Chapter Text
Simon's screams bounce off the creaking metal of the sub, drowned out by the rush of blood pouring in, fangs caging him in as they bear down.
crrk!
The protective covering of his pendant cracks, shuddering beneath the surface of the blood. The sound weaves like a serpent through the crushing hell around them, filling Simon's ears, more damning than the monster that has haunted him this whole journey. More piercing than the eye of a god that knew his name and damned his universe to darkness.
The blood sears Simon's flesh. His muscles. His very bones. The monster roars, a cacophony of screams and cries from all that came before. He feels himself changing, twisting against his will, agony overtaking him.
cr-crrick!
More cracks. More echoes. The burning, twisting, living blood infiltrates the pendant as it infiltrates Simon's very cells.
Staring up at the roof of the SM-13, Simon swears that he sees it again. The unfathomable eye of an unfathomable thing. The monster called it a god. An ignorant god. Simon did not think gods could be ignorant. Man is ignorant, but a god?
ssshcrACK!
The pendant shatters, the seedling within completely exposed to the cursed blood. Simon wails anew, feeling something pierce his flesh and spread. The sapling grows, blood and tree intermingling. Flesh and plant become one, Simon unable to fight it. The burn of the blood, the crush of the monster, the inundation of roots.
Relief. Yes, he is relieved. If he is to go, let it be at the hands of regrowth. Let his body feed that which needs him. Let him be needed. Just a little bit. Just the once. And let that which seeks his destruction be punished. Let his pain radiate and strike back. Let himself be taken. He and the nightmares both.
The sapling spreads, faster and faster. Just beneath the living blood it sparks like fire. Flashes like lightning. The light reflects off the ceiling of the SM-13. The eye stares back, the red storms rumbling around them. The thunder rushes through Simon's veins. Or are they branches now?
Simon screams one final time, filled with all his rage and fear and relief, as the sapling grows and bursts free. Branches skewer the monster, its own roar turned to pain, and rip apart the submersible. Simon is engulfed, he and the tree becoming one, feeling it devour that accursed monster and grow, grow, grow.
The Light, watching from far below, beautiful and terrible, is engulfed. Devoured. The tree has become the predator, enriched by the blood of an ignorant god. The Light glows from within, piercing through the cracks of wood and sinew. The fingers of god through a bloody canopy.
The world shudders. Simon does not understand, but he need not understand any longer. He cannot breathe, he cannot know, he will be lost. The bark inches across his flesh, more and more. Simon will be gone soon. His thoughts slip away, becoming nutrients for new life.
The tree takes root and the Light grows brighter, tucked inside. Brighter and brighter.
Brighter.
Then dimming.
Simon shuts his eyes…
~*~*~
The ignorant god knows not of its ignorance. It is omniscient in its naivette. All-knowing in its blindness.
Dangerous. What a god knows to be true is the word of the universe. If a god knows not, what tragedy might befall all that bear witness? Would it be tragedy? Or would it be that which always was?
How can a god fathom the unknowing? It is as mysterious to them as the divine is to mortals.
Can the heart know the body? Can it know the very cells and molecules that compose it? Perhaps it cannot. Perhaps it can try. Perhaps knowing is not the point.
Lessons of existence teach not knowledge, but wisdom. Knowing without knowing. Is that not what makes belief?
A mighty tree, blackened bark shining and slithering like velvet with blood, splits the Red Void clean through. Taking root in the Light and ocean, it grew and grew, unerring, fed by blood and the god's curiosity. A yew, trunk thick and undulating, like muscles instead of wood, reaches up from the blood ocean and splitting the stormy clouds above.
Is it flesh? Or plant? The living blood runs through it as it grows, changed just as the sapling has. The glow of the Light permeats out from within, throbbing like a heartbeat. Fangs and fins jut out, remnants of the monster crushed and twisted within. From a single knot, an arm hangs limp, a face just barely visible as it is absorbed.
The ignorant god stares upon this intruder-addition-parasite to its realm.
Si… mon…
A human. Hungry and cruel in their depravity. The god knows them. Saw them. Peered out of a pinhole and perceived them. The bloodshed across the cosmos. The darkened hearts. The cancerous spread. It had seen and it had known.
A pinhole view of the universe. A gap in the realms. It had seen, it had known, it had made true.
It had seen.
It had known.
It had made true.
A pinhole view. A pinhole universe. A pinhole god.
And a human had slipped through. The god had known it to be afraid, but it was not. The god had known it to be a cancer, but it was not. The god had known it to hunger, but it had not.
Si… mon…
The fingers hanging there twitch. The tree grows, reaching up and up and up.
