Blood.

Blood filling his mouth, his nose, ears, eyes, everything. It boils his skin, like molten lava. He cries out, the blood filling the sub fast. He screams again, it’s in vain, the blood bubbling up in his throat. The man lets out a choked sob, the pain was overwhelming, like a fish out of water struggling to breathe. He was in quite the opposite situation, he was drowning, drowning in smoldering hot blood.

Until something new happens, glass shoots into his side- not glass, bark. It rips through him fast as lightning, he barely registers it as a blinding light sears his eyes.

The pain withers away, he feels like he’s floating, like maybe god has saved him and he could return to the soil. He stays there, minutes turn into hours, or it feels like they do. He stays in this blissful light until his vision rapidly darkens. The last thing he can hear is the sloshing of waves, they sound lighter, like how water on Earth might’ve sounded. He thinks of Earth, maybe god will be nice enough to let him see it in the afterlife.

It doesn’t matter, he’s grateful the pain has stopped, grateful he doesn’t have to last another second in that damned joke of a “submarine.”

—————————

Grace takes a deep breath, staring at his computer, which is playing some random new show; he's on the third episode but can't tell you the main character's name. This piece of tech has literally every piece of media ever, but Grace still finds himself bored.

Every day he starts a new show, or movie, or game, all attempts to cure his utter lack of- of what? He has everything! He teaches the eridans, hangs out with Rocky and Adrian, works in the lab, and in his free time he entertains himself with every work of literature ever. So what was he missing?

Grace lets out an annoyed huff, waddling his way off the couch and into the kitchen. He looks out the window, at his “ocean” the artificial waves crashing into the shore. The blonde rolls his eyes, it’s the same scene he’s seen about a million times. Just as he goes to turn away, something glints at the bottom of the body of water. Grace turns back, staring at it. Maybe something new the bio-dome team thought to add? Grace eyes the light, growing brighter by the second.

A rumbling starts shaking around his empty coffee mugs scattered about the living room and kitchen, and in the blink of an eye, a towering tree sprouts from the water. Water splashes onto the window, Grace stares, bewildered.

His body starts before his mind catches up, he’s running out the door and tripping down the stairs. He huffs as he darts across the sand, ending up standing in front of this miracle of a tree.

The tree is a deep red, similar to the color of dried blood. The bark is brittle and it cuts out at random points of the tree. As for the leaves they look to be some sort of maple, although these too are red, but a lighter shade. Grace takes it all in, his eyes rushing across the tree like a bullet.

His hands tremble at his sides as he starts to wade into the water, the tree isn’t so far from the shore, it sprouts up at the 3-foot zone give or take. As Grace reaches the tree, he sees that there is blood. It’s seeping out from the roots and underneath is a dark silhouette of- a man? Grace rubs his eyes, maybe he’s lost a little too much sleep these days, he thinks maybe his mind is making up human company so Grace doesn’t go utterly crazy. He doesn’t know, and doesn’t care, all he does know is that there is a man drowning.

The realization dawns on him and he hesitates before diving under the surface, straining to keep his eyes open in the curated salty water. Grace doesn’t take the time to survey the man before he’s lifting him out from under the roots, and dragging him back to the shore. Grace doesn’t know what to do, he’s so bewildered he can hardly think or see straight.

He’s snapped out of his thoughts by the man in front of him, who violently coughs up a mix of blood and water and curls up onto his side, his face contorting into something that reflects grueling pain. The man blinks open his eyes, they are glazed over and they blearily slide to Grace’s. The crimson eyes lock onto his and widen, just before rolling back as the man slumps back onto the ground.

Just as Grace starts to panic again he hears the familiar trilling of Rocky. He whips around to see the five-legged alien scrambling up to him, spouting something like,

“What happen? Grace okay?” Followed by a shrill noise and then, “New human! New human! Grace, new human!” The blonde nodded along, finally getting a chance to take in this disheveled man.

He had the build of a soldier, with shoulder-length hair that looked like running ink while wet. His clothes were run down and looked as if they had been repaired at least a hundred times. They were soaked, red with what smelled faintly of blood. Grace didn’t acknowledge the way his face heated up when he noticed the lack of a shirt, replaced by a black harness that wrapped around his chest and then his armpits.

He wore scrappy pants that led to black combat boots. The man also carried a leather bracelet that was connected to what looked like a shattered circle of glass.

But what Grace really noticed was the lack of an arm, it was shredded and looked almost like bark with the way the flaps of skin drew into sharp points. What was even more bizarre was the wound that crossed his lack of an arm and exploded onto his chest, up his neck, and onto his face. Black vein-looking lines ran throughout the mangled patch of skin.

Now, closely examining his face, there was something that could only be described as a second mouth. Teeth stuck out and perfectly fit with each other, every so often they would open and you could see the inside of the man's mouth.

And then there were the fish-like mutilations. The ear of this dark-haired man resembled more of a fin, with dark spikes that were connected by translucent red webbing that sparkled in the light. Further down there were gills on his neck with the same frilly material the ‘ear’ had on it. There were two that occasionally would flutter.

“Not normal, question?” Rocky warbled, noticing the deeply concerned look on Grace's face.