Chapter Text
When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,
I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.
Yet I am always with you;
You hold me by my right hand…
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
- Psalm 73
HAIL MARY
ONBOARD VIDEO LOG: VOICE TRANSCRIPTION
ENTRY #78
003 (Grace, Ryland):
Hi, everybody. Big–uh–big ol’ update. This’ll be another one for the history books.
Rocky and I--we picked somebody up. An honest-to-goodness submarine--yeah, a submarine, don’t even ask--floating around in space. I had an explore, and there was a guy sloshing around at the bottom of the thing. Sloshing around in blood. Apparently he’s a convict? And the sub was the 13th model, which is… a little terrifying.
I have so many questions I feel like my head’s gonna explode. He’s been unconscious since we found him, about fifteen hours now. Everybody thank Armando, because neither Rocky nor I are medical doctors, and he’s pretty banged up. Well, he’s definitely not an alien--very much made of… flesh and blood. Helping me overcome my squeamishness. He was in kind of strange clothes, though… very dystopian.
Just waiting for him to wake up. I… probably need to sleep. Not sure if I can, though. This is--how long since I’ve been in the same room as a live human? Man, that sounds creepy. I promise he’s gonna stay… live. If I have anything to do with it.
blood
the white of bone exposed
stopping the throat
ribs bending
something inside whispering with another’s voice
another’s
butcher
monster
coward
THE BOX WHERE’S THE BOX
THE SEED
cracked broken?
drowning it’s thick it’s so thick
whose blood? all their blood
let it consume you
I JUST WANT TO LIVE
in the eyes eyes eyes
WHY DOESN’T ANYONE ELSE WANT THAT
wouldn’t it be easier
filling the lung
to let it take you
WHERE NO WHERE
live?
live…?
leave.
someone
leave.
save me.
leave.
Bright.
Why’s it bright if he’s drowning? Too bright. Nothing is bright anymore. Gloom is what he knows.
Something in his throat but it’s not blood. It tastes like blood but it’s too solid. His eyelids are stone-heavy and he can’t lift them. It doesn’t matter anyway. He doesn’t want to see the blood. He doesn’t want to look at himself. This is as peaceful as he’s felt in… longer than he can comprehend.
Something whirs and beeps. A robotic voice: Heartrate increasing.
Huh? You say something, Armando?
Then footsteps--confusing. He can’t work any of this out, but it doesn’t matter.
His arm peels away from his shoulder and he slips backwards into black from white.
Pain comes before any awareness of being awake.
He knows he has a head because it’s clanging and throbbing. He knows he has a face because it’s stiff and crawling with sting. He knows he has arms because they’re aching and itching like crazy.
He needles and scrambles awake to a sandpaper throat that has him lurching up into a dry cough.
White, blinding white. He didn’t know he’d opened his eyes but the light burns. His throat burns. He coughs and chokes and veers over himself. No blood. Just a light blue blanket. He’s on a hospital bed. He’s cleaner than he remembers being in a long time. How come there’s no blood? But there is. In tiny flakes, in the creases of his skin. Beneath his fingernails. He can feel it in his hair. His head is fucking killing him.
The robotic voice blares from close by: “Attention! Patient awake. Patient awake.”
Well, he gets it now.
Everything hurts, it’s completely overwhelming. He groans and retches and blinks and something is stuck into his arm. Needles. Someone’s pumping fucking blood into him--
He reaches to tear that shit out but no arm arrives.
No arm. He looks at his shoulder. Just a stump covered in bandages.
His hand itches violently but there’s no hand there.
And he remembers. He remembers bracing a foot and pulling until--
Whywhywhy--
The flesh tore right off--
And the blood is gone but this is permanent, no arm–-
A silicone hand grabs at his shoulder. “Patient agitated. Patient must rest."
Getoutgetout--
Momentum does the job of getting him off the bed, out of the reach of that fucking robot thing, the needles out of his skin. His legs are nearly useless, though. It’s like his shuddering heart is pumping blood only around itself and won’t let his extremities get at any of the supply. He’s in nothing but his underwear; the floor is cold under his weak bare feet.
“Fuck,” he says. Fuck. Talking hurts. His knees buckle but he doesn’t fall. Grabbing for the white wall with his one hand, he staggers against it and tries to get his bearings. There must be a door here. Wherever this is, he’s gotta get out. Did the COI manage to pick him up after all?
The last thing he remembers is the jaw of that beast. Being engulfed, blood everywhere, choking on it. How could he possibly be alive?
And the COI looked nothing like this. He can’t make out the details of this place yet through the clanging of his head and the blur in his vision, but the place is bright and clean and everything the COI station wasn’t.
