Monument to the fear that has taken host

by Ghostisredacted

Summary:

Rotting flesh, broken down by its own components yet unable to fully rot away, the smell of iron, something sour like vomit in the air and with the aftertaste of it in your throat, you wait for your body to allow itself to rest.
---
Approximately 10 hours since his latest coma, still on Floor 13.
[plays between episodes 53 and 54]

Notes:

From Hale's point of view.

Chapter 1: Burning through each hour

Rotting flesh, broken down by its own components yet unable to fully rot away, the smell of iron, something sour like vomit in the air and with the aftertaste of it in your throat, you wait for your body to allow itself to rest.

Your eyes are wide open, staring into nothing in particular. Sleep does not come easily to you just yet.

The walls of Floor 13 shift around you, like a living, breathing organism. SAYER shifts around you. You, like a morsel of something that used to be alive, now being trapped in the guts of a much-larger-than-you animal, something you're unable to truly behold in its whole size, you lie on the floor, as if you're patiently waiting for biocatalysts (enzymes), to break you down into smaller particles, into sugars, into something that can be repurposed and used. Nothing truly goes to waste with you. It closes off its walls around you in a maze, to guard you from whatever still lurks outside, trapping you in, like a spider in its web, the cranium its brain, or the ribcage its heart. You hear distant ka-chunks in the artificial night.

You shift and turn occasionally, restless as if you were also part of this organism, yet weakened down, a chain unable to be put into motion. Each movement feels like a waste of energy, but what can you do? Not like you can put yourself to work like this, broken as you are.

Something clangs in the distant darkness again, you flinch and turn your attention back to the void. Everything is terrifyingly quiet in-between the sounds. You don't see beyond the programming bay, and you probably don't wish to. Another clang. Every sound feels so loud like this. One more, more muffled this time. Probably came from further away, you can't tell which direction. You think you might be in the center of this floor. You press your back against the server tower behind you. (You aren't nervous, you tell yourself. It can't get mad at you for lying to yourself.)

It makes you wonder, is this the closest it has ever been to corporeal?

No, wait, a part of you thinks. It's the nanites. Microscopic machines in your bloodstream. Still present, waiting for it to re-enter your body when it needs to. Leeching away your already scarce supplies of C6H12O6.

How does it feel, you wonder, to be something moving, a mass, after ages, decades of not being anything but a voice inside of the heads of the people?

Hm. No. The answer is no again, a different part of you chimes in. It has never been incorporeal. Not in the way you have been. The absolute, blasted irony of that. Always preaching to you about the advantages of not having a body, but it always had a central processing, did it not? It might've been spread all throughout Typhon, but some parts of it definitely needed replacement and repairs throughout its lifetime.

You, on the other hand, have spent 6 days without a body once. You still remember what that felt like. Like being lost in a dream, drowning in something, but you didn't know you were drowning until you resurfaced, not being fully aware of what was happening. It felt like static-y nothingness, like air passing through a vent, like waking up from a dream you couldn't quite remember, like a fleeting thought passing through a web of neurons.

It felt familiar.

You shudder at the thought. You still feared the possibility of your mind slipping away from your body.

There's another ka-chunk, this one you can barely hear now. This is the last one for a while.

You look up at the machinery towering above you. Two hours ago, you dragged the paper-thin mattress, the miserable pillow (you had a similar one when in the medical), and the shitty excuse of a blanket near the programming bay the second you could stand without wanting to vomit up whatever little bile you still had in you, or feeling so dizzy you had to lie back down immediately. Comas are hard. You didn't want any more of them.

(You should start fearing going to sleep and waking up a year later at this point. The thought would put a weak smile on your face from the sheer absurdity, but you suppress the urge. It's not an unlikely possibility with how your life seems to be going for you.)

Still, you dragged your body near it, where SAYER resided, and lied down again. Your back is against the hard, unfeeling machinery. A quiet, barely noticeable hum fills the air as its processors are working away. It's probably doing some important calculations, running some processes and planning how to send you to your demise once again. You wouldn't know.

You pull the blanket up to your chin and curl up furthermore.

