Chapter Text
Truthfully, Simon hadn't been expecting to hear or see anything after closing his eyes. The screeching of the Thing in the ocean had been drowned out by the blood sloshing in the sub, filling his ears and covering his head, and maybe that should have struck him as odd since it was talking inside his head and all, but he was a little bit preoccupied at the time, if you can believe it, being that he was dying. But he'd accomplished what he needed to; he was done. If he couldn't be free, he could at least be done. He'd accepted the silence and the dark and the grimness of drowning. And he really, really hadn't expected to hear anything else. Certainly not the loud hum of at least a few engines drawing rapidly closer, followed by the near-deafening screech of brakes, and a distant cry of, "Oh, shit!"
A door opens and shuts. Someone is running towards him. Simon tries to lift his head, to open his eyes, only to be blinded by a searing light, dropping his head against the soft ground with a low groan. Where the fuck is he?
He rolls over and coughs and coughs and retches up something warm and slimy. Blood, he realizes. It's blood. Better out than in, he thinks, and keeps coughing until he's too tired to manage it.
The person who's approaching him is talking. The words are blurry, but Simon tries to follow them all the same. "-get here? Oh, wow, that is a lot of blood, okay." They sound closer now. Maybe they're kneeling beside him? Simon wishes he could look, but the light through his eyelids is already almost more than he can bear.
"Is he alive?" a different voice asks, a little further away.
"Oh, good question. Sir, are you alive?" The person's voice gets louder as they address him, such that the words hammer against his brain with no regard for the skull in the way.
"What kinda question is that?" Simon tries to say. It comes out as more of a wordless grumble than anything; his tongue feels leaden. But maybe that's for the best, because as he tries to respond he realizes he doesn't actually know the answer. Is he alive? By all accounts he should be dead. He doesn't feel very alive, but he is in a lot of pain. Maybe he's in Hell. Probably. This is probably Hell.
"I will take that as a yes! Okay, he is alive, this is good news." They do sound truly exuberant about it, which is a new way for anyone to sound about anything to do with Simon and is nice enough to make him wonder if this isn't actually Hell. Then his left side pulses with pain and again it's the only possible explanation that makes sense.
The noise around him fades to dull static as his exhausted muscles try to tense in response to the fresh wave of agony. Something is ripped from his vocal cords, but Simon hasn't the first clue what sound it was.
"-ful! Be careful," someone chides.
"I'm sorry," says yet another unfamiliar voice. "I will try to be careful. He's very fragile." his voice has an innately soothing quality to it. For some reason, Simon finds himself slightly more at ease simply in its presence. The person it's attached to picks Simon up with two very large hands, carefully as if he is a child's beloved toy and not what he really is. Simon relaxes unthinkingly against their soft body as that gentle voice addresses him directly.
"We're going to take you to get help," they say. "In a place with many doctors and nurses. They will help you get better for sure."
Well. Simon doesn't exactly believe that, but despite himself, he does believe in this person's sincerity.
The air around them smells... lush, like the air around the Tree, but kinder. How can a smell be kind? Another door opens and closes, and the world gets a little darker. Still much, much too bright, mind, but it is something. He relaxes a little further, though the pain is too present for him to truly be at ease.
The ground lurches, and suddenly they're moving, and-
the sub is moving again. Simon doesn't remember where he's meant to be going. He searches around for the map, so he can orient himself, but it's not here. It's not here, and the sub is still moving. Simon isn't steering, but it won't stop where is it going where is he going where is it taking him-
"You've escaped."
Who is that speaking? Simon knows that voice. He doesn't know her name, but he knows her, he knows her, like he knows the arm that got severed and the blood in his lungs. He knows her like he knows his sins, branded upon his soul and mind.
"The freedom you sought... you have found it."
Has he? Is that what this is? He looks around at the metal walls of the sub. No, no, this isn't right. This isn't freedom. He's still here. If he's free, why is he still here?
The sub jerks to a stop. Rather, something stops it. Simon does not need the camera to know what It is. It wraps Itself around the vessel- the metal groans and creaks.
"Do not waste it. We are with you."
Is that supposed to be reassuring? How the fuck is he supposed to be free, when he's still here and They're still with him? What's changed? Has anything? He was supposed to be done.
This isn't fair.
"Indeed, it isn't. Do not waste it."
Oh, fuck you.
Simon opens his eyes, and this time he is not blinded. It is bright, bright enough to hurt his head, but his eyes are blessedly able to adjust. Once they do, he carefully takes stock of himself. He's still in pain, but much, much less so. It's more of a muted ache than anything. His skin feels... clean. He hasn't felt clean in a long while, not since before Filament. He lifts his arm- his only remaining arm, fuck- in front of his face. The shirt he's in now is short-sleeved, but all the exposed skin is wrapped in bandages.
