this is not an expedition, its an execution

When would it be your turn to choose?

Your whole life had been one long string of choices you never got to make.

You were born on Eden, not by your choice, and raised amongst them. You were told what to believe, what to worship. It was decided for you that you would be the one to take the fall for a failed execution, so the more 'important' members could get away--sacrifices must be made, your elders had said--you were thrown in jail by the Coalition of Iron, you were named a criminal, a Convict, you were told from the start what to do, who to be, how to think.

The cruellest joke the universe ever played on you was allowing you to think you ever had a choice, even for a moment.

A chance to work off your debts, they had said. To atone, they promised. Do this, and we'll clear your record, they lied through their teeth.

So you agreed. You let them weld you into your own metal tomb. You let them lower you into your grave. You bowed your head, and you followed their rules, and all it got you was this. Left to rot in a vessel that was never meant to return. Your only company the distant bellowing from the creature that swam in the blood, the one that had damaged your navigation system and left you going in circles just so it could enjoy the chase that little while longer before it cracked open the bottom of your sub and sank you fully. Now you were stuck here, in an iron tube that was steadily filling with blood.

It sloshed at your ankles, bubbled and hissed. Burned through your feet where you sat, slumped, working your jaw as you stared at the last mark of home you had left. That little medallion. A seed, sprouting, forever preserved between two planes of glass. Eden. The only home you had ever known, which had betrayed you at its earliest convenience and left you to die.

You were so tired of others making choices for you.

When would it be your turn to choose?

Above you, the intercom crackled and popped, spitting out garbled static. You didn't listen to what it was trying to say. You'd stopped listening hours ago, when you realised that nothing that came out of that cursed box was worth paying attention to. If it was the Captain demanding your sacrifice, then it was that Thing trying to lure you deeper with false promises. Beckoning you to follow its light and swim blindly into its open maw.

Your grip on the pendant tightened.

The blood around you gurgled as it crept higher, coiling around your legs with fleshy tendrils.

When would it be your turn to choose?

The bellowing of the beast got louder. Your submarine shook, the metal groaned and strained as weight crushed down upon it, you flinched instinctively at the sound. In an instant, your head snapped up, watching as sharp, needle-like teeth taller than you pierced the shell of your vessel. You finally jumped up from your seat, heart hammering in your chest.

The blood coiled around your ankles, crawled up your legs and tried to lock you in place.

When would it be-

...

No.

Fuck this.

You were done sitting around waiting for death. You were done letting others choose for you. You wanted to live. You were choosing to live, and if you couldn't have that, then you were going to make this stupid fish regret the day it decided to swallow you. The vessel around you shook, viscera pressed like a needle into the back of your knees, something bellowed and it sounded like the end of the world. But you remained steadfast and firm in your decision.

"Fuck you!" You screamed, the sound punched out of you, tearing through your dry throat. "I wanna live! I wanna live!" You didn't know when you started crying, but salt poured down your cheeks, leaving streaks in the blood and grime that covered you. With a cry, you grabbed the first thing you could get your hands on--the empty medkit--and slammed it against one of the teeth piercing your vessel. Fire burned in your chest, licking along the edges of your soul.

It bellowed again, and the world shifted. You tipped backwards into the blood, and it rushed up to meet you, coiling around your body as you opened your mouth and screamed. Copper burst along your tongue and poured down your throat. Crimson flooded your vision, and darkness followed it.

And then there was a bright, burning light that cut through it all.

Something in your chest was knocked loose, shuddered, and went still. You squinted against the bright light as warmth brushed away the remaining sensation of viscera and cradled your fragile body.

"Then allow me to honour that Choice," A voice rumbled from the light, low and echoing, gravely and coarse, but it soothed some raw, ragged part of you.

You didn't get to ask who they were before darkness flooded your vision, and you went still.

Your awareness trickled back to you slowly.

The first thing you became aware of was a soft sensation that surrounded you, tickling along the backs of your arm and your neck gently. Your eyelids fluttered, eyebrows scrunching as you tried to place the sensation. It wasn't like the tendrils of that sanguine sea; too soft to be that, it didn't grab and twist and hold like it had. Your fingers curled, and you felt strands of something curl around them.

