Chapter Text
Simon can’t remember where he went so wrong.
The hull he stays welded in shudders around him.
He looks up at the dented radio in front of him. Thick drops of blood flowing out from the inside. All Simon can do is stand, frozen— his heart hammering in his chest.
The monster outside of his prison sobs.
“It’s too dangerous.. It was too.. Had to.”
The sobs shift into mangled cries and snarls “Why do we have to do this!? Her blood is on your hands!! How many more bodies would you climb over to save yourself!? Always thinking of a life you’ll NEVER get back! Thinking of a mother.. Who wouldn’t even recognize the KILLER she spawned! Or maybe she’d be proud…”
The hull begins to shake violently, Simon’s breath hitching as he tries to regain his footing. He can feel tears burning behind his eyes, his breathing growing unsteady.
The monster continues.
“Is death.. The ONLY THING SHE TAUGHT YOU!? HALF-MEASURE, HALF-COMMITTED, NEVER ENOUGH!”
Simon can feel a familiar rage bubbling in his chest.
“THERE’S NOTHING LEFT FOR US NOW!”
Simon huffs, turning to face the images of which the eel is projected upon.
“Nothing left?” he sneered. “What do you know..? You’re just a piece of shit that doesn’t even realize it’s dead— WHAT DO YOU KNOW!?” He shouts, digging his nails in his palms hard enough to make them bleed.
“We know.. MORE THAN ENOUGH, BUTCHER!” The creature roars. “THE LIGHT MUST BE FORGOTTEN! THIS MADNESS ENDS WITH YOU!!!” It shrieks, multiple voices layering over its own as it cries out.
Simon feels a low growl bubble out of his throat. “You think I’m just gonna give you what you want?” He steps closer to the controls at the front of the hull “No… Fuck that, and FUCK YOU!!!”
Simon stomps towards the controls, a hand gripping tightly on the propulsion. “YOU WANNA EAT ME!?” he shouts. “COME AND TRY!!!” Simon slams the lever forward with full force. The light on his navigation begins blinking rapidly before suddenly ramming roughly into the shrieking mass before it.
The eel cries out in agony as Simon wedges his manual underneath the lever, keeping the hull stabbed into the leviathan.
Simon begins to make his way into the crawl space, his heart dropping once he realizes the entire thing is filled to the brim with blood.
“Oh, fuck me..” He wails before dropping down.
Simon begins to force himself through the crawlspace, and towards the black box that Ava begged him to retrieve. It feels as if his skin is being peeled off of his body. His heart is hammering in his chest, yet he perseveres. His desperate gasps for air are choked out by the blood engulfing him in the suffocatingly claustrophobic crawl space.
After a bit of struggling, he manages to pull the box free from the space, making his way back while trying his hardest not to drown in the cruor around him.
After Simon finally manages to squeeze himself back out, he attempts to regain his balance, gripping one of the hull’s pipes as he hoists himself up.
Simon yelps out as he feels a piercing sharp pain digging into his hand— crawling up his forearm. He gasps sharply once he notices the sprout from the pendant wrapped around his wrist had sprouted, the roots embedding themselves in his arm, fusing it to the pipe.
Before he can even begin to react, his other arm is stabbed by what looks like threads of sinew, forcefully soldering his other hand to the pipe above him. A cry of pain tears out of Simon’s throat. His breathing grows sporadic and rapid as he begins to pull his arm off of the pipe as quickly as he can.
He manages to separate his hand from the pipe– if not overwhelmingly painfully. Simon yelled out in agony before checking the damage. He winces once he realizes that the entire surface of his palm has been torn clean off.
Rather than dwelling on the fact, he shakes his head quickly as a way to regain his bearings, before using his free hand to grip onto his forearm and wrench his other hand off of the lower pipe. It doesn’t budge. He takes to pressing his foot on the pipe near his hand and yanking as hard as he can.
An agonized wail tears out of his throat as he feels the muscles in his arm tearing apart— as well as the joints in his shoulder popping in various places.
He lets out one more shout of desperation before lurching backwards, the back of his head slamming against the wall behind him hard enough to make his vision go white.
His ears ring piercingly as he huffs. Simon forces his head up to look at the damage, only to see almost his entire arm hanging from the pipe above him– his hand still death-gripping the metal. The roots of his pendant dig deeper into the skin of his severed limb, branches and crimson-colored leaves sprouting from the torn sinew before him.
