Chapter Text
"that's not a ship." is the first thing that comes out of my mouth when I look through my telescope. the telescope is a relatively new addition to my biodome once we figured out how to implement a strong enough light on it to see clearly though Erid's atmosphere- i mean i can see the stars only a little dimmer than earth (and have been spending hours mapping and naming constellations and their stars for the past two years after i stopped dying) but stars are burning balls of light, i needed my own light to break though the atmosphere. If Erid had an equivalent to birds it'd probably be a public nuisance every time I used my telescope.
Rocky's carapace sinks like he does when he's disappointed. “No ship? make no sense. Many scientist sense ship with cameras. Metal asteroid? Question.”
“No no- I mean, it looks like a submarine.”
“What is this word question?” Right, never told him about a submarine, why would I? Didn’t really come up.
“It's like a spaceship but for the ocean.” I explain looking back through the telescope. But that’s impossible. It's moving fast in orbit, the submarine that is, or a very badly constructed spaceship from another planet. I can't see very well from here but it doesn't look like it's made out of xenonite, it looks rounded, like something human made but… badly. “Humans use them to explore the ocean.”
“why would human ocean spaceship be in space? question? silly humans forget which direction down.” Rocky skitters around in place beside me.
“I don't know. do you really think there's someone in there”
“Ocean spaceship come with heat inside. much more heat than space. ocean spaceship also leaking.”
“Leaking?”
“Solid leaky space blob. Why space things so leaky question.”
I raise my head above the telescope and stare into the sky. I can't see things in orbit with my bare eyes but Rocky doesn't know that and this is more of a thinking stare. Could someone be in there? Surely not someone alive, especially not if they're from earth that's light years away. What if it's someone from a planet entirely different from ear or Erid? what if we're about to discover a completely different form of alien life.
“Grace has thinking face structure. what grace thinking question?”
“What if someone's alive in there” I'm getting ahead of myself (this ‘submarine’ could just be space trash that got trapped in orbit)
“Grace think human in ocean spaceship? question?” I can tell Rocky's getting excited too. “second grace in ocean spaceship!"
“I don't know, maybe?” I say rushing past Rocky to get to my side of the lab. The Eridian scientists built a lab half outside and half inside my biodome so we can work together more efficiently. It is also conveniently where we have most of the stuff for entering orbit. “it'd be incredible if there were.” even if they're dead (which is very likely) it'd be something in there worth studying, even just the hull. “From what i can see it looks human built, like actual submarine designs, with round windows and hull”
“Unlike cube xenonite machines.” I can tell Rocky’s as excited as I am by the higher pitch he uses. like me trying not to admit it.
-
after six long hours of trying (and failing) to catch a fast moving submarine in orbit and bring it down to the surface without boiling or crushing whoever or whatever is inside. making sure the sub wasn't toxic or radioactive was our first mission and while doing so the Eridian scientists found it was covered entirely it what it was apparently ‘leaking’ a thick red substance they gave me through my smaller airlock in the lab to look at and figure out what it was. This was probably to stop me ogling at the sub from inside my biodome and give me something to do. it didn't take long looking at the sample of the liquid from the sub under the microscope that it was unmistakably…
“blood? how is it blood??” I want to dig deeper, experiment with the DNA, blood from what? and this much?? Rocky interrupts that process by barging into his side of the lab.
“Grace! exclamation!” he didn't have to specify the exclamation bit because i jumped so hard I almost bashed my eye out with the microscope lens. “what??”
“human symbols!” I stand up and pull my sweater back on.
“there's writing? where?” English writing probably, we haven't delved far enough into human language for Rocky to recognize anything other than English and maybe some Russian.
“In ocean spaceship hull!” Rocky says scurrying back outside, I follow him through my own door and return to where they placed the sub outside my biodome wall. shining my light through the clear xenonite onto the hull of the sub while Rocky sways excitedly back and forth. I see exactly what Rocky told me was here. what looks like a serial number carved into the metal. a number… from earth.
“We need to get that sub in here. like right now.”
“yes yes! human ocean spaceship in Grace atmosphere!”
