Archive of Our Own

Simon woke today on their mattress, his mother caressing his hair kindly. He opened one eye to see her pinching a lock between two fingers. She was able to pull it up and out of his vision. 

“Much too long,” she said. She grinned, eyes dark and shadowed under her fatty eyelids. She tugs at the lock of hair, making him wince. “You need a haircut.”

“Ow! Hey!” He complained. He reached for his mother’s hand and pushed it off of him. She let him go without a fight. He huffed and sat up in bed. His bangs fell in front of his eyes and his mother laughed. 

She handed him two things. A long stretch of cloth and a nutrition bar. Simon took them both, setting the cloth on his lap and peeling open the wrapper on the bar. He chews on the brittle food. 

“Did you already work this morning?” He asked through his chewing. 

She shook her head. “No, but I spoke to the Father and grabbed food for you. Sleep well?”

Simon just shrugged. He looked down at the cloth she had given him too. It wasn’t anything special, just a grey stretchy material. Probably used for a headband. His mother wore something like this to keep her long hair from getting in her eyes and disturbing her work. 

He could feel his stomach sinking as he stared at the band. He looked up at his mother and her beaming smile. She pulled another item from behind her back, and held it out to him, expression never faltering for a moment. 

His face scrunched up. He leaned into his mother’s chest and cried. 

She shushed him with an appeasing tone. “Don’t be like that, Simon. We all have to play our parts here. Being a Butcher is a beautiful thing, you’ll see. You give back to Eden in the most profound way.”

“I don’t want to kill people!” He wailed. 

His mother made a sound, disapproving. She cupped the nape of his neck with her small, calloused hands. “We do not kill people. They are already gone, Simon. We just help them on their way out.”

At the time, his mother was right. The role of a Butcher wasn’t the same back then, before the Quiet Rapture. It was still barbaric. It was still unsavory work, but more aligned with a mortician or surgeon. A Butcher only processed the dead and dying at this point. They never killed. That only happened after she was gone. 

Eden wasn’t always the way it was. It wasn’t always death and destruction. It wasn’t always the Father and the Brotherhood. But it was never paradise. It was a station made out of necessity. Mars had become overcrowded with people, Earth hasn’t been habitable in ages. The only option left was the skies. Simon’s mother had brought him aboard Eden Station—a station made for agriculture trade in a world without soil to plant crops—with the promise to contribute. Her and her bastard son were welcomed into a tightly guarded community amongst the population. Those that worked in the gardens. 

The End of Days happened long before they lost it all, they just didn’t know what more they could possibly lose. 

Simon wasn’t oblivious to what was happening behind closed doors, but he didn’t realize how much worse it was going to get. He couldn’t have predicted what Eden Station would have become. 

“I can’t do it,” he cried to his mother. “I can’t do it, Ma. I can’t be a Butcher. I don’t want to.”

She hooked her thumb on the back of his collar and pulled him back. She then held his face in her hand, holding eye contact as tears kept rolling down his cheeks. They collected in between her fingers and pooled in her palm. 

“Simon,” she spoke with strict seriousness, leaving no room for argument. “Being a Butcher is a great honor. It is a privilege. Your role in Eden will keep you valued. It will keep you safe. Always.”

At this point, he wanted to believe her. What else could a little boy do but believe his mother was right? If only it was that easy.

“You can do it, Simon.” She whispered. 

“Take the thin edge of your knife.”

He held it up in the low flickering light of the med-bay. It shook too much in his grip. He saw his mother’s hand come into view and gently steady his hand. 

“There you go.” 

He could see the dead women in the blurry background of his vision. She was already dead. She died in her sleep. It wasn’t anything violent. That’s what his mother had told him.

“Hold the tip to the left center of her neck. That’s the larynx.”

Simon does as he is told. 

“Now press down and swipe across it.”

His hand froze, barely holding onto the knife. He watched his mother move his hand. He watched the skin peel and split under the fast drag of the knife. No blood starts bubbling. The body is long dead. It’s cold and grey. It’s dead. She’s dead. This is just teaching how to drain the body. This was just—

The head turned and he didn’t know if those eyes looked toward him. He didn’t know what color they were. He didn’t know if they could see them as they killed her again. The body was already dead. 

Simon screamed either way and twisted in his mother’s arms. He clung to her, curled close to her chest, and sobbed. 

His mother still kept that knife clutched in his hand as she held him close.

Alone in the room he shared with his mother, his hands burned from the chemicals as he scrubbed them raw. The steel wool scraped painfully under his nails, but he could see the stubborn flakes of blood finally coming off. 

His eyes ached, but there was something keeping tears from sprouting. Exhaustion from today’s events? Maybe. Dehydration? Definitely. His mother had earned extra ration cards today because of his work, but he couldn’t find it in himself to stomach anything. 

Simon was eleven and he had just come back from schooling. 

His mother was important to the people of Eden. She was more than just another citizen. More than just another laborer that worked endlessly day in and day out. She had wormed her way into the Father’s side, making a name for herself amongst the religious folks in this station. And as much as Simon wanted to ignore it, he knew something else was happening behind closed doors. 

Being a Butcher meant more than what she led on. He had dreaded the day it would finally come. It didn’t matter to him how many kiddie psalms he was forced to partake in, or the weird language he had to adapt to, he could still read in between the lines. He had a front row seat to the filth his mother would come back covered in. Always with a big smile on her soft face once she saw him. 

