Angelic Wolf

You glance over at The Convict, who isn’t worried about you anymore. His eyes are stricken with fear as he shakes, you hear him mumble “You can’t send me back there.” between heavy breaths.

A loud thud can be heard, and you both feel yourselves rising into the air. She really meant it when she said to drop you both.

You go down faster than you went up, for a moment it felt like you were flying, like you could get away from this place and maybe to heaven.

Then your face hit the ground.

Ringing is all you hear, you landed right on your stomach and your cheek, you’re sure it’s about to turn a new shade of purple with the amount of bruises you’re withstanding. Sure, The Butcher was wrong for blasting them with radiation, and you were wrong for not telling him about the radiation (which wasn’t your responsibility).

But do you deserve getting thrashed around in a container like trash?

After the initial hit, you feel nothing but throbbing in your stomach. Your face hurts too, but the pressure of having it pressed against the cold floor is relieving it somewhat. You don’t want to lift your head, your torso, any part of your body. You think you hit your knee a little hard too now that the adrenaline is wearing off.

You wish the first aid kit on this sub was useful for bruises, there’s not much you can do for that. You can apply pressure, or get ice. But ice wouldn’t stay frozen in the slightest down here. The floor that was once cold against your cheek is slowly turning hot from the bubbling blood.

As the silence and ringing fades, you hear groaning. You know it’s The Convict. As you lie still on your stomach, you watch him roll over on his back, shoulder to shoulder with you. Though, he’s not paying you any attention.

You see the pain in his eyes, and figure this must all be more painful for him, he’s somehow managing to get hit in the worst spots. He brings a hand up to his mouth, and when he pulls it away you see a vibrant shade of red over his palm.

Your eyes widen, that can’t be good. It either means internal bleeding (not much you can do with a first aid kit) or… something busted in his mouth? Blood on this ship isn’t good anyway.

You’re already surrounded by it, you don’t want to add to it.

You’re both still registering sound, like deaf people experiencing it for the first time. While looking at The Convict, you see the speaker light up. For a moment, you have no idea what Ava’s saying. You just know there’s someone talking.

Then, you realize it’s not Ava. It’s David.

Like this expedition couldn’t get any fucking worse.

You roll over slightly, hesitantly, pins and needles on every little bruise.

“Come on Convict you can’t be too upset.” David says, you can hear his fucking smirk. You watch The Convict turn his head to better listen to him. “Kind of a fair play after what you did.”

You lie on your back, catching your breath, seeing The Convict wipe blood from his mouth made you pretty paranoid about internal bleeding yourself, but you don’t taste blood, and you don’t feel the need to spit any up.

The Convict rolls over completely onto his stomach, pushing himself, hands on the floor, knees bent slightly. He’s hunched over.

“Ah shit are you still alive?” David hesitates to ask, not seeming genuinely worried.

“Fuck off.” The Butcher replies, his mouth wet with the blood he spits onto the floor.

“Ahhh, there you are.” David replies cockily. You miss Ava so much.

The Convict glances over at you, he’s breathing heavily as blood drips down from his mouth, glistening on his beard softly. You think he’s gonna help you up, or ask if you’re okay. But he doesn’t. The two of you spend a moment staring at eachother, heavily breathing.

What does he think of you?

“Beginning the descent.” Is the last thing you hear before the sounds of metal shifting all around you begin.

The Hull tilts as the depth meter lowers, and you hear David say ‘huh…’ over the microphone.

“Uhhhh… you uh, you gotta close the porthole shield man.”

You lift your head up slowly, you can’t be hearing this right. Is the Hull having connection issues? If so that’s like, the worst thing right now. One connection issue means the possibility for a lot more. You’re still dizzy, which you shouldn’t be, you’re not the one who spat up blood.

But you look at The Convict, and he’s standing just fine. He’s not looking at you anymore, that moment has passed. If you had told him about the radiation, maybe he would’ve helped you up. But he’s starting to realize you’re not his friend, and that you’re just another cog in the machine.

“Hello?” The man over the microphone repeats, “Convict!”

You start to sit up on the floor, glancing to the puddle of blood and up at The Convict. “You need to close it Convict.” You add your two cents. “Otherwise there will be a Hull bre-“

David interrupted you, “I got it. I’m filling in for the Captain, not you, Engineer.”

Damn. You rub your head, mumbling a tiny apology. You forget that your job isn’t to help The Convict, it’s just to make sure the sub runs smoothly, and to make sure you write everything down. Maybe even assist in medical where you can.

Not sure you can do much about internal bleeding.

“This is serious.” David repeats to The Convict. “Close the shield!”

“Is this David?” The Convict asks, and you whip your head back around to him. He’s not really supposed to address them by their names, the only reason he knows David’s name or who he is because you told him.

That’s your ass right there. Your job. Your life that he’s playing with.

“Who told you that?”

“Where’s the other one?” The Convict asks, no emotion in his tone other than curiosity.

David is stunned into momentary silence, “The- the other one, you talkin’ about Jack?” No, he was talking about Ava, he doesn’t even know Jack personally, Jack has never spoken over the speaker. “The guy you eradiated?”

“The Captain…” You mumble, rubbing your head. “Not Jack, where’s the-“

“Captain is taking Jack to medical, you would know that if you would just let me speak. Engineer. So now I’m in charge, and my first order is for The Convict to close the fucking shield.”

You hate him.

The Convict glanced to you, before stumbling over to the desk, bending over and looking for the button. “Why can’t you do it?” He asks David.

“It’s not responding.” He says, and you can hear him practically grit his teeth through his words, “Which is why we have you, is it closed?”

You listen to the metal gears shifting, “Yes… it’s closed.” The Convict whispers, falling down into his pilot chair.

“Now we’re gonna give you about thirty minutes to go get that sample before we pull you back up. Don’t worry, I know ramming it sounds scary but that sub can handle it, isn’t that right Engineer?”

“Yes…” You reply softly, standing up slowly and moving to sit down in your chair.

“Exactly. Because Jack is good at his job, atleast, he was. Engineer, you’re gonna have to be the one in charge now, y’know?” He laughs, like it’s funny. But The Convict clenches his fist, you look at the veins that are popping through his skin.

“You didn’t think that it was important to tell me that your camera radiation gun?” He’s talking to David, but he turns his head to look at you.

You can’t look at him, but his gaze is strong. You want to tell him. Convict I’m sorry they ordered me to only say what I had to and to not tell you anything! I’m sorry! That’s what you want to say, but you don’t, because David is listening. And so will Ava. And you will always be listened to, until you die.

“That wa…” He sighs, loudly into the speaker, “That shouldn’t have happened at all. The camera’s wired into the black box but the… the engineers must’ve wired it into the backup battery, I don’t know. We were in a rush.”

“Things are somehow faster when I don’t know what I’m doing.” The Butcher says, sarcastically.

You want to tell him to maybe read the fucking manual they gave him on how the ship works.

But you don’t.

Instead, you write.

“Honestly if I were in charge you would know more.” David spits, and God you’re glad he’s not. “That’d actually get us some results, but I’m not. I’m just another cog in the machine. But, y’know…

This is bigger than us.” He finishes.

The Convict can’t help but let out a small chuckle at the same line he’s heard over and over since he got captured. “So I’ve heard.” He scoffs.

“Look.” David spits into the microphone, “Can’t we just agree this is important? Filament Station was a bad loss but, imagine if we could actually rebuild it. Even you could be a part of that!”

The way he says it, with such passive aggressiveness, like The Convict is subhuman in his voice. You can tell that he’s thinking the same thing, in the way he furrows his eyebrows, in the loss of light in his eyes.

“I read your report, you surrendered. You weren’t fooled by Eden’s bullshit. All their talk about ‘the last tree.’”

The Convict turns his head around, facing the speaker, giving it a look like David could see his face. “It’s not about the tree. I…” He pauses, turning back to the control panel. His voice is quivery, unsure, “Eden gave me a tattoo, the COI made me burn it off.

I didn’t choose either of them.”

You don’t write his words down, because you don’t feel they need to be documented. You look up at him, he refuses to look at you. If only he knew that you understood him, his perspective. Not choosing either of them.

You’re not patriotic towards the COI, you didn’t choose it.

Neither did he.

“But I still get a scar.” He pauses, no longer facing the speaker at all, just focused on speaking. “Since the Quiet Rapture, none of us got a choice.”

“Hey look at that, there’s at least something we can agree on.”

David agreeing with The Convict, and unknowingly you? You want to barf in your mouth at the idea of being on the same page as David of all people. But it’s somewhat comforting knowing someone you hate so deeply has the same opinion and… sort of perspective as you.

“The Captain’s had a stick up her ass since the Quiet Rapture but… she cares about her crew. Some more than others but… y’know.”

The Convict glances at you, mumbling a ‘yeah, right,’ because he knew it was true. She favored Jack over you, sparing his life and his talents and sending you down to die.

The Convict pushes himself up, turning around. “Can you at least tell me if this thing’s blasting me with radia…” He pauses. Staring at the back of the sub. Fear invading his pupils.

“Nooo, the Hull’s thick enough, the blood will suck it up anyway.”

You glance to the back, trying to see what he’s looking at with such fear, you see nothing.

David keeps talking, but The Convict isn’t listening. Neither are you, you’re scared for whatever he saw in the back. While he slowly walks to approach it, you rise slowly, following far behind, curious but just as scared, if not more.

He keeps talking.

And talking.

“Shut the fuck up.” The Convict whispers through gritted teeth to the speaker.

David is silent.

“Excuse me?”

The speaker starts cutting and glitching, you can hear curses leave David’s mouth, telling The Convict to go fuck himself as you two go deeper and deeper into the blood.

His hand finds the fire extinguisher, tugging at it a bit before ripping it off the wall. Is he gonna use that as a weapon?

“What’re you..”

“Shh!” He turns around to look at you, and you jump slightly. His vibe is completely different, but you understand he thinks he’s in danger.

Nothing should’ve been able to get in here. The Hull is welded shut, what does he think he sees? Some sort of monster?

It’s the radiation and the pressure getting to his head, you’re sure.

It’s taking longer for you, because the COI feeds you well balanced meals. You’re sure the prisoners get scraps that the COI has left, he’s running off of little food and most likely little water, unlike you.

He breathes heavily, turning back around. After a few moments of him building up his courage, he jumps out, looking into the dark corner of the sub.

You’re aware of what’s back there.

You didn’t say anything because, well, you didn’t think it was important.

He continues to breathe heavily, he sees no creatures or monsters. He clicks the radiation photography button to bring some light to the small corner, he stares at the computer for a moment, and looks at you.

“What is this?”

Now that you’re thinking about it, you glance to your chair. You pause when you see the clipboard isn’t on the seat anymore, it must’ve fallen somewhere during the submarine shaking. Your eyes land near The Convict’s leg.

“Convict.” A whisper falls from your lips. His head turns slightly at the title, but he doesn’t say anything, just giving you his eyes to know he’s acknowledging your words. “Can you hand me my clipboard and pen?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure thing.” He picks the clipboard up off the floor, and leans over to grab your pen that had rolled under the instrument’s desk. He passes it to you, and you nod your head as a thank you. Choosing not to verbalize it, as to not make too much noise.

While the submarine slowly rises to the surface again, you write down everything that’s happened so far, as well as you can remember it in the best details you possibly can. It’s all a blur now, your job was to write things down when they happen, you assumed, because now that it’s only been a few minutes, your memory is getting fuzzy.

While you write down the blurry details of what just happened, you can hear The Convict’s breathing fasten, and you look up. Maybe he thinks that they’re being let out, so he’s seeing now as the time to freak out. But you know Ava will send you back down. This isn’t the first sub she’s brought back up just to send back down. It’s like she gets off on the false hope she gives Convicts.

Still, The Convict is breathing and gripping onto his thigh like their oxygen is renewable. They didn’t put any back up oxygen on this ship. Once it’s out, it’s out. The COI doesn’t care about you two anymore.

His shaken breaths echo in the quiet submarine, and for a while it’s the only sound, until Ava speaks.

