Chapter Text
How long had he been here?
Where is he and how long has he been here?
For a while he wasn't sure if he was blinking, or breathing, or if he was capable of thought. There's an idle dinging or pinging or beeping sound. It's steady and constant, and there's a slow draw of air that can be faintly heard every time he breathes in or out. It's like a subtle breeze or a pull of the tide of water against sand, washing against a shoreline or sandbar over and over again.
Inhale... Exhale...
Alive. That's a singular thought that crops up briefly when he realizes he isn't dead. It comes to mind when he realizes he's blinking.
Alive? He isn't completely sure. Things feel wrong. Something doesn't feel right, but his mind is slow to pull the pieces together. There's gaps, holes in the surface, the landscape of his mind. Pitfalls. There's sound returning to him, but it's distorted, or slow. Or muted. It's like he has water in his ears, dulling the noises outside the ear and amplifying the sounds inside of his body.
It's an uncomfortable feeling.
Then his eyes are trying to focus. White. Pale, blurry. Another thing that is wrong. Wrong. Why is it bright? Where is the light coming from? It was so dark and now it's too bright. Wrong. Wrong. This is wrong--
The far-away beeping is starting to increase and the formless white is starting to change and warp, bending.
This is too foreign. It's too much. Bright. Sounds are wrong. Everything is wrong.
A tension in his chest swells. It smothers him. A weight is crushing him. The pressure. Skin is hot.
Tight. Hot. Crushing. It's crushing him, he's going to be crushed.
Dying. I'm gonna die. I'm dying--
The beeping is frequent. The sounds are muddy and the shapes are moving fast.
Panic comes over him like a hot wave, smothering him. Limbs felt slow, heavy. It's like fighting in a dream. Maybe it's all a dream. This is a nightmare.
"--esting 10cc--... Preparing inje--..."
Something almost human. It speaks cleanly. Clinical. Detached.
More weight is coming over him. His limbs feeling heavier. Slower. Until he couldn't feel them, move them, at all. His heart, his pulse, is very loud in his ears. His own breath sounds loud. He can't hear anything in the room with the strange fluid in his ear, and then it starts to settle.
The beeping sounds far away but it starts to slow in it's pace, the beeping gradually going back to the tempo it had been before.
Tired. He's suddenly so tired. It's too bright here, but it's starting to get dark. At first he was relieved, and then he was worried.
It was too dark where he was before... He doesn't want to go back there. Dark, the air thick and hot. Sticky, wet... Not sticky from sweat.
Black came over Simon with indifference and he was back to nothingness again, living in what he could only imagine was not alive but not dead.