He’s never seen anywhere so clean.
The black box. The fucking black box--
A seamless door slides open and in rush two figures that just about blow Simon’s mind.
“Oh, woah, woah, woah--“ says the man.
“Convict run away! Stop!” says the freakish fucking rock-creature.
When it comes to fight or flight, Simon is a fighter. But at a complete loss for what on Eden is happening, with not an ounce of strength left in him, he finds himself crumpled backwards against the farthest wall, arms--arm--outstretched. Fuck.
“What the fuck,” Simon rasps. “What the fuck?” It comes out garbled and reedy; he’s not sure if he’s even intelligible.
“It’s okay!” the man says, arms outstretched. Out of the corner of his eye, Simon sees the alien do a little imitation of his gesture. “You’re okay. Well, you’re--okay is maybe not the right--you’re awake! That’s… good! But--aw, man, he ripped my blood out.”
Simon can’t make sense of this man. He’s so clean. As clean as the walls. Not a scar on him, not a speck of dirt, and his skin and hair light as an angel’s. But he’s got a dumb-looking cardigan on with knitted foxes running across the bottom, a pair of glasses swinging precariously from one of his ears.
He’s got a beautiful face. Face like an angel. But lined with uneven stubble.
He looks maybe a little older than Simon, but who knows? Is he human? Is he here to keep Simon guarded? To carry out the rest of his punishment? Could this be fucking--purgatory? None of it makes sense.
Least of all the rock alien thing that’s edging back and forth at his side, encased in some kind of transparent hamster ball. “Convict go back to bed, demand! Take Grace blood.”
“What,” Simon says, unable to get his goddamn mouth to co-operate with him. “The fuck’s that…?”
The human doesn’t answer him. He steps forwards, arms up. “You’re probably feeling pretty out of it, right? Why don’t you lay back down?”
“Where’s the black box?” Simon grits.
“We can explain everything later. You’ve gotta rest, okay?”
He won’t stop encroaching on Simon’s space.
The fight switch remembers to turn on this time. He slams the man up against the wall, elbow to his throat. Now he’s got him. The man splutters and flails his arms directionlessly. He’s not a fighter.
“Convict hurt Grace!”
“I’m not being fucking fooled again,” Simon growls. The man’s eyes blow wider than wide. His face is reddening from the pressure of Simon’s forearm against his throat. “Who are you, what station are you from, and what did you do to me?”
Something solid bowls into the backs of his legs and he goes down like a hunk of iron with his stupid unsteady legs. His shaky arm is useless in softening the blow; his face slams into the floor. He tastes blood. Blood… so much blood… blood in my mouth in my nose in my--
“Rocky!”
“Convict no hurt Grace!”
Things get very woozy. It’s hard to lift his head.
“Grace okay, question?”
“Darn it, he’s hit his head again,” the man (Grace?) is wheezing. “I’m--I’m fine, Rocky. Hey--“ there’s another hand on him, skin, not silicone. Warm. “I’m really sorry about that--“
Simon is up in a flash, running on nothing but adrenaline. He ducks out of the door and--well, he would run if he could. He manages a slow, shaky lumber. He thinks surely he’ll be caught at this pace, but either his two pursuers are too busy arguing amongst themselves or they’re unwilling to grab him again because he makes it through a tunnel-like corridor and into a place that looks like a lab without obstruction.
There’s no time to catalogue any of this. Just run. No--hide. He’s got no stamina left. Just get away somewhere until he’s caught his breath.
“Wait--you really shouldn’t be running! Oh, fudge…”
His legs give out in the next room along and he only just makes it to the wall before his knees give way again. There doesn’t appear to be any further to run in his condition anyway: no corridors branch off this room, just a ladder stretching twenty feet up the wall.
This time, there’s a button within arm’s reach, which he slams on with his fist. A sliding panel gives way and he falls into a dark box room. Luckily, it’s on his good arm, although it still hurts like a bitch.
He glimpses the man and the alien peering across the room at him from a distance, observing rather than pursuing. Why are they letting him run?
Simon kicks at an identical button on the inside of the room with his foot. The door shuts, plunging him into total darkness.
God fucking Almighty. That was too much. His heart feels fit to burst, overburdened, his temples pounding and pounding. He can’t find it in him to get up. Groaning, he brings his knees up to his chest and lies there like something pathetic.
Too dark. Too damn dark. But he hasn’t the energy left to feel around for a light. So, as his grip loosens on consciousness, all he can think of is the endless oppressive gloom of the SM-13. He wonders if he’ll ever get out. His head lolls against the cold metal and he passes out shuddering and shivering.