-
Getting the sub in the biodome was easier said than done. A group of the Eridians that worked to make my biodome in the first place had to come over to build an airlock big enough to fit the sub. it probably should have been cleaner or better planned out especially on my part, but we were in a rush to get it inside, it may be a sub built for incredibly high pressure but it wasn't built for Erid's surface and it's a miracle it survived this long. Looking back, maybe my excitement got ahead of me bringing the sub to the surface too fast and expecting it to withstand the pressure and heat. I climb up the side of its bloody surface with a ladder to crawl on the top and find the hatch. I struggle with the handle on the latch for a moment before wiping the blood away with a cloth tucked in my belt before I noticed. “Hey Rocky?”
“Grace find danger? question?” I see him roll his xenonite ball over to be in my peripheral.
“No danger. It's welded shut.”
“Danger danger!”
“I'm going to cut it open” I pull out my astrophage torch and start cutting open the weld holding the hatch in place while Rocky rolls anxiously around the ground below me. Eventually I get the hatch loose enough for it to groan open. “Whatever's in here, someone did not want it getting out-” I'm hit in the face with the strong smell of blood, it's bad from the outside but it's even worse inside. I cover my nose with the collar of my shirt. “augh that stinks.”
“What is distance taste like? question?”
“blood. Way more blood than should ever be in a submarine.” I hold my breath and poke my head in the hatch to look inside, yep, exactly what it smelt like, everything's covered in blood.
“Blood mean danger! Eridian blood Human blood question?”
A mangled chair just below me and a lightly glowing control panel. ”Not Eridian blood, it’s definitely iron based, it couldn’t be from a human, there’s way too much.” I shine my light deeper into the submarine, the blood isn't dried, it's all wet and shiny- “holy moly!” somethings moving in there, oh my god it's a human. Suddenly the whole sub shakes and sends me falling down through the hatch and landing at the bottom with a loud metal BANG- and oh my god it’s wet! Everything’s caked in a thick layer of fresh, dried or coagulated blood, I cover my face in my shirt again to stop me from adding barf to the mix.
I slip and slide my way to my feet almost falling back into the blood when my hold on the mangled chair is as slippery as my footing. I hear Rocky outside the hull of the sub making a ruckus but I can't make out the words in his tones, not that I give much thought there’s another human in here! (or at least someone who looks a lot like a human.) Once I stand and turn to look at them again they’re gone. I really don’t want to and should probably be wearing layers of protective gear but we’re far past that point now, I walk deeper into the sub, slowly. There’s no lights in here. It's defiantly human made, What I can see through the blood looks like coolant and oxygen pipes, some labeled as such in English, almost dissolved papers and binders float in the blood pool beneath me. I would hate to have been in here in zero-g. “Hello?” I mean to call it out but it’s more of a scared whisper. There’s one place a person could hide, around the back corner of the sub that I approach (which i hate doing this is why I never play the horror games that were sent to space with me) “whoever you are, we're here to help you.” I don't get that sentence out much better than the ‘hello’ but oh well at least I’m not intimidating.
Once I round the corner I don't see anything but the same dark red blood before I get slammed back against the (fully metal) wall. These events are defiantly gonna leave me bruised. I have no control over the sound I make when surprised and this one is a mix of a squeak, a yell and then a series of gasping to get the air back in my lungs while I’m pinned to the wall of a ship. Once I can breathe again I focus on the face of the man in front of me, completely drenched in foul smelling blood, but the left side of his face protrudes with inhuman teeth, boils and scales, that eye glowing faintly in the dark. (maybe he isn’t human. How exciting)
“You’re not real.” the man says in a deep voice, but a strained one like he’s been yelling for hours. “Why can I touch you if you’re not real.” Okay, psychologically distressed, not murderous. despite being close to panicking from being jumped by a human-fish-person, I can work with that.
“I’m real.”
“No you’re not.” okay buddy fine then. the human-fish-person pushes into me harder, it’s almost like he’s struggling to hold himself up just as much as me. “Are you another test?! Another fucking trick, you’d be a step up from the radio!” I expect his other hand to come up to test that theory, somehow, but it doesn’t and I realize he doesn’t have his other arm. Lucky me.
When I don't have anything to say (because trying to convince him I am real would probably be counterintuitive, I know I am, he'll figure it out eventually.) he starts (what I think is) hyperventilating, I’m a little too distracted to confirm that because i just realized the teeth jutting out of the side of his face is somehow connected to another sort of mouth thing, and I'm way more curious about that than i should be right now.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“I don’t believe trying to convince you I'm real would make you unhand me faster, Honestly.”