Finally, you blinked open your eyes, breath catching in the back of your throat at the sight that greeted you. An open sky, not crimson, but swirling shades of pink and orange, with distant clouds drifting by. The soft sensation you had felt was tall, yellow grass. It stood taller than you, adding a border to your vision of the sky. Slowly, you sat up, confusion curling like a restless serpent in your chest.

The grass seemed to stretch out infinitely. Going as far as your eye could see in every direction. There was a single star in the sky, large and beautiful, halfway obscured by the horizon. Its light caught the tips of the grass and made it burn gold. You were reminded of the Last Tree, and the sight was so beautiful that your breath caught in your throat.

It was too beautiful to be true.

Your heart shuddered in your chest, and you wanted to scream. Another trick. It had to be. That thing was still fucking with you, even now.

"It is not a trick, little one."

The voice was deep, rasping, with a quality to it that could only be described as Other. You jolted and spun around so quickly you lost your footing, catching yourself on your hands as your wide eyes searched for the source of the voice. At first, all you saw behind you was trees, with twisting branches and orange leaves--they looked like autumnal photos of Earth you'd only seen in books. But then your eyes caught on something else, something that itched your brain as wrong.

Branches without leaves, that twisted and climbed out in twisting directions, cutting through the air like cracks on glass. Spiderwebbing in every direction. A crown that sat atop the head of somethin your eyes couldn't entirely make out, only that it burned with a warm glow like a star. Too many limbs, too many eyes. You thought of angels you'd heard the Elders talking about.

"What... are you...?" You finally whispered, your breath trembling in the base of your throat, fingertips trembling as the edges of yellow grass curled around them.

Its form seemed to shudder, and it lowered itself, head bowing under the weight of its crown, burning, celestial gaze fixing upon your mortal frame. "I am the breath before every decision," Its voice rumbled like thunder, shaking the very realm around you, "I am the fire of conviction. I am the moment before you leap and the exhilaration in the fall. I am the fire that burns away the dark." Your throat dried as you looked into its face. "I am Choice, and I am Hope." It finished, the words hanging with a kind of finality.

"How-" The question died on your throat, strangled by your overwhelmed confusion.

Its head tilted, or at least, you think its head tilted. "I heard your call, and honoured your Choice, that is how you found yourself in my realm." It answered the question you couldn't even bring yourself to ask. "Her influence will not reach you here."

You made a sound, halfway between a heavy exhale and a delirious burst of laughter. Your hands, trembling, came up to clasp over your mouth, shoulders shaking and chest hitching. This was insane. It was impossible. It was a dream, a cruel dream, it had to be. Freedom? It was too sweet a lie to swallow, threatening to make you gag and wretch until its flavour was washed away with sour reality. Your vision blurred, and before you even realised it, you were sobbing, curling into yourself like a child as you wept.

It watched, silently, as you fell apart.

Choice, as you began to call it in your head--you had no other name for it, and it had introduced itself as that first--was quiet, for the most part. It did not often speak, unless it was answering your questions. When you pulled yourself together and began to explore your surroundings, it sat silently under one of the trees, head lowered as if it was resting, though you could feel its gaze on you. It did not move, nor did it break the quiet that had fallen over you.

The only sound you could hear was a distant humming, a song you couldn't recognise. You think it was coming from Choice, but you couldn't be sure, and you were too hesitant to approach and find out.

So you kept your distance, but there was something gnawing at you. A question burning on the back of your tongue, eating you alive slowly until you had no choice but to ask, "What do I do?" It came out quickly, the words slightly jumbled together. You watched the being's head lift, tilting again as if curious. "I- I mean... here? What do I do?" What did it want you to do? What purpose had it snatched you up for?

It stared for a long moment. When it finally answered, its voice was quiet and yet still seemed to fill the entire meadow. "You live." The two-word response froze you in your spot. "You wanted to live, did you not? It was that want which called out to me. You wanted the ability to choose, so I am granting it to you. Here, you may do whatever you wish, and I will do my best to ensure you can simply... be... as you wanted to."

