Chapter Text
Simon’s lungs burned. He fought his way to the surface and dragged in a desperate breath. Blood trickled into his mouth, sour and metallic. It coagulated at the back of his throat and made him choke.
Spluttering, he flailed and caught hold of the floor of the sub, hooking his fingers through the grating. He tossed the black box ahead of him and hauled himself up.
Something touched his back.
Too overwhelmed to process it properly, he just squirmed onto the floor. He spat blood onto the floor, heaving though nothing came up.
Something touched his back again, patting him. Cringing away from it automatically, he rolled and brought a hand up to push it away. He wiped quickly at his eyes and blinked hard.
There was a child. A child crouched less than an arms length from him, watching him with big, dark eyes. Their hair was wet with blood, hanging in limp strands and they wore a shapeless grey tunic thing.
Simon blinked again, trying to dispel the hallucination. But the child remained stubbornly there. Watching.
Was this some symptom of him losing his mind once and for all? Had the- the thing out there found a new way to mess with him?
“What the fuck?” He croaked.
The child shifted their weight a little, but said nothing.
“What are you? Why are you here?” He demanded, rising to his feet.
Shrinking from him, the child pressed back against the wall.
Simon faltered. Whatever this thing was, it looked like a child. Even if it was some kind of hallucination, it felt awful to scare it. The hallucinations so far had been realistic, but nothing like this. So he turned away.
Maybe it was a distraction, trying to stop him. Picking up the life jacket, Simon put the black box into it. But it wasn’t secure. He glanced around, looking for something to help. But the kid reached out, a bundle of straps hanging from their little fist.
For three suspended seconds, Simon just stared at it. Then he took the straps. He brushed against the kid’s hand and it was cold. It certainly felt real. He worked his jaw and focused on strapping the black box securely into the life jacket.
“This is bigger than me.” He muttered to himself.
The navigation system started ticking. Faster and faster.
“Shit-” Simon lunged towards the controls- but it was too late. The sub lurched, launching both of them into the wall. Simon grunted and the child yelped in pain.
Rolling onto his side, Simon pressed a hand to the aching spot on the back of his head. When he stood, he put his hand out to steady himself. But it got stuck. Panicked, he tugged on his arm, but his hand stuck fast. He threw his weight back, but nothing happened.
The kid grabbed onto him, tugging his shirt as though trying to help. Simon put his foot against the wall for leverage and gritted his teeth. His arm began to… stretch. Tendons and sinew pulling until they snapped.
Simon fell back with a thud, shaking. He stared down at the stump that used to be his arm. The child put one hand on his knee, watching him with wide eyes.
“Dunno how you got here kid. Bet you’re wishing you didn’t.”
The kid looked over at the controls, then at the black box.
Simon swallowed hard. “This is bigger than both of us huh?”
Grabbing his good arm, the child did their best to help him up.
“This had better work.” Simon staggered over to the controls and shoved the lever up as far as it would go. “C’mere kid.” Sitting on the floor, he pulled the child against his chest and tried to brace them both as well as he could.
The kid curled up against him, clinging to his blood soaked shirt. Never before had he felt protective like this, here where he was helpless to do anything. So he just held tight as they tucked against him.
“Close your eyes.” He rasped, hoping they would do as they were told. He did the same, wishing there was something more he could have done to save them both.
-
Simon opened his eyes.
He was dead. Wasn’t he dead?
But- he was staring at metal. That awful, familiar side of the submarine. If this was death…
Something moved against his chest and he remembered the child. Pulling back, Simon looked down at them. They were still covered in blood, they both were, but they didn’t seem hurt.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” They- she?- said quietly.
It was the first time hearing her voice and Simon was somewhat reassured knowing she could speak. Simon made to sit up, using his left arm.
His intact left arm.
Though- it was different now. Not flesh, but something rougher. It kind of reminded him of roots. When he turned it over it still moved the same as it always had. But when he curled his fingers into a fist he couldn’t feel the fingers pressing against his palm.
It was completely insane. But he didn’t have time to freak out over stupid things, it would have to wait.
They were no longer drowning in blood, though it still coated everything. As he looked around Simon realised the life jacket and the black box were nowhere to be seen.
Simon turned to the child. “Do you know what happened?”
The child shrugged.
“Okay. Helpful.” Running his hands over his disgusting blood sodden hair, Simon tried to think. First things first, work out where he was. He looked at the control panel but the latitude and longitude panels were blank. Instead he went to the X-ray.
Simon reached out to the button, but he hesitated. If he had no idea where he was, he had no clue what he could hit with a massive burst of radiation. But there was no sound coming through the speaker, and the porthole was still closed. He would have to take the risk.
“Go stand by the controls okay?” Simon pointed. Whether it would make a difference if there was radiation coming into the sub, he wasn’t sure. But he may as well try.
So when the girl was clear, Simon slammed the button. The screen flashed and then showed… complete darkness. Absolutely nothing. He waited a minute and pressed it again just in case. But still, nothing.
“Okay.” Simon tried to sound calmer than he was. “Okay.” Could the X-ray be malfunctioning somehow? If they were pressed right against something the screen would be white.
Turning, Simon sat heavily on the floor. The girl crawled over to him and put her hand on his knee.
“You okay?” She asked, as though parroting what he had asked her earlier.
But Simon had no answer for her. He put an arm out and pulled the girl into his side. “We’ll think of something.” He muttered. He just had no clue what.
-
Grace was going stir crazy. He loved Rocky. The concept of a platonic soulmate had been confusing to Grace until he had met Rocky.
But there was more than a year of space travel left until they reached Erid, and it would be a miracle if he reached the planet with his mind intact. He finally understood why it had been so important to put them into comas. If he was in the ship with two other humans…
So he was lounging in the cockpit, idly fiddling with the controls when he saw it. A sudden burst of radiation caught by the sensors.
Grace sat up, getting closer to the screen. “What was that?” He muttered to himself.
Pulling up the readings, he realised that it wasn’t just radiation, it was an X-ray. Of course, space was filled with X-rays, but a burst like that was odd. Mostly out of boredom, Grace wanted to figure it out. So he pulled up the telescope, switching it from IR light to visible. He scanned across the space, searching for the source.
At first he thought it was an asteroid. But it was too smooth for that.
There were the usual taps as Rocky moved through his tunnels. “Grace find something, question?”
“Yeah… it’s…” Grace focused the telescope, the range and clarity was incredible.
The whole thing was coated in something red. But underneath that he could just see something white. Letters.
SM-13
“It’s… a submarine?”