Dark when he wakes up. Did he fall asleep? Did time slip again? Where’s the camera to give a little light?
He hauls himself up but--only one arm, he remembers with a grimace. It’s trembling work.
The flesh tore and came clean off…
He can’t see an inch in front of his face. Please, by Eden, some light.
There’s something in the room with him. He's certain. Breathing, almost too quiet to catch.
Desperate now, he fumbles for a light.
The first button he finds, he presses without thinking. The door to the storage room swings open. Light pours in, and the man is revealed, as if no time had passed at all. He’s cross-legged at the door, bathed in that heavenly white light, the tips of his hair and ears kissed by it. Simon’s wouldn’t be sure he isn’t an angel after all if he weren’t so certain he’d be sent to the other place in that scenario.
The man jolts to life. “Oh!” he exclaims. “You’re--hi! Hello!"
Simon slams on the button; the door slides shut. The man lunges at the door, sending Simon scooting back to press against the wall, which isn’t far. This place can’t be larger than six by six feet.
Darkness again.
“Don’t fucking come in here,” Simon snarls, realising there’s no button that’ll lock this door from the inside.
The man’s voice floats from the other side of the door: “Oh, no-no-no, we won’t! Promise. Take all the time you need. Just--got a bit excited there, sorry.”
He could come in at any time to drag Simon out, but instead he’s waiting. Just waiting until Simon comes out himself. What kind of fucking place is this where they let convicts run through the halls and shut themselves in closets? Where, in fact, are all the people?
“You okay in there?”
Simon makes a vague noise. He doesn’t trust any of this, not a whisper, but he’ll test the boundaries if he can, and it’s so goddamn dark, he hates it. “There a light in here?”
“Yeah, of course. It’s on the opposite wall to the button for the door.”
Simon lunges for that wall, fumbling for anything projecting out of the wall. He breathes out in a rush when he finds it. Pressing the button brings an instant pool of light, softer than the brightness of the main rooms, but more than enough to convince him of where he is--or, more importantly, where he isn’t, and who isn’t in the room with him.
He’s by himself. He’s good for now.
Doesn’t fucking feel good.
Now he’s got a little time to get a hold of himself. He gets to his feet because he feels like an idiot sitting on the floor in his briefs and it’s cold as hell. His head swoops and clamours. A wave of dark overcomes the light for a moment, but he grits his teeth and does not pass out again.
“Can I…” comes the voice through the door, hesitant. “Can I get you anything?”
Simon raises his shoulder. It’s repulsive how the short stump of his arm rotates upwards. Blood and fluid stains the bottom of the nest of dressings there. He must’ve jolted it around when he ran out of the medical room. Feeling at his face, he finds dressings there too, on his forehead and his cheek. The cheek he swears he felt fangs erupt from when the Lung filled with blood.
What of that is real? How close was he to death? How could he possibly have been saved?
The taste of blood is still right at the tip of his tongue.
God, his whole body is wrecked, strange vinelike scarring wrapping its way round every limb left on him.
“The seed,” Simon says. “Where’s the seed?”
“The--what?”
“The fucking seed on a chain. The Last Seed.”
“Right, got it, we kept it right next to you in the medical bay. Looked like it might be important to you, I thought you’d wanna keep it with you.”
Simon scoffs at that. “Important. Yeah.”
“Do you want it now? I can get it for you.”
Simon says nothing. He doesn’t want the man to come in, but he desperately wants the seed. It feels like proof of all that happened, good or bad.
“I’ll go get it for you,” the voice says anyway. There’s a grunt that suggests he’s gotten off the floor with some effort. How long was he sat outside the door?
“Don’t come in,” Simon reiterates.
“Convict awake, question?” comes that alien voice.
“Don’t let that fucking thing come in either!”
“Nobody’s coming in!” it comes from a greater distance; the man must be fetching the seed. Touching it. Contaminating it.
No, it’s Simon who’d contaminate it. What has he become? Repulsive and mutated.
Arm tearing itself apart on the metal crucifix--
And his arm burns like the moment it snapped apart. The hellfire pain doubles him over. He whimpers like a baby. GodGodGod stop thinking about it you’re making it worse STOP!
The pain clouds over his consciousness for some interminable length of time that could be seconds or hours. When he comes to again, he’s on his knees, which fucking aches, his head pressed into a wall as if to push the pain out, pitting his wounded shoulder with bloody nailmarks.
Something is whispering: destroy yourself.
He’s covered in a sheen of cold sweat that he can’t do anything about. Fuck, he’s a fucking mess.