You stared. If your body still had the ability to cry, you might have teared up again. "I... don't understand," You finally whispered, "why are you doing this?" Why did it care? What did it mean that you had called out to it?

The being fell still.

An orange leaf fell from a branch and drifted slowly towards the golden grass.

Somewhere else, a divine being cradled a broken man.

But you were not somewhere else; you were right here, and you were confused.

"...I do not know," It finally admitted. "I have existed in my realm for millennia now. My contact with humanity has been... limited. And yet... I heard you. I was drawn to you. I do not know the reasons for this." With that, it rose from its resting position. You flinched instinctively, but it did not draw closer to you. Instead, it turned and walked farther into the trees.

Not knowing what else to do, you followed.

While one side of the realm was a seemingly endless golden field, the other was a forest that got denser the further you walked. The grass here was shorter, though the same yellow colour. The trees stood tall and proud, though looking at them for too long made your head hurt. You were certain they were shuddering and shifting ever so slightly. Choice did not glance back at you as it drifted, and you tried to keep your eyes on it, as if afraid that looking away for a moment would be enough for it to simply vanish.

Eventually, it stopped.

You craned your head to look around it, and your breath caught in your throat at the sight that greeted you.

He'd led you to a clearing in the forest, and in the centre of that clearing was an impossibly large tree. It stretched up, up, up, its orange canopy spreading out, out, out across the pink sky. A doorway stood open in the base of the tree, beckoning you to enter, but you stood frozen. When you did not move, Choice lowered its head. "A home," It said, "for you."

"I... thank you...?" You answered, too stunned to think of anything else. It moved, and for a moment, you thought it might have puffed up in pride. It didn't say anything else, though. Merely found a new spot to settle and left you to explore this 'home' by yourself.

The interior was... strange. Bigger on the inside than the outside, like the laws of psychics just didn't apply to this place. Everything was made out of wood, shelves were carved into the walls of the tree itself, same for the counters and furniture. Though perhaps 'carved' wasn't the right word, it was as if it had simply grown that way. Like it was made to take this shape. You found a sink with a working faucet, and tried not to think about how that worked as you cupped handfuls of the clear, running water and brought it to your lips, greedily downing as much of it as you could until you felt sick.

After, you wandered into one of the joining rooms and found a bedroom. Or at least, what you assumed was a bedroom. It had cabinets and drawers, though the 'bed' was more like a nest in a corner, filled with soft blankets. But after everything, it was the most inviting sight you had seen for some time. You practically collapsed into the sheets exactly as you were, and the exhaustion from everything hit you at once.

You slept.

Your dreams were red.

Your dreams with claustrophobic spaces drenched in blood.

Your dreams were writhing, thrashing, screaming as sanguine poured down your throat.

Your dreams were a single eye, gazing at you from a crimson sky. Its voice pierced the fragile matter of your mind as you fought and kicked.

"Where did you go?"

You awake gasping, pulled sharply from the red and back into a place awash with oranges and browns, chest heaving as you fought to get air in your lungs. A voice was speaking to you, low, soothing tones you couldn't fully discern. Your vision swam. You blinked harder, head turning, and froze on the blurry features of a man crouched nearby, his hands splayed in the air between you.

You screamed and launched yourself backwards, scrambling to get as far away from the intruder as possible. "Who- what- get away from- Choice!"

"It's me," His voice rumbled, and in your frantic state, it took you longer than you'd care to admit to realise that the being's voice was coming from the man in front of you. "I apologise, I thought this form would be... easier for you, I did not consider that the sudden change would frighten you."

You stilled.

For a moment, neither of you moved.

Slowly, your vision cleared, allowing you a better view of the man. He was of average height, well-built, with long dark hair that framed his face and hung down in messy waves. His eyes were a deep, rich brown, with short facial hair across his jaw, chin and upper lip. He was dressed in an outfit similar to your own, prison clothes, and for a moment, you could just imagine him as another convict. In fact, he looked... overwhelming human.