“Bringing you in now.” She states.

The Convict glances around, waiting for something to happen, to hear a chainsaw so they’ll break you both out of this submarine. Instead, he just hears sounds of metal shaking and creaking.

“Okay…” A gasp escapes his lips, chasing oxygen, “Okay… Uh… so now what?” He glimpses from you to the speaker, and a thud interrupts your thoughts.

The shield slowly opens, blood covering the glass pane. You stand up along with The Convict to see Ava on the other side, wiping the blood off to get a good look at you two.

The Convict has forgotten about you, now there’s a window to the outside. His saving grace is no longer you or the button, it’s Ava. If he can just convince her to let him out, and maybe you too, then he’s free. “Hey..” He says to Ava, “So, uh.. so what’s the deal, am I done?”

Do you need to write down the conversation? Since you’re in direct line of sight with Ava, you decide to, just to look busy.

“How’s your oxygen?” She asks, completely disregarding his question.

Like you knew, you both aren’t getting out of here, you’ll be sent back down.

“Uh.. uhm…” He stammers, shocked that Ava just completely ignored his question. But instead, he replies. “Uh, yeah, I’m down a leg… and there’s… there’s some kind of liquid building up on the walls.”

You chuckle softly in the background, and he glances back at you, like it’s funny. Ava replies. “It’s just condensation.” There’s no laughter in her voice at all, but you can tell she thought it was a dumb thing to be concerned about.

He stutters, tripping over his words as he turns back to the shield. “Look it doesn’t matter. You need to tell the next person who goes down what I found, there’s something alive down there.”

You peer up. So he does know?

You can’t get a read on this guy. Is he stupid? Is he secretly intelligent?

As Ava opens her mouth to reply, a co-worker catches her attention. Calling her over to look at the photos. The Convict turns to you, and it breaks your heart to see the hope he has in his eyes.

“Do you think we’re gonna be let out?” He asks you, so so very optimistic. You know The Captain better than he does, he figures you should have a good read on her.

You can’t bear to tell him the truth. “Maybe…” The pen clicks under your thumb.

You can’t tell this man any of the truth. Why is it so hard for you to spill information to him?

He smiles subtly, and you grimace. Not because his smile is disgusting or anything, no, it just hurts to know you’ve been doing nothing but lying under the guise of the COI.

His head turns around, pressing his ear back up to the shield, trying to eavesdrop and hear if they’re even considering letting you both out, or trying to hear any information about what he found down in the Blood Ocean.

He furrows his eyebrows, turning to you. “Is that guy David?”

You lift your head up from the clipboard, peeking to the right. It’s blurry behind all the blood, but you can hear how he’s giving Ava a hard time. “Yeah, it is.” David is the only person who gives Ava an attitude and lives.

The Convict nods his head, like he’s keeping a mental note of what David looks like.

Ava comes back over, wiping the blood from the window again. The way it drips over reminds you of prison bars, it’s pretty symbolic how Ava wipes them away, like she really is your one key to being freed from this prison.

The Convict’s voice quivers as he sees her, his ticket to liberty standing infront of him, inbetween a pane of glass. “Hey, hey so I found something right? Something good?”

“We downloaded the pictures. It sure looks like a skeleton to me.”

You look up from your clipboard again, your mouth slightly agape. You can’t believe you’re the only one out of the three of you to really notice the fact that it may not have been just a skeleton, but a living fish. You can’t help but stare at Ava, is she hiding the fact that the camera is an X-Ray from The Convict?

Is she letting him believe it’s a skeleton so he doesn’t back out of the mission even more?

Or does she genuinely believe that gas bubbles caused your submarine to flip around, and that that photo is really a skeleton?

That answer scares you the most.

The Convict gasps softly, catching his breath, trying not to sound like he’s begging, “So come on, get me out of here.”

You can’t help but deliberately notice how he’s only begging for his freedom, like, you can tag along if you want to. Sure. You see where his morals are.

Ava turns her head, you can see a smile forming on her lips. She’s in disbelief. “We can’t.” She states firmly. “You’re both welded in, by the time we get you guys out of there we might miss the opportunity. Another slip, it might go somewhere where we can’t get it.”

You furrow your eyebrows at her inconsistencies. Skeletons don’t just ‘go places,’ she has to know it’s alive. God please know it’s alive, Ava. Your Captain can’t be on the same level of delusion as the war criminal she’s assigned to pilot this ship.

But of course, The Convict doesn’t notice the inconsistency. He doesn’t really care about whatever alien life-forms lie on this moon, he cares about his liberation.

“We’re gonna give you something to take a sample.” She utters, turning around.

The Butcher raises his voice, he yells at the Captain. It makes you jerk up, in fright.

“HEY!” His voice echoes so very loudly, so much so to where the Captain whips her head around in startlement to look at him. “YOU’RE NOT LISTENING TO ME! There’s… THERE’S SOMETHING ELSE.”

The Butcher catches his breath as she stares at him, trying to collect his thoughts, trying to come off across as more rational before she sentences him to death, “Okay…” he backtracks, steadying his breaths, “It’s not like I don’t want the deal alright—I want the deal, I wanna make…” He pauses, stumbling on his own words again.

“It’s not worth it.” He forces out, it almost pains him to say. It scares him to say. He purses his lips together as he shakes his head, “It’s not… It’s not worth it for me, it’s not worth it for you.” His palms open, as if he’s negotiating like a normal person.

Like this is a normal thing to negotiate.

You’ve all gone way past the definition of ‘normal’ at this point.

“Fine, there’s a skeleton, yes—but you’re not HEARING ME when I say there’s something else…” he grits his teeth, because he’s truthfully scared.

You are… a little confused. You’re biting your lip, but it seems like The Convict is on the right track. It sounds like he just mistook the rattling of the submarine and the ‘skeleton’ to be two different entities, when most likely the skeleton was… never a skeleton in the first place.

“Something alive.” He states finally, looking her deep in her eyes, hoping that those words make her spare your lives.

Ava leans closer to the shield, blood dripping down, prison bars encapsulating your ship.

“There might just be.”

She turns around, grabbing something that looks similar to a chainsaw. She holds it up to the window. “We’re gonna put this on the sub, right up front. All you gotta do is point it in the right direction. Once it makes contact it should be able to grab onto something and hold on tight.” She looks back at The Convict, nodding her head, making sure he understands there’s no escape for him.

He pants heavily, still trying to come to terms with everything. “So what am I supposed to do, just ram it?”

“Pretty much.” She finishes, wiping the blood endlessly.

The Convict glances back at you, looking for some reassurance. But you barely notice, you’re too busy writing the conversation. You built the submarine, and you know the front is a lot sturdier than the back, Ava factored the idea of a ‘sample’ in long before a skeleton (or fish) was even found, so she instructed you engineers to make the front extremely sturdy. You know it can handle at least one ram.

The Convict turns back to the window, “You can’t be serious.”

“I am.” Ava states, nonchalantly. She wouldn’t be this calm if it were her in this sub. “You’ll have to hit it hard too, hard enough to make sure that it catches—you won’t be able to see if it works, so no second chances.”

The Convict’s breathing quickens, rapidly, the gravity is starting to weigh in for him. “Okay.. so, you don’t just want me to ram it, you want me to ram it at FULL SPEED?”

His voice quivers as he stares into her eyes, “Why play games? Why go through all this trouble? If you want me dead so bad, WHY DON’T YOU JUST DO IT YOURSELF?”

“This is the best we have.” Ava replies, getting closer to the window, not enough to get blood on her face, but enough to where The Butcher can see each furrow of her eyebrow in aggravation, “And it’s a lot more than you deserve.”

“This is bigger than any of us, so just do your job.”

The Butcher slams his hands on the desk. The situation is getting tense, and a giant metal wall is blocking The Butcher from getting to Ava. You’re the next best thing, working for the COI. So naturally, you’re pretty nervous and scared to be fully alone with this man. You back up slowly from the front, deciding to just stick as a fly on the wall.

“My job?” The Butcher whispers, “My JOB?” He repeats, to where The Captain can actually hear him. “Oh I’m sorry,” he undoes his sleeves and shakes his wrists, “The handcuffs must’ve confused me, I didn’t realize this was VOLUNTARY.” He hisses at her, his teeth gritting, and his jaw clenched with every finish of his sentence.

The Captain, finally having enough with him, turns her back and walks away. You’ve seen people yell at The Captain, and it never goes well. You don’t get what you want from yelling at her.

“HEY!” The Butcher shouts, “Don’t walk away!” He respires.

You catch a glimpse of Jack attaching the device to the front of the submarine, sparks flying as he does his handiwork. It’s probably best that they kept him outside, because you, neither your co-workers, would be able to efficiently attach the device without damaging the sub.

“IF THIS IS SO IMPORTANT TO YOU WHY DON’T YOU GO DOWN THERE!?” He continues yelling to a woman who’s no longer listening to him. You can hear his rage and anger echo all around you, you’ve stopped writing now. You’re afraid that the scratching of your pen will make him aware of your existence.

He bangs on the window. “HEY! YOU SAID GO DOWN, COME BACK, AND THEN I’M FREE! THAT WAS THE DEAL!” It’s reasonable why he’s mad, they did tell him that. Technically, he did come back, he should be free.

But the COI isn’t fair, you knew this.

“HOW MANY TIMES ARE YOU GONNA USE ME BEFORE YOU RUN ME DOWN!?” The Butcher screams, clicking, turning, pushing every button and lever on the control panel. As if it’ll do something. Everything should be disconnected since the sub is having work done on it. It won’t do anything.

It is kind of messed up that he’s pushing all these buttons, what if it was on, and he just rammed full speed into all these engineers? That’s kind of evil.

He storms to the back.

You know what he’s doing.

What he’s going for.

You decide to finally say something, to stop being a fly on the wall. “Convict what’re you doing!?” You step out, but it’s too late. His hand presses firmly on the button.

You hear it powering up.

You cover your eyes from the blinding light that appears outside the submarine.

You lift your arm to see the photo on the screen, with human skeletons on it. The Convict turns around to look at it, blinking.

There’s a moment of deafening silence, you’ve dropped your clipboard at this point, your pen is still in the process of rolling on the floor. Your hands are over your mouth as you try to wrack your brain with what The Butcher just did.

You hear a slam on the window, it’s Ava roaring. “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND!?”

The Convict looks over, stomping back to the front. “Oh good, you can hear me.”

He’s fucking dumb! He’s an idiot! An absolute dumbass is piloting this submarine!

He tries to begin another rampage, “Now get someone else for your suicide mission because I’M NOT—“

“YOU JUST BLASTED US WITH RADIATION YOU PSYCHOTIC FUCK!” She screams at him, swearing him to hell, spitting on the window. Her flawed eye looks even more damaged from the radiation, her pupil has faded slightly. Or maybe that’s just in your head. Still, you’re covering your mouth in disbelief, shaking.

“…What…” Is all he utters.

“It’s not a NORMAL CAMERA, YOU CAN’T SEE THROUGH BLOOD SO WE NEED X-RAYS TO GET THROUGH.” She taps her skull, insinuating he has no brain.

The Convict looks regretful, sorrow and apologies written in his eyes. He looks back at you, almost with a look of betrayal, and back at Ava. “I didn’t know that…”

You hear Jack whining, groaning in subtle pain but telling Ava that the device is on securely to the submarine, how he manages to still do his job when being blasted with radiation is remarkable.

“I.. I.. I didn’t know that.” The Convict repeats during their conversation. And he turns back at you.

“Why didn’t you tell me..?” He asks, heartache interweaved in his voice.

And you can’t reply. Because you don’t have a good excuse. Realistically, he should’ve read the manual in it’s entirety before going on the expedition, you know for a fact that it’s mentioned. This entire expedition you’ve been 50/50 on if he knew or not, if he was suicidal or dumb.

He turns back to the shield after no response from you, after too long looking into your fear stricken and regretful eyes, and he meets Jack’s eyes. His skin is red, he was right next to the blast. There’s no way he’s not going to die from radiation poisoning in the next week.