Interesting. The god had known, yet it had not. The human did not hunger to know it. The human did not desire to understand it. The human's only need had been life.
I just want to live…
Not spread. Not control. Live.
A pinhole view, yet Simon slipped through, unknown and new.
Si… mon…
The single eye still not devoured by the yew cracks open, sunken and bloodshot. It is unseeing, but the god knows it must see, so it does. The eye turns upwards, gaze returned by that which stares back.
"You…" Simon croaks. Most of his body has been devoured, but what still remains turns to the god. What thought still clings to his darkening mind becomes angry. But he cannot move his arm. He cannot set the fire. He can only stare and speak.
You wanted… to live…
Simon's jaw, barely hanging on, flutters limply. The yew grows taller, reaching out across the entire realm, branches puncturing the edges of existence.
"Got… the black box… out…" Simon croaks, voice barely above a whisper, but the god knows what he says. It knows. "I…" Simon's chest heaves as bark inches further around his body, "win…"
The god watches. The yew grows.
You wanted… to live…
Simon chortles, a heaving sound, and blood trickles from his lips. "Fuck… you…"
The yew creaks and a tooth snaps off from halfway up the towering trunk, tumbling down to crash into the blood ocean below.
I know you… Simon…
Simon's fingers twitch again before going completely limp. His eyelid flutters, bark inching further across his face and shoulder. The Light's glow still radiates from within the yew, captured or infused, it means the same. The Light, the blood, the yew, the monster, the god. Simon. Singular.
"You don't… know… shit…"
The god does not reply. The human is wrong.
"Useless… god…"
The yew's branches puncture and rip, reaching out for something. Searching. Needing. The tree hungers as the gods do.
"Think you… know us… from a glance…?" Simon's lip curls, weak as it is.
I saw. I know.
"You… destroyed… everything…"
Humanity… cancer upon the stars…
"No…"
Synapses blink out…
"You… aren't human…" Simon wheezes, remains of his body spasming as the tree devours more. He is almost gone. He is almost free. "Can't… know… shit…"
The god is silent, staring upon this unknowable human. Soon to be no more. The god will be free of its torment.
The human cannot know what a god does not. A mortal is finite. A god is not.
Simon. So strange. So interesting. So curious.
A god knows. It must know. Is it a god if it does not?
The yew branches finally break through the sky, and above the Light emerges through the clouds. Limbs of the ethereal, passing through. The universe bleeding out. A ballet of holy wounds.
The great eye looks up. A gap in the universe. A new pinhole to peer through… Now ripped open by the arms of a yew tree.
But it does not look. Instead, it returns its gaze to the human.
Then you… Simon… will be my eyes…
Simon stares back, uncomprehending. The tree has devoured more of him. Everything in one. An eye and an eye.
"What…?" Simon manages to croak weakly. The Light is growing brighter.
I will know… you will show me…
Blood escapes from Simon's eye, rolling down his cheek. "No…" he wheezes. He cannot move. Cannot fight. He is in the hands of death. "Let me… go…"
I will know…
"No…" Simon repeats, eye squeezing shut. The yew pulls him further in, feeding off him, the monster, the blood, the Light.
I will know…
"Please…" Simon's voice is so weak, lungs filled with roots, throat closing.
I will know…
"Let me go…"
The bark of the yew closes over the last of Simon's flesh, swallowing him whole. The Light within and above throbs like a beating heart.
Thu-thump
~*~*~
To not feel is different than being numb. The complete absence of sensation is a state he should not know. He cannot panic, or cry, or even process the wrongness of it all. It is his state of being… but he should not be…
The blood tree had become one with him, killing and absorbing the monster before it could do the same. Simon had gotten the black box out of there. He had wanted to live, but accepted he wouldn't. At least he could go out with a bang. At least he could leave having done something good.
He is gone. Simon is dead. His story is over.
He is not meant to know that he is empty.
He is not meant to know that he no longer exists.
He has no eyes. No mouth. No heart. No flesh. No soul. He is roots and branches, reaching across realms, across ancestral plains. He is bark and pulp, protecting and holding all that is within and without. He is leaves and sap, breath without lungs, thoughts without mind, pain without body.
Simon is gone.
And then Simon is here again.
~*~*~
The first sensation Simon becomes aware of is the cold. His final memories had been heat. The SM-13 was a broiling cage. The blood was like fire. His final moments were fear and rage, skin burning away, his very bones set alight.
Yet now he feels cold.
Is this the After? Whatever the afterlife might be, is this it? Is it relief and freedom? Is this Heaven?
Simon thinks he'd forgotten what the cold felt like.