Simon’s heart sinks deeper than he’s ever felt once he looks to his side and realizes his left arm was torn right from him, blood and lacerated tissue hanging limply from the middle of his bicep. His breathing picks up as his remaining hand grips his shoulder, hoping that maybe the pressure might relieve the pain.
A crushing feeling of dread begins enveloping his soul after a beat. Simon slowly comes to the terrifying realization that he really might not make it out of this.
He’s going to die down here.
He’s going to die down here and nobody will remember his name..
Simon doesn’t bother to hold back the tears that begin to stream down his face. His body trembles violently as hopeless sobs persistently tear out of his chest.
The Eel begins to speak again, its voices constructed with a burning hatred– veiled in pity. “See what happens when you fight? Do you understand now..? You need to understand that we… HAVE to do this! This is the only way, you know it, Butcher.”
The title sends a ringing through Simon's ears. He winces, slowly pulling closer into himself before he notices a light.. It’s faint at first, just a hint of a glimmer in the ichor around him.
At first he just assumes it’s just another hallucination. Another sick trick fabricated by the bitter god to keep him hopeful, since apparently the crushing hopelessness that comes afterwards is sweeter than any dessert he could’ve given it.
Then it grows brighter.
Simon doesn’t understand where the feeling came from, but he suddenly gets the overwhelming urge to go towards it. He huffs quietly, coughing out any blood stuck in his throat before reaching towards the life jacket holding the black box— wrapped around Simon's hood. He clutches the leather knife pouch in his hand, the feeling of the material against raw skin makes him wince, yet he pulls it closer nonetheless.
He bows his head down, his voice breaking as he begs in a whisper. “Please.. Please keep this safe, Mom… It’s more than me.” He sobs.
“It saw you, Simon! And it will never let you go! It wants you to do this! Can you not see that!?” The Creature wails, a razor sharp tooth crashing into the hull, piercing straight into the control panel before him. Yet, for some reason— the fang doesn’t stop the lights within it from shining a bright green hue.
“It’s more than me… Fuck—” He keens, pushing himself up on his feet, his back on the wall behind him— while simultaneously keeping pressure on his severed limb, desperately trying to slow the bleeding. “It– It’s more than me.”
The light beyond the veil feels comforting, it feels as though it’s promising something. Like a soothing hand reaching out, beckoning him eagerly to take it.
It feels as though it’s a promise of freedom.. Simon wanted it.
Fuck– He needed it.
Simon’s body is absolutely burning, he can feel his anatomy mutating, breaking and growing harrowingly as it’s adapted to survive the ocean— yet he still manages to limp his way towards the controls, slamming the lever forward, and going towards the light.
The leviathan is still screeching his name out, loud enough to blow out his eardrums— yet he still lurches forward. The tendrils of the blood ocean try their best to pull him away from the controls, it was like they knew what was going to happen to him if he ended up making it to the luminosity, and they’re doing everything in their power to make sure he doesn’t make it there.
“SIMON!!!” The creature wails “THE LIGHT IS A LIE!! NOTHING MORE THAN A SICK PLOY FOR THE GOD TO FEED OFF OF YOUR DESPAIR! YOUR SHIP IS ALIVE, CAN’T YOU SEE THIS IS A MERCY!?”
It seemed as if the eel was as scared of the glow as Simon was. Despite the desperate cries of terror tearing out of the creature’s throat— the desperation had only made the Convict want to stretch even further into the luminescence.
He feels the roots of the hull wrap tighter around him, shattering both his tibia and fibula in two. But, considering everything else happening, he does everything in his power to not focus on the pain, aside from letting out a shattered wail.
The closer Simon inches to the light, the longer time feels to be stretching out. He remembers his mother telling him stories about how people back on Earth used to theorize that if someone were to get sucked into a black hole— time around them would slow to a stop.
God, he misses his mom.
He misses home.
After a beat of nothing but continuous calamity, Simon’s hope begins to dwindle— but just as his grip starts to loosen on the controls in front of him, a loud shrieking tears through his eardrums, and a blinding light shatters the glass before him— tearing through the hull, and filling it with a brightness he’s never seen before.
The Convict silently watches as the light envelopes him, his world shattering in two. He could see the god looking down at him, he could see his own mutilated corpse dead beside himself, the walls were collapsing, warping around him. Metal bending in ways Simon was sure should definitely not bend like that, the entire world felt like it was being torn apart. He stumbles back, desperately trying to regain his footing before realizing his feet weren’t even on the ground anymore.