You have no clue how good the medical team is, you’ve never been to the medical area, and you’ve never heard anything about it. For Jack’s sake, you pray they have some sort of radiation treatment.

The Convict looks at Ava, “Look, look I’m sorry but maybe if you would talk to me this wouldn’t have happened!” He has a point, if someone would’ve told him this wouldn’t have happened.

If you would’ve told him.

Is this your fault?

She lifts her head up to look at him, once understanding eyes are now filled with nothing but hate for The Butcher. “Just get the sample.”

The Convict stands there silently in disbelief, in regret. Wishing he could go back and stop himself from pressing that button.

You hear Ava talking to David.

“Drop them.”

Those other reasons cloud your mind, maybe she’s hoping for your death down there, maybe she just hates you as a person.

Though, you and The Convict stay quiet. Writhing in the pain of the pressure. As the submarine settles, so does your adrenaline, and the aching hurt kicks in on the bruises that both your bodies have just withstood. Your back and your arm throb, you don’t even want to push yourself up because that’d require using the limb. You really just miss your bed, even if it was a shitty mattress you’d give anything that had some cushion to it.

A blanket, a pillow, and any temperature that’s not the temperature of this submarine. You hope you can survive just so you can cherish your bed again, if anything.

You’re not extremely worried about replying to Ava though, she’s very specific in her wording. If she’s asking for The Convict’s status, she’s asking for his status, not yours. You turn your head to him, he’s still lying down, like you told him to, catching his breath and trying to relax. His mouth is open, like he’s trying to get something out, but he can’t even manage. You can’t even imagine how confused he is right now.

You don’t really have an opinion on him yet.

He’s shown so much attitude, rage, and aggravation, but in-between those moments are the ones where you look into his eyes.

You don’t see The Butcher, or The Convict when you do. You see an unnamed man, fighting for survival with you.

Ava shouts again, “CO-NVICT, ARE Y-OU READING ME? WHA-T’S YOUR STATUS?”

You tilt your neck up somewhat to look at the front of the Hull, and you see the depth meter rising. They’re pulling you back up, some hope flashes back into your vision, especially as you hear Ava’s microphone get less and less garbled. Your sight find The Convict again, hoping he realizes this good news as well, but instead you notice a man whose face is crowded with nothing but confusion and fear.

“Uhgm…” He pushes himself up narrowly, you think about telling him to stop, but realize that you can’t be all buddy-buddy with him now. You can’t talk to him and build any sort of friendship or relationship with this war criminal.

Ava can hear you.

He grunts, hunching over the floor. “Yeah, yeah we’re here.” He gasps, a moan coming out of his mouth from the pain that’s assaulting his back. The damage he took was all on his back, so it must hurt 2x worse than yours right now. Because you hit your arm AND your back, so yeah, it hurts like hell, but at least it’s spread out?

The Captain’s voice calms down with his reply, “Is the sh-ip damaged did you f-all?”

The Convict pushes himself up more, heavily gasping. You stay on the floor. You want to stay there forever. He sits on one knee while he desperately chases your rapidly depleting oxygen.

You can’t believe the gall that Ava has to ask the CONVICT if the ship is damaged, does she even remember that you’re here too? The Engineer with the COI Official jacket that SHE assigned to work on this god damn submarine?

“Uh… Uh… did I…Uh I don’t know. Was that you?” He asks, disoriented. God why is he standing up? Lay down!

Why are YOU lying down!? You’re the most coherent one in this situation, you should stand up and speak. But you don’t, and the guilt is infecting you.

“Is the sh—ip okay is the H-ull damaged then wa—“ Ava cuts out vaguely, her microphone getting quite worse when the submarine shakes.

The Butcher stands up fully, his head seeming to get less and less jumbled. Whilst he stands, you figure you should at the very least sit up, you look kind of silly just lying on the ground next to this grown man. You hear his voice rise as he talks to Ava, it shocks you faintly.

“I- is it?” He grunts, gasping softly, “You didn’t.. tell me that there would be anything DOWN HERE!” The raspiness of nis throat makes it harder for the words to come out, how can a room be so dry and yet so humid?

“Just TELL ME if there’s a problem with the ship Convict. We need to know if the ship is damaged before we send you both back down.”

So she does know you’re here. She’s just choosing not to address you directly, great.

The Butcher wipes his mouth, looking at the speaker in shock as The Captain recommends sending you both back. “Back? Back down..? Back..?” He pants, disbelieving what he’s hearing. He’s glancing to you, and back to the speaker. And he is fucking pissed, the veins are popping in his knuckles even as he clenches his fist. “No way… no FUCKING WAY!” He yells, spit flying from his mouth and onto the speaker.

He heaves slightly, a quiver of desperation in his throat, “I’m done, I’m done so just bring me back up and throw me in prison. I’m NOT doing it—“

“IS. THERE. DAMAGE.”

The depth meter steadies.

You’re nothing more than a button on the wall, watching this all go down.

“Just… TELL ME if there is a problem with the sub because if YOU fell the Hull could be punctured which means a leak, which means flooding, which means you both DIE.”

The Convict wheezes softly, the mere thought of death being brought up shocks him to his very core. His footing stumbles, his gullet quivers as if something’s stuck in it. He glances around, “Uhm…”

His eyes find you. He’s looking for help. You know this submarine like the back of your hand, you would know if it was damaged. You’ve been on the floor this whole time, so you’ve had a close eye on the spots where you both fell, there’s nothing more than harmless slight dents.

You open your mouth, thinking to speak. Deciding that you needed to give The Convict some help.

“There’s no damage from the fall we took, Captain. There were minor leaks earlier though before the fall that I believe need to be looked at.”

The Convict sighs in relief at you, not saying it, but the mere look in his eyes is a silent thank you for the mercy you’re giving him.

Ava stays quiet for a moment, most likely because she’s surprised you opened your mouth when you weren’t speaking to her. But you’ve come to realize that now isn’t the time for her to get onto you about something like that. She may give you a hard time for it when you’re on the surface, but if you and The Convict bring back good data, maybe she won’t even get onto you.

“Good.” She concludes.

She takes a breath into the microphone, “…Good. I can’t… see much but it looks like the Hull is in one piece so we’re gonna check on your progress while we wait for the ocean to settle back down.”

You can hear voices in the background, some of your co-workers asking for pictures, and you can hear David. You scoff at his voice, in which The Convict glances at you for but gives no comment on.

As The Convict has your eye, you gesture for him to sit down, mouthing the words ‘sit down’ even with your mouth. He’s dizzy, he’s worked up, and he’s going to fall if he keeps that up. You thought he was going to either not take your advice, or sit down in the command chair, but instead, he crouches down slowly and sits down next to you.

Neither of you say anything about it.

The Convict looks at you, “…Settle, what does that mean? Is… is that why everything was shaking?”

You start your reply but you figure Ava thought he was talking to her, so she replies.

“Essentially, yeah.” Ava grunts. “The bottom isn’t exactly rock just… layers of consh—ld blood and gas b-ubbles. That’s why I said it was un—stable.”

All of that would’ve been nice to know before coming down here. Ava’s last sentence is slightly cut off by David, god he’s pretentious.

You rub your temple, The Convict turns his head to you and whispers. “Who is that?”

You pause, shocked that he’s asking you such a silly question. “Uh…” You take note that Ava and David are distracted with their conversation, but you still whisper. “A co-captain.”

“Do we not like him?” He questions.

You can’t help but grin at the ask, like you have all the answers or like you dictate his opinions. Which, to this question you guessed you do. “Yeah. I do, atleast.”

He smirks back at you, it seems like this is the first time you’ve seem him smile.

This man is not your friend.

“Convict did you find a skeleton?” The question jolts you two out of your short conversation. Reality is back, and it didn’t stay gone long. You almost forgot about the skeleton, but it’s good she brought it up. All the shaking that was going on with the sub definitely wasn’t just gas at the bottom of the terrain, it was definitely a fish.

That wasn’t a skeleton.

But if you speak more than spoken to, especially with David listening, you could be in trouble.

And you STILL aren’t sure if The Convict has any idea that the button is poisoning him with every second he pushes it.

David and Ava bicker slightly over the microphone, The Convict glances at you, it’s like he wants to smile again, he wants to make jokes with you about David being an asshole, but you can’t. He can’t.

The Ocean won’t let you.

“Convict, are you SURE this is a skeleton?”

He looks back up at the speaker, confusion seeps through his teeth. “I- yeah? I’ve seen a skeleton before…” He sounds hurt. “How stupid do you think I am?”

You cover your mouth, because that’s not what she was asking.

Ava’s question was ‘Is this a skeleton or an X-Ray of something else?’

You can’t speak, God you can’t speak, because this is The Convict’s mission.

But now you have total clarification that he has no clue what the hell he’s pressing.

“We’re pulling you up. Standby.”

Still, in his haziness, he doesn’t seem like he even trusts his own judgement. His own thinking, his own memory. Did he remember what The Captain told him correctly? Does that noise really mean that-

“Something’s near.” You blurt. Because you’re both thinking it, the only difference is you programmed this ship to know when something is near. Better than anyone, in fact, You know how close that thing is by each second in-between the clicks. Whatever is close to you both is, well, definitely close, but you’ll probably be okay.

Depending on what it is.

The ocean gurgles, and as soon as you speak The Convict lets go of the lever.

“Wha…What do I do?” He asks, quivering hands finding their home on his lap. Awaiting your next direction, as if you were The Captain, as if this were your expedition.

You don’t know what to say, again, this isn’t your expedition. This isn’t your convict realization assignment. You write down his question, describing his confusion and anxiety very briefly. Somewhere in your notes is a very clear and blatant call out to how much oxygen he’s intaking with every stressful situation.

“Hey. Hey, I know you hear me.” He repeats. “What do I do?”

Frustration, you can hear it. You don’t want to look into his eyes, fearing your own life currently. You’ve overstepped so many times, you only got away with speaking so much because you were both so far in the red. With something nearby the ship, Ava is sure to be alert of the Hull any second now.

You know she could be listening.

He groans, it’s loud, it echoes in the submarine you helped build. His body rises to turn around, and that’s when your eyes follow him.

You know where he’s looking.

When the organism of a saving grace doesn’t reply, he looks to the technological version. He’s nothing more than an animal.

You listen to his heavy breaths coinciding with the clicks of the dial, and the tick of the button. They’re all noises to you, scratching of your pen, pressing of the button The Convict seems to be in-love with, and the presence of whatever is near this god damn ship.

The back of the submarine lights up, you can’t see the photo, his body covers it.

You can see his eyes.

“Come here.” He states. That’s not a request, it’s a demand.

You sit still, why should you listen to him? He’s your enemy right now. Right? Filament station, don’t forget Filament station, he could easily be dragging you back there to… kill you or something.

Maybe that’s wishful thinking in these depths.

“…Why?”

He widens his eyes, turning his head from the gradually fading photos to you. He’s in shock. “Wha- I, hello!? What do you mean why? Just come here! What is so hard about just-getting up, and taking three steps over here?” His hands are moving around as he speaks and you can tell that adrenaline is running through each tip of his fingers.

You stay seated, his sudden rise of tone surprises you, and he glances around frantically, pressing the button again, harder this time, you can feel the adrenaline pass through the submarine, into the walls and amongst the blood ocean with each and every gurgle.

“Please! It’s important! It’s—it’s a fucking skull!”

“What?” You rise quickly, marching over immediately and covering your face when the delayed flash hits your eyes.

When you move your arm, there it is. A skull. Sharp teeth opened wide, an empty abyss laying behind it.

You know something The Convict might not. It might not just be a skull.

You can’t see through blood with a normal camera.

You need an X-Ray.

This thing is most-likely alive. But does he know that?

“You guys didn’t tell me anything alive would be down here!” The Convict shouts, looking at you, boiling with aggravation and no one but you to take it out on.

“I… We didn’t know about this. None of us have been down, remember?” You try to assure him calmly, but he doesn’t believe you. Why should he? You and the COI have lied and hidden so many things from him. You’re not even convinced he knows this camera is laced with radiation, and as far as he knows, this is the first ship that’s explored this ocean.

