Chapter Text
Voices. It was always voices that surrounded Simon, fewer and fewer sounding familiar and many became more hostile, the words alone seeming as though they had physical weight against his body, clawing at his skin, digging through bone, and digging into his mind. The voices no longer seemed as hostile, but they were all unfamiliar.
After the past…well, Simon really didn’t know, time had lost all meaning after he was submerged, it could be hours, days, weeks, or longer and he wouldn’t have any way of telling the difference, it didn’t really matter. He’d probably been down there for longer than he should be alive anyways, nothing made sense. All he knew for sure was that he shouldn’t trust the voices, they always led him to somewhere worse, they made it harder to make sense of reality. It was best to ignore them, maybe whatever that thing was would move on if Simon refused to make himself an interesting target of whatever game this was.
Everything hurt but not as much as Simon was sure it should. Maybe he was too close to death to feel pain anymore. Maybe he was drowning in blood, his body too far gone to register sensation. Was he still drowning now? It didn’t feel like it but he couldn’t imagine what else would be happening. He was going to die here and there wouldn’t be anyone who would care. There wouldn’t be a soul that would mourn him from Eden, the COI, or anyone else, he was too far gone from either to belong anywhere, all that was left was this.
Despite drowning being the only thing that made sense, he didn’t feel like he was drowning. He could breathe, there wasn’t unbearable pressure on his body, there wasn't blood forcing its way down his throat and into his lungs. If anything, he felt almost comfortable.
Was it possible that he had been rescued? Had Ava really come for him like she promised? He was so sure that she had turned on him when he finally got the data from the SM-8, but that creature seemed to want Simon to destroy it and everything else he had collected. Could it be making sure Simon felt betrayed and angry enough that he would do it? Had he destroyed it? Was it floating towards the surface or did it sink with him? Was he even drowning? Was he just unconscious in the SM-13? He just needed to know what was going on.
Slowly, Simon forced his eyes open, blinking several times against the light, trying to ignore the loud, robotic voice announcing his movement. He could only hope that no one was around to hear even though he was sure the entire point of that voice was to make the state of prisoners clear. If he really wasn’t at the bottom of the blood oceans on AT-5, he was certainly locked away somewhere, right? Had he really been stupid enough to believe that any promise made to him would be kept? That he would actually earn his freedom for going down there? Stupid.
His body was stiff and didn’t respond quickly but it moved and at least didn’t scream in pain as he was sure that it should. Simon had felt his body tear apart, he watched his body become a mass of injuries that no one would be able to survive. Even if he could survive that, who would waste the resources to save someone like Simon? He had been sent down there because he was expendable, he would be lucky if he was allowed to die in comfort. Maybe even that was more than he deserved and everyone knew it.
He didn’t know where he was or what had happened but that fucking voice announcing everything he did for anyone to hear filled him with anxiety. Logically he knew that sooner or later someone would notice that he was awake but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to fast track that. Whether they were real or more tricks, he didn’t want to see anyone, good almost never came from other people and especially not now. Simon’s best case scenario was that he was back in the custody of the COI and he would either spend the rest of his life in a cell or be forced to go back down into that Hell with more lies attached to that mission. He couldn’t go back. Maybe the poor soul before him had the right idea, end his life then and there in the submarine, not take part in whatever sick game this was. Would they really let him go? It felt like too much to hope for. Even if he was freed, where would he go? It wasn’t like he had anyone.
Simon was about halfway to a sitting position, pinching at his left arm, sure that it would disappear the moment he looked away and he would be back at the bottom of the ocean, trying to figure out what to do. His entire body was clean with no signs of earlier damage, he was only wearing underwear, the rest of his body covered in blankets, and had needles and monitors attached to his body. Part of him had wanted to rip everything off and try to find a way out of here, but if Ava had actually come for him, trying to escape likely wouldn’t be a good look.
The room he was in was unfamiliar, it didn’t look like any medical bay he had seen and didn’t look much like a cell, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be both of those things. The only way out seemed to be through a closed porthole in the ceiling, even if he had the strength to climb the ladder, he was sure that it would be locked. Even if he got out, he was sure that there would be at least one guard out there that would take him down with ease.
