Chapter Text
All Simon could hear was silence. Not the sound of the SM-13’s frame twisting, nor a whisper of the monster that had just been screaming at him. One moment, he was feeling the agony of the wretched blood ocean taking residence in his lungs and the roots of a tree tearing his body apart, and in the next, he was in a void.
He contemplated and felt relief at this sudden peace. Was this what it was like to die? It’s certainly much more pleasant than where he was a moment ago. But the feeling of relief was quickly replaced with the feeling of grief welling up inside himself. This isn’t what he wanted. Nothing about this bought any solace to the fact that he desperately wanted to live. Yes, he fought to get the blackbox out, he knew there were things that he can’t deny being bigger than himself, but it still did not soothe the roiling despair.
Open your eyes.
Simon startles, like waking up by alarm. He opens his eyes to a vastness of stars that he has not seen since he was a young. In the middle, an impossibly large moon is nestled in the middle. But as moments pass, he realizes that this moon is not a moon at all, but an eye.
I see you.
He remembers these words suddenly, when he thought he had hallucinated the ship being dissected apart by beams of light. When he thought he hallucinated standing in glittering blood, staring up at a red storm, and looking at a similarly shaped eye, connected by millions of capillaries and shrouded by lightning. But in this moment, it doesn’t look like the terrifying vision of madness it was, but more akin to a pale, sightless eye.
“What do you want?” Simon whispered, fearing he would shatter the momentary peace he has found here.
Agreement remains.
He’s confused. “What agreement?” he continues to whisper, feeling more relaxed he has ever felt in his life. The entity continues to stare down at him, but he doesn’t feel any intimidation like he did before. A shadow starts to crest over the top of the eye, giving an appearance of an eyelid.
Agreement remains. Fulfilment is still required.
He burrows his brow, his mind still fuzzy with confusion and exhaustion. He’s unsure what he’s supposed to do here, isn’t he dead?
“Didn’t I die? I’m sure I died,” he utters, still keeping his low voice barely a whisper, the grief for his life still filling him further.
Fulfilment is still required. Release is imminent for agreement to continue.
Release? What release? Simon is starting to feel uncomfortable and queasy, while also hearing a slow, growing rumble around his head. The shadow is cresting further down the eye, giving it an appearance of drowsiness. The peace that Simon was feeling was getting replaced with alarm and uncertainty. He’s starting to feel like he’s getting squeezed from all possible directions.
“I don’t understand, what’s happening? What do you mean by release?” his voice trembling. He doesn’t understand what it wants, hasn’t he done enough? He wants to cry, but the panic in the moment is taking priority. The squeezing sensation is worsening and what started as a low rumble is now starting to become a dull roar all around him. A sliver of the eye now remains aglow under the shadow, appearing like a perfect crescent moon. Simon’s vision is beginning to become blurry, even if he swears his eyes are wide open.
Simon.
Grace has been on Erid for four Earth years now. He’s been filling his days with teaching and researching with the Eridians. When Rocky offered him the opportunity to return to Earth in a fully stocked Hail Mary, he had to admit that the idea just did not sound appealing. He’s found such fulfillment on Erid that he doubted he can replicate on Earth. Besides, space travel has really lost its appeal after having spent years in it with Rocky.
The morning light is just filtering in as his mind drifts among his memories. Sleep continues to elude him from time to time and, every once in a while, Grace stays up the whole night cycle just thinking. He knew it was one of those nights and yet still didn’t reach for his nightly cup of tea. Sometimes, despite the problems it can pose, he allowed his unending thoughts just chug along.
While Grace feels fulfilled on his sense of purpose on Erid, he can’t help but feel a little lonely at times. Rocky and Adrian are amazing friends to have; he’s never had a closer relationship with anyone in his life that could compare. But having not been in the company of another human being did leave a little something to be desired. Grace is extremely extroverted, but was slow to create meaningful adult relationships around himself on Earth. This slowness cost him many opportunities for deeper relationships, including his last girlfriend. He couldn’t help that his brain can’t always prioritize certain things. But he supposes that doesn’t really matter anymore, being the only human he knows within 13.5 light years.
A loud banging startles Grace out of his daydreaming.
“GRACE, GRACE! WAKE UP NOW!”
Grace stumbled himself out of bed, groggy and drowsy from the lack of sleep. He opens his door to a pair of jittering Eridians that he calls his best friends.
“Rocky? Adrian? Why are you here? It’s very early for your regular visi-“
“Grace! Come with! Eridian scientists need to talk to you!” Rocky anxiously tweets, pacing in place.
“About what? Is something wrong?” Grace glances around the biodome, worried that maybe it’s a structural problem or maybe a strange weather anomaly. His mind begins to imagine a crack forming in the clear xenonite and something catastrophic occurring, but Rocky makes quick work of trying to herd Grace out the door of his house, effectively ending his what if imagination.
“Whoa buddy, I need to get my shoes on first, is this an emergency or what?” Grace asks, worry starting to creep into his voice as puts on his shoes messily.
“No time! Go, go, go!” Adrian horns, mirroring Rocky in its actions. Adrian is quite the stoic type, what Grace would call the calm one in the relationship between them and Rocky. Seeing Adrian like this gave Grace a rise in his alarm to how urgent this is. He’s never seen Adrian act like this, except for when Rocky and Grace finally arrived to Erid, walking out of the space elevator.
Both Eridians are now gently urging him down the beach, directing him to one of the many entrances to meeting rooms scattered around the circumference of his biodome. Many of these rooms were setup in anticipation of different types of research and conversations, a few of which were his classrooms, modelled a little like an amphitheatre. Others were setup for more technical research, with some of the Hail Mary’s lab equipment furnished within them. Rocky and Adrian led him to one of the bigger meeting rooms intended to hold large groups of Eridians to talk or thrum with. On Grace’s side of the partition, there was a desk with a comfortable chair, with a cup with pens and pencils, and pads of paper. On the wall adjacent was a large whiteboard and a ladder, running all the way towards the partition. Mirroring the whiteboard on the other side of the clear xenonite was the Eridian whiteboard, texturing anything written on his side, a clever piece of engineering made by Rocky.
As Grace walked into the meeting room, he noticed a small group of Eridians on the other side of the wall, holding minor thrum amongst themselves. Upon his sitting at the desk, the group concluded and the frontmost Eridian began to speak.
“Hello Grace, my name is Peace Most Vibrant, but you can call me Peace. I am head astrophysicist in our group. We apologize for waking you early in your day cycle, but we have news for Grace.”
“It’s not a problem. I wasn’t asleep when Rocky and Adrian came to get me so no need to apologize. What appears to be the problem? It seemed pretty urgent.” Grace replied, trepidation coloring his voice.
“We have found something very unusual orbiting Erid a few days ago and made a startling discovery last night when the object was investigated. The object appears to be a large ball of frozen human blood. But even stranger, inside there is a vessel of some sort, shaped almost like a human ship but much much smaller. Inside, we believe there is a human trapped!” Peace rapidly fluted, obviously excited at the prospect of a newly discovered space object and human.
“WHAT?!” Grace yelled, dumbfounded.
“Grace not hear, question?” Rocky chittered curiously.