Simon forces his head back— a white hot pain embedding itself under his skin as he does. His eyes widen once he realizes the hand of the ignorant god is desperately reaching down to grab him. He tries his hardest not to look it in the eyes, he’ll only make that mistake once.
“S̷͇̱̲̥̤͊ͭ̀̈́͊͑͋̒͢͡į̻̣̝̪̤̽̕̚͞m̶̵͕̼̙̥̳̙̟̘̦͉̙̓̓͒̌ͥ͋͛͑̏̓̋̐͋̀̂̐͛͢͢͞ó̴̷̡̢̢̬̜̠͚̱̺̘̹͖̩͕̖̖̺̺͚̺̈̐̋͐̒ͬ̾ͩ̎ͩ͆̅͛͆̃̐̑̋ͨ͘͢͜͞n̷̩̠̗̮̉̾ͦͤͯͧ.̢̦͙̺̖͓ͪ͆̀ͨͪͥ́ͦ̔̄͝.͖͚̱͇̩̳̲̦̃̈́͂͐́͘̚͢.̣̝͈ͯ̌̀ͯ̚_̷̙̣̤̲̠̤̪̾͐̋̀͐̍ͮ̀̐ͭͪ̚͟” It growls, outstretching its hand even further, as if it was a child chasing after their lost balloon— just out of reach.
Simon feels his breath growing heavier, yet the noise comes out malformed— the strain on his throat sending sparks through his body.
All he could do was stare at the psychedelic sight before him, but—yet? It was the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. The ways the light bent as if shining through a prism, colors and stars scattered around him. If this was how Simon was going to die, he wouldn’t be averse to it.
The last thing he remembers is his head slamming hard against one of the metal pipes behind him as the eel’s voice surrounding the submarine becomes more and more distorted, knocking him out cold with a brain splitting ringing in his ears.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Simon jolts upright like a fish out of water, hyperventilating, yet feeling as though no air is entering his lungs. It’s suffocating. The smell of nothing but iron and rot left Simon's stomach almost hollow. His heart hammering against his chest as if it was trying to escape. Images flashed in his mind, the blood, the eel, the blinding light, his past, present, and future.. The warm, suffocating blood that claimed him, or— was supposed to claim him. He thought he had died. He might’ve died…
The first thing he notices is the searing pain coursing through every nerve in his body, his head pounded as if someone had bashed it in with a sledgehammer. His lungs burned every time he tried to breathe, his throat raw, like he’d just swallowed sandpaper. The entire right side of his face felt as if it were peeled right off. His shoulder even more so.
Okay.. okay. Simon thought to himself, panicking isn’t gonna help anything, I need to make a.. List— a list! I’m great at those, I think—
Simon begins to list off all of his symptoms. His whole body scorched, which isn’t great.. The things that hurt the most— though, were his left arm, the right side of his face, his head, his leg, his back, and all the way down to his tailbone. Every part of his body felt like it had been degloved, then dry rubbed with salt and hydrogen peroxide. His face felt as though someone had peeled the skin off of the side of it slowly, harrowingly.
Not to mention, it was fucking freezing. All of the horrible suffocating heat in the lung had almost completely vanished, replaced with a hull so cold he could see his breath, if he opened his eyes, at least. He’d tell himself it was rude to complain, but considering everything he just went through, he thinks he deserves to be at least a little bit picky about the temperature of his cist.
As for his eyes, he tried to— he squinted them open, only to be met with a violent blinding light pointed directly into his eye. He winces sharply before shutting them tighter through a wave of pain. He begins to reach a hand up to shield his eye— before being so kindly reminded that even the slightest muscle twitch would feel like he got bleach splashed onto flayed skin, the pain immediately firing into his brain, sending shockwaves to every other part of his body. He tries to force his eyes open again, keeping them at almost a closed-eyed squint— noticing that only one seems to actually open.
Simon huffs in pain as his arm hovers over the light above him, giving him more space to actually see. He begins to notice how violently his hand— his whole body was shaking.
The hull is a mess. All of the blood, meat, and loose sinew he saw when he was in the ocean seemed to have died. They had turned a sickly gray-ish red color, like rancid meat. The blood that was burning and melting the metal in the ship stayed static in place, not dripping down.. more like it was floating there? it’s like he was..
Simon suddenly yelps in pain as another shock of agony is sent through his body. It didn’t take him long to realize that he was hovering a good 5-6 inches above the freezing metal grid below him. He scrambles to try and grab ahold of one of the metal pipes behind him, anything to keep him still. He tightly wraps his arm around one of the metal pipes on the ground, the cold of the metal against his raw skin made him tear up a little— but at least he was finally still now.