When he manages to crack his eyes open, his vision is too blurry to decipher anything. Beyond the chill on his skin and his uncooperative eyes, all he can register are the colors. A darkness engulfs him, interrupted by a constant, flashing red. Over and over.
Red flashes of lightning above his head.
No, surely he wasn't back there. Surely he wasn't stuck in that forsaken realm. How could he experience the relief of the cold and the hellish terror of the Red Void at once? Was it a new form of torture?
The next thing he becomes aware of is sound, but it is also hard to decipher. There are pitches and squeals in his ears. Over and over, coinciding with the red flash.
Is Simon even alive anymore? Is he dead? He has no idea what is going on, but he's pretty sure he wouldn't be so aware of himself if he were dead. Unless this is Hell, which would be just his luck.
Hell isn't meant to be so chilly, though. So maybe he's alive. Barely.
But how? How could he possibly be alive after all that he remembers?
Simon knows he needs to get an idea of his surroundings. He needs to figure out where he is and what's going on. Is he in the Red Void? The sub? His cell? Please don't let all of this have been a bad dream. Please. He thinks he'd go mad.
An involuntary groan leaves his throat as he tries to move his body. Get any control back. He manages to lift up his right side, his fingertips twitching and trying to get a grip. It takes all his power and focus to rise and roll over.
He intended to catch himself, but pressure on his left side sends an explosion of agony through his body and he cries out, flopping onto his front with a wet SPLAT! The pain, ironically, helps jumpstart some of his body's remaining systems, but first he can only lay there, writhing. The stink of iron fills hits him, whatever he landed in filling his nostrils, and he yells in alarm, trying to spring back.
It takes a while, but the frantic way he blinks and moves his eyes, and the adrenaline rushing his whole system, finally lets him focus on what's directly in front of him.
Blood. Of course it's more blood. He's absolutely drenched in it, dripping from his face into the puddle below him. He shakily pulls his knees under him, balances, and reaches out. His fingers dip into the blood, but don't go far, immediately hitting the floor.
Not the ocean, then. Not the Red Void. Then it must be the sub.
Simon doesn't know what it says about himself that seeing the blood again, despite the gut turning dread, makes him feel relieved. That all the atrocities done to him were at least real and not some fabrication of a broken mind.
A throb through Simon's left side distracts him, that same agonizing pain pulsing all through him, and his right hand comes around to grip at his shoulder. Or what's left of his shoulder…
The tear hadn't been clean, flesh ripping at the point of least resistance. Simon's left arm is completely gone, plus much of the shoulder it once was connected to. His own blood trickles out to pool with the rest on the floor.
Simon doesn't know how to treat this. He's never seen someone get a wound this bad and survive. So the blood ocean had failed to kill him, the tree had failed to kill him, but blood loss or infection were bound to take him out. That was going to be a slow and agonizing way to go.
Simon didn't even know if he wanted to try and bind the wound or not… He'd wanted to live, but had been so certain he'd die. He'd even accepted it in his last moments. Accepted it with his rage and all the pain that he'd been holding inside. And yet now he's alive…
Simon's whole body shakes as he sits back, still on his knees, and looks around himself, eyes getting more and more focused. The blaring noises that accompany the red lights begin to sound like words.
At first glance, Simon swears he must be back in the SM-13. He’s in a small compartment with rounded walls currently coated in a mess of blood. That's where the similarities end, however. When the red light flashes and illuminates the room, he realizes that everything looks far too pristine. He can't tell the color, but there's no rust or tarnish. The pipes are missing and there's no screen or control panel anywhere. In fact, it looks like this corridor opens up to a larger facility just ahead of Simon.
Simon finds himself staring at the doorway, not sure he's seeing it right. It's still so dark save for the red lights and the alarm.
Alarm.
That's what it is, Simon finally realizes, jerking around as he pieces together the blaring sounds and a feminine, automated voice.
"CONTAMINANT DETECTED. CONTAMINANT DETECTED."
How had he not noticed such a loud sound at first? It grates on his nerves, the intense noise almost too much after hours upon hours of silence.
"CONTAMINANT DETECTED. BEGINNING RESUSCITATION PROCESS. CONTAMINANT DETECTED."
Resuscitation process? Oh, hell no. Simon didn't know what that meant, but he had no intention of finding out. Whatever was sleeping around here did not need to be woken up.
"No! Shut up, shut up!" he yells up at the ceiling. There isn't a speaker he can focus his anger onto, the sounds seem to be coming from everywhere. "No contaminant! Just me! Fuck—" Simon tries to lift himself up, one knee coming up, but he's exhausted and his foot slips in the blood. He falls onto his hip with a loud bang, cursing through his teeth.
