Chapter Text
When they pulled him from the submarine, he begged to be shot. Or poisoned. Or strangled. Something. He didn't want to be locked up again. Not again, he couldn't. The idea of being trapped and locked back in a cell or a lab made him want to claw his eyes out. He couldn't handle it again, not after being sent down over and over and nearly dying to that monster.
He knew something about himself changed when that blood filled the submarine. The feeling of that thick and hot blood entering his wounds and the smell of metal as it had swarmed the space would never leave his mind. The searing pain as needle-like teeth sprouted from the skin of his cheek would never leave his mind. The damning voices of that monster and the sound of Ava's screams would never fucking leave his mind.
When they had pulled him out and recoiled at the sight of his grotesque mutations, he knew it then and there that he was no longer human. The repulsion, fear, and disgust on their faces remained in his mind every second. It was no wonder he had begged for a merciful death as they dragged him into a cell again.
They never listen to him.
They don't care. When he had noticed his cell was devoid of anything, not even a bed, it was easy to connect it to the fact they saw him as a suicide risk. It wasn't care or concern that forced him to live with the monstrous features. No. They want to study him. They want to take him apart and use him and treat him like a fucking science experiment. That's all he is to them. A tool. A resource. A fucking sacrifice.
He screamed profanities and swears for hours until his voice grew hoarse and painful. He threw the bowls of food when they were offered, sometimes directly at the guards that brought them in. He tried to kick and punch the door until his body felt too heavy to move. When he wore himself out, he laid down in the corner of the room, with his back wedged between the two walls. His head throbbed. His arm hurt. This wasn't what he wanted. All he wanted to do was live and be free. They tried to kill him and the second he accepted it? He was torn from the submarine and shoved in another cell to be a living science experiment. They'll tear him apart and use him over and over. He'll find a way to get what he wants. He will. He--
The door of his cell opened and his head snapped up. His eyes met another pair. David stood there, ominously looking in. "Convict." He had been the one to open the sub and restrain Simon. Simon felt the need to run, to fight, to get away as he stared at David.
"Get the fuck away from me!" Simon backed himself up into the wall further, cowering. He bared his teeth, gripped at the wall as he tried so hard to get away. "I'll fucking kill you! I will!" When he spoke, a painful rasp aided his voice. "Don't... Don't come near me."
David stepped in further, the door still open behind him. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he spoke with nothing warm audible in his firm and sturdy voice. "You're making things difficult, Convict." He sighed as if Simon was a bothersome child throwing a tantrum. The way he looked at Simon, with a hint of resentment, made the convicts stomach twist. "This—your mutations—could solve so many issues. Don't you understand that? This could help the people."
"You should've put a knife through my heart the second you opened that fucking submarine!" Simon snapped. His voice broke off into a trembling sob. "You should've killed me."
"Your self loathing won't cause us to lose this opportunity, Convict." The lack of emotion, lack of sympathy, in David's voice felt no less than like a slap in the face. Another sob, quieter, leaked from Simon's mouth. He shook his head, cowering further into the corner. Still, David stood devoid of sympathy. "Ava died for this. You nearly did too. You should consider yourself lucky." The man's eyebrows furrowed as he stared down at the mutated man with nothing short of hate. Rage. Disgust. "I would've much preferred if we were able to pull her up. But we got you instead: Eden scum that doesn't even deserve to breathe." Simon doesn't answer.
He sat there, frozen, until finally he looked up. "...She's actually dead?"
Now, he sat motionless in a lab. He didn't move as the scientist nervously poked and prodded at him. The lights were too bright for his newly sensitive eyes and the voices of the doctors muffled when they stepped to his left. Their findings were basic: heightened sensitivity to light, mild hearing loss in the left ear, excessive calcium growths from both his upper and lower jaws that broke skin. The lumps on his face were, luckily, not tumorous. There was concern when he admitted how often the camera had been used but they quickly assure him that no cancer was found in his body.
When David enters the room and hears the news, he doesn't look happy. "That's all? He's sensitive and has extra teeth? I could've told you that, for fucks sake!"
"We don't have the equipment or materials to examine more closely," The lead scientists says sternly with furrowed eyebrows and an angry look in her eyes. "This is a waste. We don't know what is happening to his body and unless we suddenly find a person capable of high end research, we will not be able to properly study him. Not enough to ensure that this could be a solution to our problems."
"Then you need to find a way!" David snaps, slamming his hand on the counter of the medical room. Simon jumps, flinching heavily at the sudden noise and violent reaction. "Or I swear to whatever God you believe in, I'll throw you out the airlock an--"
The door opens, a guard rushing in. "Sir! We found something," the guard is breathing heavily, as if they had ran, "someone. Someone who could help."