I still hear Rocky scrambling outside before a huge bang echo’s through the sub, rocking it back and forth. My ‘friend’ (not quite yet) takes that jumpscare a little worse than I do and gets back that adrenaline he was slowly losing, and after almost stumbling back pins me back against the wall but with his hand on my neck. Okay this is worse, why is his hand so big. His attention isn't on me even as I try to pry his hand back open, it’s on the walls, well what’s outside of them I presume.
Once he looks back at me he talks again. “How did you get in here?”
“The hatch.” I say, asking me questions with his hand on my throat isn't the most effective method of communication, but hey at least he speaks a language i know, this would probably go way worse for me if he didn’t, unless I end up with my foot in my mouth. “I cut it open.”
He stares at me for a while (an amount of time I would appreciate having full airflow) “Are we on the surface?”
“Have you been unconscious-” I’m cut off by the entire wall that was holding us both up falling backwards and sending both this alien man and a whole sludge of blood onto me and into my mouth as i try to take a full breath. Once i finish coughing my lungs out i see Rocky had cut a hole in the hull to get us out, and apparently decided the part of the hull we were using would be the best place to do so.
“Rocky save Grace!” Rocky says jutting out his carapace protectively. I don’t feel very saved as I cough blood out of my mouth, and barf into the grass beside me. the old blood tastes even worse than it smells and covers me and our guest who is very frantically trying to get over me to find his standing, leaving me in a puddle of the hull’s blood. “Grace injured by second Grace!! Grace bleeding? Question? Bad bad bad!”
“Not bleeding! Not mine” I choke out. I stand once I sort out my respiratory system and spot the stranger only a couple steps out, he’s just standing there, staring at the ground, dripping blood into the grass, grass I only have because apparently Yáo was very into gardening and had forgotten an assortment seeds in one of his pant pockets, which has been a life saver for me, quite literally (though we didn't find those until after cleaning the ship and developing the me-burger) I now have grass, kale and some wildflowers I've been cultivating. Yáo’s pockets are where we got any trees here too, apple trees luckily enough, there’s some structures in Erid that you could call trees but are nothing like Earth’s.
I look down at myself and decide that mess is a later problem for when I get back home and can throw these clothes away.
“Am i dead…?” I don't know how rhetorical that question is but it sounds strained and forced. The stranger's breathing is fast and I glance at Rocky not knowing what to do and he looks like he shares that problem.
“No.” I cautiously approach him. “No.. you’re alive.”
“No… no you’re just like the rest of them.” he says turning to me and taking a step back startled by how close I had gotten. “I’m in the bottom of that damned blood ocean, and I am never getting out. I am a part of it now, I know that- it’s just trying to keep my brain alive by feeding me dreams. I don’t know who you are but I know you’re not real.” he finally sends a glance to Rocky in his ball. I rub my throat where he held me and stay a good distance away this time.
“Okay… ? okay well you’re alive, I don't know how yet but you are. And I'm real and you need to calm down.” He does, calm down in a way, he sinks in on himself and falls to his knees in the grass, his adrenaline must be wearing off because he stops regarding me. I approach him, stand in front of him and put my already bloodied hand on his red shoulder. “Let’s get you somewhere to get cleaned up.”
I completely judged the situation wrong and this leads me to be slammed back into the ground by the wrist, the stranger on top of me holding me down by my shoulder. I fail to unpin myself which leads to us scrambling around in the grass as I try to get free from him and he pulls me back by the ankle making me fall flat on my chest. He crawls back up and turns me to pin me on my back again, oh my GOD he’s strong (which is weird cuz this is not gravity he’s used to). This time he holds my jaw and studies my face. After a moment of silent staring it feels safe to speak. “Do you mind…?”
“You’re-” he starts to say before he collapses on top of me, rocky standing behind him.
“Rocky put second Grace in Eridian sleep.”
“Thanks bud” I groan and push the man off me, he’s shorter than me but larger and stronger so i struggle to do so. I stand and fix my hair (which is really just pushing the blood soaked strands out of my face). “Lets take him to my house, he needs to get cleaned up.”
“Grace stupid tired, how long since last sleep question?”
“It’s been- fine It’s a perfectly fine amount since last sleep.”
“Second Grace is danger! First Grace sleep Second Grace in lab”
“He probably has a name y’know.”
“Grace know second grace name?”
“Uh- no”
“Then second Grace is second Grace.”