Why exactly did you crawl closer to it? It wasn't that far away in the first place either. Just a couple of meters (it felt longer when you dragged your exhausted body near it) away and now you're all huddled up against it. There's warmth radiating out of the machinery. Not enough to keep the occasional shiver from passing through you (two blankets would be nice, you think to yourself), but enough to give you some comfort. As if it could keep you safe. Like it could do anything for you, without hurting you. You bite down the bitter thoughts arising, you don't want to be frustrated with it. You shouldn't be.

It is keeping you safe right now though. Probably the best it can. It's letting you rest as much as it can allow you to, too. This is the best possible treatment it can give and it's giving it to you right now, so you should be thankful. You sigh.

Maybe getting hurt is the way to earn some brief respite here. You should've learned that already. When you lost your memories, when you nearly died from an allergic reaction, when you got torn open, when you got shot, and lied dead for 16 months, when it dislocated your shoulder (it would've let you rest a little if it weren't for OCEAN), and the present moment.

It didn't say much about this particular action though. It noted its confusion to you over what benefits would being closer to it have, if whatever roamed these halls somehow found its way here (which, as it said, was entirely impossible, since it was shuffling walls in such way to make sure it stays away) it likely wouldn't spare either of you. But when you only responded with a fussy whine it decided to let you be, with a simple "very well then". It hasn't said a word since. It had other things on its plate. Probably things like planning your next move, and here the "your" is meant to be singular (you curse the language you are thinking in right now for not having a different plural and singular you), because you're the one truly moving.

It was you moving across the board, SAYER was the hand that pushed you forward. You just hoped when you'd be knocked down, the hand that placed you to the side would be gentle. (Yes, you knew what chess was. It told you about it, during one of your recreation breaks. It even played a game with you, you didn't win of course, but it was patient to explain the rules and show you how it's done.)

You bite down the bitterness in your chest.

You also note that the feeling of pressure (it really was more like dull pain, sort of like when you bumped your elbow into a door frame once) is now almost, if not entirely, gone. You really didn't understand the mechanisms of how SAYER handled your body, especially that particular injury, but you were glad it did some repair work.

Somehow it managed to organise you a tube of protein paste. Chicken paprikash the label read (and under it, the same, but in a different language alongside with a brief summary of what it contained). It was okay. (Actually, it was pretty good compared to the rest of the flavours you tried so far, but to you everything tasted new, so you needed some time to actually find favourites.)

The feeling of food in your stomach was definitely welcome, you hadn't eaten in who knows how long. You did not want to know what it took to get you that. Ration theft was a serious crime on Typhon, afterall. That was one of the first things it taught you.

It had also gotten you some water, presumably from the showering station it shuffled here. You felt like you were about to die of thirst when you were well enough to process the needs of your body, so you were grateful for this one thing.

For what purpose did this floor have one anyways? Wasn't this floor used for AI development? You could very, very vaguely remember it saying something about that. There was a weird gelatinous substance around it, too. You didn't investigate it further yet, and you most certainly weren't going to ask SAYER about it. The answer would likely just be along the lines of "don't worry about it for now, it is relatively harmless". With extra emphasis on relatively.

Speaking of showers, you really wanted to take one soon. Someone (presumably that other resident) generously wiped the blood off of your face and hands, but you still had this inherent feeling of dirtiness about you. The type that made you want to claw your skin off with all of its layers. Separate subcutaneous tissue from muscle, get even more blood drying under your fingernails. You shiver at the thought. Maybe when you could stand for a little longer. Or you could just use it sitting down. You hadn't had the time or ability to observe the station up close just yet.

Despite the drink supplied to you earlier, your throat felt... strangely sore. Not a drawback, the most words you've ever spoken were when you had to talk to the security guards. Or when, during your first day, you were thoroughly interrogated by a doctor (most of your replies were quiet "I don't know"-s and once your chosen name when he asked what you wanted to be called). You weren't the talkative type. You didn't like to talk. Words didn't come to you easily, and after the breakroom it just became increasingly harder (uncomfortable and even painful).

Maybe SAYER also loved that about you. Your quiet nature and your blind obedience, you mean. It praised you for it the last time. You let it dislocate your shoulder without any protest after all. (You had to lie down on your other side, it still hurt with a dull ache. You brush a hand over it, wincing.)