“Look what I brought!” She would sing every day as she shucked off her apron. And she would show him what she had earned for her work. The cards she had traded. 

He was a spoiled child. His mother’s work would earn him books, extra food rations, water, cloth and cleaners. Anything and everything was available for her and her son. Because she was important and valued, and the best way to keep the Mother Butcher by their side, was to keep her son happy. 

Simon looked at his canteen. The one he earned from today. He should drink it, down the water like the treasure it was. 

He grabbed it and poured it on his hands instead. He picked up a scrap cloth instead and continued scrubbing. He sniffled. 

He was eleven now. His first decade of life was completed. According to the people in charge of this station, it was time to earn his keep. He was assigned to work under his mother, to keep the job within the family. 

To keep the Butcher’s responsibilities only between the two of them.

A hard shove left him sprawled with a solid thud against the metal wall. Laughter jeered from all the boys. He felt the burn of tears in his eyes, trying to hide the struggle of getting air back in his lungs.

“C’mon, Butcher!” One of the boys shouted louder than the rest. “Get up! C’mon!”

Simon pressed his hand to his face and swiped across it, wiping away tears. He forced out a laugh, wheezing on his knees, then threw himself at his friend. 

Punches were thrown at each other’s backs. Simon ducked his head into the other boy’s shoulder and pressed into it hard, combating the painful grip he had on his longer hair. Both their legs were braced wide as they pushed and shoved against each other. Simon could risk kneeling and tripping the other boy, but it also had potential to bend and break. His friend could catch on and lean hard enough to collapse him. Another option would be to try and duck and throw the boy off with his arms around his waist instead of just holding back his shoulders like this. 

He was a bigger kid than most because of his mother and his occupation. Spoiled with as many ration cards as bodies he could process. It doesn’t hurt that he preferred to put himself to work too, taking other jobs such as cleaning and maintenance, maybe some traded favors. He wasn’t that great at math, but he had wicked problem solving skills. He thanks all the books he has stashed away for that. And when he couldn’t use his words and status to make up for his side of these arrangements, he learned a well-crafted threat and carefully raised hand to his mother’s knife did wonders. 

Simon was worked until failure. Until he was dead tired and exhausted. Until his whole body strained to stay standing. Anything to keep his mind occupied. Anything to forget the feeling of dragging the hook of his knife over taunt skin, or of sawing it through long locks of dead cadaver hair clutched in his fingers. Anything to ignore how he would drop guts and organs into blood stained buckets to be taken to the labs later. He didn’t know what they did with them, and he didn’t want to ever know. 

Sometimes he would get a moment like this. A small moment to throw himself in with the other kids and just…fuck around for a bit. 

Simon kneeled and tripped the kid over his back, causing the other to land hard on his face and shoulder. A cry of outrage came from all the other kids around him. 

“You had his ass, Isaiah!” One of the boys complained loudly. “What happened!?”

Isaiah—taller than him because of his age, but much lankier and skinnier—snorted and pulled himself back up on two feet. He sniffed a blood clot up his nose and spat it out onto his hand. He sneered at Simon with his frosty blue eyes. 

“Yeah, well, Simon’s a fat ass! He’s got, like, a hundred pounds on me!” Isaiah howled to defend himself with an embarrassing crack to his voice. 

Simon smiled with his teeth, trying to seem boastful even as his heart pounded and lungs burst in his chest. He felt a tad bit self-conscious at the attention to his weight. He did have far more meat on his bones than the other kids. Some were close to emaciated with how little rations they got. 

It wasn’t their fault. Some kids had parents that couldn’t work as hard. Some kids had parents that didn’t care. Some didn’t even have parents. They had to work all on their own to get their cards. Simon, at least, had his mother. She always cared for him. 

“I was 90 pounds during last weigh-in. Not enough to cut my rations yet!” Simon corrected. He lifted his left arm and patted it hard twice. “‘sides, it’s all muscle, dipshit! You’re just jealous.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

His pridefulness brought on envy from another boy. Michael. The jealousy was thick and dripping from his words like syrup. “I’m sure it’s just hard work giving you all that weight. We know you’ve been whoring yourself out for extra rations!”

Simon’s eyes widened. He clenched his fists. “I am not! Fuck you!”

“You so are! You and your mother are a buncha fat whores!”

The kids laughed. He seethed. 

“Mother Butcher is always hanging out with the Father. Who knows what they’re always getting up to. I bet she does all her work on her knees! Hey, where is your dad, Simon?” When he opened his mouth to spit back something vile and cruel as a rebuttal, he was swiftly ignored. “Maybe you're his little bastard! That’ll explain all the special treatment you get.”

“That’s probably why you were late converts,” Isaiah joined the goading with a wet laugh. “The Father gets to fuck his bitch whenever he wants now.”

“Shut the fuck up! You guys are disgusting!” Simon turned away from the boys, swiping his Butcher’s vest from the ground where it had been abandoned. It wasn’t worth the trouble he would get into if a real fight broke out. And the last thing he wanted was the potential of getting off the hook because of his mother. He wasn’t going to risk his rations getting cut because of some low-blow insults. 

“Where’re you going, Simon?” 

“Off to suck on his mom’s tits so he can get more ‘muscle’.”

Simon ripped his knife from his sheath and charged Isaiah with a scream of pure rage. 

The other kids backed off, stumbling away from the brawl as Simon tackled the taller and older boy to the ground. He continued screaming his head off at Isaiah, words that barely made sense flew off the spit on his lips. He was throwing angry curses left and right, straddling his chest so he couldn’t move. The knife was held high above his head, aimed straight down at his friend’s face. 

