Chapter Text
The explosion tears through him before he hears it; sharp, bone-deep, the sub coming apart around him and something inside of him coming apart at the same time. His back hits metal, the feeling of it hard and sharp against his spine. Blood pools around him, over him, warm and wrong. It swallows him in moments, his hand reaching out to where the wall should have been and closing on nothing.
The heat comes from his left, his shoulder shouldn't hurt anymore but it does. Something climbs under his skin, up his left side and it doesn't feel like fire. It feels like he's being peeled open. Like something is forcing its way out through him. His face feels wrong, he gasps the taste of iron and rot rushing into his lungs. His mouth feels crowded with something that shouldn't be there.
He can't see. He can't breathe. He can't think as the pain lances through him, everywhere at once, no specific point he can name.
He's going to die like this. He's going to die drowning in blood, in the dark, because the explosion didn't kill him. Or maybe it did and this is hell. Slowly drowning in blood that isn't his own.
The sound around him shifts, from boiling hot to something else. The blood shifts with it, the feeling of it dropping away from him, the warmth it carried gone. Cold air blooms across his face, his back, every piece of himself and it finds places that are open. It gets in where his skin should be, burning at the torn flesh.
Simon gasps, the air moving across his face, into his mouth, and past whatever is crowding it.
He feels like he's falling. But he isn't falling, he's drowning, isn't he? He tries to breathe, tries to pull air into his lungs. His eyes burn with the remnants of blood, he can feel the air twisting through his fingers.
He slams into something, hard, the sound of liquid splashing around him, the air he had managed to catch knocked from his lungs. Cold embraces him like a vice, and he barely manages to keep some of the air in his lungs. The ice pours into his wounds, burns along his skin like fire, into his shoulder, into the torn-open place in his gut, into every part of him that is raw. It is worse than the heat, so much worse. The heat had been everywhere, almost comforting in a way, but this has edges. Every single piece of him screams as the cold digs its claws in.
That isn't right. It is supposed to be hot. The blood had been warm, almost unnaturally so. He had expected a warm death.
But it is cold. So cold that his mind can't process. How is it cold?
Simon forces his eyes open, he can feel the liquid crawling down his throat, forcing its way into his lungs. Water ripples above him, clear and blue… that isn't… that's not right. He tries to kick, tries to force himself upward but every single part of him screams.
He's going to die here. He's going to die here in this cold, foreign place. He thought he would die in blood, surrounded by the metal of his imprisonment.
A sound echoes above, the water rippling as something moves towards him. Simon needs to move, he knows he needs to but his body doesn't respond. It won't obey. He needs to breathe, he needs to get to the surface. He tries to get his frazzled brain to actually do something, tries to get his body to obey but it refuses.
He looks up, he tries to find something, anything…
There's light above him. Bright and clear through the rippling reflection of the surface. It's bright and warm, something he had always imagined from old stories told to him growing up. A glowing star above, bright and shining in the sky.
That's not real…
He's dead, he's dead.
There can't be a shining star, they don't…
He tries to swim, tries to get his body to fight the water and get to the surface, he can see it. It's right there.
The blood is discoloring the liquid around him, his lungs are seizing. His vision is getting blurry, his body growing heavier by the moment. He forces his attention back to the light above, to the glowing body above.
The water is rippling again, there is something…
Someone…
Someone's swimming towards him, the sun framing around their body, like a halo. Arms outstretched, grabbing at him, their hand wrapping around Simon's outstretched arm. Another hand gathers in his shirt and starts to haul him upwards.
It's not real… this can't be… real…
His eyelids feel heavy, his vision spotting around the edges as he's dragged to the surface.
Darkness drags him under.