Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Simon woke up in water.
Water.
Water?
WATER?!
Simon flailed so as not to drown— and immediately regretted it as nearly every part of him screeched in agony. Simon let out a scream and ceased his movement immediately… which was when he noticed he wasn't drowning, strangely. He took a short little experimental breath, and nearly panicled when his mouth filled with water— but then realized it didn't send him sputtering and heaving and grasping for air. He… breathed the water.
The water that shouldn't exist in such quantities but that surrounded him on every side, the water that should be blood but was unmistakably thinner and notably not a ruby hue.
He blinked blearily, suddenly realizing that, yes, he could see perfectly fine underwater.
Then, all at once, Simon nearly smacked himself. Of course! He was wearing some kind of helmet or suit— he brought his hand up to feel it— that allowed him to breathe and see and— and palmed himself in the face with a red-webbed, clawed hand.
He froze, and drew his now shaking hand to where he could see it.
That was not human.
Simon's heart sped to a light speed pace, breaths coming out in short little puffs. He frantically looked down to inspect the rest of himself—
And screamed again.
His tail sent him whirling over backwards, pain lacing through his being as he tried to scramble away from himself. From the ruby-scaled tail that was where his legs should be. From the large, fanning, powerful looking, lighter-red fin that was where his feet should be. A couple more fins popped out from the sides of his tail, and he thought he saw out of the corner of his eye, as he twisted head-over-heels tail, another protruding from the back. He tried to wave his hands frantically to right himself— and only succeeded in moving one, because, as he turned, he found that his left arm had been reduced to a stump.
Screaming seemed redundant, so instead Simon dryly wretched.
It took him less time than he expected to figure out his… new state of being, probably fueled by the desire to figure out where the hell he even was.
Once he had (sort of) figured out how to pilot his tail, and had thoroughly repressed the emotions attached to his… missing arm, he had immediately decided to explore his new… environment. (Probably enclosure. Even more likely; cage.)
Simon quickly ruled out that the COI found him and pulled him out and kept him for dissection because of the sheer size of it— it took him probably three minutes to even swim (God, swim,) to the bottom. However, the bottom was made of a smooth, hot, glass-like substance, so it was almost definitely man-made. (It had to be; it wasn't like there were any planets anymore at all, much less any with naturally occurring water.) So— he had to be in some sort of enclosure… the question was who's?
Not to mention how the hell did I even get here in the first place?!
Simon vaguely remembered everything going wrong— blood up to his knees, his neck, his arm on fire, teeth— and then a blinding, cold, ethereally bright light. And after that, he was here.
You know what? You know what? He was alive, Goddammit, he wasn't about to question it right now.
Would be nice to know where he is, though.
Which is why, against the concerning instinct not to, he swam to the surface.
Simon's body (especially his tail) was protesting in any and all ways possible before he finally saw the blue above him getting lighter. Heart pounding (he had no idea what was up there), he gingerly reached up a shaking hand to feel where the water ended and the air began, but still jerked it away when his fingers actually did hit atmosphere. Slowly, hesitantly, and with his breath stuttering in his lungs he slid his head above the still surface.
There was a beach. A shore. With sand and craggy mountains pulling grandly up past it. There was some kind of foggy area with a desk and a chalkboard to the right, and an angular house perched on one of the tall hills, completed with a—
Simon froze, his breath catching and holding in his lungs.
With a tree.
God.
Simon felt something hot and wet slide down his cheek. He didn't bother to wipe it off.
He stared for much too long at the Impossible before he realized he should definitely not be above water this long unless he wanted to be spotted. He quickly took stock of the seemingly endless horizons to his right and left before quickly ducking back under, heart heaving for more reasons, this time, than one.
So. Not endless.
Simon had quickly disproven that theory by swimming toward one of the horizons only to find himself, in only ten minutes, facing a wall made of the same material as the floor. He had then followed it backward, the opposite way of the shore, and hit another that connected at a right angle. He was pretty sure he knew the routine now, but just to make sure, he followed that one and— yep. Another wall.