“You say another word about her! Say it! Say it and I’ll fucking kill you!” Simon screamed himself hoarse. The words were so loud they echoed in the cabin and rang in his ears. “Say one more fucking word! Give me a reason!”

Isaiah cradled his head and sobbed. He trembled underneath him, curling away from him as much as he could. 

The other children wailed for him to stop. They claimed it was just a joke. They were just joking. They cried and begged him not to kill him. They pleaded so desperately. 

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Isaiah howled. “I won’t talk about your mom again! I won’t, okay! Please don’t kill me!”

Simon’s whole body shook so violently. He let out an audible sob. 

He stood up on unstable legs and ran from his friends. He ran only until he spotted a storage closet. He stumbled in and fell to his knees. He cried so hard, alone in that dark closet. 

He just wanted them to stop. It wasn’t funny. His mother wasn’t a whore. He wasn’t a whore. They had no right to say those things. They were Butchers. When time comes for them, they should pray that their body isn’t just tossed into the fire. They didn’t deserve the privilege of being processed with how they spoke about his mother. 

Simon cried for what had to have been an hour straight. And then sat silently staring into the darkness for even longer. He didn’t know how long he sat there. He didn’t want to ever leave. There were two thoughts that ran through his head on repeat as he sat there.

I want to go home.

I’m so sorry.

He didn’t understand either thought. They didn’t make sense. He was home, and he wasn’t sorry. He had taught his friends—those kids a lesson. His mother was never to be spoken about like that. He wasn’t sorry about that. But every time he looked back at the bloody snot and tears that shimmered past Isaiah’s poor shield, it made his breathing hitch. 

He hated himself for it, but he knew it had worked. 

Later, when he finally left the closet and trudged his way back to his and his mother’s cabin, there was an enforcer waiting for him. 

Simon’s rations were cut substantially for the first time ever, and he was lashed long past his ability to count them all. 

His mother brushed through his hair as he lay paralyzed with pain on his side. She sang to him in words he didn’t understand. 

Simon didn’t play with the other kids anymore. His violent reaction scared them off, and he couldn’t really hate them for it. He had never been so angry before, it had terrified him too. The fear of being punished so severely again was a good deterrent as well. 

However, that meant he spent all of his time either working or sitting alone in their cabin. 

The days after that were spent keeping his hands busy. His back screamed with every simple movement, burning with healing welts that crossed over each other in weeping red lines. They were sharp and unbelievably painful, but they never broke skin. They reuse their switches too much, but it’s not like Simon is going to complain about it. Bruises are better than slashes. 

He pushed the heel of his palm down on the body’s chest and listened to the cracks of the ribcage breaking. He wedged his thin fingers in between the gaps, tugging the bones from the tight hold the muscles and arteries had on it. The wet sounds of meat sloshing off with the scrap of his knife was white noise in his ears. 

Simon set the bones aside. He lifted his arms to shimmy his sleeves back down, scratched his nose with his shoulder, before sniffling and getting back to work. 

Eden was always so cold. Everyone here wore layers and layers of clothing. He hated it, mostly because of his job here. Getting blood soaked in his sleeves left this permanent smell of rot all over him. Lucky he fit into his waterproof vest now to keep any splattering off his person, but he’s had to hook bungee cords around his arms to keep his sleeves from constantly falling down. If he could take his sweater off without shivering so much, that would be great. 

He picked up a smaller blade from a shallow pocket in his vest. It was eroded with layers of fluids that ate at the metal every single day. No matter how many times Simon scrubbed it clean, he could never get rid of any little spots embedded into the metal. 

Using that, he cut at the stem that attached the lungs to the airways. The trachea, his mother had taught him. 

They didn’t tell him who this body was before, but the lungs definitely didn’t look healthy. Maybe that was why they died. It wasn’t his job to find that out, and no one really cared. All he was told to do is process what he can. Lungs unhealthy and riddled with bacteria should be taken to the incinerator immediately so as to not spread disease. Perhaps that’s how these organs got so damaged. He’s heard that inhaling too much smoke will kill you. His mother always said to stay away from those jobs, even if they pay a lot.

Simon dropped them in the biohazard bucket. He sighed, scratched his nose again, and turned his aching body back to work. As always, he lets his mind wander off while doing his meaningless tasks. 

He was a lot more…alone now. All the boys he would screw around with before hated him. Or just avoided him. Isaiah wouldn’t even look at him anymore. Every time Simon would catch his eye, he would look away as fast as he could. He wouldn’t go near him. That made it very hard to apologize to him. They were good friends before. They had bonded during ceremonies. At least, he thought they had. He wished he could say sorry. 

With no one wanting to speak to him anymore, most of Simon’s time was spent with bodies or with his mother. 

He hooked the end of his hunting knife in its skin and tore it down. Skinning took a lot of strength to do. He struggled with it a lot the first few times, but it’s gotten easier through time and practice. He remembered his first time. His mother teased him for the mess he made. The ribbons of flesh he tore through. He had been so tense with fear that his work wasn’t good enough, but she calmed his nerves easily. The skin is important for strong leather making, but it doesn’t need to be whole. 

Simon felt his cheeks heat up. He shucked the organ from the fat and muscle, holding it up as he stood on his toes to hang it over a steel wire hung up in the morgue. He scratched the back of his neck, and immediately regretted it from the feeling of his bloody gloves on his skin. 