His hand and wrist are bound in some sort of partial glove made of a shiny material- plastic maybe? He's not able to bend his wrist, and he can only sort of clench his fist, but other than that his movement is hardly limited. If this is meant to be a restraint, it's terribly ineffective. That thought brings him some comfort. He can feel a similar device constraining his left leg, ending just below the knee. It stills his ankle, but Simon thinks he could still run with it on if he needs to.
He's in what looks to be a medical ward of some kind, for all that many of the instruments look completely foreign and a bit like they're not made for whatever it is they're doing. Simon's only been in one medical ward, though, when the COI had oh-so-gracefully opted to treat his wounds after capturing him, so he can't say for sure what other technology might be out there. Maybe this shit is state of the art, who knows.
There's a door just a few paces away from him, with a window beside it revealing a hallway full of... well, some of them look like people. Others have all kinds of... deformities, extra limbs or strange body parts. A woman with two normal arms and a third with a knife attached to it meets Simon's eyes and brightens with sudden energy. She turns and says something- Simon can't make out what- to someone else, a much less human-looking creature with massive black eyes and long appendages hanging from its back that twitch and sway as it listens to whatever is being said- and the two of them start making their way over. Over to him.
The door to his room opens and the pair enter. Simon goes rigid, so tense it hurts. Or maybe he just hurts. There's not much room to move on this bed, with how the headboard is slanted, but he tries to move back anyways.
"Hello, hello. It's good to see you awake," says Knife Lady. "You're at Bloodslug Hospital right now."
Bloodslug?
"Am I in Hell?" Simon blurts out.
Knife Lady and Black-Eyes both pause and look at each other for a moment. Black-Eyes shakes her head slowly at him as Knife Lady answers.
"No," she says slowly, "I... no. You are not in Hell. Like I said, you're at Bloodslug Hospital. You were brought here in critical condition, but you're stable now."
"Not going to Hell any time soon," Black-Eyes chimes in. Knife Lady gives it a Look, and it ducks its head shyly before stepping forward again.
"Stay back," Simon says immediately. He can't get any further away from these things in the room, and they're blocking the door, and even beyond that there's so many more outside. Panic washes over Simon like a shock of cold water. "Stay back," he says again.
Black-Eyes stops in its tracks. "I just want to check your vitals," it says.
Simon doesn't know what the fuck that means, and he does not want to find out. "You stay away from me," he insists.
Black-Eyes looks at Knife Lady, who sighs and beckons it back to her side.
"Let's start over," she says with a frankly excessive amount of patience. "I'm Doctor Knife-" seriously? Doctor Knife? Simon blinks slowly. She just shrugs. "You pick whatever name you want in the Gladlands. Why make it complicated, right?" she says as if that explains literally anything.
She gestures to the creature beside her. "This is Lamplight, she's an absolutely wonderful nurse. You're in good hands with her, rest assured." Lamplight gives a little wave, and Doctor Knife continues.
"You're at Bloodslug Hospital. You were brought in by the Carer Van. They said they found you in the middle of the road, just outside of the Can Lands, and brought you right over to us for treatment."
"Oh," Simon says weakly, letting all the parts of that sentence that make no sense slip right past him without complaint.
Doctor Knife keeps talking. She gives him a rundown on his injuries and the treatment while Simon tries and fails to follow along. By this point, he doesn't think he should be surprised by anything, but this just... doesn't make sense. He died. He died. He should be dead, in fucking metal box under a sea of blood. But he's not. He's in a hospital, a type of structure that by all accounts should have ceased to exist with the Quiet Rapture, being treated for- for so very many injuries. He was on a road, and people found him. And helped him.
He remembers the sheer joyful relief in the voice that announced he was still alive, and the care with which that other person held him. And they took him to a hospital, where they treated him. They used supplies on him. A lot of them, if Doctor Knife is to be believed (and the jury is still out on that, because really- Doctor Knife of Bloodslug Hospital is one hell of a fucking title.) Anyone in his condition should have been left to die, if not for faith, then because the amount of resources it would- did- take to treat him far outweigh whatever benefit his survival could provide.
There's no way this is real.
Amid his whirling thoughts, Simon fails to take notice of Lamplight's approach until suddenly it- she is right beside him. Simon jolts, staring at her, but she doesn't make any moves towards or away from him, simply looking at one of the screens thoughtfully.
