Chapter Text
The stars shine pale as bones
The moon is a lifeless corpse, its ocean a gaping wound
The universe… what's left of it… is dying.
But somewhere in the void, there must be hope…
Hope in the form of frantic gasps of air between the thick, hot blood filling his lungs. In the form of crystal blue eyes and an extended hand.
His saving Grace.
Light shone brightly even through closed eyelids. He felt… floaty, weightless, formless almost. Sending any conscious signal to his body proved to be a struggle, no part of his system responding. It took minutes for him to even will his eyes open, and when he finally did he was nearly blinded. The roof above him was sterile white, but that’s all he could see before a large amalgamation of arms appeared in front of his face.
“What is 2+2?” A woman's voice asked, devoid of emotion.
Simon barely heard the words, barely saw the contraption, but he knew it was too close for comfort.
“What the fuck are you?- Hey! Back off, get away!” He shouted as the thing got closer and closer.
“Incorrect, what is 2+2”
There was an arm encroaching on his space. Effectively pinning him between the thing and whatever he was laying on, an open hand in his face, with sharp instruments in place of fingers, so close it was claustrophobic.
Next thing he knew the thing was mangled, metallic finger-instruments broken off from the arm, one of them jammed into a bent side panel near the top of the robot, the other arm fully ripped from the track it previously used to manoeuvre around the ceiling. He doesn’t really know what happened. His entire body hurt, but he was standing now and that was something.
He took a few deep breaths, his heart was racing, he could feel it pound excruciatingly against his ribs. Looking to the ground he saw the arm he had ripped from the ceiling. He was familiar now with the effects adrenaline could have on a person, so maybe the torn sparking wires where the arm once was weren't too far of a stretch.
The floor beneath him was padded and white, clean too. Come to think of it, he was also clean.
He gave himself a quick once-over noting two major things: a lack of blood coating his skin, and the lack of a left arm.
The latter of the two- once it finally clicked- sent Simon into another fit of visceral panic.
Hyperventilating, he fell to his knees.
He remembers sparsely. It had been ripped off. Riiiiipppedd off, bloody gory flesh tearing, bone snapping, drowning in blood- Deep breaths, Simon, calm down.
He made an effort to slow his breathing once more, to a fragile, slow pace interrupted only by the intermediate hitch into frantic gasps at the memory.
He needed something to distract himself, to calm down and allow himself to think. Frantically he looked around the room taking in his surroundings. There were other beds around him- three in total, the one he had just been laying on, a second empty one seemingly encased in glass, and a third with a mess of colourful blankets and other personal effects scattered on it and on the floor beside it.
The walls, unlike the floor and ceiling, were not just white, they had various fabrics and lights tacked on, bright and almost obnoxious. In one space there was even a hammock seemingly fashioned out of a shirt tacked to two points on the wall that held trinkets of some sort, like a shelf.
A few white cubes were strewn about the floor as well, some open, contents messily shoved in, and now, spilling out.
His breathing had slowed, he had no idea where he was, and he still felt somewhat disconnected from his body, but he could at least give himself a full body examination, figure out what condition he was in, and gather more information that way.
The most glaringly obvious issue was his missing left arm, the stump was neatly bandaged, the dressing still white, it had probably been changed recently.
The second thing he noticed was an obstructive cloudiness in his left eye that wouldn’t go away.
His head hurt, throbbing and fuzzy all at once. He could see the bruises on his ribs, and the raw skin that covered much of his left side, littered with sores, welts, and blisters. It was an ugly sight.
He brought his right hand up to drag down the left side of his face, freezing when his fingers brushed his cheek, sharp bones protruded from what felt like an open wound in the side of his face.
He catalogued it all in his head.
He’s in a bright white room, there were robot arms presumably trying to cut into his face, he was alone, he was mangled, he had little sensation beyond a fuzzy kind of feeling in his entire body, and he was clean, at least for the most part.