It was humiliating. He was teased for being too close to his mother and almost every one of his thoughts surrounded her.

Was he too close with her?

How was he supposed to know? Simon didn’t have anyone else. He spent so much time with her just as Butchers, and they still shared the same cabin. It wasn’t too much. She was his mother and his mentor—why wouldn’t he think about her all the time? Why wouldn’t he love her?

Yet, he still felt embarrassed. Maybe he was too old to still be so attached to his mother.

 “Simon?”

He blinked hard a couple times, finding himself halfway through sawing through the body’s arm. He turned his head without moving anything else, blowing hair out of his face to see the sharp smile of his mother. As if he had summoned her with his thoughts. 

Her shadowed eyes still shimmered lovingly when she saw him. She tutted. “Where is your headband? Keeps hair out of your eyes. How can you see?”

The door shut behind her as she walked inside. She shucked the headband she was wearing off her head and came up beside him. She didn’t force him to stop what he was doing, she would smack his head if he even tried to pull away, but she did pull him a little closer to her as she stretched out the band and shimmied it onto his head. It flattened his hair awkwardly to his temples, and he could feel a couple strands sticking to his eyebrows, but his mother worked insistently on fixing it for him. He’s sure she could see the blush coloring his face.

He was reminded of what one of the boys had said about his inappropriate closeness with his mother. He shrugged her off of him. 

“I’m working.” He told her. He squeezed the arm hard against the table again and continued sawing through the meat and bone. The harsh grinding sound was now loud in his ears compared to the normal white noise of the station.

The bone snapped, and his mother did too right after.

“Attitude!” She scolded. Simon kept his head down as he moved around her, taking the arm to one of the many bins and buckets surrounding the room. Her hands sat on her hips. “Why so rude? Are you hungry? Do you need break?”

“I’m fine,” he mumbled. “’m just busy.”

“Too busy for your Mama?”

His face positively burned.

“Yes.” He said harshly as he moved to the other side of the body. He spread his palm as far as it could stretch across the expanse of their upper bicep, right underneath the deltoid. He flattened it down to apply the proper amount of pressure for amputating. “I’m trying to do my job. Unless you don’t want to eat tonight.”

“Enough of that,” his mother ordered. “You are being very rude. Why? What is the reason for this attitude?”

He didn’t answer her. He focused on aligning his bone saw with the arm and started sawing through. It was a good excuse not to look at her. 

That didn’t stop her from demanding his attention, however. 

Simon flinched as she grabbed a knife from his belt and slammed it down into the body’s shoulder. He watched, frozen with wide eyes as his mother wedged the knife between bone and muscle, then yanked the tool back and forth like a jack, ripping tendons and joints from the socket. Simon took a step back, abandoning the saw two cuts in on the arm. His mother stopped tearing the arm from the shoulder with the knife alone. Her long black hair swung from her back, curtaining her face without the headband to keep it back. She dug her bare fingers into the wound and tugged hard. Three harsh tugs and the whole arm tore from the body in a surprising spray of bloody visceral. She let it drop without care. The saw clattered loudly onto the floor.

Her hair covered her entire face. He couldn’t see her smile or her dark eyes. He trembled at the thought of them.

“You’re done for today.” His mother panted from exertion. She flipped her hair back behind her. Now he had a view of the blood speckled across her frowning face. She pointed at the door. “Go to the cabin. Don’t collect your cards for today. You don’t disrespect me like that again.”

Simon stood frozen on his feet. Then, the fear of upsetting his mother again came rushing to the forefront of his mind and he moved woodenly out the door. He didn’t say a word.

While walking in a daze back to their cabin, his eye caught sight of Isaiah. He saw his pale skin and wide blue eyes.

He must’ve looked like quite the sight. He could imagine his haunted eyes, the blood all over his butcher vest. Maybe he still had some innards stuck to his smock. Maybe his tools clanged together like the chimes on death’s door. He knew his work was scary to the other children. He knew they thought of him as a violent, cruel monster. 

His nostrils flared and his hand shook as he reached it up to his gift. He gripped the sheath and held his eyes. 

Isaiah threw himself back against the wall as Simon passed.

He entered the cabin. His breathing hiccuped. His body trembled. Slowly, he lowered himself to the ground, crouching and hanging his head heavily.

His arms wrapped around his head, and he started hyperventilating.

He stayed sitting still, staring into the mirror propped up against their wall. He watched his mother come up behind him. Her smile was small this time, lips thin. He watched her hand as it came up and felt up the back of his head. 

“Too long. Much too long.” She said as she always did. She never liked his hair getting too long. She dragged both hands up to the sides of his head, then pulled the greasy black strands at his ears outwards. An exaggerated frown pulled her smile down. “Why the long face? You don’t like getting your hair cut?”

Simon looked away from her to see what she was talking about. When he met the eyes of his reflection, it didn’t feel like he was looking at himself. To be truthful, he looked like a miserable sack of shit. He looked older than just thirteen, while at the same time, he looked too young. He couldn’t remember always looking this small and pathetic. He didn’t know when that had changed.

“I don’t care.” His mouth moved with his words, but it felt a few seconds off in his mind. He felt sluggish and slow. “You can cut it however you want. I don’t really care.”

His mother continued to brush through his disgusting hair. He tried to keep his head on straight, but it bobbed with every slight pull from her tugging at knots. He just felt too tired to put more effort into it. He wouldn’t even care if his mother sheared off his hair to the roots. 

