Chapter Text
It’s cold. There’s no warm embrace as blood and viscera fill my lungs and throat. A chill dances on my skin and my hair stands on end. I don’t know why I expected dying to be warm. I don’t know why I thought I was dying. Maybe this is hell. Why would I go there though? What did I do? Guilt squeezes my head and I feel like I’m gonna pop.
“Eye movement detected”
I try to speak but I feel a tube I. My throat. I open my eyes to see a machine above me, everything is so clean until I see the walls, blood spattered. But it’s still cleaner than where I was. Where was I? I don’t know. I just know I’m not where I’m supposed to be and I’m making a mess. It’s a familiar fear.
“Please cough.”
I do as I’m told, I’m used to that I guess cause it feels routine. I cough and I feel the tube slide out of my throat as I gag.
“What is two plus two?”
“Four- where- what-“ I try to prop myself up on my elbows, I fall onto my left side. I look to see if I’ve slipped. My arm is gone. The screaming hurts my throat but feels reasonable. The machine keeps talking to me, I feel my heart pounding in my head. I look around, the white walls are stained with blood but it looks like someone tried to clean up. So I’m not alone then, that or I managed to clean up before losing an arm and passing out. Seems like something I’d do. Who’s blood is it?
“Hey! Hey you’re awake! Good!” I hear the voice and flinch. The stranger runs in, sliding to a stop on the floor paneling. He picks up his glasses from where they dangle from his chin by one ear and puts them properly on.
“Who are you?”
“Oh uh- I was gonna ask you that since-… you- you don’t know?”
“Should I?”
“I guess… I guess not necessarily, um… well… I am doctor Ryland Grace. Welcome to the Hail Mary.” He says it slowly and carefully like he’s trying not to scare me or piss me off. That caution, the immediate fear without even knowing me, it pisses me off. But I keep it level.
“Okay.” The name sounds like it should be familiar, but I come up with nothing. Maybe when I’m calmer I’ll remember something there.
“Nothing?”
“No… I'm sorry.” He looked sad. I felt bad using that tone with him, I guess I’m somebody who is mean and then feels bad instead of just being nice. Seems convoluted, feels natural.
“Okay well uh… you probably hit your head pretty hard so- and uh you were out for a while- shit wait what if- oh no.” He quickly rummaged through some boxes and papers in the room,
“Hey uh- where’s m-my arm?” I ask, and for some reason I feel embarrassed about how scared I sound. What’s weird is I know that’s irrational. I must be a fucking weirdo, huh?
“Oh… I- I don’t know… when we found you it uh… it was already gone.” He looked up from his rummaging to wince at me, a sympathetic look I think. He then kept checking things, he looked at the IV bag and examined its contents, muttering to himself. He then sighed and gave a short nod before shaking his head, “you uh… you really don’t know what happened?”
“Okay… um- I’m sorry."
“Sorry for what?!” The man, Ryland Grace, seemed upset, and scared. Oh god I just keep fucking up don’t I?
“I uh… I think I fucked up? L-like really bad? And I’m sorry I can’t remember and I’m sorry I can’t answer your questions I just-” it all just pours out of me like vomit. My head hurts so bad, my tears feel too hot on my cheeks, I feel like my insides are boiling, but why can’t I feel the pain where my arm was cut? No. Ripped. Why is that the word that feels more right? Fuck. What happened?
“Hey- hey no it’s okay… it’s okay you’re safe! Um- do- do you remember your name? Your… your uniform didn’t um… didn’t have a name tag.” He leaned so he was at eye level with me laying in the bed, I still really wanted to sit up.
Omen. Harkening. Something biblical. Whatever that means. Something with an s? Si… fuck that’s such a basic question, what’s my name?
“It’s… it’s okay if you don’t remember… I- I took a while to remember, and I had help cause y’know…” he gestured to his name tag. Okay, yeah I know what a name tag is and I can read. Cool.
“Simon.” It rolled off the tongue.
“Simon?”
“Yeah… yeah I think that’s what people call me. Sounds… sounds right.” People usually yelled that. Angry people.