“Hallucinating,- he said out loud to no one in particular- “ Of course I’m hallucinating. I’m at the bottom a fucking blood ocean, an eel is fucking with my head, and I’m dying.”
The subtle ‘phhssst’ of a door caught Simon’s attention. A man walked in, immediately Simon locks on to him, but he doesn’t really see the man.
Not a hallucination. He realized, c.o.i.
He came to the conclusion - as the c.o.i member stepped past the threshold of the door- that he’d rather be hallucinating. He’d rather be at the bottom of a blood ocean, lungs filling with liquid iron than have to face the consequences posed by the c.o.i.
But there's only one, Simon could probably take him.
Scratch that, Simon could definitely take him… he looked soft.
The two locked eyes, and Simon was on him in an instant, pinning him to the floor with a forearm pressed firmly to his throat. He leaned his whole weight into it, hearing the strangled gargling of a choking man under Simon’s weight.
Hands flew up to Simon's arm, one tugging at his wrist and the other scratching at his bicep. He struggled to speak against the pressure of Simon’s forearm, words coming out in a wheeze,
“Wait! Ple- please, let’s just talk, a conversation. Can’t we- can’t we discuss this for a second before, before-” He spluttered a cough, barely any air making it to his lungs.
Simon snarled at him from above, his dark damp hair falling around his face, “I won’t let you kill me.”
The man was struggling against him, throat clicking, chest heaving in a desperate cry for air. His eyes were frantic and welling with tears, and his lips were taking on a grey-blue tint.
Simon sucked in a deep breath, opening his mouth to say something cruel to the man below him, but he was interrupted by a slamming force to the back of his head, spiking sharp pain to burst across the back of his skull. He watched the word tilt sideways and fade to black as an unwilling tiredness consumed him.
Suddenly he was face to face with the eel, it was staring him down, whispering things in his ear under the guise of people he once knew. The sub was flooding, large gashes torn by the creature, and the pressure allowing him a window to meet her pale clouded gaze. Every gulp of air he tried to take was undercut by thick clots of blood sliding down his throat, choking him. He clutched the black box in his hand, pressing it tightly to his chest.
Destroy it.
Her eye tracked his every movement, watched him struggle with a cold stare.
None can be allowed to see the light again.
She continued to stare as his feet lost the ground, watching him struggle against the blood pouring into the sub.
The thick iron sludge burned like no pain he’d ever felt before. Each involuntary swallow scorched his throat. His eyes burned, coated in red that seems to stick to him, and seep behind each eyeball.
Each breath he took was warm, suffocating.
The eel just watched him struggle, no move to end his suffering.
As the liquid thickly filled the pressure hull, Simon rose with it, taking every greedy gasp of stale air that he did not deserve. A gaping crack near his head at the top of the hull let liquid pour in, it splashed his cheek and corroded his skin. His jaw ached, his bones itched.
He eyed the eel as she sat in wait, then flicked his eyes back to the gaping wound in the metal.
He could fit through it if he tried.
The image shifts, and suddenly he found himself not drawing in the blood at the end of his trip, but instead cataloguing the ship's interior at the very beginning of his exploratory mission.
Briefly he recalled a note on the dry floor of the undamaged SM- 13 the words coming to him in bits and pieces.
This is not an expedition. It is an execution.
They don’t want you to return.
And even if they keep their promises…what freedom waits for you? A few dying ships in a sea of dead stars?
I will choose to breathe my last breath at the bottom of an ocean, unseen, unheard, and uncontrolled.
They will get their execution.
And I will get my freedom.
He recalled promises of punishment for disobedience, for failure.
And he distinctly remembered his greatest sin of all… wanting to live.
When he woke, his head throbbed far worse than before. And upon opening his eyes he realized that he too, had been encased in glass. Just like the bed beside him. The air was hot, stale, and clammy. The space was small, barely enough to sit up with maybe enough room to walk two paces from any edge of the bed.
Consequences.