He tried to gather his thoughts, needed to figure out something to say, to answer questions that would almost certainly be asked over and over again. Simon barely knew what happened, he didn’t even know if he was still down there or not, he certainly couldn’t explain anything to anyone else. Would they even believe him or would they think he was intentionally withholding information? Was there information he could possibly withhold? Maybe the effects of being down there? The data he collected couldn’t explain all of that. Could it?
Simon moved his gaze between his arm that shouldn’t be there, other patches of skin that should be destroyed, and the hatch for a few minutes desperately hoping he’d been rescued. He couldn’t wake up and be back in that blood, he really needed this to be real right now. He needed whatever that was to be over.
When the door opened, Simon couldn’t stop himself from flinching slightly, part of him sure that only a few minutes had passed since he first woke up here, another sure it had been hours of just waiting for something to happen while he was left to rot. He really hoped his sense of time wouldn’t be permanently warped, it would either make it hard to function in whatever role he was allowed in society or make his prison sentence stretch out into eternity.
A figure began to descend into the room and quickly Simon felt what little hope he felt dissipate. He was still on AT-5 and he was either drowning or in the SM-13, but this was just another game. How much longer was he going to be fucked with? Was the goal to squeeze Simon’s desperate desire to live from him? Is that what happened to the man the COI sent down before him?
The man that came down didn’t look familiar but appeared normal looking enough but what was most striking about him was his clothing, everything about it just looked wrong. Maybe it was the abnormally bright colors, maybe it was the way the clothes fit him too well, and as the man got to the floor and began to walk towards Simon, he noticed that something about the material itself seemed wrong. The addition of a bandage around the man’s arm seemed like an odd choice, maybe to make the man seem more real, but it wasn’t going to work. This was all fake, he was still down there, Ava had left him there, he was going to die and it was going to take an eternity, never really knowing where he was or what he could trust.
Simon slumped back down in the bed, trying to take the comfort he would be given here until this all turned sinister, gripping his left arm tight, sure it would be gone again when he was brought somewhere else. Simon turned away and refused to look at the man as he stood next to the bed, he’d let that thing toy with him plenty, he wasn’t going to fall for it again just because it was showing a human body now.
“Hey, uh, I know you probably can’t understand me, but, uh, I’m glad to see you’re up.” The man asked, walking around to the other side of the bed to where Simon was facing like the man didn’t seem to care that Simon didn’t want to look at him. Like that thing creating all of this wanted to make Simon look at it.
The man waved and then pointed to himself. “Grace.” Then he gestured to Simon with a raised eyebrow.
Simon didn’t know if he was more irritated at the man treating Simon like he was stupid and couldn’t comprehend basic language or that he was still just being played with. Shuffling a little, Simon turned to his other side, facing away from Grace again.
Unfortunately, Grace walked around the bed again and got back into Simon’s line of sight.
Simon covered his face with his arms, trying his best to ignore everything. He didn’t want to go back to his reality but he didn’t want to be here. He didn’t know what he wanted, it just wasn’t this. He wanted to go back and change every decision that he ever made that led him to this point, feeling more irritated as Grace continued to talk.
“You realize you gave him a woman’s name.” Simon growled softly, his throat burning as he spoke, hoping that he would just wake up like he had before. Other times his reality had been warped he had still been in the SM-13 but maybe this was just part of the natural progression. Would announcing that he knew he was being toyed with get him sent back? Get him ignored? Make things worse? Maybe if he woke up he could find a way to get out, he didn’t have a chance of escape if he was trapped in some mind game.
“You…speak English?” Grace asked, sounding shocked.
Simon ignored him.
“Hey, uh, dude, how did you get out here? Where are you from? Why are you here? Did Earth send you? Are there others with you? I–”
“Stop.” Simon practically pleaded, trying to tune Grace out which he wasn’t having all that much success with. He already knew that Grace was fake, that this was just another game that would be at his expense, so why was that thing continuing this? He just wanted to go home, he couldn’t bear the thought of going through a hundred iterations of a false rescue just to learn that he was still trapped until he finally died.
“Stop what?”
