Lets Have A Chat, Shall We?

Look, Eden gave me a tattoo. The COI made me burn it off. I didn't choose either of them. I still get a scar.

"This isn't exactly standard procedure."

Iron Lung (2026)

bonus:

(For @weapon13whitefang for putting up with my hyper fixations)

Ch. 1:

The blast of air raid sirens jolted Simon out of bed. It was routine at this point. He’d gone through so many of these it was essentially autopilot. It took a moment before he noticed his fellow sailors. Their expressions were fearful, anxious. This wasn’t a regular practice drill.

The docks were an emotional hive of uncertainty, though it didn’t stop the crews from going through the motions. A few men shouted, pointing at something across the water. A mushroom cloud was forming over the horizon. Everything went silent. Time slowed. Simon felt himself being pushed backward, suddenly tumbling down a narrow staircase. Lights flickered sporadically as his vision swam, head pounding from the impact with the steel floor. An ungodly metallic roar filled his ears as the hatch sealed shut.

“W-wait!”

Simon went from station to station, hoping to find someone, anyone inside the vessel. A sudden lurch battered him about every now and again. There was no chain of command, he wasn’t even sure of protocol at this exact moment.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

The hatch was stuck. It was pointless to try to open it from the inside. The atomic blast probably sealed the damn thing shut anyway.

“Okay… okay,” he muttered to himself. “Breathe…you’re completely alone in a multimillion dollar tin can. You knew this day was going to happen. It wasn’t supposed to, but it did. So, now what?”

The sub was tossed about for what Simon assumed were hours as he processed the situation. Perhaps the bombs caused some sort of storm. Once things cleared—if they cleared, he’d have to figure out a way to get a feel of his surroundings. For all he knew, he could be in the middle of the Atlantic. A stock of the galley told him he’d have enough supplies to last a few months at the least.

He recalled the night before, sitting at a bar with a few guys from engineering. Listening to how one of them had managed to secure at spot in one of the vaults that washed up cowboy kept hawking on TV.

“Wife and kid are packed and ready to go,” the engineer had told him. “Thankfully I can’t say the same for my mother-in-law!”

The idea of the end of the world had been nothing but a joke just hours earlier. It had been a marketing ploy for years.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

The silence would drive him insane before he starved to death. He wasn’t desperate yet, but he felt his thoughts turn dark at the prospect of being trapped down here.

No, there is a way out of this, he thought. There is always a way.