He didn’t even register when his body started leaning back until he turned into his mother’s chest. She smelled so strongly of iron. 

She made a sound, soft and a touch concerned. She brushed hair out of his eyes. “What’s the matter? Are you feeling okay?”

Simon hummed. “I don’t know. ‘m just tired, I guess.”

Another noise from her. She took his head into her hands and lifted him off her. “A wash will wake you up. Up, up! Take your shirt off. I’ll get water ready.”

It took a lot of effort to move when his mother disappeared from his side. Eventually—after what felt like eons—he was able to move his arms and pull off his many layers. Goosebumps raised along his skin immediately once his sweater was off. The station was always so cold.

He was slowly starting to forget Mars. It wasn’t exactly warm there, but it was infinitely warmer than their cabin here. His face is always so cold. He finds himself burying his face in his collar all the time now, curling up into increasingly more uncomfortable positions at night. He had stopped sleeping beside his mother months ago, choosing to curl up on the edge of the bed and against the bed frame instead. He was hoping to save up enough ration cards to buy himself his own mattress soon. He needed to stop being so clingy, he knew that, but he still missed the warmth at night.

It was different on Mars. He remembered their home not being the biggest or the fanciest, but he did have his own room. He had a bed of his own, and blankets he didn’t need to be lucky to get scraps of at night. He remembered having a bookshelf filled with books and toys alike instead of the small pile in the corner with only a few of his favorites he was allowed to keep.

He sat shivering, arms wrapped over his stomach as his mother came back with a half filled bucket and a rag. They used to have a tub they bathed in on their Mars’ home. He remembered the water being warm as soon as it came out of the faucet. 

“Are we ever going back home?” 

His mother glanced at him, but she didn’t linger. She busied herself adding soap to the water and dunking the rag in, swished it around. “We are home, Simon.”

“I mean back to Mars,” he said. “Are we ever going back to Mars?”

She hummed. “I’ll be going down there soon. The Father asked a few of us to go down for a supplies run. I’ll bring you back something. What did you want from Mars?”

Simon’s throat constricted. His tongue felt thick in his mouth. Even with his emotions starting to build irrationally high, his voice came out flat. “I want to go home. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

His mother was silent for a moment. He kept his eyes on the ground, just to the side of the bucket. He turned his head away when he heard her sigh. 

“We can’t leave, Simon. That’s not an option. Do you understand that? Do you know what I have sacrificed to bring us here? I did all of this for you. So that you could have a better life than I did.”

“What about this is better?” He argued. “We live like shit here. At least back on Mars we had more than one room to live in.”

“You were young. You don’t know what life was like down there.”

Simon looked fully away this time. He could feel frustration bubbling up out of the numbness in his chest. He breathed heavily in and out through his nose. It was the only sound in the room besides the sloshing of the water. He knew she was working it with her hands so it wasn’t as freezing fucking cold as it always is.

“We used to have our own bathroom instead of a communal bath hall. How the hell is that better?”

He flinched as his mother grabbed the bucket and dropped it down hard behind Simon. He lowered his head, kept an eye on her from the mirror alone. She was standing, so all he could see in the small frame was her legs. He couldn’t see her face, and he was glad for that. He was terrified of what he would see if he could. 

“‘m sorry,” he mumbled. He started to shake. He was freezing and felt completely exposed. Vulnerable. He started stuttering through his words. “I know—I know you… you’re working to keep us comfortable. I just know why w-we are here? I wanna—I just…”

He flinched hard when she moved and touched his head.

He knew his mother would never hurt him. He knew she only wanted to help him. He knew everything she did, she did for him. He knew she loved him so much.

All these facts that he knew called out to him, reminded him who his mother really was, but he couldn’t forget the violence she was capable of. He can never forget everything he’s seen her do. 

Simon came back to himself unexpectedly from his mother dripping water down his spine. He found himself breathing too fast and shaking like a leaf. His mother rang the towel over his head, then dropped it back into the bucket. She scratched her dull, dirtied nails through his scalp to soak the water into every inch of hair. He sniffled. Through the reflection in the mirror, he couldn’t tell if the drips falling from his chin were tears or just stale water.

He sniffled again and shut his eyes as his mother washed his hair. He leaned back into her touch.

“I hate it here,” he gasped. “I wanna go back home.”

She shushed him quietly and massaged his aching head. “You don’t mean that. It’s much better here, Simon.”

“‘s not. ‘s so much worse. I hate being a Butcher.”

“Don’t say that. You have such an honorable job. You are so important to Eden. They respect you.”

“They all hate me. Everyone’s afraid of me.”

He didn’t need to open his eyes to take a look into the mirror to see if he was crying now. He felt it in his chest with every heaving breath that broke into a whimper. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter and turned into his mother. He didn’t care if he got her wet.

“Can I go to Mars with you?”

“Simon…”

He sobbed. Who cares if he sounded like a child? He couldn’t take it anymore. “Please. Please, let me come with you. I’ll be good and I won’t—I can carry things f-for you.”

“Simon.”

“Mom, please.”

“Shh…” He felt his mother shift. Something pressed against his forehead and he knew it was her own. She was trying to comfort him, but it just made him break into more tears. “I’m sorry. You have to stay here. You’ll understand one day. You’re so important. Your skills are valuable here on Eden, not on Mars. You have a name for yourself here. One day, maybe you can come with me on a run. And I promise, I’ll be happy to take you when that time comes.”