Punishment.
Failure comes with a price.
Panic flared in his chest, hot and paralysing. His breathing picked up, he could practically feel the clots in his throat. They’ve restrained him, they’ve placed him in a glass cage to await his punishment.
The butcher escaped his punishment and now he must pay, either way he will face eternal damnation.
For a moment he thought- begged, really- let this be a hallucination. Let this be the ocean floor, the eel fucking with his head, anything but having to face the consequences of his resilience.
Eventually, Simon heard the door. The man from earlier came into view. When he looked at Simon he instinctively dragged a few fingers gently across his bruised throat.
Almost immediately he started talking,
“Look, you’re hopped up on painkillers and high as a kite, so I won’t hold it to you- the whole almost choking me to death thing, that is.
“But, you did break Arm-ando… somehow, and, well-” he looked Simon up and down. “-You’re very strong, so the whole… shebang- is kind of necessary to make sure no one gets hurt.” He gestures at the glass encasing Simon.
His tone changed then, taking on a concerned softness, “How’s your- uh, is your head okay?”
Apparently the man had a lot to say, unfortunately Simon heard almost none of it.
All he could see was the image of Eden’s last tree, and the bodies that nurture it. That would be his fate. In the back of his consciousness he could hear himself speaking aloud, prayers maybe, or just begging for his life. Pleas of, “I’ll do better, I swear. I won’t disobey. I don’t know how I survived. I’ll go back to the prison. I’ll reform. I’ll repent.
“Don’t kill me, don’t kill me! I just want to live!”
Simon was standing now, blunt nails scratching harshly against the glass as he begged. The man on the other side looked concerned, worry creasing his brow.
A robotic voice speaks brokenly from the ceiling, gaps and pauses fracturing each word,
“Patient, highly… agi-tated. Sedation re–co- mended.”
The panic flares hotter.
“No, no, no, no, no,” He begged, stepping back from the glass partition, his back slamming forcibly against the back wall.
“I won’t-” the man said hastily, hands out in front of him in a futile attempt to calm Simon. “I’m not going to kill you, I won’t even sedate you. It’s okay, you can calm down.”
The man took a few steps closer to the partitioning wall, and Simon, in return, pressed more firmly into the back wall.
“Get the fuck away from me!” Simon spat irrationally, as if the man could reach him with the thick wall between them.
The man froze, his breath coming slightly ragged, his eyes wide. And now, Simon felt he had a moment to properly look at the man. He was tall, slightly taller than Simon, at least, but he was slouching in on himself timidly. He looked soft, cozy and warm to a degree Simon had never really seen before. His hair was messy and blonde, and something about his eyes struck Simon as familiar… Blue. The same blue from-
Oh… so this is a hallucination. After all the back and fourth, c.o.i. Or just a figment of his imagination? He had finally concluded, it was the eel showing him the same blue eyes that he imagined pulling him from the blood ocean.
“Stop fucking with my head!” Simon shouted, gripping at his hair, pulling hard to ground himself. He had to keep the the eel from getting to him and not let this blonde haired, blue eyed, pretty boy fuck with his head. Which was proving difficult. It was hard not to fall complacent to kind and concerned eyes.
However, deep in the frightened part of his brain he doubted this was just a hallucination, it felt so real.
Horrifyingly real, and the thought that it might be terrified him.
Luckily, his hallucination theory became harder to doubt when a rock spider in a glass ball rolled into the room chirping musically.
An honest to god rock spider. What fucked up memories in the recesses of his mind could have given the blood eel the resources to construct this image?
The blonde man turns to the rock creature, waiting for the musical sounds to cease before pinching the bridge of his nose.
“I’m fine, It’s fine, everything’s fine.”
More notes sound back in response.
“Because I’m not going to do that!”
Again, the melody responds.
The man sighed heavily, exasperated and fed up.
A long, fast string of notes continued.
“No! I’m not going to do that! We’re going to help him, and that’s final!”