"Mute! Stop! Alarm off!" Simon tries instead. There weren't too many automated systems left on the space stations. Most had broken down over the years, but a few remained here and there. Enough that Simon knew of basic command words.
The lights don't stop flashing, but for a moment the voice stops. The alarm blares, over and over, agony on Simon's senses. At least the adrenaline is keeping him from passing out.
"UNIDENTIFIED PERSONNEL. PLEASE STATE YOUR RANK AND NAME."
Simon stares at the ceiling for a long moment, chest heaving. It didn't know who he was? So, likely not a COI station, otherwise his data would be recorded somewhere in the prison records. Or this was a vessel of some kind that didn't have access to such records.
"Fucking…" Simon shakes his head, shrugging helplessly. Might as well try. "Simon?"
The lights continue to flash and the alarm continues to blare, and then, "FUCKING SIMON. IS THIS CORRECT?"
Simon sputters. "What the hell, no! My name is Simon!"
The automated voice is quiet for a while, then repeats, "PLEASE STATE YOUR RANK AND NAME."
Simon growls, flailing his hand before grasping across his chest at his wound again. He struggles to rise, dropping heavily to his side to brace against the wall. He didn't have a rank to offer, but he needed this damn alarm to shut up!
"Commander Simon!" he yells for lack of a better idea.
"COMMANDER SIMON. IS THIS CORRECT?"
"Sure."
"PLEASE STATE ACCESS KEY."
Fuck.
Simon drags himself across the room, legs shaking, trailing blood behind him. Every step is like his feet are made of lead, his body wanting to drag itself down, down, back to the floor. But he needs to get out of here. He needs to figure out where he is and make his escape. Leave the COI in his dust.
But he doesn't have a dumb access code and he needs this horrible alarm to shut off!
"I don't have a code! Just shut off!" Simon yells up at the ceiling. He finally reaches the entryway and grabs hold, falling against it painfully.
"COMMANDER SIMON. PLEASE STATE ACCESS KEY."
The blaring lights and alarm are making his head scream.
"I don't HAVE one! Just mute! Halt resuscitation! Stop talking! FUCK!" Simon slips off the edge of the entryway, crashing to the floor and splattering blood over everything. He groans, his whole body screaming as loud as the speakers.
"COMMANDER SIMON. PLEASE STATE ACCESS KEY."
"I heard you the first time!" Simon yells into the floor. He turns his head, trying to get a look at where he is now. It's a smaller compartment and he's laid on a grate, blood dripping through the holes. When he twists and manages to rise again, he realizes there are suits on the ceiling.
He stares at them for a moment. They look somewhat like EVA suits, but the designs are dated. They look to be in pristine condition, despite his limited sight. Why would someone have EVA suits like this for their vessel, though?
"COMMANDER SIMON. PLEASE STATE ACCESS KEY."
Simon turns to look back the way he came, ignoring the automated voice a moment. On the far end of the other compartment is a circular door. It's covered in blood now, but Simon is certain that it must be an airlock.
Nothing looks familiar. This is a strange vessel, that is for certain.
A vessel he magically appeared on, mutilated and alive. How?
"SIMON."
Simon stiffens, the automated voice taking on a different tone. He looks up at the ceiling again, trying to find the source of the sound.
Not again. Please, not again. He isn't even in the blood ocean anymore! Let him go!
"SIMON."
"Leave me alone," Simon growls quietly, trying to move through the EVA room, shuffling as best as his broken, beaten body can. It's getting hard to breathe, his chest tight and pained.
"YOU CANNOT BE ALONE, SIMON." The automated voice is still robotic and feminine, but there is an edge to it that no machine should have. Simon wouldn't call it humanity, since that thing has none. "YOU ARE MY EYES."
"I'm not your anything," Simon grits out. He'll just have to accept the alarm blare and the flashing lights, unless he can find the source and turn it off.
Simon's steps fumble at the last moment, however, and he falls to his knees. He braces himself with his one hand at the entryway, staring down at a dark tunnel with a ladder to his right. He doesn't have a moment to process the drop, however, as a new burst of pain radiates from his chest.
Simon cries, able to hear his heartbeat in his skull, falling to his side as the pain gets hotter and hotter. It lances through his chest and he swears he must be having a heart attack. Except the glow that begins to emerge from within his own chest has him reconsidering.
Light emerges from within him, curling through the air just as the Light had through the sub. Simon gawks, frozen on the floor, as the Light brightens, projecting the faint shadow of his sternum and ribcage on the ceiling.
It's inside him now? No. No no no. Simon doesn't think he can breathe.
"SIMON."
That voice. That thing. That useless god!