He sat under the harsh lights of the station’s halls. The shuttles took off for Mars hours ago. He lost sight of them through the window twenty minutes into watching it leave. Now all he could see was Mars’ bright orange glow.

Simon was angry.

He had done everything he could to try and get on that ship. He wanted to go to Mars so badly. He was desperate. It’s been years since they moved into Eden Station, which means it's been years since he had been on Mars. He missed it so much. He pleaded with anyone who might have any influence on the mission. He promised he wouldn’t try to run, he just wanted to see the horizon again. He wanted to feel solid ground. He wanted to pick out his own clothes that weren’t either too big or too small. He wanted to trade one of his childhood books for something newer with a higher reading level. 

He had even tried bribing, offering all his ration cards for just the chance to touch down on the planet. He wouldn’t even leave his mother’s side. He would do anything.

No one budged. Especially not when the people in charge got word of him trying to get on the mission.

Simon had tried to defend himself that he was not trying to escape, he just wanted to visit Mars. They didn’t believe him. Guess always refusing to take part in their stupid religious meet-ups made him look like an eloper. He was stripped of his ration cards anyway and someone was tasked to wait outside his door and keep him there until his mother and the shuttles were gone.

He had lost. There was no way his mother could have changed her mind and let him come along at that point. It was over. 

He refused to hug his mother back when she was all packed up and ready to leave. All he thought was that at least he would have the bed to himself for a few nights.

Now he was here. The work day was done, no rations left for him to eat, and no one waiting for him back in the cabin. All he had was him and the tree.

He looked away from Mars to the tree.

Eden Station got its name from being an agricultural station. The large size of the station was so they could have enough laborers to keep the gardens running. People worked day and night to get all the fruit and vegetables stable in space to trade with other stations. With the overpopulation of Mars and the inhabitant conditions on Earth, Eden was meant to be an experiment to see if plant life and farming was a possible solution to the whole world hunger issues. 

He’s heard lots of talk of “Eden” coming from a story in some ancient book. Some adults liken the whole thing to an old Earth lifestyle called “Amish”. Not everyone prescribed to the Father like his mother and the orphaned kids did, but a good percentage of the station did. 

This tree was at the center of the plant nursery. It was one of the few trees that they were able to grow this big in space. It wasn’t one that could grow fruits like the others that weren’t doing quite as well, but it was impressive how strong it was able to grow here. 

The Father thought it as some holy miracle. Simon didn’t know what he thought it was. He wasn’t all that smart. What you can contribute in labor was more valuable than him being a fast reader and being good at puzzles. All he could do was help fertilize the plants.

The mission was a supply run made when the Father had noticed the tree’s leaves falling and demanded to send their scientists down to Mars to find a way to fix it. He insisted it was important that the tree stayed alive at all cost. 

His mother being the senior of the two Butchers meant she had to go along to see what she could do better. He didn’t understand why he couldn’t go along with her. He wasn’t going to run. He wouldn’t abandon her, even though he hated living here. 

Simon thought about Isaiah and his jokes about his and his mother’s relationship with the Father. He thought about his mother and her claims that their life before wasn’t as great as he remembered it to be.

Why did everyone fall for this shit? Why did they think Eden was so great? They worked them all to the bone for some greater purpose, but what was so great about it? What was so great about this tree? It couldn’t even give you fruit. 

He didn’t hate the plants. He thought they were kind of cool. He liked visiting the gardens outside of bringing in fertilizer. He liked the green. He thought it was a nice color. He just didn’t understand everyone’s obsessions with it. 

“What’re you doing?” 

He jumped and turned his head. A kid he didn’t recognize stood a few feet back in the nursery, half-hiding behind a bush. He was younger. Smaller. 

Still, Simon curled protectively over his knees and planted his hands ready on the ground. “Who are you?”

The kid shifted from foot to foot. He then shrugged. “No one. My name’s Joseph. My friends call me Joey.”

“Well, Joseph, you can fuck off. I’m busy here.”

“Doing what?”

Simon clenched his jaw. He turned back around without answering him, but reached his hand up to touch the knife on his shoulder. He wasn’t going to be caught defenseless. 

“Were you watching the shuttle leave?” He asked. 

Simon didn’t answer.

“Your mom—the Mother Butcher was on that, right?”

He looked out towards Mars. He could see the lights of life from all the way up here. He wondered if they made it by now.

He heard something in the bushes. Something rustled to his left. 

“Why is she called that?” 

Another rustle. Simon whipped his head around to try and catch what it was. Joseph stood there still. He hadn’t moved. He still couldn’t see anyone else.

“If she’s the Mother Butcher…” the boy bounced back and forth on his feet. He glanced behind him. Simon squinted to try and see anything in the low lights. “Does that mean you’re the Baby Butcher?”

A couple giggles broke out.

Simon jumped to his feet. “Fucking assholes! Leave me alone!”

Laughter broke out and he could see the other boys in their hiding spots now. One taller boy came up behind Joseph and clapped him on the shoulder. 

He shouted at them again, but he couldn’t remember what he even said because suddenly, the lights went out. The whole nursery went dark besides the light of the planet and the stars. Then, an alarm blared and red lights started flashing. 

He turned to the window again. He stared past the tree at the backdrop of Mars behind it, and in a single blink, he watched Mars disappear.

Simon and all the other boys were flung into the walls as the station was suddenly flung out of orbit.

