Chapter Text
His breath hitched in his throat as he hastily slammed his hand into the forward control, the rusty sub shaking around him from the churning of the ocean and whatever the hell he’d awoken down there. Everything Eden had told him rushed through his head, the hours of his priests talking about the tree, and their bodies, and their duties to Eden. As the loudspeaker crackled to life, he thought of his name, Simon. To listen. Simon. He has heard. Simon, a prophet, Simon, our salvation.
Simon.
“SIMON”
The scientist- No, Ava’s voice crackled over the comms, and his stomach dropped into his shoes. Her voice was tinny, scared, he could hear beneath it the crumple of metal, the scratch of the jaws of whatever it was he had found.
Simon, our salvation.
He could hear his heart pounding in his ears as the sub lurched forwards, throwing him into the control panel as blood seeped into the contraption from each seam between puckered flesh. Ava’s screams mixed with the whispers in his head, delusion, deprivation, salvation, he wasn’t sure. He was no prophet, he was no bringer of salvation, and the seed tied to his wrist, tethering him to their promised garden would do little to change that.
“Simon! Simon! Something is-”
“Let your body feed the soil, Simon. Bring yourself to salvation, join us in perfect utopia.”
“-SOMETHING IS OUT HERE!”
“Is she not the key to salvation, Simon? You have heard us, Simon. Simon, the one who listens, Simon, the one who hears.”
Blood was up to his knees now, pouring in as he scratched at his throat, the oxygen having almost run out completely. What was that voice talking about, anyway. The speaker blinked yellow again, the tiny light signalling demise on an incomprehensible scale, and he braced for impact. And braced, and braced, only for nothing to come, no scrape of teeth against metal, no soft rumble of that, that thing that seemed to know about the tree, about the books, about his name. He hadn’t told anyone what it meant, or even what his name was, save for Ava in a moment of delirious loneliness.
Ava. Ava. His mind and mouth felt like sand as he tried to remember where he knew Ava from, radiation and oxygen deprivation having rotted his meanger remaining mental faculties. Ava, she had yelled at him, she had said he was selfish – No, she had said she believed him. You think she believes you? We believe you, Simon. You are our salvation. He shook his head to clear the voices, and tried to focus, just as a loud CLANG sounded against the wall of his sub. The force was enough to shock him, to make him jump out of his seat on the floor, and the speaker crackled again.
Ragged, heavy breathing, a pained whimper in Ava’s normally cold and steel hardened voice sounded wronger than anything else he’d experienced down here.
“Simon.”
His head snapped up and he breathed out a shaky “yeah” before his head sank back down, too heavy for his neck to support.
“I’ve attached a tether to your ship. We have minutes, if we’re lucky. You need to push the ship forward.”
His vision swam as he half crawled half swam back to the control panel, and dragged himself up to push the level forward - She’s lying. She’s lying to you. Listen, Simon, listen. Nobody is coming, Simon, nobody is coming for you. You were meant to finish it, Simon. Bring us all to salvation.
He could feel the ship being slowly dragged up, not before the proximity sensor howled again, and he swore he could see bone-white teeth this time as the more-alive-than-metal body of his sub groaned under the weight. The depth meter began to enter the yellow, then the green, then stalled.
Ava breathed heavily again, and her sharp scream cut through Simon’s daze. The tether, she’d called it, felt like it was straining.
“You need to grab onto- onto something- Just, I need to figure this out”
Follow, Simon. Take her to the light as you were destined to do.
The images swam through his head, of his priest, clad in silks green and olive, too expensive to be for commoners, too perfect for anyone not divine. And yet, Simon, Simon, the one who hears, as a baby, had grabbed at the priest’s sleeves, chubby hands slipping through the silk. The priest had laughed, and smiled warmly at the child, lifting him into the air. Simon, the prophet.
The voices in his head howled, guttural nonhuman screams that tore at his eardrums and drowned out whatever Ava was saying. Something about getting him out. He didn’t believe her anymore, even with the black box clutched under his chin.
“You were made for this, Simon. You are our prophet, Simon.”
He ignored that, clambering onto the top of the sub, and just as he did, his bracelet caught on one of the exposed pipes? Growths? His eyes stayed locked on the seed as the cheap string stretched, stretched, stretched, and finally gave, the pendant landing with a soft plink in the churning blood below. The voices grew impossibly louder as the pendant fell, and something, God he didn’t know what, swooped out of the blood to grab it and draw it back down. He grabbed onto a hold with his remaining arm, and the pressure was enough for black to eat at the edges of his vision. The depth gauge finally read zero, and the sub clambered up then stopped abruptly, causing him to let go, and fall back into the pool of blood. He heard a vicious grinding, saw sparks, and then bright white. The priest was right. Salvation waited for all in the light of the children of the tree.