"Do you typically have a pulse?" She asks.
"What."
"A heartbeat. Is that something you typically have?"
What the hell kind of a question is that?
"Yes," Simon answers slowly. "Doesn't... everyone?"
"Well, you meet all sorts of people out here," Lamplight says mildly. The appendages on her back twitch as if to corroborate the statement. She turns to Doctor Knife, whose expression is almost suspiciously neutral.
"Indeed you do," she agrees.
"Do I have a pulse?" Simon asks, feeling cold.
Lamplight hesitates. Simon draws in a breath, and in that moment realizes he has not been doing so until this moment. He hasn't been breathing.
"What happened to me." he demands shakily.
"Well... aside from your heart, everything else seems normal. Your blood is still circulating, good oxygen levels, your gills are unimpeded-"
"Gills?!" It comes out almost like a squeak, and maybe Simon would have a mind to be embarrassed about that were he not reeling. Gills. He has gills.
Lamplight freezes, looking more awkward than anything. Doctor Knife straightens. "It would seem you've developed a mutation," she says quite calmly.
"It would seem." Simon echoes a touch hysterically. How are they so normal about this? Simon is- Simon doesn't know what he is. His stomach roils, and he gags. Lamplight hurriedly opens a cupboard and hands him a little bag. Simon retches into it until something comes up. That something is not vomit.
It's blood.
He gasps and coughs again at the sight. More blood comes up. And more, and more. Doctor Knife leans out into the hall and shouts something as Lamplight starts bustling around the room. More monsters- doctors? Come hurrying in. Simon loses himself in the flurry of motion.
--
When Simon comes to again, the room is empty, but he can see Lamplight sitting just outside the door, writing on a clipboard. Briefly, he considers saying nothing, but he'd also really like to know what the fuck happened to him.
He braces himself, for what, he is not sure, and calls out, "Hey."
Lamplight whips around, and it's only now that Simon notices the strands sticking off of her head are not hair, but another set of almost-limbs. Fucking weird. She enters the room quickly and closes the door behind her, then pauses, looks at Simon somewhat thoughtfully, and opens it slightly before stepping forward.
"Hello again! How are you feeling?" she asks, like she doesn't find Simon too threatening to be in a closed-off room with.
"What the hell happened to me?" he asks rather than answer. Lamplight takes it in stride.
"Right to business, alright. Doctor Knife is with another patient right now-"
"Can you not tell me?" Simon interrupts. Again, Lamplight hardly seems perturbed. She just shakes her head.
"It won't be long," she assures. "What I can tell you is, for all that what just happened to you must have been frightening, it wasn't anything serious."
"Sure seemed pretty fucking serious," he mutters. He tenses as he says it.
Lamplight smiles sympathetically. "I can imagine." One of the- things- atop her head twitches as someone walks past the room, and she hurries over and leans her head out.
"Oh, Locust! Can you grab Doctor Knife for me and let her know our friend in here is awake?" She asks.
"Oh, sure." The responding voice sounds much less enthused.
"Thank you so much!" Lamplight says as she pulls back into the room.
"Alright!" She shifts around the papers on her clipboard and comes to stand at Simon's side again. "The doctor will be along as soon as she's able- shouldn't be too long, really. In the meantime, humor me and answer some questions?"
Simon takes a moment to just... look at Lamplight. Her inhuman eyes are so bright, her posture so relaxed. She looks so... at ease in a way Simon didn't think it was possible for a person to be. There is something horribly wrong with this place, he thinks, and he hasn't made it this far in life by rocking the boat. (In fact, if he'd rocked it a bit less, he may have lived longer.)
"Yeah," he agrees.
Lamplight smiles. "Great! First and foremost, what's your name? I don't believe we ever got it."
"I don't think we ever got your name."
"...Simon."
His answer seems to make Lamplight genuinely happy. "Always nice to put a name to a face," she says cheerfuly. "Nice to meet you, Simon."
Something traitorously warm blooms in Simon's chest, hearing that. He says nothing.
After a moment, Lamplight seems to catch on that he won't be responding and continues. "Alright, next up: How would you rate your overall pain right now on a scale from one to ten, where one is no pain at all and ten is the worst pain you've ever experienced?"
That is somehow exactly and not at all what Simon was expecting. "I can handle it," he answers, instead of giving a number. Because he can handle it. But Lamplight's smile fades. She tilts her head at him.
"You don't have to, though. If you need more pain medication, we can give you some."
That one's easy. "I don't need it," he says automatically. Don't expend more resources on me. Don't put me further into your debt.
Lamplight nods and writes something down.