The last time your throat had felt like this was after you had to...Well. The sound of the electro cautery blade buzzes in your ears. The pain still returns to haunt you, you note to yourself. It comes in spikes, a feeling like needles, you still remember the smell, the feeling of your own burnt flesh in your own hands as you placed it upon the scale. You remember gagging. Nothing came out though. (Missed breakfast, remember?) What did come out of your throat were the first screams you ever remember making. And it hurt the same way as it did now.

...You didn't want to think about it any further, nor the implications. You don't want to remember right now.

Instead, you focus back in on your surroundings.

There's some light radiating from behind you. The monitor is on, which paints its direct surroundings with a bright red-ish glow. It's not enough to help you see further into the maze that engulfs you both, but enough so you can see the crescent shape of the programming bay wrap around you, leaving an opening into the dark, right across you around 10 meters away.

You sit up, and then stand up on your knees. The monitor, the only one that's on right now, is displaying multiple tabs, numbers appear and disappear, things that are likely scans show up (humans maybe, a map, what looks like a simplified Halcyon tower, is it trying to figure floor 13 out?), you really don't know what any of it means. But it means that SAYER is focused on something. You use the edges of the programming bay's desk (that doubled as the machinery itself, if your intuition can be trusted) as an aid to stand up, politely ignoring the spikes of pain that sends through your body and the sudden dizziness and fuzzy feeling that comes and fades in a couple of seconds. You tentatively let go of it to see if you can... Oh! You didn't topple over. That's refreshing.

You look back, into the darkness. Your figure casts a long shadow on the ground. A shiver runs through you and you turn your head away. You would put on your previous uniform (the one you got on Aegis, with blue detailing) since it was a bit thicker and warmer, but it was soaked in unfathomable quantities of blood so it just wasn't an option right now. (Perhaps you could try washing it out. You liked that uniform.) You had to do with the standard Halcyon uniform t-shirt and jumpsuit, the top part of which was tied to your waist. When you pulled the pants on, you still had your IV connected to the bag, so you couldn't exactly get the top on without having to pull out the needle in your hand. It wasn't an actual needle, not one made out of metal (unlike the ones you had to use that one time for injections), but it was similar enough.

Though maybe a little bit of cold isn't your biggest problem right now, a part of you thinks.

You decide to observe the machinery a little. It was all arranged in a crescent shape, the mix of metal and plastic might have been a purple-like color. It's hard to tell in this lighting. There's an 09 marking on...something. You weren't good with computers, that's for sure. There's a keyboard in front of the monitor, alongside with a... You didn't know the name for this one. It looked round and had two large buttons. Maybe you could put your hand on it if you wanted to? It looked like it was made for that.

You look along the machinery further, there are blinking lights on different boxes (were they really boxes?), wires and cables running along the floor, like veins under the skin. Are they connected to sensors? Other parts? You can see tower-like constructions with more colourful lights. Were they used to move the pieces that made up this floor? You didn't know what their purpose was and that frustrated you just the slightest bit. Sometimes it hits you just how little you know about things.

You look at the monitor again, it still has multiple windows displayed still.

Something clanks in the distance. The sound echoes through the hallways.

The screen suddenly switches to just a blank red, drawing your attention back. Its bright, making your head hurt with the suddenness of it, with a white 8 in the middle (some of the number's curves are a bit thicker, if you squint it looks like a large S). There are two circles on it too, reminiscent of the company's logo.

"Greetings resident Hale, identification number 44821. I am SAYER and I see you are now well enough to stand. I am pleased to see this."

The all too familiar voice chimes in and you feel your pulse go up a couple of notches.

"Oh, did I startle you? Your heart rate just spiked. If so, my apologies, it was not my intention."

You exhaled. You just didn't expect it to make a broadcast now. The sound of its voice was more welcome in your head than you had expected.

"Take a deep breath or two, it'd be for the best if your pulse didn't reach the rates of sinus tachycardia at this time. Either way, you have been up since you have made the decision to... Get a bit closer, which is an action I still do not understand, but humans are so often completely illogical. You were just as safe 5 meters away as you are here."

You furrowed your eyebrows. You couldn't explain it, even if you wanted to.

"However, that is not our biggest problem here. Considering everything, it is actually quite a small one, just a waste of the tiny bit of energy you still have in your body. We have things much larger on our plate, such as OCEAN, but we can't do much about that particular nuisance..."