“Bullshit. You- there’s no way you guys didn’t know that there’s giant—fffucking creatures down here!” He bites his lip, his hand and finger shaking as he points at the photo, fading away.

He goes to smack the button again.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.Click.Click.Click.CliCliCliCliCliCliCliClickckckckckckckCliclickick.

Click.

His hand hovers still in time, the momentum he once had to slam it is suddenly gone. Both of you are now staring towards the shield. Shaking where you stand. This is the worst time to be standing.

“What does it mean if it speeds up like that?” His face meets yours, aggression fading away. His hand lowering from the button, his eyes wandering to you.

Because, again. You’re his button. You’re always going to be the button on this ship.

“That means something’s getting closer.”

After the final tick, there’s a silence. The stomach of the ocean gurgles, hull swaying steadily. As if whatever just frequenting their ship has passed. You think to take a deep breath, to relax, your muscles finding their way out of tenseness.

Click. Click Click. ClickClickClickClickClick. ClickClickCliCliCliCliCliClickckckckckckckckc. CliCliCliCliCliCliClickckckckckckck.

The Hull shakes.

The submarine creaks.

The Ocean swells.

AT-5 is hungry.

You and The Convict creak up at the ceiling, praying that these noises aren’t the roof preparing to cave in on you. Your hand attracts its way to the wall, not to holster yourself up, but somehow hoping you yourself can hold this submarine together with one press of your hand.

“Fuck- there’s something out there, there has to be.” You mumble. Trying to plant your footing on the now shaking floor of the submarine.

“Really!” The Convict replies, and you wish you were with someone with less of an attitude, with less sass and less gall. A man who feels he has the right to know everything, who gets confused as to why you’re distrusting of him when he LITERALLY blew up one of the LAST space stations in the entire emptiness of space.

The noise stops, and you feel like you’re going to throw up. Your forehead presses against the wall, still holding yourself up, still planting your feet despite the sudden steadiness of this ship.

You remember your mission. Fuck, you have to write this shit down, you stand up straight, starting to make your way over to your chair that you left your clipboard on. God, what all do you have to write down? A skull (that’s most likely an actual fish that happened to get X-rayed), the shaking and unsteadiness of this Hull.

The attitude of The Convict.

You move your hand off the wall of the sub, wiping the condensation off onto your work jacket.

As you and The Convict begin walking over to your chairs, the clicking starts again.

“God, I am so sick of this clicking.” You mumble, but now you’re standing in the center of this Hull, there’s no wall for you to hold on to, you could try the ceiling but that wouldn’t be very stable. You could hold onto The Convict.

That seems even less stable.

So your arms spread out slightly, preparing to catch yourself if you were to fall at all, or tilt in the slightest. The ticking is nauseating and annoying in your brain, you want to lift your arms to cover your ears, but every noise is important, every lurch of this hungry ocean is a sign that something is near and GOD why doesn’t this Convict sit in his chair and steer this Hull away from danger while he still has ti-

THUD.

And a crash. Not the crash of the ship, but the crash of you, and The Convict.

You aren’t really prepared for how harsh this ship was going to be hit by either this moon-quake or whatever monsters lurk in the ocean, but you never considered it would be hard enough to fly you all the way to the side of the submarine.

Your arm takes most of the damage, as you’re propelled to the right side of the ship, it gets hit and smushed between you and the wall. You groan in pain, but it’s minor. You know what a broken bone feels like, and even if you didn’t, a broken bone would have you screaming a lot more than this. It’s just sprained, or bruised, whatever it is it’s still operating. Even though it’s not broken, you can’t deny the now pulsing acknowledgement of your now-bruised arm.

Though, The Convict fell in an odd, even worse position. His groan comes out relatively after yours, but this submarine isn’t done. This ocean isn’t done.

He seems to have fallen over his chair, landing in a position that put his legs in the air. If this wasn’t such a serious predicament you’d be laughing, but his way of falling may have been better considering he hit the chair before the floor, destabilizing the amount of force that went into his final fall.

Even so, the groan he lets out would have you convinced he’d been stabbed thirty times, and his expression too. He grits his teeth, finding any sort of leverage on the wall to get up.

TikTikTikTik

While he crawls up, grunting and heavy breathing from each step and lift of his knee, you slowly rise with him. You didn’t fall very far, in-fact you just leaned. You seem to be in better condition than he is, but you also just have more training on how to focus and manage your stress. On how to be in survival mode.

You both have different definitions of survival mode.

Yours is by the book training given by the COI that outlines exactly how much time should be in-between each inhale and exhale given any situation.

And The Convict is a war criminal.

You watch his hand grip a pipe on the ceiling to stable himself, but when the ocean croaks again you’re both sent flying to the other wall. This time hurts worse than the first, you both land on your back. Pipes, wires and metal all being pressed against your shoulder-blades at the full force of this submarine. You feel each surface that comes in contact with your back rivet across all your skin and muscle, leaving behind a throbbing surface of bruise and ache.

You both fall to the ground after immediately hitting the wall. Groaning together in unison, both looking over to each other, neither of you are sure why. Are you looking for someone to blame? Or for someone to relate to.

He rises faster than you, you stay lying on your stomach, it didn’t hurt to fall on the floor, not nearly as bad as hitting your arm and back full force onto the rugged interior of this ship. He pushes himself up on his knee, you can tell he’s in fight or flight mode. But there’s no need for him to get up, he has no where to run, and steering this ship will do little to nothing. The best thing for either of you to do is stay on the ground.

That’s what you’re telling yourself, but in reality, you’re staying on the ground because the pain is gradually getting worse. As he stands and looks around, you wonder how he’s keeping his feet planted on this quaking ship.

And with one last lurch of the submarine, he comes falling down on his stomach, right next to you. You feel the pressure of the hull, your face getting pressed slightly into the floor. You don’t take nearly as much damage as The Convict does. He groans loudly into the floor next to you. His eyes meet yours, he opens his mouth but nothing comes out.

He’s petrified.

He catches his breath, pushing himself up, tattered and difficult to understand words come out of his mouth, but you understand one tiny and shaky “What the fuck..?” from him. “Fuck—Help!” He cries, and you really can’t tell if he’s crying or not. Are those tears? Sweat?

Blood?

He struggles to get up, and you place your hand on his shoulder steadily. He winces, looking at you like an animal, it’s unclear what animal he’s looking at you like.

Who is the prey, who is the predator?

“Stay down. We don’t-“ You cough. Wincing in your own pain. “Fuck, we don’t need to push ourselves to the limits. Just- stay on the floor. Stay.”

He breathes densely, but his arms come down. He lowers himself back on to the floor slightly with you. You move your hand away from him.

You catch a glimpse of the speaker lighting up.

“C-ME IN C-NVI-T, —————— WH-AT’S YOUR STA-TUS?”

You continue to write down everything that happens, every coordinate he so much as stops at. Every coordinate he even thinks about. You don’t bother to ask why he even stops, why he glances, why he thinks, but you’ve come to realize that he stops when he hears noises outside in the ocean. It’s bound to happen, even on Earth they say the ocean wasn’t silent. There’s some form of gravity that keeps a planet, even a moon, held together.

The older generations say that the ocean on Earth was only fluid because of the imbalance that occurred with the Earth’s gravity, and the Moon’s gravity. AT-5 is some sort of phenomenon, there’s no opposite to pull the ocean, but it still moves. This moon isn’t attached to a planet, it doesn’t have an Earth.

You wish it did.

You weren’t old enough to remember the planets, you remember the dead stars, the dead. You remember the dead. You remember drawing of trees and life made by those who lived long enough to remember what once was, before The Quiet Rapture. But if the ocean on AT-5 still moves, are any of the planets gone?

That’s a theory almost everyone is hopeful for, except for the realists on the COI, who are more focused on progressing forward than even considering what happened to all those planets, stars, and lives. It’s more-so Eden that focuses on the rehabilitation of life, from what you’ve heard, which has only been negative things.

Though, you’ve always tried to stay neutral, you understand both sides, you just got put with the COI, with no energy to resist. No strength to consider resisting as an option.

Otherwise, you would’ve ended up right in The Convict’s seat.

He stops the ship at another noise, a sigh escapes your mouth while writing the coordinate. You’ve lost track of what any these coordinates even mean, or what you’re writing. Your handwriting is scribbled, and you’re writing lightly as to try and save ink.

The Convict rises, walking to the back of the submarine and clicking the button. You brace, trying to turn your back to it. You’re not sure how all the radiation works, Jack was the only one trusted enough to be in charge of that, but you know it’s obviously not safe. Since no one has come back up, you have no clue if it had any effect on the convicts who were sent down here.

But, assuming they’ve informed The Convict of everything he needs to know, they even gave him a safety manual, then you should both be on the same page about using it to a limited amount.

He takes a photo of what seems to me an empty abyss, walking over and sitting back down at the desk, crossing off a spot on the map.

“One down, five to go.”

One down, five to go.

The submarine ticks.

“OXYGEN.”

The silence weighs heavy between you both, not daring to look up at the now depleted oxygen tank. Neither of you want to. No, you don’t want to come to terms with the fact that this is basically the end. That you both now have 3/4 of O2 to hold you for five more coordinates, to take photos, and escape this Blood Ocean. There’s no fucking way.

You’re going to die down here with a Convict. A Convict who’s killed so many of your COI ‘brotheren.’

Hell, you don’t even consider them your brothers, sisters, barely even co-workers, but what else do you have? You’re a personal enemy to Eden just by wearing a badge for the COI, they’re all you have.

There’s no one else left in this abyss.

The Convict’s breathing gets louder, he’s trying to steady it, but he’s shaking, he can’t help but breathe heavily. He’s going to croak, or have a panic attack or something.

This isn’t the time for either of you to lose your breath or even waste it, hold any of your anxiety or panic attacks for when your foot steps off of this submarine, and onto a spot where oxygen is flowing freely. You can’t afford it. You both can’t afford to waste it.

“You need to control your breathing.” The words just fly out your mouth. But what else are you supposed to do? Let him waste oxygen with each individual anxious breath?

“Yeah?” He looks over at you. Ragged, useless breaths leaving his mouth. “How easy do you think that is under pressure?” His words are harsh, they sound painful coming out his throat. He’s right, Both of your lives are on the line, but you’d rather not make dying easier.

“We have limited oxygen.” You retaliate, the conversation is tense, because you’re both right. “You just… you have to try, we’re splitting it between the both of us.” You scribble down a general summary of the small conversation you’re both having. “Just try. Focus on the mission.”

You hear him click his teeth. “Focus on the fucking mission.” He grumbles under his breath, then pushes the lever on the desk, propelling the submarine forward.

The silence returns. Why couldn’t you just have a civil conversation with him?

Because you’re not allowed to.

Right.

Jack was explicitly told not to be too friendly, not to give The Convict too much information. Don’t do this. Don’t do that.

It’s all getting mushed in your brain, muddled together between what Ava told Jack and what she told you. But you really don’t care at this point, what are they gonna do? Yell at you over a speaker for telling The Convict to steady his breathing?

It wasn’t even a peaceful conversation, ‘Focus on the fucking mission,’ he says, like it was a dumb thing for you to say. Maybe if Ava heard that she’ll have his tongue cut off for the disrespect he gave you.

If you survive. If he survives.

Despite his grumbles of annoyance, he seems to have taken your advice. You watch as he inhales through his nose slowly, exhaling through his mouth. A strategy really only taught to you when you’re young and learning how to manage emotions, it’s not something you do voluntarily unless you’re trying to calm down.

Inhale. 1…2…3… Exhale. 1…2…3… You can count the seconds in-between each flare of his nostril and partial opening of his mouth,

You want to smile. You do, something about the fact that you’re being listened to by anyone, or considered. But you can’t. He’s a fucking Butcher, a murderer, the man who blew up Filament station, the loss of resources and contamination by radiation on most of what’s left. You aren’t sure what happened, you’ve only heard rumors.