So definitely an enclosure. A slightly misshapen box with the shore and mountains being one of its sides. That was probably the only way in or out. It was probably meant to be like that. Damn. Did they already know he was here? But then… why hadn't they fished him out yet and strapped him down to be dissected, or squeezed him into a too-tight container to be ogled at by the rich and their children, or laid out to be petted and prodded as his new owner's pet? No… they didn't know he was here. Probably.
But then, why was this… ocean, he supposed, even here? It had to be for the pure enjoyment of whoever lived in that house.
God, that man would have to be the most wealthy, most powerful man alive to get all of this. How is all of this even possible? They'd have to be on one hell of a station.
Simon hoped to never, ever, meet that man. It would surely spell his doom.
But then he was faced with an opposing problem as his stomach rumbled loudly.
"Okay, class, that's all for today! Make sure to ask your clutchmates the questions on the sheet for tomorrow. Have a great day, everyone!"
Grace smiled as a couple of his students echoed the sentiment before they all shuffled out of the classroom. He packed up slowly, making sure that no one was going to come running in with a last minute question before finally turning to start his usual walk back to the house. He hummed a quiet eridian tune that Rocky had introduced him to a couple of days ago, because the gosh darned thing had been stuck in his head ever since. It was actually really impressive, eridian music— it had to simultaneously rhyme the sound of the words while making them create a coherent tune, while alsomaking sense as a sentence. Gosh, Eridian was such a beautiful—
What the fudge was that.
Grace blinked, but it was already gone. Or had it never been there?
But Grace could've sworn he'd seen… what his mind told him was a head, but what was probably really just a black dot poking out from behind one of the huge, craggy rocks that lined the far side of the shoreline.
It was probably nothing, Grace told himself, but he left his glasses firmly in their correct position on his face the rest of the trek home.
No.
Had he seen him?!
Simon's heart beat so fast and so violently it was painful, and his breath came out in ragged, sharp little gasps. His whole body shivered as wave after wave of adrenaline crashed over him, making his fins quiver.
He had ducked down again as soon as he saw the man look in his direction, but— he had no idea if he'd been fast enough. Could he risk looking again? To see whether the man was staring right at him? Wether he was running toward him, knife raised? Or wether he was running in the opposite direction, calling to hoards of guards that "Look! A monster! Haul it out of the water so that I can poke it with a sharp stick to see if it feels pain!"
Simon raised his head past the edge of the rock just a fraction, and GOD THIS IS SUCH A BAD IDEA DO YOU WANT TO DIE SIMON!?—
But the man wasn't doing any of those.
Simon blinked as he walked calmly up the shoreline, eventually turning slightly to make for the pathway leading to the house.
Simon let out a breath in a rush of air that came out as a delirious giggle of pure relief.
He was safe. For now, at least.
Thank God. Thank The Last Tree.
His stomach let out a roar of protest, demanding, once more, to be paid attention to.
Right. He was still starving.
Hungry, really. Simon knew what starving was, and he knew he wouldn't be there for at least another two days. He just had to find something to eat before then and he'd be okay! (He nearly snorted at so blatant a lie.) Unfortunately, Simon hadn't seen anything alive in the sea, but honestly he thinks he prefers that. Fuzzy memories of a voice and lurching and teeth—
Not that he expected there to be any life. Even if this place was probably supposed to emulate what Earth had been like, almost all animals that had lived on Earth had been lost in the Rapture, the few that had been on stations dying in raids or simply being kept so secret Simon didn't know about them. He doubted they had any fish lying around to dump in some guy's ocean, no matter how rich the bastard was.
That was unfortunate for Simon, though, because that meant he'd have to find food elsewhere. Namely, on land.
He'd been hoping to somehow find something close to the shore, but so far no luck, and he'd have to wait until Mr. Rich holed up in his house to do any more snooping, so Simon let himself sink to the ocean floor.
Finally, his mind was clear enough that the cacophony of pain that he had forced into background noise finally cut through to his consciousness. He groaned regrettably. He couldn't do much but massage the sore muscles but decided that would have to be enough, because after a few minutes a siren call rooted deep in his bones rose up somehow louder than the pain— he wanted to sleep.
It had been about sunset surface-side, so Simon convinced himself it was a good idea probably much quicker than he should have. Surprisingly, aided by the refreshingly cool currents against the pleasant warmth of the bottom, Simon soon felt himself drifting gently off to slumber.