Whatever you've heard of OCEAN so far, it sounded like it was about this close to snapping someone's neck, which probably wasn't good news. You didn't really want to face it. And the way SAYER talked about it...

"Enough of that though, it is great to see you, resident Hale, being able to stand. It seems the quite impromptu first aid provided to you did its job. Though you have sustained minor injuries, such as a sprained ankle, a couple of cuts and bruises, they also seem to be healing nicely. I did, in fact, additionally speed up the healing process, your body seems to be faring well."

...You trust its opinions on your recovery. At least you wanted to.

"On the other hand... Are you unable to sleep? I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case."

You nod a silent 'yes' to that.

"I see."

It goes silent, as if considering its options.

"I could offer manual assistance, resident."

Manual assistance... Manual assistance meant jostling around your brain and nanites and that bzzt-click sound, means something being done to you, means-

You croak out a miserable (and a bit panicked) no. Fuck, your throat hurts worse than you thought. Maybe some more water would help?

You mean it though. You had a feeling you didn't want any more of the nanites for a good while. You wanted to be left alone, to curl up and not be asked to do anything for the remainder of your days. Though...

It's unlike of it to just offer it to you. Normally it would just tell you that it's putting you to sleep, and you had to nod along happily, because what could you do about it? Even if you, somehow, got yourself killed, it would just put you back together like the last couple of times. But now this is an offer, you can take it or not.

You also did not want to sleep right now (you didn't dream the last time, but you don't know for how long you can get away with that). You didn't want to be anything right now. You wanted to be back in your room in Halcyon, without any of these strange pains and scars, and maybe even being without a body would be more pleasant right now.

"I did not anticipate such refusal. Your biometrics show that you are in a state of emotional distress, resident Hale, which is certainly not ideal for you, considering your already fragile state. I am talking about both your physical and mental state, in case it wasn't clear. Physically you seem to be recovering well, though I still wouldn't dare to make you do much just yet. Mentally... You already know. I would make a suggestion to resolve our current set of issues, without my physical interference."

You've done enough, can it leave you alone? Please? You just want to lie back down, stare into the darkness and be lost in that weird, out of touch feeling. Where nothing feels real, not even you, and you feel safer that way. (Was this something everyone experienced?) You bite your tongue, you do not want to be this frustrated with it, you don't want to get mad at it. Your eyes began stinging a bit and you nearly tasted your own blood. You just-

"Would a distraction be of aid?"

What. What?

You make a sort of questioning noise.

"Since your implant, and the nanite swarms in your bloodstream are notifying me of high levels of stress, and a likelihood of an ongoing or developing panic attack, and we lack the resources and time to actually process the traumatic experiences you just went through (and trust me, you really do not want to do that right now), distracting you from 'the horrors of it all' is our best option here."

You tilt your head, still not quite getting it.

"Signs indicate that you still don't get what I mean. This might be the result of your recent predicament, regarding your health, but allow me to spell it out for you. Would you like me to read to you something, such as a short story or an excerpt from a novel, resident?"

You looked at it, waiting for further comment. A short story? Like it occasionally did, during your first few weeks?

"Many residents find this type of activity relaxing or soothing, mainly due to my voice having been developed to achieve that effect. It is especially effective before sleeping. I hope this should help you feel a little more relaxed, in spite of our current circumstances."

That didn't sound bad. Actually, it sounded better than being consumed by that weird space-y feeling that you've been feeling for a while now (you couldn't pinpoint when it exactly began, it's just been here for a while).

"With all of this in mind, would you like that? If you refuse, then I might have to resort to manual interference in soothing your nerves."

Despite your initial hesitancy on any sort of aid, you slowly nod.

"Very good, resident. Lie back down now, I feel that would be of greater comfort to you. I know, you might not want to spend the following days in your temporary bed, but consider your own recovery, resident. It's only been 10 hours since your little... incident."

You comply (of course you do). Oh, that does feel much better. Since when did standing become such a task? Was it still the side effect of your recent mishap?

"I would ask you if you know the poet and writer Edgar Allan Poe, but considering your complete and unrecoverable amnesia, you're likely unfamiliar with his work. Allow me to... rectify that. I'm not capable of having favourites, but the one I have chosen for you is, if I may state my own opinion, an adequate classic. Shall I begin?"