He was alone in his cabin. He sat on his mattress. His bed. He held the knife his mother had gifted to him years ago, rubbing his thumb along the worn edge of one of the straps.

He’s been sitting here for a while. He hadn’t gone to the medbay when the station had gotten stabilized and emergency gravity was turned on. His head had been gushing blood, and he was sure he had a concussion, but he had taken one look at the atrium window, and walked back to his room in a daze to lick his wounds alone. 

Mars was gone.

The Father made an announcement today.

“We have made content with the other Stations. Word is that what happened is no trick. There are no planets or stars left in this universe. It wasn’t just us. Our home planets have been taken from us. Our Sun has been taken. And I know, we all had family and friends traveling to Mars when it had happened. My condolences to all those that have lost their loved ones to the Rapture. 

“It is my belief that what had happened on that day was something ignored by those in charge of Eden Station. I saw our ends coming when the leaves of the Tree started to fall. Our Miracle was dying because of this station of sinners. So little have joined our ceremonies in the past months before the Rapture happened. Our gifts of life were not appreciated. They have taken it away because of our lack of Faith! We have given their lives as sacrifices! They had taken them all from us as retribution! For those that did not believe!

“We will never see those that were lost again. Not until we make those that do not believe be reborn. Not until we bring the Tree—Our Last Tree! Our Miracle! Not until it is Revived once again! My Sons of Eden, we will not be silent. We shall not go quiet! No matter how much it takes, how many we lose, we will not let those lives go down in vain!”

Simon listened through the whole thing. All until the Father was wrestled away from the intercom. He stared silently up at the speaker as a screech of the mic rang out just before it went quiet. 

The intercom turned on again. A frazzled voice called out from the screams in the background.

“Disregard that announcement. Father Pierce has been taken into custody for conspiracy. Get back to work.”

And then it clicked off. Ten minutes passed, he still stared. Maybe he was waiting for a third speech to come. Maybe he’s trapped waiting for that one announcement to come. Some outcry of pure joy that said the planets were back, or the missing shuttles have been found.

It’s been weeks. No one has made any announcements like that.

Simon finally dragged his eyes away from the speaker and looked back down at the body he was processing. Suicide. It was the cause of most of the bodies he processed nowadays.

He woke to a pounding at his door. He jolted violently out of his bed with a shout, heart racing in his chest. He clung to his knife, trembling. 

“Butcher.” The person on the other side of the door called out in an authoritarian tone. “Open the door now. This is a search.”

His breathing came out in gasps. He swallowed hard. “A-a search? Why? Wh-what is the reason?”

“Anyone apart of Father Pierce’s flock is under investigation for conspiracy. Open the door, cooperate, and we will move on without any issues.”

He scowled. “I’m not in his flock, my mom was. You can’t just break in here!”

“Cooperate and it’ll be over with quickly.”

Simon sat paralyzed in his bed. He could barely think straight, exhausted from working for the past twelve hours, and now his sleep had been interrupted by this bullshit. 

He wet his lips, apprehensive. All he had to do was cooperate. They didn’t say they were going to take anything. They’ll find nothing—because there was nothing—and then they’ll move on. 

Slowly, forcing his limbs to move, he climbed out of bed. His socked feet padded across the ice cold ground as he made it to the door. 

An arm reached out and yanked him out of the room as soon as he opened the door. 

“Hey!” Simon shrieked. He watched with wide eyes as another enforcer walked into his room. Then, the first one started dragging him away. He struggled. “Wait—wait! I’m cooperating! I swear! What are you doing?! Where are you taking me?!”

“Unaccompanied minors are not allowed to stay in the family housing without a parent or guardian. Once the search is over, we will give you time to gather your things before you are moved to orphan housing.”

He started shaking his head before the man had finished speaking. “No… no! It’s my cabin! My mom—everything she worked for—our things—”

The man—whoever the fuck he is—was getting frustrated with him. “You will be given time to gather your things after the search is done.”

Simon was panicking. He was losing his cabin. It wasn’t fair. One day, his mother would be back, and what is he going to say to her? Was he not working hard enough to keep it? Are they just giving up and ever finding the lost shuttles? There’s no way they had made it to Mars in those few hours—they could still be out there! Eden had been thrown into space when Mars disappeared, they had to have been too. They’re still out there, they just had to find them. They can’t just take their home away!

Simon was panicking. His hand scrambled to push the man off him, but his grip on his arm was strong. He tried digging his heels into the metal floors and grates, but he wasn’t heavy enough. 

His hand hit the knife on his shoulder, and without a second thought, he grabbed the hilt and stabbed it into the enforcer’s side. 

He bolted back to his cabin as soon as he let go. 

“Stop!” He screamed at the other enforcer that was ransacking his room. He was in his mother’s chest, searching through the clothes she had left behind. He ran at the man to push him away. “Don’t touch those! Get out! Get out now!”

The man stood suddenly to not get knocked down. He looked shocked. “Where is—how’d you escape?”

“Get the fuck out of our cabin!”

Simon held up his knife to attack again, but this guy was more prepared. He grabbed his wrist before he could jab it forward and spun him around. His knee hit Simon’s back hard and he was thrown to the ground. The wind was knocked out of his lungs and he wheezed. The man held him down prone on his stomach, knee pressed hard into his spine and arm twisting his around. Simon whimpered.

“Fuck. A fucking butcher. Fucking of course he has knives on him.” The enforcer grunted under his breath as he pressed down on him. “If you killed him, I swear to god, kid.” 

