#markimoo

"Who the fuck are you?" His brows pinched together as he glared at you. You narrowed your eyes while you got a better look at him before it dawned on you who he looked like.

"Mark?" You questioned, tilting your head to the side before registering his question and correcting yourself, proceeding to tell him your name before looking him over again. Once you answered his question, you noticed that his suspicion didn't hinder which was fair. "Is it really you? God, I've been looking everywhere for you since we got split up in the wormhole, Mark." you stopped when you noticed the growing confusion on the man's face.

"My name's Simon, not Mark." he told you, keeping his distance from you while narrowing his dark eyes at you. Your face scrunched up in confusion of your own before you realized this was just another variant. You threw your head back and groaned in frustration, hands coming to your helmet before yanking it off and throwing it on the floor with force. A string of curses and profanities fell from your lips as you paced back and forth, looking at the crystal that had embedded itself into your hand. Simon stood off to the side, eyes wide while he watched you lose your shit about wormholes and variants and some guy named Mark? He dumbed it down to him having another hallucination and clenched his fists, heart starting to pound in his chest when he remembered what happened the last time he had a hallucination.

You finally stopped and looked over at the man, glancing over him and taking note of all of the similarities he had between Mark and the other variants you’d come across. Same face, same voice, same body build, but different name, different setting, different story. He had no clue who you were. You clenched your jaw and turned to face him before you actually looked at your surroundings and grimaced at the sight of pipes and valves, a console that stood behind Simon’s legs, a strange looking console computer off to your left and a black screen to your right. Behind you was a panel of gauges and a rectangular button that was just a bit bigger than your hand.

“This is the weirdest fucking hallucination I’ve had yet.” Your attention snapped towards Simon when he said that, giving him a raised brow look. 

“I hate to break it to you but I’m not a hallucination. I’m 100% real.” you told him, noticing that it may take a little more than your words to convince him that you were real.

“Yeah right, I just happened to have some random fucking lady drop into this death trap of a submersible who’s talking about wormholes and variants of some guy named Mark. Sounds totally real.” Simon recapped, starting to become a bit hostile because of his past experience with hallucinations in the blood ocean of AT-5. 

When you heard it explained to you, you realized just how nuts it sounded and nodded a little. Simon was right. There was no way any sane person would believe that story of the hell that you were going through. Simon turned towards the box speaker hanging from the ceiling. “Whatever sick game this is that you’re trying to play, it’s not going to work! So fuck you!” he turned to you with fear fueled anger as he approached. “And fuck you.” he was determined to show himself that you were just another hallucination. Your fight or flight instincts kicked in and with nowhere to go, your hand clenched into a fist and your knuckles connected with his jaw with a loud crack. You pressed your back against the wall, staring at him with wide eyes, watching as he stumbled back and held his jaw, rubbing the spot where you had punched him. It dawned on him that you were absolutely real because a hallucination would not have been able to physically do anything to him.

There was silence for a while between you and Simon. You took a seat on the floor in front of the back wall you’d stayed against since punching him and Simon had occupied the chair in front of the console on the other side of the confined space. Your arms dangled off your knees while you stared off at the metal grated floor beneath you. “I’m sorry.” you finally muttered out, glancing up and watching when Simon’s gaze shifted to you for a split second. “For punching you.” You gestured to him and dropped your gaze again. Simon’s hand came up and rubbed at the ache in his jaw again when you clarified yourself. He looked towards the floor before looking at the console beside him, remembering his mission but choosing to ignore it now that he had some company.

“It’s okay.” He nodded a little and spun in the chair until he was facing you. He looked you over, spotting the fear in your eyes and noticing how lost you looked sitting there on the floor in the Iron Lung. He also watched as you looked around at the interior of the submersible.

“So what is this?” you asked. Simon’s shoulders tensed but he opted to tell you, refusing to be like the woman who’d sent him down here who didn’t tell him shit about anything. You listened intently and Simon watched as your brow pinched together and a frown graced your lips. “That’s fucked up.” You muttered, dropping your gaze and turning your hand over to stare at the dim crystal in your hand. In turn, Simon asked about how you ended up where you were and what you were talking about earlier about the wormhole and such. It was a rollercoaster of a story to listen to but he realized afterwards that considering his situation, yours wasn’t too much more outlandish from it. The tension in the air had subsided now that you knew each other’s stories and Simon was beginning to see that you were just as scared and lost and unsure of everything in your situation that he was of his.

“What’s up with the crystal?” Simon asked, gesturing to your hand when he noticed you were staring at it intently. You stared at it for a little while longer before sighing and letting your hands dangle off your knees again.

“It’s what powered the warp core to my ship and the cause of everything that’s happened to me. But I used to have a device that allowed me to use it whenever, except this crazy alien bitch stole the device so now the crystal does whatever it wants, whenever it wants.” you explained to Simon. Simon nodded a little despite not understanding a single damn word you were saying. As if it heard it being talked about, the crystal began to glow a dim blue that slowly brightened. You glanced at Simon and an idea popped into your head when you remembered a path where you still had an object in your hand when you were dropped into another reality. Scrambling to your feet, you rushed over to Simon and grabbed his bicep, pulling him out of the chair with a look of determination on your face because you knew this would work.