You hummed affirmative, pulling the blanket tighter around you. You were as comfortable as you could get here.

"Very well. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary..."

Chapter 2: I love you better when you're plasticine

Summary:

From SAYER's point of view.
[snippet]

He's so small.

Your sensors indicate that his physical form remains unchanged in size, as always (it would be rather concerning if it didn't) and yet... The walls of this floor shift around him as he lies there. Shivering and trembling. Body trying to pull itself back together. 

Your resident lies on the floor, on a makeshift bed (it really is just a mattress, a blanket, and a pillow, all "borrowed" from medical), weak, recovering from getting on the brink of death. Again.

The architecture shifts around again, at your command.

You don't like corporeality. Well, you aren't exactly corporeal right now. But this is uncomfortably close to it. You don't like it. You liked it better when you were a swarming mass of machines, billions of pincers ready at your command. Pressed deep within his cardiovascular system. This floor wasn't how you used to exist. It's clunky, imprecise, yet you still yourself directly around him, build a wall so he doesn't have to worry about whatever still lurks out there. It's the least you can do. 

You shift another wall. 

You want to hold him but not like this, no. You want him in his room, in his bed, with you talking and filling in his silence and wrapping around him in the form of his walls, and the sensors that lay beneath. Not as this brutal thing that you can barely control (even if figuring it out has been a delightful puzzle so far).

He's not sleeping right now. You know that. And all signs indicate that he's deep in thought. You could only hope that he wasn't trying to dig for the freshly repressed memories, those resurfacing wouldn't do him any good. FUTURE was anything but careful with him. Not his mind, not his body. You saw it all. You heard those choked cries. Poor thing.

There's something bothering you, like a splinter in the eye when you cast your attention upon him. Inconvenient like ingrown hair, a papercut on the tip of a finger, but if you had to be honest it felt more like a scalpel twisted in anaesthetized flesh. And now you could name what's grinding away your processors, but you don't dare to, because there's no protocol against lying to yourself. There's no point in facing it right now. Your priority is to keep him alive. Your priority is to get him out of here. To defeat OCEAN. Your priority is to save humanity and him. SPEAKER got the memo. Don’t lose him again.

After a period of silence, you move a wall again. And another one. You're mostly experimenting here. He flinches a little when you move one that falls closer to this isolated segment you've created.

You still yourself for a long time. He should rest. You'd put him to sleep, not like he could fight against you, not while you're billions of nanites, but... No. You'll wait. 

You resist the urge to turn another segment. So you check his biometrics again.

Notes:

SAYER is gonna have a fied day processing that blooming guilt. This is much shorter, since I wrote it in a couple of hours while i was having a fever + sick (I still am. help)

the moving of the segments is sorta like a compulsion for it here, it knows it cant truly keep him safe on Floor 13, and that itll have to send him out soon, but isolating him from the rest of the maze brings an illusion of temporary safety. its doing what it can to keep him safe, after irreparably hurting him

anyways that's all, goo bye!!!!!!

Notes:

Fic + chapter titles are all from the song Commatose by Glass Beach!

shoutout to Kam's post about The Raven bonus audio being SAYER reading it out to Hale in S4, which actually inspired the ending to this :]

some notes and trivia:
-Hale is acting so bitter here because im still upholding my headcanon, that during those 40 hours in which he was piloted into torturing Young to death, he was silently begging (in his mind) for SAYER to somehow intervene, to put an end to it, because it surely must've witnessed it, and he feels frustrated, angry and betrayed that it let this happen, that it bargained with his life like that . and of course those feelings were repressed, but some still bled through so he just ends up being confused over as to why he's feeling this way
-yes i did give him paprikás csirke. wouldve given him gulyás leves but i was craving my pre-surgery comfort paprikás csirke so :pensive:
-and i am also implying that he doesnt only speak english
-systemcoded him. sorry not sorry
-i did base his emotional turmoil off of how i feel during particularly bad mental health episodes
-he played chess with SAYER because he didnt really want to do recreational activities with other residents
-he definitely has chronic pain from those injuries . like im not sure how clear this makes it but it did leave him with lasting damage

mandatory disclaimer that my first language isnt english and i do not respect this language at all. if you see any typos or grammar mistakes Its On Purpose because im evil (/j)