You also haven’t heard anything proving those rumors wrong.

Condensation builds on the walls, dripping down slowly, glancing up at the ceiling, watching each individual clear drop fall down onto your lap. You can only wonder why the hue isn’t more red, but you don’t have time or energy to get into the scientific facts of the condensation of blood.

You feel like you’re losing your intelligence with each second you spend down here, air and blood pushing at your brain, you can only think about what’s important.

Survival.

He keeps taking fucking photos.

Each click.

Click.

Buzz.

The flash of light behind you.

You know you’re not living through radiation poisoning. Maybe he knows that every submarine sent down here is a suicide mission, maybe he’s suicidal, and he’s just taking you down with him. He doesn’t care anymore. You probably pissed him off by telling him what to do, so he’s going to see to it that you die.

Radiation poisoning, oxygen depletion, suffocation, drowning, whatever it may be. He doesn’t seem to exactly care how either of you die.

Or maybe he’s just dumb.

Maybe you’re overthinking, maybe the stress and pressure is really getting to your head. He seems calmer than you, but he also had solitude in prison to prepare for this.

You had five minutes.

He stumbles back over to the chair, his breaths are so goddamn heavy, and he wipes the condensation of his map, mumbling coordinates to himself, lining his hand up with the map, pushing it forward.

He treats the button like it’s some saving grace, like it’s his eyes and ears, which it really is, how else is he supposed to see where he’s going?

His hands are wiping his face, taking off his gloves and breathing heavily. Mumbling, “That’s not even on the map…”

You glance over. “What isn’t?”

You take his map from him, he lets you. His notes are… questionable.

“WEIRD ASS TUBES.”

“Hm.” Is all you have to say, you bite your lip.

“What do I do if I find something not on the map?” He asks you, unsure. Like he truly cares about this mission, and you feel like it’s a lie. Why would he care. That’s not his job, his job is to just focus on whatever coordinates he’s been assigned to go to, not find…

weird ass tubes…

“I’m not sure.” You reply, because it’s true. You’re not sure. You only know some partial first aid and the mechanics of this ship. “See if The Captain will reply.”

His face darkens, he’s blatantly more comfortable asking you questions than hearing anything Ava has to say, but he shifts in his chair to the speaker, glancing back at you. “Why can’t you answer?”

“Just ask.” The reply comes out faster than he can finish.

He hesitates, before his eyes move back to the speaker. “Hey!” He yells at it. “What do I do if I find something not on the map!?”

Silence.

“You’re not just pretending you can’t hear me right?”

The speaker drips of condensation.

He turns around to face the desk. “Why is it so fucking hot down here.”

You write down the interaction briefly, it’s starting to hurt your wrist, having to write so many things down, so many useless things.

But you think of some form of answer to his question.

“Any photo you take will be stores on this ships database.” He gives you a side glance. “The blackbox, basically. So if you find something not on the map, they’ll probably give it a look. Just, focus on the mission. We shouldn’t be using too much time on photos.”

“Why couldn’t you tell me that in the first place. Why’d you make me ask the useless speaker.”

It’s not a question. It’s just… his words are laced with disappointment, the little trust he had in you as a COI engineer in the first place is depleting just like your oxygen. It’s down to 3/4.

You don’t reply.

His hand grips the lever, but he pauses.

You can hear a drip.

He stops. The submarine doesn’t mood.

The ocean gurgles as he lifts his hand, breathing heavily, and glancing at the blood that just fell on him.

“Didn’t you work on this sub?” He asks.

You haven’t noticed the blood on his hand, you heard the drip, but every drip before has been simple condensation.

“I helped.”

“What does that mean?”

“Like, I wasn’t the main person working on it.”

You can’t help but lie a little. All engineers helped on these submarines to an equal amount, except for Jack, who had most responsibility when it came to these things. So technically, were you lying? You helped, Jack was the main person working on it, like he does all the submarines.

He lifts his hand up.

“Should blood be leaking in…?”

You glance at it, the fear in his eyes turns identical to yours. For a moment, you feel equal. You feel like animals, predator and prey hiding from a hurricane.

“No, No it really shouldn’t.”

You don’t know what to do, you turn to the speaker.

“Captain! Captain!” You yell, standing up. “We have a leak!” Walking closer to the speaker, having no clue if that means she can hear you better, but what else do you have to try?

You breathe heavily in the silence. Giving up, you turn back to The Convict. “She’s not ignoring us. We’re in the red, she really either can’t hear us, or isn’t at her station right now.”

“Then what do we do?” He asks, looking at you as if you’re his last saving grace. Looking at you like you’re the button.

You stare into his eyes.

Are those the eyes he gave to all those who died in Filament station?

You sit down. “We push forward.”

He takes a few breaths, before steadying his breathing like you told him to, wiping the blood on his leg. “Okay…” He grips the lever again, moving forward.

1…2…3…Inhale.

And after only a few moments of moving forward.

1…2…3…Exhale.

Click. Click. Click.

Something’s near.

That Earth, Mars, any of the other planets will come back. Come back with their resources, their life, their humans. Bringing an end to this war over resources between EDEN and the COI.

But that’s a fantasy right now, for someone like you, until the day you die you will work for the benefit of the little left of humanity. You will no longer think for yourself, you will take orders, and not following them puts you right in the submarine with those other convicts.

Though, you’re ending up in that submarine tonight either way. Even if you don’t know it.

You make your way to the restroom, doing your morning routine which involves brushing your teeth and splashing water on your face. You put on your COI issued uniform, as an engineer working on the Iron Lung, with limited resources, you had to be there as early as possible to get started on last-minute fixes before today’s descent.

“They’re sending down ‘The Butcher,’ today, you know.” A voice says, zoning you back into your work. The time has blurred between when your toothbrush was in your mouth and a screwdriver was in your hand. You were fixing last minute touch ups on the submarine with a co-worker, a female you couldn’t remember the name of.

“That’s interesting.” You reply, before thinking about it. “Uh, who is that?” You pause your work, glancing over at her. It felt like drama, drama you really didn’t care about. The Captain, Ava, barely cared about the convicts she sent down in the Blood Ocean, so if you had forgotten a screw here or there, you wouldn’t lose your job over it, you hoped.

“He was responsible for Filament Station, I hear. A lot of this metal is recycled from when he and his ‘brothers of EDEN’” She adds air quotes to her sentence, “Blew it up. He destroyed so many valuable resources, I hope he doesn’t come back.”

You raise your eyebrows at the harshness of her words. “I wouldn’t say that, isn’t Jack going down there with him?”

She nodded her head, sighing and shaking her head. “Yeah, I guess you’re right, Jack doesn’t deserve to die down there.” She snaps her fingers. “I know, I hope that everything goes smoothly, but when they get let out of the Iron Lung, ‘The Butcher’ trips, falls and dies.”

And you can’t help but laugh, because it was a ridiculous feat, and it wasn’t your problem, you weren’t going down there. Your job was to fix and repair not only these submarines, but everything on the AT-5 station. “I guess so, as long as we get any information and any resources.” You wipe the sweat off your face. “Any news is good news, hopefully an engineer going down with The Convict reduces the chances of us losing these submarines again.”

Your co-worker agrees with you. “Yeah, I hate these convicts as much as Ava, but if we’re doing the whole ‘Conviction Realization’ program, don’t we need to actually… rehabilitate them? Not ‘The Butcher,’ obviously, he deserves the worst, but we need these resources, we can’t keep letting these convicts die in the void.”

You finish the small repairs left on the Iron Lung, not making eye contact with your co-worker. “I agree.”

Right as you begin to stand up, you hear heavy weighted footsteps. It’s Ava. Your co-worker immediately rises, the two of you stand at attention for the woman coming in. Behind her, in handcuffs, is a tall burly man, wearing way too many layers of clothing, with long black hair that covers the eye-bags that almost weigh his entire body down.

You raise your eyebrows, looking at your co-worker, whispering, “Is that the fucking Butcher?”

She nods, not daring to give you a verbal response.

Ava always intimidated any room she walked into, but right now it was multiplied with the presence of what you could only assume to be a dangerous war criminal.

Slowly, tailing behind them, is Jack, the best engineer that the AT-5 station has to offer, well, for now. If this trip in the Iron Lung goes wrong for him, you lose the most experienced and well versed engineer that all of COI has left, especially with these limited resources.

You hear Ava asking The Butcher questions as she undoes his cuffs. You assume they’ve done test runs, or at the very least taught him how to use the basic controls of the submarine. As far as you knew, Jack was only allowed to take notes and fix things on the submarine that would lead them to near death. Every engineer in the AT-5 station knew how these submarines worked and operated, they almost followed the same code.

Another thing that you and any engineer on the AT-5 station knew was that these submarines had never come back. No one on this station knows what’s down in that blood ocean besides surface scans, but nothing has ever come up.

Until now, everyone assumed Ava was using these submarines to simply execute the convicts, under the notion that they would be ‘freed,’ or that any resources in the oceans would prove useful to mankind. For her to send an engineer, especially one as talented and useful as Jack, down into the ocean with one of the worst convicts encountered on the station…

It makes you wonder if this is more than the Convict Realization program.

If Ava really believes there are resources down there that could benefit humanity, resources that could save humanity.

As your mind is clouded, you hear heavy whirring noises, sounds of metal being broken into, torn apart. It wakes you up from your daydreams, glancing over and seeing Jack opening the once-welded submarine so The Butcher is able to go in.

You make brief eye contact with him, and you can see the fear laced in his pupils. Sweat clinging to his skin, trembles in his arms as he slowly steps into his inevitable death.

Jack doesn’t follow. He walks away.

“Where’s he going?” Your co-worker states, whispering to you, expressing the same fear that you’re feeling.

If Jack isn’t going in, that means one of two things. 1. The Butcher is being sent in alone, to die. 2. Another engineer is going in.

And #2 seems more likely.

Ava talks to Jack over to the side, you can’t hear their conversation, but Jacks eye are laced with the exact same fear that The Convict were. And for better reason, because Jack knows that no submarine has come back up. The Butcher thinks he’ll be freed.

Jack knows that he’ll die.

Ava reluctantly waves Jack off, who walks to the exit, wiping sweat from his face. You shake your head timidly, praying that this isn’t happening, because you see Ava walking over.

She rubs her temple, looking at you and your co-worker.

“I hate to do this to you.”

No. God, no.

“Jack couldn’t go through with it. And he’s our best engineer, so really, it’s not worth the risk to send him down.”

You’re not ready to die.

The way she says your name, you know it’s a binding to your death.

You look over at your co-worker, who’s now looking down at the ground. Say something, please. Tell Ava to just send Jack down, like she said she would.

Ava puts her hands on your shoulders, forcing you to look at her.

“I know this isn’t ideal. But you’ll be fine. This submarine is the best one we’ve made since the SM-8. We only have 2 burner submarines left after this one, we can’t afford to send an engineer down there to die.” She repeats your name. “We’re going to do all we can to make sure you don’t die. Okay? You’re gonna live. We’re gonna get the resources we need, and we’re gonna fix everything up. Okay?”

You try to control your breathing, erratic breathing.

“Okay.”

“Great.” Ava says, before you know it, her hand is on your back, and you’re being guided to the submarine.

You’re gonna die.

You look into the entrance of the submarine, The Convict is standing there, looking around at the walls of the submarine with his back turned to you. He’s touching the walls, looking around at the wires, rubbing his face.

You look over at Ava, who nods to you.

“Here’s your job.” She hands you a clipboard and a pen. Attached to the clipboard are many pieces of lined paper.

“Notes. Your job is notes. Anything The Convict does, you write. Anything that happens on the ship, you write. Any description of the images, you write. If The Convict so much as says something rude to you, you fucking write that down.”

When she says that, you catch a glimpse of The Convicts eyes, a glare given by him to either you or Ava, and God, you’re hoping it’s Ava.

“If anything is to happen, faulty wiring, sparks, if the power goes out, that’s why you’re there. These convicts have never been smart enough to read nor understand the safety manuals. But you, you don’t only understand how this submarine works, you helped build it. With your help, this submarine is coming back up in one piece, with images and all the resources we could ever need.”