“Stop fucking with me! Let me go, please!” He heard the whine in his voice as he spoke, not caring if he sounded pathetic, if the creature could get into his mind and see him, he was sure that it had watched Simon lose all dignity not long after he was first submerged. How long ago was it when the chain holding the SM-13 broke? He knew had to have been pathetic even before then and only got worse from there. He should have fought to the last breath to keep himself from being put in that death machine and sent to this moon, he should have been brave enough to kill himself like the man before him, maybe if he wasn’t such a coward he would know that living didn’t mean much if he had nothing to live for. Trying so hard to survive began to seem so pointless and even stupid. Despite that, there was still a desperate part of him that wanted to live no matter how ridiculous it seemed.
“I’ll, uh, I’ll give you some space, well, I can give you a lot of space if you come up.” Grace chucked a little at that statement then awkwardly coughed when Simon refused to respond to whatever Grace seemed to find amusing. “We have some more work to do upstairs but I’ll come back later. I promise I’m not messing with you.”
Simon just ignored Grace again, refusing to play whatever game this was. He didn’t want to go back, he didn’t want to stay here, he didn’t want to die, he just wanted to wake up safe on the space station with the pain gone and the mission over. He could only hope that Ava was retrieving the SM-13 with his body inside of it, that he really could wake up with this nightmare over, but the longer it took the less likely that possibility seemed.
“Well, I’ll leave the hatch open, call me if you need anything, or come up, just be careful. We’d love to hear how you got out here.” Grace waited in silence for a few moments before he finally retreated back up the ladder leaving Simon to himself again.
Simon gripped the seed pod in his hand and silently prayed that he would wake up back on the station, unsure who he was even praying to. All that was left in a dead universe was a dead God.
Simon didn’t sleep well and spent most of the time squeezing his eyes shut, desperately hoping that every time he opened them he would be somewhere else and it never happened. Fear began to grip at him. How long would this last? It seemed much longer than anything else that thing had put him through, was it? Was the point to keep him in one place until he went crazy? To keep him here until he was stupid enough to feel safe just to pull the rug out from under him? Whatever happened it was sure to be bad. He had watched his body deteriorate in front of him, was it now time to watch the same thing happen to his mind?
He was pulled out of his trance-like state when the lights brightened and Grace came back down the ladder and walked over to Simon again.
“Hey, uh, how are you doing?” Grace asked, walking to the direction Simon was facing and leaning against the bed, his bandaged arm held at an awkward position.
Simon ignored him, focusing on the fact that Grace’s arm was injured. If push came to shove Simon could probably take Grace down even in his confused weakened state if he took advantage of an injury. On top of that, even if Grace was probably the same height of a little taller than Simon, he didn’t seem as strong and likely hadn’t been in many fights. It didn’t take long for Simon to realize it was probably pointless to try and take Grace down, the man had said there were other people here and the monster could likely warp this reality however it wanted. If it decided that it wanted Grace to take Simon down, there was likely little Simon could do to stop that.
“Are you hungry? We had you hooked up to a feeding tube when we first brought you in but I doubt that would be too comfortable while awake. Options are a bit limited but certainly better than the alternative.” Grace continued, smiling at Simon as he spoke, a warm, friendly mask meant to lure Simon into a false sense of security.
“Oh, uh, I remember yesterday you were talking about how I had a woman’s name, that’s my last name, my first name is Ryland. I just kinda assumed we wouldn’t speak the same language and wasn’t even sure if you could imitate human speech and Grace was shorter. And it’s what Rocky calls me. Sorry.” Grace said when Simon continued to ignore him, the man’s speech sounding more rambly and nervous as he continued.
“Are you…human?” Graced asked after a long pause. “I mean, you looked human when I first saw you and your body, you were surviving in a similar atmosphere, and now I guess you sound human. Sorry I kinda assumed that your body would be human enough for Armando to take care of, you were in really rough shape, the few tests I knew how to do seemed to indicate you were pretty humany, and I didn’t think you had any chance of survival without intervention.”
Why wouldn’t I be a human? What else looks like this? What else but that thing is really out there? Simon didn’t like to think that the only other living species in the universe were humans and the monster that paraded around in what was likely the body of a previous victim trying to break Simon with a friendly face, but he was pretty sure it was the truth.