“Okay. That’s- that’s good. Simon um… here’s- can you tell me what you remember about uh… about before waking up here?”
It rushed back to me in pieces. It was an accident. It was premeditated. The plan went wrong.. Gnashing teeth and a sickness in my blood and hate in my soul. Silent screams. Explosions and fire swallowed by the vacuum, by the nothing. Fear. Panic. I wanted to scream, I was drowning still. I was still on the station. I died in the explosion no. I didn’t I imploded. No I just became something terrible. A butcher. A monster. A tree... A terrorist. This was some illusion my brain was creating as it died, just like before, just like the radio just more elaborate. Shattering glass. That man screams. So much yelling. What radio? Why? I remember cutting it. No I didn’t. Why would I that? That would be stupid. It hurt. It wasn’t real. Shut up. Stop. It hurts. You’re hurting me- my head- let me go, please I- I don’t want to die-
“C-can I sit up please?" I chewed on the inside of my cheek to ground myself.
“Oh jeez yeah hold on sorry!” He pressed a button on a remote and handed it to me, the bed I was in then adjusted for me to sit up. I wiped my face with my wrist and set the remote on my lap,
“I…” as I told the story, it came back to me, I suppose I told it vividly, not quite sure. He seemed engaged. Maybe this is what I do, tell stories? No that doesn’t seem right, my hand is too rough for that, “I was welded into the submarine and dropped into an ocean of blood. I was there because I needed to find something, anything that could help. We needed- we needed food, and resources, and an energy source. If the ocean had been anything else, or even any other kind of blood we could have all of that from it, but no… it was human. Human blood. But there was something down there with me. Some kind of- monster. I wanted to say animal at first but it- it wasn't just an animal, not just an alien. It… it loved me. But- but I- I didn’t- I just wanted to live and go home and so I hated it. And then it hated me. It- it tried to kill me. Tried to tear me apart. I-“
It changed me somehow, I don’t know how but it did. Something about it got in me. I can’t- I shouldn’t tell him. He’ll send me back. He’ll hurt me. He’ll kill me. He’s one of them, must be… “I think it did kill me… But then- then there was a flash, so hot I thought I burned to dust. And then- then I woke up here and I’m cold- and I’m scared and- and I just wanna go home! I did the best I could doesn’t- doesn’t that mean something?”
We sat in silence for a few seconds as Dr.Grace squeezed my good shoulder gently. I wanted to lean into it. I wanted to bite his arm until I felt skin give way to muscle, then muscle to bone, then bone to marrow. I flinched instead of doing either and he took his hand away. The loss made me want to scream. I sat in silence.
“Okay… wh- how- okay.” Doctor Grace began after a moment, trying to parse what I had said before he walked off somewhere and wheeled on a whiteboard. It had a lot of math and words I recognized on it,
“Was- was that wrong? Do we know eachother? Am I su- was that just a nightmare?” I hoped it was. I really did. That this man was my friend and knew exactly who I was and that the person I was was a good and kind and funny person. I knew in my bones it wasn’t true. This man’s face was entirely foreign to me, he had too much-… softness. Satisfaction. He lacked avarice. He didn’t want or need anything from me. He looked tired, sure, and like he was hungry but he didn’t blame his hunger on me. I don’t remember why anyone would but I know they’d be right to.
“No- no we- we just met. Or well I met you while you were unconscious! But still.” Grace went to wipe the board clean but I stopped him,
“Wait! Wait what’s all this?”
“Oh uh…” his eyes danced around it, looking for key words,
“It’s an orbital decay calculation.” I said before he could answer, “why do I know that?” I like knowing it. It’s clues to who I am, and when I look at the math, the maneuvers, I like where the clues lead me. Of course I’d love flying, it makes sense. I don’t know why.
The doctor smiled a little at me, and chuckled, “you know I asked myself the same th-“
“Am I a pilot? You said I had a uniform?” Maybe I used to be a pilot. Maybe I used to do a lot of different things.