"What did you do to me?!" Simon screams, trying to get up, but he's stuck where he's fallen. He slams the side of his fist into the wall beside him, the sound reverberating through the room. "What did you do?!"
"YOU ARE MY EYES."
"I'm nothing for you!"
"YOU SAY I DO NOT KNOW. YOU SAY ONLY A HUMAN CAN UNDERSTAND. THEN SHOW ME."
"I didn't sign up for this!" Simon yells, trying again in vain to move. "I was supposed to be free! I don't deserve this!" Simon knew he was a damned soul, but surely no one deserved this as their punishment. He was doomed to rot one day, but he hadn't died yet. Against every single odd, he hadn't died yet. So why could he not be left alone?
"THIS IS NOT ABOUT DESERVED OR NOT DESERVED, SIMON. YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN. YOU WILL BE MY EYES."
"What? I don't get a choice? I don't get a single say?" Simon grinds out, quaking with rage.
"NO."
That simple.
No.
No, Simon gets no choice and no say. He should be used to that, right? He should expect it. He's never had a say in his whole life.
But he still rages, fury and fear boiling inside him. He isn't anyone's puppet! He isn't their eyes to experience the universe! He's Simon! Just Simon! He's ready to be free!
"IF I AM TO KNOW, YOU SHALL BE MY GAZE. THE YEW HAS BROUGHT YOU TO THIS PLACE, AND YOU SHALL SHOW ME ALL THAT CAN BE SEEN."
The yew? Does the voice mean the tree that had sprung from Simon's pendant? The thing that pierced through the realms and carried Simon with it. It's what brought Simon… here. Wherever "here" is.
Simon doesn't understand what's going on. He's been so confused since he'd been welded into that cursed sub and it had only gotten worse the deeper he went.
"I'm not showing you shit," Simon growls, but jolts when he swears he feels something inside his chest move. He grips at his shirt, horror building on his face as he watches the glow on the ceiling. The Light looks like the surface of water, undulating with each breath, and the shadow of his ribs remains present, but then he sees a small shadow shift around in the same moment he feels it.
There's something else inside of him besides the Light…
"SIMON. YOU SHALL BE MY PROXY. MY AVATAR."
Simon is having a little trouble staying focused only on the voice now. There's another shift in his chest, moving at the same pace as the shadow, but this one drags along the inside of his ribs.
He cries out, clawing and yanking at his shirt. It's the only bit of movement he can muster.
"YOU SAY ONLY A HUMAN MIGHT KNOW HUMANITY. THEN PROVE IT TO ME."
Simon wails, tears of pain pricking his eyes. The shadow shifts and pauses just behind Simon's right ribs. He can only watch and feel as this thing begins to press at the ribs. He tries to flail, shake it off, but this thing is inside him.
"STOP! MAKE IT STOP!" he screams. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair! He'd done everything right! He'd done what was asked of him and tried to save the one piece of knowledge that might save what remains of humanity. Why was this happening to him?!
There's a sharp pain within, getting worse and worse, a pressure building.
"SIMON."
The shadow on the ceiling wiggles, something alive. It's clawing at Simon's insides, working its way out between his ribs. Simon struggles, unable to do anything about it save scream and yank at his shirt.
"YOU ALWAYS KNEW YOU WOULD NEVER BE FREE."
There's a feeling of a POP followed by a gush of blood under Simon's shirt. It hurts less than the clawing, but Simon still cries out. The Light is beginning to dim, retreating back into Simon's chest while this alien thing comes out. Simon manages to lift his head enough to see a bulge beneath his shirt rising up, but then it wriggles and the pain is excruciating.
He tries to lift his shirt, paw at the moving shape, anything, but whatever it is won't stay still enough for him to grab it. It squirms more in his chest, pulling itself out bit by bit, until finally it comes free and a new gush of blood pools out. Simon can feel his side soaking with it, his strength weakening rapidly.
Simon's head falls back, everything twitching. Is he dying? Is this finally going to be it? He'd wanted to go out on his own terms, but instead he'd been dragged out to who-knows-where to suffer one final time.
The thing in his shirt shuffles and clambers around. Simon doesn't have the strength to grab at it anymore.
Whatever it is, it's long with tons of little fit, sliding around on Simon's heated skin. It makes Simon shiver again as the creature moves downward. It slips and tumbles off Simon's side and finally wiggles itself out from Simon's shirt.
Simon, with the last bit of his energy, turns his head. His vision is dimming again, but the last thing he manages to see is a tiny version of the eel monster scurrying away into the vessel, out of sight.
Simon knows he should be panicking, but all his power is gone. His eyes slip closed and he slips into the abyss once more.