You nod, somehow, Ava’s words of reassurance seem to help you. But that doesn’t change the fact that no submarine has ever come up. Her words feel like false prayers.

You hold onto the railing as you step into the submarine, feeling it shift from your footsteps. You look at The Butcher, dead in the eyes. God. He’s terrified.

How could a man, who’s apparently killed so many, be afraid of death himself?

You look back at Ava, who gives you a faulty thumbs up.

“We’re getting ready to seal you two in, so get comfortable. You both know your responsibilities on this ship. So let’s get this over with.”

You nod at her, backing away from the entrance as it’s getting ready to be welded shut again. You take a look around the submarine, after spending so long working on it, you never thought you’d be in here for its descent.

And God, the awkwardness between you and The Convict is heavy. The tension is thick, every noise is audible in your silence.

You walk over and sit down in the co-captains chair, previously designated for Jack. It takes The Butcher a moment before sitting down in the captain’s chair next to you.

God, why did they put these chairs so close together?

He ignores you, or avoids your gaze. It’s unclear if his eyes are cold or nervous, if his mouth is closed and quiet because he doesn’t wanna make friends, or if it’s because he feels some sort of shame.

He’s unreadable.

Suddenly, the submarine is shaking, and the whirring noises begin again. They’re harsh, and you grip the desk from the rapid shaking. Once the two of you are welded in, the speaker on the wall lights up, and you can hear Ava’s voice.

“Convict, Engineer, confirm status.”

The Convict huffs, looking at the speaker. “Here. Not like I could go anywhere.”

“Right.” She replies. “Engineer?”

“Um, all is good. Everything looks fine.”

Ava doesn’t reply. But rumbling can be heard.

“Convict, you ready to do some good?”

He doesn’t reply, but his hand grips his own knee. His knuckles turning white.

“Beginning the descent.”

On Earth they used to say that the world began with a bang, and would end in one too. Earthling superstition flowing over every syllable of prophecy. Armageddon, Endtimes, Rapture. But, they were wrong. Every rich man and priest and crazy bastard on the street was wrong. The world began with a bang, but it ended in a whisper. The Quiet Rapture they called it. Galaxies and people gone in a single breath, like whatever God existed–if any had at all–had gotten bored of them. Eden thought they were special, not here by happenstance, but chosen to shepherd those who remained toward death. Death cults had existed back on Earth, too, hidden in jungles and mountains, but here among the empty atmosphere where the stars had all gone to bed, their screams were deafening. The Coalition was hardly any better, scarce resources were only prolonged whenever someone died. Still though, two meals a day and a somewhat warm bed at night was better than castration and servitude. 

“There are no women!” The girl at the end of the table groaned as though she was explaining the simplest concept for the thousandth time. “They’re all men. That’s why they’re called Brothers.” 

“No. There are women, but they’re locked up with the rest of the resources.” Her companion argued, picking at the food on her tray. The girls had been at this same squabble for the better half of an hour, their little recreation time spent debating on the madmen who’d rather fuck dirt than be normal human beings. 

These little moments were familiar, because human nature loves an argument. Eden was the evening’s hottest topic. It was a relief to (Y/N), who was tired of hearing about the atrocities at Filament Station and condolences and ‘your scars are looking much better’. Let them speculate on the men locked away in cells near the boilers, let those lunatics cook inside and out and maybe, just maybe, the world will be better for it. It was cruel, and morbid, but she couldn’t help it. At night, when the burns itched and she couldn’t sleep, she thought of the men slowly steaming in their own sweat in the bowels of the ship, and that made things so much easier. Once, before the rapture, when the future still seemed a distant dream, she would stay awake and watch the constellations. Little stars in haphazard lines scattered the heavens, and nothing hurt, and she was just a little girl staring up out of her window. And then she was a woman, an engineer, aboard a fine ship in the empty nothingness. And then, for just a moment, she was a new star burning in the sky, Filament was a new star. Together, they were a piss poor constellation.

“(Y/N)?” Ephraim was an old friend by now, for all the time they’d spent in the medbay together. “Ava wants to see you.”

Captain Ava Carter had about fifty side projects, Filament survivors being only one of them.

“Alright.” She agreed, standing from the table. “Lead the way.”

The captain’s office was undecorated and impersonal, the only sign of use being the woman sitting at a desk and a coat thrown across a couch in the corner. (Y/N) could guess that the captain slept here often.

“Hey, kid,” Ava said, despite the fact that they were only a few years apart in age. “How are you doing?”

“Doc says I’m clear for regular shifts,” (Y/N) shrugged. Discussing her health had a way of making her feel overexposed, but Ava had a way about her that made it seem like she’d seen everything there was to see, and nothing was too much to handle. 

“That’s good,” Ava said, nodding with pursed lips. “We’ve used a lot of resources to save the Filament survivors.”

“You here to cash in?”

Ava laughed, a short, almost humorless laugh. She didn’t show amusement so plainly often, and it was a bit disconcerting. “Just wanted to talk to you about a few things. Have you been informed about the Convict Rehabilitation Program?”

No, no she had not. In fact, the idea that those homicidal maniacs could even be rehabilitated seemed so ridiculous it had never even crossed her mind. Ava took her frown as an answer, if she even cared to get an answer at all. 

“They will be going through meetings with doctor Ephraim and doctor Cassandra to see if there's any hope for them to function in society, and then….” Ava trailed off. The pause was calculated, letting (Y/N) digest her words before she said whatever fresh hell comes next. “If they can be released, they’ll be put into the gene pool.”

Filament didn’t have a gene pool, being a storage vessel. No need for unions to be arranged when you’ll be transferred to another colony and matched there in just a few years. 

“Thats a hell of an idea.” (Y/N) said finally, unsure of what Ava would even want to hear. “Why are you telling me?”

“Well,” Ava began. “As senior engineer, you’re the highest ranking survivor of Filament. The rest of the survivors are going to follow your lead, like it or not.”

“And what exactly am I supposed to be leading them in?” Ava took a deep breath, a frown forming on her face, the skin pulling around her scar in a way that (Y/N)’s own itch. “You came back as a genetic match with two convicts.”

(Y/N) thought about all those resources used up to put her through the tech in the medbay, how much electricity and time was put into the machines that had stitched her back together in only a few weeks. Ava was cashing in. The words tasted like bile on her tongue, warring between this is bigger than me and the selfish desire to isolate herself. “I’m not going to fuck someone responsible for the massacre of my home.”

“You won’t have to.” Ava produced a data tablet from the drawer on her desk, flipping the screen to show grainy footage. 

The hallway on the screen was empty of any decoration, but having lived there for so long, she could recognize little bits of home in the metalwork. The rust on the corner panel, the missing bolts near the doorframe. It was the hallway near the reactor on Filament Station. The figure standing in the hallway was fidgety, tugging at the hood covering his head and glancing to the hall that would lead toward the atrium. There was no sound, but (Y/N) could feel the thump of boots in her mind as two more men ran down the hall to join the figure. Was it really so long ago that she walked that same hall? In the hands of the tallest man was a hunk of metal with wires crossing every which way. It was an incendiary, likely the one used to melt the reactor core, made entirely of scrap. At least Eden could be called resourceful, if nothing else. An argument broke out, punches were thrown, and the hooded man was left slumped in a puddle of blood on the floor. 

“He tried to stop them.” Ava clarifies. “They left him there to die. He only survived because his friends fucked up the bomb.” Was it really that big of a failure if Filament and her people were still dead? (Y/N) decides not to say this. Instead, she says, “Good for him.” He should’ve burned with the rest of the innocent people who tried to stop it. 

This answer doesn’t seem to satisfy the captain. “Your options are him or the lunatic we caught trying to run before the bomb even went off.” “I thought Eden was all about honor. Running away from danger doesn’t seem all that noble.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Ava agreed. “But he’s willing to do anything to save his own skin, including joining the program.”

“And the first one?” Both options were shit, but at least the nervous one had a conscience, even if it was too little too late.

The captain smiled a bit, finding a small victory in what little interest she’d shown. “He’s a hold out, but we have hope.” 

A sigh fights its way out of (Y/N)’s chest, this is bigger than me. That night, in the quiet hum of her borrowed living quarters, she thinks of men boiling near reactors and nervous men in pools of blood and men who run like cowards. 

She's in the middle of repairing the cooling line in the laundry room when she feels eyes on her back. Nothing new, not since she left Filament Station more charred meat than not, but it's a perverse sort of look, one that looks past the clothes and the skin and bones. The kind of look someone gives you when they size you up, when they're trying to figure out how you tick. It's a bit hypocritical, the way this unnerves her, as if she wasn’t just glaring at the kill switch in the pipes with the same stare, but still. Back on Filament, she was a person to be admired, someone you looked to for answers. Here, on the crumbling rust bucket that, coincidentally, is known as The Rust Bucket, she was just another new thing for the entertainment starved masses to look at. Like a new mold spot or tarnishing wall. They were strict here, stricter than most. No books, no pencils or paper, nothing to distract from the impending death of the universe. Nothing to draw the eye except the influx of prisoners and refugees. For now, broken plumbing and staring assholes was enough of a distraction for (Y/N). By the time she’s freed the lodged piece of rubber that snapped off the valve, the eyes are gone, but there can only be two culprits. The older man, who seems content with singing out of tune and occasionally cracking jokes, doesn’t seem the type to stare. The surly looking convict hiding behind unwashed hair, on the other hand. He’s still glancing up, every now and again, though she only catches his eyes once before he’s realized she’s staring back, and then he fully turns away from her. She only manages to see them for a second, but the black of his eyes linger in her mind, like a sky without stars. She doesn’t end up back in the laundry room.

“Hey,” Ava says, sliding onto the cafeteria bench. It must be something important for the captain herself to come personally. “I’ve got good news.”

Citizens get two meals a day, and while (Y/N) would have preferred not to eat her second meal under the watchful eye of Ava Carter, it's easier to eat when you aren’t arguing. “Oh?”

“Convict 427 has agreed to join the program.” 

“Is that the one who ran or the one who got knocked out?” It’ll be good to put a name–a number, really– to her future impregnator. 

Ava, once again amused and self satisfied at the scrap of interest she shows, is smiling a little. “He’s the one who got knocked out.” 

“Thats good,” (Y/N) sighs as she sips her water. Small, slow sips to make it last. “I can probably knock him on his ass if he tries to kill us all. I’m handy with a wrench, you know?”

“So I’ve heard, Senior Engineer.” Ava taps her fingers on the table in a happy little rhythm. “He still needs to be cleared for any mental instability, but he’s been doing well with chore rotations.”

“I’ll make a house-husband out of him.” (Y/N) agrees, thinking of the dirty uniforms piled in the corner of her room and the tools scattered across her desk. It's a silly thought, that anyone could be allowed to do anything that wasn’t for the greater good. Somehow, she didn’t imagine cleaning up after her would benefit the coalition. “Be nice to come home to a clean room.”

“Let me know how it goes for you. I might just have to get one for myself.” Ava stands from the table, hands straightening her lapels. “He has evaluations at 1600. I’ll send the files to your data tablet, make sure you’re kept updated.”

It's a small effort to build a connection between bride and groom, and while she doesn’t entirely care, (Y/N) is at least a little grateful that Ava would put in the effort. “Thanks, captain.”

“Anytime, senior engineer.”

His identification photo is a mugshot, and even though he looks half dead, she still recognizes him. The man from the laundry room. It's nice to be able to take her time, to pick him apart like he's another machine that needs fixing without worrying about him doing the same to her. Shaggy black hair slick with blood and grease, glassy eyes that stare past the camera, and facial hair that could use a good trim. Do they not have clippers on Eden? Every convict from there seems to share an unkempt look, but this one looks worse for wear. Probably the concussion, but still. Convict 427 has one known alias, The Butcher. Morbid and dramatic, exactly how Eden likes it. The man in the mugshot and his twin in the laundry room don’t look threatening enough to earn a name like that. His file lists his intake statistics, height and weight, and while he’s stocky, he’s not particularly tall. If the coalition wants short, violent children, who is she to deny them? 

