true at least.
“Ok… But why are you here now?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I can’t remember who I am or where I’m from, any more than that it’s somewhere on Earth. And maybe…” He looked at the other man again helplessly. “I think my name is Grace?”
The other man blinked. “Your… name is Grace. And you’re… not an angel?”
Grace(?) scowled at him.
There weren’t any branches above him when he woke up this time. What was that? Another memory? But he thinks he has something of an answer now. He goes back up the two ladders to the locked hatch.
“To unlock hatch, state your name.”
“Grace.” Looking at the lab equipment, he adds, “Dr. Grace.”
“Correct.” There was a small click from the hatch and Grace triumphantly opened it.