"Alright," she says. "We may need to revisit your pain later, but for now we'll move on. I have some questions about your diet..."
Simon really does try to answer as best he can. Some of the questions are easier than others ("What foods do you typically eat?" "How often are you eating in a day?" versus "What sort of foods do you like?" "Do you usually feel full after meals?") but it's hard to tell if he's answering well or not. With each answer, Lamplight simply nods and writes something down on her clipboard. Her expression gives nothing away.
"Alrighty. Thank you for sticking with me through all that- I know it's a lot," she says with another easy smile. Simon nods, rendered wordless by the unease choking his throat from the inside.
Doctor Knife steps into the room shortly after they finish. Lamplight stands, gives Simon another wave and a smile (she smiles so much) and leaves the room, passing the clipboard to Doctor Knife on her way out. Doctor Knife starts to close the door behind her, but Lamplight catches it with her foot and shakes her head slightly. So the door stays ajar.
"Hello again... Simon." Doctor Knife reads his name off the clipboard and nods at him. That warmth is back. He nods back briskly.
"I'll get right into it, if that's alright with you," Doctor Knife says.
"Into..." Simon trails off.
"Most importantly, regarding the... blood you vomited up earlier, that appears to be... benign. That is to say, we found no evidence of ruptures, cysts, or inflammation," Doctor Knife says. If she's trying to be reassuring, Simon thinks, she's failing miserably.
"So what happened?"
Doctor Knife sits in the chair beside Simon's bed, her expression much gentler than Simon would ever expect from a woman named Doctor Knife with a dedicated blade hand.
"It was mentioned earlier that you now have... gills," she starts. Simon swallows thickly. Gills. He forces down the instinctive horror and nods.
"It is not uncommon for individuals to develop physical mutations later in life," she says. "The most common cause of this is exposure to radiation." She gives him a look that's probably meaningful, though Simon has no idea what it means.
"Fuck," he says instead, leaning back heavily.
"I understand that life in the Wastes can be difficult," Doctor Knife continues delicately, "but if you are struggling, there are resources-"
"What does that have to do with anything?" Simon interrupts, then freezes. Doctor Knife does not seem angry with him, however.
"Simon, was your radiation exposure intentional?" she asks.
"Who the hell would voluntarily expose themselves to fucking radiation?" he snaps irritably. Despite his tone, Doctor Knife actually seems to relax.
"Ah. I apologize. It seems I... misread the situation," she says.
"What?"
But Doctor Knife is already moving on.
"I imagine this change is rather overwhelming for you."
Simon scoffs. "No shit."
Doctor Knife gives him a little not of acknowledgement before continuing. "We would like to keep you here for observation for a while, not only to monitor your injury recovery, but also so we can keep an eye on any additional mutations you may start to develop. The window for those is typically about two weeks."
"And... after that?" Simon asks.
"Well... you'll go home."
Home. Right. He clenches and unclenches his fist.
"The Carer Van will be by in a day or two for a routine stop. If you'd like to pass a letter or a message along to any family or friends, they'll happily take it along with them, I'm sure," Doctor Knife offers, wholly misreading the mood. Simon sighs.
"Haven't got any," he says shortly. Doctor Knife stills.
"Are you from... outside the Gladlands?" she asks.
"I don't know what the Gladlands are," Simon answers. The room feels heavy. Doctor Knife looks at him for a minute.
"Well, the Gladlands are a region of the wasteland, where we've all sort of banded together to support each other and help out as much as we can. That's the simplest way to put it."
What's the catch? Simon wants to ask. But the catch is pretty obvious: none of this is fucking real. Simon's hallucinating in his last moments, and the fantasy his brain has dreamed up is a hospital bed in a place where everyone is best friends. For fuck's sake.
But all told, after everything, he kind of just wants to play along.
"And this... 'Carer Van?'" He asks. Doctor Knife smiles.
"Well, they're a group of lovely folks who travel around helping people out and transporting goods. They're coming by here soon, I think, to pick up some more medical supplies on their way to Rotglob."
Rotglob? What the hell are these names? There is no way this is real. Though...
"And they're the people who... picked me up?"
Doctor Knife nods in affirmation. "Yes. They were all quite worried about you. I'm sure they'd love to see you when they get here."
Simon thinks about it. This isn't real, so he doesn't owe anybody anything, but if it were real, he would probably owe them a great deal. Would it be better to just... get thanks out of the way, or stay hidden and recover more, until they demand his help?
No, Simon decides, he's not a pussy. And for all he's wary of what they'll ask of him in return, he does want to thank them.
He nods. "Yeah, I'd like to see them, too."