Cinere, pulverem, terram

Cinere, pulverem, terram

Cinere, pulverem, terram

The words were a comfort — a stale comfort in a long dead language, carved into him with bruises and ink and blood not his own — but a comfort all the same. 

Cinere, pulverem, terram

Ashes, dust, earth. 

This is all you are, all you will ever be. It was a thought he could retreat to in moments like these, pinned between the freezing steel of the wall and the onslaught of water pounding against his back. I am nothing, this is all bigger than me. He watches as the water, stained a sickly red and brown, flows through the grate beneath his feet. 

“427, grab your garments and go to your quarters!” All of the words were harsh, wrong and violent, fallen from the snarling mouth of a soldier. 427 was an intake number, not a name. Garments were rags so threadbare that it barely mattered that they were the wrong size, not clothes. Quarters were just a kinder word for a prison cell. These word tricks were a speciality of the C.O.I, to control the narrative. Realizing he had done the same was a gut churning sort of disgust. Not a soldier, he thought, eyeing the little thing barking orders, gripping a rifle nearly taller than he was. Just a boy. 

Cinere, pulverem, terram

His quarters were just as threadbare as the rags on his back. A single faucet, waist height, above a grate on the floor. A lopsided mass of fabric that could potentially be a child’s bedroll. A plastic tarp, which held all the worldly secrets of a commode. These were the fine quarters that the C.O.I could spare for a mass murderer. He felt naked, and might as well have been by Eden standards. The shirt, though awkwardly long at the hem, had stubborn threads hanging on at the shoulders, where sleeves may have been once. The empty air burned at the skin on his arms, making him itch for the roughspun sleeves of his gear, for the bindings on his forearms that meant honor, bindings that marked him as a Brother. His feet were steady, long familiar with treading foreign spaces, as he walked to the tap, twisting the singular knob. As the pipes groaned and clattered above him, he readied himself to be cleansed. No more C.O.I eyes staring at his nude form, no more empty air, just prayer recited over water in this small cell. He’d already been muttering the first few lines of scripture when the faucet coughed out a few flakes of rust. He stammered through the next line of scripture, which in itself felt like a sin, looking down at the orange dust in his cupped palms. Above him, the pipes creaked, and something tore loose with a metallic crunch. Whether it was instinct or bad luck, his head tilted back just in time to catch an eyeful of water that stunk with the smell of iron. 

Cursing and clawing angrily at his eyes, Simon turned from the leaking pipe, feeling more unclean than when he started. He slumped against the bedroll, glaring at the puddle slowly forming with every drip, as he restarted his scripture. 

Dinner was sparse, consisting only of potato flakes that were meant to be rehydrated served on a plastic tray. No water. It was brought by another one of the C.O.I’s angry soldier boys, kicked through the slat at the bottom of the cell door by a filthy boot, leaving clumps to scatter across the floor. 

“Eat up, Butcher.” It was more of a sneer than a command, meant to cause offense rather than urgency. 

There is disgust and anger as he surveys his meager supper which has been discarded across the cement floor, but deeper than that, is the churning hunger in his gut. He’d eaten that last morning at Filament Station, small bites of a flavorless protein pack, too anxious to stomach any more, and then nothing since. One day at the station, and another day for transport, then three days in processing. Water had been the only thing provided, and even that was rationed into tablespoon sized portions. He was about halfway through gathering up the salvageable lumps of starch when the cell door clanged.

“427, against the wall!” The words were punctuated with another fist slamming against the door, a hollow clang that means hurry, or I’ll hit you instead of the door.

Obeying is easy, a lifetime as a soldier has etched this instinct into his very bones. It was easier this way, to close his eyes as he moved against the wall, replacing the faceless C.O.I man with The Father, hearing his voice instead. The illusion is shattered too soon when the boy opens the cell door, approaching him carelessly to slap cuffs on his wrists. Another child, a boy too young to know what real fear is. This child’s authority spans across all ten square feet of the cell, and he wields it ignorantly. They make an odd pair, walking through the prison sector. Somewhere behind one of the many doors, someone was screaming. It was odd, animalistic, but it only took a few words for Simon to recognize the voice. Peter, a Brother, shouting the juvenile prayer that children are first taught. 

Roots, bark, leaves, and sap, we are the saplings in the forest. 

Peter was more than a sapling now, but less of the man he was before this. Before Filament. 

“You’ve been out of processing for a day and you’re already trying to flood your cell.” 

The captain was a severe looking woman, made all the more ferocious by the destruction of her face. Scars ran from her jaw, through one milky eye, to the space above her brow. Scars like these meant honor in Eden, battles won, adversity overcome. Simon wondered if her scars brought respect or fear to the citizens she was responsible for.

“Was just trying to get water.”

“Well.” She huffed, “What you’ve got is a broken pipe.”

“I didn’t mean to break anything.” He huffed right back, respect be damned. She was another useless Citizen, scars or not. “If the pipe broke from me twisting a knob, then you’ve got other problems.”

She nodded, frowning. “I’m well aware of the problems I have. Starting with the eight terrorists I now have to feed.”

The number chokes him. “Eight?” 

There were fifteen Brothers total, and only four on Filament. How many had been rescued? Who had been left behind? Was there anyone left on Eden? Peter survived, mad and surly in his metal coffin, but alive to be so.

She ignores him. “It’s protocol to put prisoners to work until the sentence is served.”

She says it like it should mean something to him. It doesn’t. “You sure you want “terrorists” scrubbing your floors?”

The captain looks thoughtful, seated at the empty table across from him. “No, I don’t. But we can’t afford to house any of you without your own contribution. There aren’t enough of us left in the universe.”

This, at least, they can agree on. 

“Three years ago there was an epidemic.” She stared through him with her one good eye, remembering the faces of their dead. “Our population has barely recovered, if it ever will.”

It seems like a bad idea to tell your enemy how weak you are, but he’s not a captain, so maybe it isn’t. 

“You and the other members of Eden will serve time, and if able — and this is a big if — then you’ll be rehabilitated and given citizenship.” 

His veins freeze suddenly, the icy lick of temptation pumped through his heart. To take this offer would go against every teaching, contradict every hard fought battle. Why does the ache spread? The Father had sent them to their deaths for his own fanatical vision, his brothers betrayed him in the eleventh hour. What could he possibly do now except become another sack of meat to be ground up in the C.O.I’s teeth? 

He speaks the only defense he might have. “And your people are just okay with a bunch of homicidal maniacs sleeping next door?”

The captain looks thoughtful for a moment, tapping her fingers against the table. Finally, she speaks. “We have the footage from Filament.”

This is worse, so much worse. They’ve seen what he’s done, Father has seen. Simon gives a noncommittal hum, like it doesn’t phase him. It does though, painfully so. 

“You can be rehabilitated, Convict.” She sighs, speaking slowly like he’s nothing more than an ignorant child. Maybe he is. “I can’t be sure about the others, but–”

“How many more C.O.I bastards do I have to put down before you just give up and execute me?”

The captain’s brow quirked, the scar bunching the skin awkwardly. “That depends. Are you trying to convince me that you’re a monster, or are you trying to convince yourself?”

The captain let him stew in her accusation for a week or so, the only indicator of time passing being the lights turning off and the occasional tray of rations. Peter kept his rambling, voice shaking through the concrete as he proclaimed his body to be no more than fertilizer. It was hard to hear his voice and not think of the betrayals committed, the skin burning. He passes time by counting constellations, trying to remember the shape of them, the names. He’s made it all the way to Dyctynna when he’s ordered against the wall again, slapped into a set of cuffs, and hauled into the room with the table again. This time, the captain is joined by a tall, thin man in a long coat. The captain introduces him as Doctor Ephraim.

“So,” The captain starts, nodding toward the chair across from her. She clears her throat, “Your tests have come back.” 

He vaguely remembers being hauled onto a bed in a sterile room, having needles jammed into his arms. Don’t let the Butcher die before he’s paid for his crimes.

When he doesn’t say anything, she continues. “The other’s tests have come back as well.” 

This does interest him. Years of patching each other up, training together, sleeping in the small barracks, none of this can be erased by what happened. 

“Are they okay?” It’s hard to define what that word even means these days, but still, he needs to know.

She nods to the doctor, who presents a data tablet and slides it across the table. It’s awkward, handling the thing with his hands cuffed, and he finds it useless once he does. There are scans here he doesn’t understand, color coded lines and boxes that seem to connect in certain places and fall apart in others. It clatters when he sets it down, looking up at the pair for an explanation.

“When the epidemic happened, those of us who survived had lasting…..” The doctor searches for a moment, looking for a tactile word to describe the aftermath. Finally, she settles on “Complications.”

“You guys are mutants?” It’s a story told by the Father, of eugenics and experiments done on children, and malformed babies who cannot be loved, so they are sent from the airlock. 

The thought seems to unsettle the pair of them, a look of unease so unrehearsed coming across their face that he thinks I’ve got it right, Father was right. “Mutants?” The captain asks, brows pulled tight in confusion. “No. The virus left many people sterile.”

It’s his turn to be confused and agitated. “Sterile is a good thing, though, right? They’re clean.”

The doctor gives a sound of understanding before he clarifies. “Not that kind of sterile. It means they can't reproduce.” 

Simon flinches, looking at the captain and expecting to see shake, disgust, rage, any emotion at all. Her face is as neutral as still water, despite the blasphemous words the man beside her speaks.

On Eden, children are a regulated thing. Procreation is done only by a select few, and only after the Father allows. Even to speak of the topic is a taboo, yet here she is, reacting to the man describing an inability to produce children as if she’s once again being informed that her dinner will be a few minutes late. Passive upset, the kind that’s barely even there. 

He thinks for a moment about Yeshua, one of the Brothers. As a boy, he’d gotten a fever so high that his body seemed to glow red as he shook violently from the chills. This must be what he looks like now, if the shaking in his hands and the heat on his neck is any indication. They either don't notice or don't care.

The doctor states plainly. “Those images are the genus of you and the other Eden prisoners. All of you have more diverse resistances and immune systems, meaning that reproducing with Citizens would result in stronger children.” 

It takes a moment to understand what has been said, and all the sudden the chair under him seems unsteady. Simon shoots to his feet, feeling like he’s going to vomit. Children? To have them on Eden is an honor that only Father can allow, but to propose that sworn Brothers mate with Citizens is downright revolting.

“No!” He chokes on the words, audibly gasping a few breaths as he steadies himself on the back of his newly empty chair. He recites the words that he knows by heart. “I will not spill seed, for it is a blasphemous, self-serving act. Cinere, pulverem, terram.” 

If he could do anything but draw in ragged breaths, maybe Simon would see how deeply he has startled the pair of them. He can’t do anything but mutter out those three words, the sacred oath, as he’s led back to his cell. 

Cinere, pulverem, terram

Down the damp hall, Peter is still wailing about lost saplings bending in a sinful breeze. Simon can’t help but join him, in a small way. He’s still murmuring his oath, knelt in the corner of his cell, when the next tray of rations is brought. The steady drip of water on the floor is a quaint hymn as he takes communion in the form of stale hardtack. 

Simon’s first assignment comes in the form of laundry duty. He cannot yet be trusted in the kitchens, where knives line the walls and food is so easily poisoned. Not allowed to work maintenance, where a wrench could be a bludgeoning tool. Laundry, though, is safe. This is explained to him thoroughly by an older man known as Hyram. 

“Yeah, they don’t trust you boys just yet.” He says as he claps Simon on the shoulder, like they’ve known one another all their lives. “Don’t take it too personal. I myself didn’t get past laundry duty until I was four years in.”