“Grace make convict come out!”
“You want him to attack me again?”
The man and the alien are arguing. Both are speaking in a whisper that’s so loud they might as well be yelling.
“Grace mean. Grace know Rocky no mean that.”
“I know, bud, but… look, it’s what I said before--humans need time. Not like Eridians.”
“Humans take very long time for live so short life.”
“Yeah. I guess we do.”
“Convict need medical checkup. Could be dead.”
“Loving the positivity, Rock.”
“Grace neck okay?”
“Yes, okay. Doesn’t even hurt.”
“Grace lie.”
“You’re right, though. He’s still got that concussion. He’ll need pain relief. And he really needs to eat. Ah, man. Hmm. How would you coax me out of a closet if I locked myself in?”
“Convict not locked in. Why Grace not just enter room, question?”
“Because--Rocky, shh! What if he heard that? Because we’re trying to build trust. If he thinks we’re gonna barge in on him whenever we so please, he’s never gonna calm down!”
Huh. Not the dialogue of prison guards or angels. Definitely fucking not. They’re… dumbasses.
Could this be real?
The rock calls the man Grace. The man--very inspired--calls the rock Rocky. And they seem to be friends, despite the bickering.
Grace. What a name.
Simon’s eyes roam around the space he’s in as they continue to argue. There’s no window. No way to determine where the fuck he is. It doesn’t feel like the place is moving, but that would probably only be discernable if they were accelerating or decelerating, especially given the condition of this place--it looks like it was made with a level of care and resources Simon can't comprehend. It's not a place that rumbles and shudders. Eden used to, in the rooms near the generators, and it was stationary. There's an orange stripe running the length of the wall horizontally, at about Simon's eye level. He can't tell if it has any particular purpose. An emblem made of white lines is printed into the stripe at one junction--no, not lines, letters: PHM.
A shining plate higher on the wall catches his eye. He runs a fingertip along the etchings that decorate it: simple, clean lines creating the shape of what looks to be the earth, if Simon remembers right. The earth, and a ship orbiting it - long and tubular, with two sets of perpendicular wings or panels.
What’s the point of that?
The room is messy. A heap of soft cases is precariously stacked in one corner with stuff spilling out. Simon picks up one of the items thrown atop the pile, reaching again with both arms and starting when he only gets one, and holds it up to the light. It’s a T-shirt, very old-fashioned. Black, with a curved white line printed on it alongside the words I had potential. It’s made of a flimsy material, but feels and looks shockingly new--nothing restitched, the white lettering pristine. Simon can’t remember the last time he saw a garment so spotless.
He shucks it on gingerly, wincing at all the throbbing places movement aggravates. There. At least he’s partially clothed now. He doesn’t have to look down at the raw scarring across his torso.
He wants to explore the bags more--there’s something made out of a mysterious metal in there that he’s very interested in--but he can’t, quite. He’s… he’s too fucking tired. Everything hurts and all he can see is teeth and bone and red. He wishes everything was over.
A knock on the door sends him skittering back onto the pile of stuff.
“Still hanging in there, pal?”
The man. Simon doesn’t reply.
“I have your… uh, seed, thingy? And, uh... I know you’re liking having your own space in there, but we’re kind of worried about you out here--“
Worried about me?
“Rocky not worried.”
“Rocky,” the man hisses. “Yeah--so--we’d love to help you out, if you’d wanna… come out for a bit? I… we can explain everything you wanna know. Get you on some good painkillers… there’s killer food, hot and seasoned and everything…”
“No,” Simon grits through the door.
“Okay, but…” the man sighs. “Please? I--hey, I promise we’re not gonna hurt you. Nothing like that. You don’t have to… there’s nothing to be scared of. We’re just a couple of guys. I’m--oh! My name’s Grace, by the way.”
“And Rocky.”
“And Rocky. We are totally harmless, we’re--basically just two different species of nerds, uh, and--“
“Grace?” Simon echoes.
The voice brightens up massively: “Yeah? That’s me!”
“There’s… no punishment? I’m done?”
“Uh…” he seems confused. “Yeah. Of course. We’re just here to help.”
There’s no choice in it, whether he’s being lied to or not. What’s the plan, hole up in this room until he wastes away or dies of infection?
There’s still a very present doubt in Simon’s mind that any of this is real. But hey, if it’s not real, then fuck it.
He rather likes the thought of submitting to the arms of an angel.
He jabs a fist against the button; the door slides open, inviting the brighter light in.
“Gimme the seed,” Simon rasps. “And don’t let the alien anywhere fucking near me.”