He looks a little higher from the stained red floor below him, noticing a severed arm hung above one of the higher pipes. His arm— hung above the pipe. He hesitates looking to his side, but when he shoots it a quick glance, his breath hitches—just a little.
The remnants of his arm had dried into a dark, sickening mess of torn sinew, exposed nerve endings, and general mess. The blood around it had dried into thick dark flakes.
“I’m gonna get fucking sepsis..” He whines silently. The sound of his voice making his ears ring. It was coarse, raspy, as if his throat had been freshly slit.
It didn’t really matter that much if he did, though. Considering the fact that he’s in the middle of buttfuck nowhere right now with no way of getting out, let alone trying to move around to peek out of the window of his hull. Also, even if he was able to limp his way over to the window, he still wouldn’t be able to see where he was— considering the fact it’s completely blown to bits.
That wasn’t what worried him the most, though. What he really needed to focus on at the moment was the fact that he was fucking floating. His body wasn’t touching the floor. Instead, he stayed still only a few feet above the frosted grid below him— only being moved by the spasms in his arm.
He remembers his mother telling him that zero gravity meant space. He’s familiar with zero gravity due to how many times the centrifuge on Eden would break, or how many times the centrifuge in prison would break, or how the Consolidation’s centrifuge would also break. God, did anything work in this hell anymore?
Simon couldn’t even begin to process what just happened to him. The last thing he remembers is seeing a blinding light, and now he’s floating aimlessly through space. It’s so cold. Fuck— it’s so cold and dark. If it wasn’t for the dim flickering light glowing inches away from his face, he’d be in complete darkness.
Maybe this is how I die.. Simon thinks to himself. What if he doesn’t die in the blood ocean, what if this is his fate? What if he’s already dead and this is his limbo, being forced into paralysis in a freezing cold prison cell, in complete darkness, all alone. They didn’t even know his name.
So, instead of trying to do anything more to fight, he just clung weakly to the metal pipe beside him, letting his body float limply in the submarine as his eyes glaze over, hoping he’ll be claimed by the sweet release of death if he believes hard enough. Maybe he’ll see his mom again.
He feels his consciousness slipping, the light in front of him dimming more and more. His vision grows in static, the ringing in his ears subsiding long enough for him to hear his own heartbeat— It’s slow and weak.
But, right before he’s able to be fully engulfed by the cold, another shockwave of pain tears through his body, this time— coming from his leg. He jumps once more at the sensation. The feeling sending even more sparks of pain out to the rest of his body. He turns his head as slow as he possibly can to ensure that he doesn’t have to endure any more vertigo, and almost screams once he realizes the sensation came from a long, scaly— copper-colored fish tail behind him.
The scales of it glistened softly in the gentle glow of the dim light above him. There were sharp teeth scattered around malformed fins. Torn, flesh-colored scales covered by splotches of dried blood. The entire foreign limb scattered in speckled photospheres emitting a gentle orange luminosity.
Simon’s breathing begins to grow panicked; he can feel his heart hammering against his ribcage like it was trying to break free. He looks further up his back, noticing the same fins from the tail trailing up his spine. Horrible mutations of teeth and split— scarred skin, paired with raised scales rippling across it.
he’d scream if his throat wasn’t skinned raw. He’d cry if the tears didn’t burn into the raw exposed tissue taking over half of his face. He takes for letting out a couple of pitiful whines instead.
Simon doesn’t know how long he’s been laying just a couple inches above ground. The only indicator that time was still moving was the gentle humming of the radio above him.
It might’ve been hours, it might’ve been days. He doesn’t know anymore. All he could focus on was staying still, on his breathing. He couldn't turn his head, he couldn’t even breathe deep enough for his ribs to expand because every time he did, shockwaves of straight agony spread through his body again. It hurt too much to rest.
Everything hurt. It wasn’t the kind of hurt that he can just sit down and complain about, or the kind of hurt that felt like he could bear with clenched teeth. It was the kind of pain that tore through his stomach and made him sob with a dry throat. His head throbbed with relentless pressure, as if his eyes were about to pop out of his head. Plus, the painful bright light focused on a single point, like an inch away from his face—enveloping every corner of his vision didn’t help at all.
He wished there was something he could do. Someone who would try to save him. But by now he’s learned that no one will.
So instead, he chose to lay there limply, swaying gently with the rest of the hull. Just waiting for his air to finally run out, or for the sub to implode. Anything to free him from this limbo..
Then the radio cracked.