“I’m sorry,” Simon gasped. “I’m sorry, please. ‘m cooperating. I promise, I’m sorry.”

“Lousy fucking job you are at cooperating!”

He sobbed. “It’s my cabin! You can’t just take it!”

The man slammed his elbow down onto his head as soon as he started struggling again. He did it until Simon stopped moving.

He didn’t go to orphan housing right away. He was taken into custody for stabbing one of the enforcers. He didn’t die, but he still had to be punished for the attack.

Simon was given twenty lashings. He only remembered this time because they would add more every time he would slip up his count. He was refused any more ration cards for his work—cards which he could only use to buy food and water now, since he didn’t have his own cabin to store anything else.

They never let him go back to collect his things. He had tried the door when he was released and his code didn’t work on it anymore. They had locked him out.

He had lost everything. All that was still there of his mother was taken from him.

The orphan halls were overcrowded to hell. His mattress was thrown into a room with six other boys. No bed frames for any of them. No books, no other furniture, and all shared chests for clothes and other personal belongings. How little any of them had. 

Simon kept his head down and kept working. What else is there to do?

He poured himself into his work, letting it take all his energy. He didn’t want to spend much time at all in his new cabin. If he was on the verge of collapse, he would go to the morgue. He slept on the ground, with all the bodies with cut wrists and broken necks. They smelled like iron and rot. It reminded him of his mother. Then the day would start again and he would process until the day was done. And it would repeat over and over, and over again. 

He didn’t try to keep track of the days like everyone else did. What was the point? There was no sun to track. There was no orbital cycle. It was just endlessly sleeping and waking up to the sight of dying plants and empty space.

Sometimes, Simon would visit the tree. 

He would come to it and stare at the stars he could still see. He would stare and cling to the stubborn hope in his heart. If he could still see the stars, then there was still a chance his mother was out there. They weren’t all gone, no matter what people said about energy signals or ghost lights. They were still there, so she could be too.

The leaves still continued to fall. The tree was still dying. And without a sun to shine on it, it would be dead soon.

Today, the Father came to the tree.

Simon turned his head quickly when he heard footsteps, and tensed up on the floor when he saw the Father enter. He shuddered at the smile he gave him.

“Hello, my son.” The man greeted with a small wave of his hands. He held them together in front of him, carrying an air of calm with him. He walked closer and groaned as he crouched down beside him. Simon sat very still, ready to bolt. “Come to visit the holy ground?”

He didn’t say anything, just stared. The Father had made a name for himself since—what he named—the Quiet Rapture happened. Simon didn’t spend much time around others anymore, but he did hear the other kids talk sometimes about him. The consoling he offered didn’t sound very…good. He didn’t know what bugged him about it, but something in his gut told him to stay far away from him. And with what happened to his cabin, he didn’t want to risk any more incidents. 

The Father didn’t seem displeased at his silence. He kept talking. “I come here often to pray. Have you ever heard the saying ‘living like a tree’?”

Simon didn’t move.

“I interpret that differently than most do. To live like a tree, you must find your roots. You need to dig deep into the soil, into the rot below, and take what you can. Only then can you really flourish in these conditions.”

He frowned. What the fuck was he talking about?

The Father smiled crookedly. He laughed and it sounded like a wheeze. “What I’m trying to say is that survival requires sacrifice. You have to get your hands dirty sometimes in order to make a difference.”

He reached out and placed his hand around Simon’s shoulders. He gripped him in a firm half-hold. Simon clenched his fists tight. He wondered if he stabbed the Father, what would the enforcers do? Would he still be punished? Would he be praised and respected like his mother always said would happen one day?

He didn’t stab him. He didn’t. He didn’t want to get into any more trouble. His mother wasn’t here to protect him right now. All she left him was his knife, and he knew one more wrong move would get it taken away from him.

He had never regretted anything more than letting that motherfucker speak another word.

“Your mother was a good friend. I trusted her with everything. She believed in this our cause more than anyone else in our community. She would be proud to see you honoring it too.” His hand rubbed up and down his shoulder. “I’m so sorry for your loss. One day, her body will be found and she could join us in the soil. I will make sure of it. One day, you will rot beside her.”

He thought about her hands in his hair as he laid on their bed. He thought about her pushing back the strands that have grown too long. She would always make a comment. 

Now his hair was longer than ever before, and no one has said a thing about it.

He didn’t want to give up hope that she was still alive, but it’s been over a month now. They couldn’t have had much food on their shuttles. It was only supposed to be a quick trip to Mars. He knew that if they kept looking, they would only find their bodies. 

Simon trembled. He looked cautiously over at the Father. His eyes burned with unshed tears. “You promise you’ll find her?”

He looked at him with such sympathy. Like he understood his pain, like he felt it just as personally. He reached into his robes and pulled something out. A braided cord with an empty glass pedant hanging from it. He held it out to him. “Under the branches of the Last Tree, I promise you, Simon. You will see your mother again. And I can help you with that, if you can help me.”

He sniffled and wiped his face with his sleeve. Slowly, he reached towards the pendant, brushed it with his fingers. His words came out in a sob. “Please. I’ll do anything.”

The Father’s hand moved to rest in between his shoulder blades. He felt his thumb pick at the harness that held his mother’s gift on his shoulder. With the pendant in hand, he clasped it in Simon’s and squeezed it into his palm. He nodded towards the tree. 

“The soil needs fresh bodies. The flesh of those non-believers just won’t do anymore.”