Until you blinked and his form rippled, just at the edges. Just enough for you to see bright, burning light and a crown of antlers before he was back. "Oh..." You whispered, still trembling. "...Hi?"

His lips twitched slightly, and his arms lowered. "Hello," He greeted, voice rumbling low in his chest. That was going to take some getting used to.

You fell into a routine, of sorts. You would wake, usually abruptly from a nightmare with it--him?--hovering nearby, then you would wash up, dress in the clothes that kept appearing in the drawers, and start your day. Food always seemed to appear in the kitchen, fresh fruits that were sweet and juicy, alongside cured meats. The first day, you practically gorged yourself on the stuff, ate until you almost felt sick, as if you were worried it would disappear and you'd never get to eat again.

Then, you would leave this strange sanctuary and begin to explore the area. He followed all the while, usually silent, only speaking when prompted.

"What is this place?" You asked eventually, one day.

"My realm," He answered, "an extension of my being."

"How far does it go?"

"As far as you want it to."

After you were happy with your rounds, you would return to the tree and sit on the object that looked strangely like a couch. There was a fireplace in the room, something that looked like a star flickered inside, but it kept the room warm, and the couch was soft. You'd sink into it, just yourself, and your newfound shadow would follow and join you.

Then you'd eat, sleep, and repeat.

It was maddening. You felt... aimless. You had wanted freedom, yes, you had wanted to live, but you felt twitchy. Unwilling to settle. You needed something to do.

That was when the books began to appear. Lining the previously empty shelves, a variety of them. Different shapes and sizes, different stories contained within. "Did you do this?" You asked Choice the first morning they appeared, still softened by sleep, staring in awe at the new addition to the realm.

"No, the realm answered your request. That is all," He answered you, softly. And that was that.

You picked one to read, settled down, and made yourself comfortable. He sat beside you, though far enough away not to crowd. For the first time in a long while, you felt yourself smile slightly.

"So what actually is your name?" You finally ask one day, weeks after you first arrived in his meadow, while sprawled out under a tree with a book in your lap. He's sat beside you, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy open before him because he's taken an interest in reading human literature too. It's sparked some interesting conversations, at least, even if you feel like you're the person least qualified to explain the human experience to a being like him.

"You call me Choice," He replied simply, looking up from his book, head tilting curiously, "is that not a name?"

"Well," You floundered for a minute, "I mean... technically, yeah? It's just... what you introduced yourself as, I guess. So it was the only thing I could think to call you." You explained, a touch awkward. He stared, his dark eyes catching the light and almost seeming to shimmer gold at certain points before he made a quiet sound.

He remained silent for a long moment, and you thought that was the end of that interaction. It happened sometimes, you had just mentally jotted it down as one of his many unusual quirks. It was fine. But just as your gaze returned to your book, he spoke again. "You may choose a different name for me, if you would like." You paused. Blinked. Then turned to look at him.

"You're... trusting me to name you?" You asked, slowly. He gave a small nod, intense gaze settled on you. You pursed your lips, thinking hard for a moment. There were a lot of names out there, of course, it was a decision you'd have to ponder on for awhile, more than likely. Picking the perfect name for a divine being, a Concept? It had to be perfect. And yet... "Simon."

He made a curious sound, almost like a quiet chiming. "Simon," He repeated.

"Yeah, Simon... Do you like it?" You don't know where it had come from, just that it sprung to mind instantly, along with the image of a man bathed in shadows and starlight. It seemed... right for him.

Simon nodded, just the one, his lips curling into a small smile, the embers of Hope flickering in his warm eyes. "Yes, I do," He agreed, before finally returning to his book.

You hid your responding smile in your own book, unsure what to make of the warmth spreading through your chest.

Author's Note:

This was supposed to be longer, but I was having such a time with Simon's characterisation that I am calling it here. Hopefully it's not disappointing, and I'll probably revisit the concept at a later date to work in the scenes that got cut from this version, but uh... if you don't know what you didn't get, you can't miss it yet!