“Eh… I mean… I assumed it was a uniform? It might have just been an outfit? But um- we did find you in- the- you weren’t in a space ship, you were in a submarine and that’s not-“
“Cool yeah that reminds me then, where are my clothes?” I gestured at the t-shirt and sweatpants I had on, “these are definitely not mine.”
“Well-“ he makes a guilty face and that riles me up.
“The fuck did you do to me-“ I tried to get up, every joint in my body felt like it was on the verge of popping out of socket, the pain felt like my ligaments were shredding, I let out a pained shout as Ryland approached me.
“Nothing! Just patched you up, gave you some fluids! Your- your clothes were covered in blood and- and stuff.” He explained, “I- they’re in the lab right now.”
“Okay… okay.” I sighed and examined more of the board, “you’ve also got- that ship isn’t built for landing, you had to have assembled it in space docks.” I gestured to the drawing on the board, “it can’t- can’t handle the strain of- sorry does this say fishing?”
“Yeah! We found- okay so this might excite you! It’s good news! We found something that will kill the astrophage! Or at least stabilize their population!”
I had no fucking clue what this guy was talking about. I just stared at him for a moment and then nodded, his goofy grin fell when it became clear I didn’t know what he meant,
“Okay uh well yeah there was life on the planet that kept the astrophage numbers under control so-“
“Sorry wait life? Aliens?”
“Y-yeah! Yeah aliens are real, uh-“
“Yeah but- you- you went fishing for them? Hold on wait.” I grabbed at the board and he loved it closer to me so I could see it better, “this uh… your calculations for the return weight are… they’re tiny.”
“Yeah, they’re just- I mean they’re microbes. Not really- they’re micro organisms.”
I sat and thought hard about that, trying to remember what that meant. “For… for soil? The like… fungi and bacteria that give soil nutrients?”
“Kinda but uh… also super no, the only similarity is the size actually sorry uh but hey! Maybe you’re a botanist since you know so much about soil!” He grinned, it sounded right but not like the whole truth, “ but uh yeah the Taumoeba no. No they- they thrive in thin, mostly carbon atmospheres floating in or on the denser parts of the atmosphere. Like… uh… you know algae?”
I didn’t. It wasn’t that I forgot what that was, I just truly didn’t. I shook my head,
“Dang okay well… yeah anyways they eat astrophage, I call them Taumoeba since we found them near Tau Ceti on a planet we now call Adrian but used to be Tau Ceti- Tau Ceti and then a bunch of letters. Tau Ceti is the name of the star, the sun for that system.”
That couldn’t be right. It sounded fundamentally incorrect but I didn’t remember why. I couldn’t figure out what part of what he said was wrong. Then again it all sounded wrong. Aliens weren’t small friendly little Taumoebas, they’re big and they eat you.
“I uh… I guess I thought aliens were just big monsters.” I felt stupid saying it like that. Then again everything I did and said made me feel stupid. I barely even remembered my name.
“I’ve only ever seen small ones! Funny!” Ryland chuckled for a bit before he sighed and scratched his head, “I mean- um- I’m sorry.”
“Where did you find me?”
“Your uh- your ship was free floating in space. You were barely alive when we found you. And um… the ship was full of blood but it wasn’t- it wasn’t yours.”
“It wasn't? Wait- okay yeah I guess I had- I must have had a hull breach then and…” I chewed on a fingernail as I thought, the pain was grounding as my teeth dug into the nail bed. I wonder what that’s about…
“Yeah no you’re uh… you’re O negative but the uh- the blood we found you in was AB positive, it had some of your blood mixed in cause of the… injury.”
“Okay…. Kinda funny.”
“How so?”
“Universal donor.” I gestured to myself, then I gestured vaguely away from myself, “universal recipient. It- it uh… tried to uh… tried to… receive me…”. Speaking became difficult, then keeping my eyes open became difficult. The man seemed to start panicking as I passed out but to be honest that wasn't really my problem considering I was unconscious. My body and Brian clearly had bigger fish to fry than solving this fucked up mystery that Doctor Ryland Grace and I found ourselves in. Apparently repairing the damage I had taken and possibly resting my nervous system were more important. Go figure.