“Hey, look, I dunno what you’ve been through but could you at least give me your name? I’d like to call you something other than ‘you’ and ‘that guy in our basement’. It doesn’t even have to be your real one. I’d appreciate it if you’d talk to me.”
Simon continued to ignore Grace, shifting and sitting up a little.
“Could you at least tell me what you’re doing out here?”
“I’m here because you put me here.” Simon spat, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, swatting at Grace’s hand when the man reached at him while trying to tell Simon to calm down and rest. At least it was clear that this thing wanted Simon to stay put. He was able to wake up from one of the visions by going into that light, maybe he could find a way out here. Maybe he’d wake up on the station. Is that why this thing wanted to keep Simon trapped here? Maybe he really had been rescued and once Simon got free from this nightmare he'd be free of that thing for real.
Simon stumbled when he got to the floor, his head spinning, falling hard against the nearby wall, swatting at Grace as the man tried to grab him. “Fuck off. You can’t keep me here.” Simon was pretty sure that the creature certainly could keep him here until he eventually suffocated, dehydrated, or starved but he couldn’t give up that easily. He had to get out of here, he had to get back, after everything he couldn’t just die here, he had to live.
“Look, I’m happy to let you go, you just gotta tell me where to put you. I’m not just gonna eject you into space.” Grace said, grabbing Simon’s shoulder with his uninjured hand, stopping Simon from making his way to the ladder. “You just need to give me a bit of information. Yes, I put you in the ship but how did you get out here, is there something that I need to know?”
Simon glared at Grace and stumbled out of the man’s grip pretty easily.
“Hey, I think you should stay down here for a bit longer. When you’re ready we can figure out how to get you back home. I’m sure we can figure out how to get both of us back to Earth, Rocky and I have already un-suicided this suicide mission for me, I’m sure we can do the same for you. There have been worse odds.” Grace continued, reaching for Simon again.
“Stop fucking with me!” Simon snapped, gripping his head in his hands. Earth was gone. The only legacy of a planet that once held life was a handful of humans scraping by knowing that they were already dead. With every generation, there was less reminiscence of Earth passed down, the last tree dead and gone. It wouldn’t be long until the last human followed. Then the universe would really be dead.
“Okay, okay, it’s okay. Just sit down, I’ll bring you something to eat, you just take some deep breaths and I’ll answer any questions you have as best as I can and then maybe you can answer a few of mine. We’re kinda playing a bit of a waiting game up in the lab right now and I’ll only leave if Rocky calls me up. Other than that I’ll be right here. Come on.”
Grace reached for Simon again, stopping him from getting closer to the ladder and this time Simon grabbed Grace’s injured arm and squeezed it.
Grace cried out in pain, tears forming in his eyes and clawed at Simon’s hand. “You can’t keep me here.” Simon growled, kicked Grace hard in the groin and let go of the man’s arm as Grace crumbled to the floor, clutching his injured arm to his chest.
Simon hurried up the ladder as quickly as he could, clutching tight to the bars when he felt himself grow dizzy. He heard Grace call for his companion, Rocky, which meant that Simon had to get out of here fast before Rocky had a chance to get a weapon and take Simon down.
He got to the next floor and desperately looked around for an exit or at least something he could use to defend himself with. He took a few steps forward before he felt something hit the back of his legs hard and caused him to fall to the ground.
Simon looked at what had tripped him and screamed as he looked at the monster before him trapped in some kind of ball. It had five legs, a body with rough edges, and even though it didn’t seem to have a face, Simon was sure it was looking right at him.
“Get the fuck away from me!” Simon screamed, scrambling back and kicking at the ball. “Don’t touch me! Get away! Help! Ava! Ava you promised you’d help me! I did everything you said! Get me out of here! Please!” He kicked the ball with more force as the monster tried to get closer to him.
Simon tried to look for any possible direction that he could go when he felt an arm around his neck and sharp pain in his back. He struggled against the grip and to try to get away from the monster for a few moments until the world around him began to go dark and he was pulled into the darkest pit of it.