He’s another inmate, marked by the same sparse rags on his back. Simon doesn’t ask how long he’s been imprisoned, doesn’t ask how much longer he has left, either. Hyram is humming some mismatched tune, every now and again interjecting with a word or two when he can remember the lyrics. People glide in and out of the utility room to dump off soiled laundry or crack jokes with Hyram, always keeping a wide berth of the Eden Freak. It's four days into laundry duty when she walks in. It's odd, seeing someone you may have once known. There's a moment in between sight and recognition where you feel something unexplainable in your bones. Love, hate, sadness, or something else. For Simon, the moment between catching sight of her and recognizing her was full of guilt. He couldn’t place her face, nor the color of her hair, but the scars licking up the side of her neck were familiar. He had his own, just like them, across his back. Filament station had gone up in flames, and he’d been caught in the heart of it. Simon wondered where hers came from, and spent the rest of the day going mad trying to figure it out. Too severe for a kitchen fire, the pattern not quite right for a weld fire. He waits for her to walk back in for the rest of his shift. She doesn’t, but there are more burned Citizens walking through those doors every day. He thought of Father’s words, the first time he saw them, fire cleanses, my son. Words spoken as the hot iron pressed against the base of his neck. Branded brother Zeniath called it like cattle. Simon had never met a cow, but he’d seen them in books and wasn’t fond of the comparison.

Two weeks of radio silence in the laundry room don’t change much, but the captain seems to think it does. 

“So,” she starts, fiddling with the data tablet in front of her. “Any thought to the Convict Rehabilitation Program?” 

This nearly sends him off the deep end again. He’d been so caught up in the chemicals and dirty rags that he’d nearly been able to forget the entire concept. He thinks of the stinging of the acid baths and boiling water and Hyram’s nonsensical thinking. “No.”

The captain hums, turning the data pad so he can see the interface. On it, there are more lines and colors, parallels of blues and reds and orange making a constellation of what he can only assume is more gibberish. 

“Well, you should make a decision. This is you,” She points a finger to the orange line and then the red. “And this is one of your brothers.”

“Who's blue?” He doesn’t want to seem like he cares, but not knowing things irks him in a way that defies every bit of follow orders, soldier that Eden beat into him. Small rebellions.

She seems self satisfied, nodding as she pinches the screen to make the image bigger. “That is citizen 32084. She’s one of the only citizens to agree to be part of the program, so she’s very likely to be your only chance of getting out of here. Or Convict 433’s. Either way.”

“Who is 433?” It's terrible knowing that there's something you don't know. 

The captain frowns for a moment, taking her data pad back to tap on some more before she finds her answer. Do they really not know our names? Simon thinks. He thinks of all the faceless people who have bled because of him, and he’s grateful they don’t have names. 

“Peter Hermaeus, born on Mars seven years before the Rapture-” She begins reciting his entire history, but all Simon can think of is the ranting and raving madman in his cell. 

“He’ll kill her.” Simon says suddenly. “You know that, right?”

The captain frowns. “He’s already agreed to participate in rehabilitation. We would have preferred you, but, well. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

He shouldn’t care, he really, really shouldn’t. More faceless and nameless blood, only on his hands by proxy. “I get my freedom if I do this?”

“Freedom, new assigned quarters, two meals a day.” She doesn’t add the faceless, nameless woman to the list, though they both know she's there. 

The guards stationed throughout the halls stood straighter than usual, their armour ceremonial rather than practical. At the same time, servants and lower-ranked warriors moved with noticeably greater urgency through the towering stone corridors. They were preparing feasting halls, organising trophies for display, and ensuring that every inch of the stronghold reflected the power of the King who ruled it.

And because you carried his child, because his heir now grew safely underneath your heart, the tension surrounding the visit seemed even sharper than before.

You sat near the great fire within the upper chamber, one hand resting against the curve of your stomach while the flames cast warm light across the stone walls, and despite the comfort of the room, you could still sense the unease spreading throughout the fortress like an approaching storm.

The child had been moving since morning, restless and strong, moving under your skin often enough that you wondered if perhaps he could somehow feel your mate’s tension as clearly as you could.

The doors to your chamber opened heavily.

Your mate entered, and even after everything the two of you had shared together, the sight of him still carried the same overwhelming presence that had once frightened entire villages, because there was simply no way to ignore a creature built so powerfully, wrapped in armour and trophies, carrying himself with the kind of confidence only a true ruler could possess.

Yet despite his terrifying appearance, his attention found only you.

Always you.

His eyes swept across the room first, assessing in the instinctive way of a hunter, ensuring no danger had entered his territory before finally settling where you sat beside the fire.

“There you are,” you murmured, smiling as he approached.

He crossed the chamber in slow steps until he stood directly in front of you, one large hand moved carefully against the swell of your stomach with a surprising gentleness that never failed to make you smile.

The child shifted almost immediately under his touch. A pleased rumble sounded from deep within his chest at the reaction.

“They approach,” he said after a moment, his voice low and steady.

“The western clan?” you asked quietly.

“Yes.”

You knew of them already, at least through stories and reputation, because the western clan was among the oldest surviving bloodlines still aligned with your mate’s territory, made up of hunters known for their efficiency and deep devotion to honour, though they were also infamous for their pride and unwillingness to tolerate weakness in any form.

Your fingers brushed lightly against his wrist.

“You’ve been tense all day.”

“They are guests,” he answered carefully.

You smiled faintly because that was not truly the issue.

“And?”

His mandibles moved slightly before his eyes dropped briefly toward your stomach once more.

“You carry my heir.”

There it was.

The real concern.

Since your pregnancy became visible, your mate’s protective instincts had intensified to almost absurd levels, to the point where nothing entered your chambers without inspection, no warrior approached you without permission, and even the healers who examined you regularly found themselves watched with heavy scrutiny.

At first, you had found it excessive.

Now, strangely enough, you found it comforting.

“You know they are not going to challenge me,” you said softly, tilting your head up toward him.

“They would not survive it.”

The confidence in his answer made you laughh.

“You are very intense.”

“I am correct.”

“You usually are.”

That answer seemed to satisfy him enough that some of the tension left his posture, and then he leaned down and pressed his forehead briefly against yours in one of the rare moments of intimacy he allowed himself when no one was watching.

“You will remain beside me during the gathering,” he told you.

“I assumed as much.”

“You will not leave my sight.”

“You say that as though I wander endlessly when you are not looking.”

“You would if allowed.”

That made you laugh properly, and for a short moment, you watched the severity in his expression soften at the sound.

---

The visiting clan arrived before nightfall, their ships descending while warriors lined the entrance hall in ceremonial formation, creating a display impressive enough that even you found yourself pausing to admire the sheer scale of it all. Even though you have seen it before. They never fail to amaze you.

When the western clan finally entered the great hall, they did so with the confidence of warriors who feared nothing, their leader walking first, his huge frame decorated with sea-creature bones, polished skull fragments, and old scars that spoke of countless victories earned across many worlds.

Your mate remained seated beside you on the elevated stone platform overlooking the hall below, his posture relaxed enough to appear respectful while still carrying the unmistakable dominance of a King within his own territory, and as expected, his hand rarely strayed far from where it rested protectively near you.

The Western leader noticed you immediately.

Of course, he did.

A human seated beside a King was impossible to ignore.

Still, unlike lesser warriors, he possessed enough wisdom not to allow surprise to turn into disrespect, and after studying you for a moment, he inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement before addressing your mate directly.

“Your Queen is honoured greatly within your halls,” he observed.

“She is, as she should be,” your mate answered immediately before you even had the chance to speak.

“Yes,” he replied. “Of course.”

For a while, the gathering remained peaceful as stories of hunts echoed throughout the halls, trophies were examined and admired, and warriors traded tales of victories earned through blood and skill, while servants carried endless platters of food between the enormous stone tables.

You almost began to relax.

Almost.

Then two younger warriors ruined everything.

You noticed them long before your mate did, mostly because they lacked the discipline to hide their interest properly, their eyes staying on you too long while whispering between themselves with faces carrying familiar arrogance young hunters often mistook for confidence.

One finally spoke while passing near the elevated platform.

“A human carrying royal blood,” he remarked mockingly. “The King lowers himself.”

The entire hall fell silent instantly.

You felt the change in the atmosphere. It was like a blade pressing against exposed skin.

Your mate did not move immediately, which somehow felt more dangerous than if he had exploded into violence, because slow anger from him was always far worse than impulsive rage.

Very slowly, he turned his head toward the two warriors. The sheer weight of his attention caused several nearby hunters to lower their eyes.

“You speak boldly,” your mate said quietly.

The second warrior, foolish beyond reason, actually laughed.

“She is prey pretending to be queen.”

Your mate rose to his feet.

Every sound inside the great hall disappeared entirely.

You remained seated despite the quickening pulse in your chest while your mate descended the platform with calm steps, not rushing, not roaring, not losing control even for a moment, because this was not mindless fury.

This was judgement.

The western clan leader exhaled slowly through his mandibles, disappointment evident in the sound.

“The young die foolishly,” he muttered.

Only then did the two warriors seem to understand the magnitude of their mistake.

Far too late.

Your mate stopped directly in front of them, towering over both.

“You insult my mate,” he said.

Neither warrior answered.

“You insult my unborn child.”

Still silence, then his voice lowered further.

“You insult me.”

The first warrior attacked in panic. It was the worst decision he could have made.

Your mate caught the strike effortlessly before twisting hard enough to shatter the warrior’s arm completely, and the sound of bone breaking echoed throughout the silent hall only moments before his wrist blades drove cleanly through the warrior’s throat.

Blood sprayed across the floor.

The body collapsed instantly.

The second warrior barely had enough time to draw his weapon before your mate turned towards him, and though the younger hunter fought harder than the first, it changed absolutely nothing about the outcome.

You watched every moment

And strangely, rather than fear, all you felt was pride.

Because your mate did not fight wildly.

He fought with purpose.

With absolute certainty.

The final blow split the second warrior open across the chest, sending his lifeless body crashing heavily onto the blood-covered stone beside his companion.

Silence followed.

Your mate stood over the bodies, breathing slowly while neon blood dripped from his blades onto the floor. Then the western clan leader rose calmly from his seat.

“Their deaths are justified,” he declared for the entire hall to hear. “They disrespected the Queen.”

Agreement rumbled immediately throughout the gathered warriors.

None challenged it

None dared.

Only then did your mate finally turn back to you, and the moment his eyes found you again, the fury visibly lessened, as he returned immediately to your side, one large hand settling protectively against your stomach as though reassuring himself that both you and the child remained unharmed.

You looked up at him with a faint smile.

“That was excessive,” you murmured teasingly.

“They were warned.”

“You enjoyed that.”

“They insulted you.”

“Yes,” you said softly. “They did.”

---

By the following evening, the skulls of the two fallen warriors decorated your home.

Cleaned and mounted high along the stone walls overlooking the entrance, they served both as trophies and as warnings to anyone foolish enough to forget what happened to those who disrespected the Queen of the stronghold.

Deep within your chambers, the fire crackled warmly as you rested comfortably beside your mate, wrapped in heavy furs.

For the first time since the western clan’s arrival, he finally seemed fully at ease.

You leaned against his side while one of his large hands rested over your stomach, feeling the strong movements of the child moving underneath your skin every so often, and when the baby kicked particularly hard, your mate immediately looked down with interest.

Another movement followed beneath his palm.

A deep, pleased rumble echoed from his chest.

“He grows stronger already,” he murmured.

“He is going to be enormous,” you sighed dramatically.

“As he should be.”

Eventually, your eyes moved toward the mounted skulls decorating the walls.

“You know,” you said thoughtfully, “most husbands bring flowers.”

Your mate looked toward the trophies before looking back at you.

“They brought disrespect.”

“And you brought home their heads.”

“They are decorative.”

The seriousness in his voice made you laugh hard enough that your stomach tightened slightly, immediately causing his attention to snap back toward you.

“You are in pain?”

“No,” you managed between soft laughter. “I am fine.”

He continued watching you carefully for another moment before finally relaxing once more, after which he leaned down and rested his forehead gently against yours.

“My Queen,” he murmured.

You closed your eyes, smiling, while his hand remained protectively over both you and your unborn child,

You were surrounded by warmth, safety, and the guarantee that no force in the universe would ever be allowed to harm either of you while your King was alive.

~Masterlist~