The creature stomped one of its arm leg thingies on the ground three times, it almost seemed upset.
“Rocky please, just let me do this,” the man pleaded, his voice was watery, his eyes were too.
The creature seemed to relent, it let out a note that sounded almost as exasperated as the man’s earlier sigh. It rolled out of the room with haste, bumping into the door and corridor walls as it rolled away.
The man turned back to look at him, seeming more tired than before.
“I’m sorry about that,” he muttered softly.
Simon realized that he had two options. He could plug his ears and try to keep the eels voice out of his head, or he could allow himself to play along, fall into the soft but frantic tone of this man’s voice, and just hope that the blood eel wouldn’t turn this dream into a nightmare.
And honestly, Simon was tired too, tired of fighting the hallucinations, tired of having to remind himself none of this was real and he was actually dying at the bottom of a blood ocean. Why not just let it happen at this point?
“Why?” Simon’s voice suddenly felt raw from all the screaming. “Why…help me?” The word left a sour taste in his mouth. Of course the only time someone would ever show him kindness would be in a hallucination.
The man’s breath wavered before speaking,
“I mean, when we brought you up you- er, you weren’t exactly doing too hot. You were covered in blood- which I have so many questions about, but I’ll refrain- your arm was, uhm, crudely amputated, we’ll say, which I’m sure you’ve noticed. You’re covered in open wounds, your cheek is split open and there are fangs growing out of the side of your face - which, again, so many questions- something is wrong with your left eye,” He took a deep breath before continuing. “We had to treat you for acute radiation syndrome, which you miraculously recovered from. We also had to treat you for the bends- or, uhm, decompression sickness I think is the proper term, I’ve never really been into diving.
“And well, from every test we’ve been able to conduct, you seem human… against what visual observations might suggest. You even speak English! And I- it’s just been so long. I want to help you, I just can’t do that if you’re going to try and choke me to death…”
The man’s eyes were shedding tears that he quickly wiped away, turning his face to hide in the collar of his sweater.
“I’m sorry,” Simon chokes out, guilt all consuming.
“No, it’s- I understand, I just- you don’t have to apologize... Oh, I just realized I don’t even know your name,” He said with a wet chuckle.
He had genuinely tried to kill the man, and still he forgave Simon, what kind of angel was he? And he had asked Simon’s name, typically the hallucinations already knew his name. It all feels too real.
“My name, you don’t know it?”
They always knew his name, this one should know his name.
“No, you never told me, we sort of jumped straight to the choking thing.”
Why didn’t it know his name?
“Oh, uhm, Simon. My name is Simon, I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright,Simon, I’m Grace, that’s what everyone calls me- well, that’s what Rocky calls me anyway. Ryland Grace, or Dr. Grace- I should probably stop talking, shouldn’t I?”
Grace, huh? How fitting.
“Are you alright staying in there for just a bit longer? I have just a few questions I’d like to ask.” Grace asks, gesturing towards the glass barrier separating the two.
“Alright, shoot.”
“How do you feel, physically? We had to run you through some pretty nasty treatments, do you feel alright? I just want to make sure there's nothing we missed.” Grace asked, looking somewhat apprehensive, worried one of the treatments didn’t work, that after all this Simon might still die.
“I feel fine, a little fuzzy in the head, but fine.” Simon answered.
“Good, well, I also wanted to ask what you meant when you spoke about me- uh- messing with your head. I mean I can imagine you were confused, and maybe your mental state is in rough shape, I don’t know what all you’ve been through but-”
“Look, when you’re the one dying at the bottom of an ocean of blood and experiencing eel controlled hallucinations you can tell me how willing you are to just trust the first one of them that isn’t immediately manipulative mind torture.” He says plainly, cutting off Grace who looks confused and a little concerned.
“I’m going to… get Rocky to let you out, are you hungry?”
He didn’t wait for Simon to answer, just leaving presumably to go get the rock creature to break the glass.