Chapter Text
The “ocean” billowed that night. The simulated waves were vast, aggressive in a way that was foreign to both Grace and Rocky. His small alien companion rolled up on his knees over and over again, the trill of his voice high and loud. There was an edge to that night Grace hadn’t felt in years. It dug into his chest and made his ribs feel more like a cage than anything else. His lungs felt like they couldn’t fully expand, catching on the bone around them like a vice and leaving a constant dull ache.
“Rocky does not understand weather. Should be clear. Rocky set it himself.”
“Did someone mess with it? Adrian maybe? It could just be a prank…”
Rocky made a noise like a mother clucking her tongue, interrupting him.
“Adrian never mess with weather. Knows not to. Others do not know how. Rocky knows how Grace likes it.”
His glasses slid dangerously close to falling off his face. He didn’t realize he was sweating. A drop reached his lips, the salt lost in the ocean spray hitting his face. A sound like thunder rolled across the beach, the sound making Rocky jump slightly in his xenonite shell. He paced back and forth, not unlike a crab seeing something that startled it. Rocky didn’t like Earthen storms. He avoided visiting whenever Grace requested them. Grace however loved them, the soft patter of rain and rolls of thunder made him drowsy. He would in fact much rather be curled up with a book at that moment. He pushed his glasses up, with some difficulty. His hands shook, leaving a large smudge across the lenses. He sighed, pulling them off to wipe clean on the hem of his cardigan. His arms fell off to his sides, fists bouncing slightly off his thighs. The water lapped up the sand and dangerously close to the pair.
“Can we go inside, question.”
Grace broke eye contact with the water and looked down at the alien. Rocky shivered, the motion adding a slight tremolo to his voice.
“Let’s go in. We can just wait it out,” Grace said, a slight upward tilt to his mouth.
“Rocky does not like this weather. Will remove it from data bank when leaves Grace.”
“Oh come on, it's not that bad. I think I’d actually enjoy it if I had a bit of warning. I’d like to pick out a movie or book to enjoy ahead of time.”
He stretched for emphasis, more than anything trying to hide the shiver that was crawling up his spine as well.
“The dome can’t actually make lightning Rocky, there’s nothing it can…”
Lightning struck the water, the impact shaking the ground and catching his breath in his throat. Rocky curled in on himself. Grace stood dumbstruck, the wind whipping more rain into his face, and his hair plastered slick across his forehead. Rocky chirped more and more incessantly. The water boiled at the point of contact, dark and violent. He stepped forward slightly, his socks now soaked. Rocky’s voice rose again in a cacophony that was lost on Grace. His eyes locked on the circle of still boiling water. It refused to calm back into the waves, the boiling growing in intensity. The shadows grew larger and larger, the darkness expanding in the water around it like an ink.
Grace was knee deep in the water now, all worry of getting wet long gone.
How could the water be boiling up like that? It's almost like a diver’s bubbles. Geez, it's not a leak or something is it?
Grace squinted out at the odd spot in the water, the thunder continuing to rock the dome. Despite his misgivings, Rocky rolled out next to him, the water almost covering over the xenonite.
“Rocky” Grace said slowly, half yelling to be heard over the din. “Is there any way ammonia could be leaking into the water?”
“No. Dome is perfect. All Eridian structures are.” Rocky poked him in the small of his back. “Rocky does not want to be outside anymore. Grace said we go inside. We go inside, statement.”
Grace couldn’t help but feel a bit dubious about that. The bubbling was too constant. Something was leaking into the air. If it was ammonia? He’d suffocate in his sleep. He shook his head of the idea and stuck his head up into the air, trying to catch a whiff of it. He was dangerously deep now, Rocky standing back closer to the shore. Something wafted his way, subtle. Something he hadn’t smelled so strongly in a long time. He could taste iron on the ocean mist.
Blood.
Grace stiffened. The smell grew stronger, the bubbling almost as loud as the storm. He backpedaled as fast as he could, almost tripping over an increasingly aggravated Rocky. Rocky rolled after him back into semi dry sand, muttering to himself angrily. Grace snapped his eyes away from the growing ring of what he now believed was blood and down at his legs. A marbling of red stained his socks and shins. Rocky continued to chirp at him, the sing song voice becoming more and more frantic, all annoyance gone again.
“Grace something in water. Grace, something in water, the water, the water, the water.”
“There’s blood in the water Rocky, why would there be…Eridians don’t secrete anything like that…”
They were both cut off as something did shoot up and out of the water. A large cylinder erupted from the raging water. Its hull was slick with water and blood, the smell of iron infecting the air and hanging heavy on his senses. It landed back in the water with a smack, beaching itself as it slid towards them. Blood mixed with salt in the spray peppering the beach in its viscera. It groaned like a dying whale, the metal creaking and cracking under its own weight. Holes and dents coated its surface, breaches large enough to fit several grown men through. Something large and white jutted out from one of the holes, gore hanging onto the end like it had been ripped from something massive and alive. The blood dripped from metal in chunks, half coagulated, falling into the shallow water with the sound of meat being pulled from bone. It shuddered to a halt, knee deep in the water. The usually clear clean water muddied into a reddish brown. Grace prayed mentally that the sloshing sound from inside it was sea water and not more…
He gagged slightly, pulling his shirt up to cover his mouth and nose. His head swam slightly, and Rocky braced him against his shell.
“Where did that come from? It’s not Eridian is it?”
“Not Eridian. Too clumsy for Eridians.” Rocky poked him several times in the back. “There is movement inside. Grace should go look, statement.”
“Me? You’re the one in a hamster ball, I don’t want blood or whatever that is all over me.”
“Rocky is small and delicate. Does not want hamster ball to get sticky.”
“Sure you don’t.”
Grace hesitated for a moment, scrunching up his face. He turned and bolted back to his hut on the shore, Rocky rolling along after.
X
Moments later he was standing knee deep in red water, old space suit on and secure, oxygen strapped on for good measure. Rocky stood way back on the shore under the awning of his home, computer opened and connected to the small mic in his suit. The simulated sky was still dark, rain continued to drizzle over the scene, but the thunder had subsided.
Grace fought the urge to vomit, it looked worse up close than it had back safe on the beach. The blood was wrapped around the cylinder like veins, tendrils slightly pulsing as if a massive heart was pumping through them. He tentatively poked one with a stick he so thoughtfully brought along.
“It’s mankind’s right to poke new things with a stick.” He whispered.
“Eridians poke with our bodies, do not need a stick.”
“I’d like to see you come and poke this.”
“Rocky cannot. Rocky is Grace’s wingman.”
Grace snorted in response.
The stick drug through the blood like it was a fresh scab. More blood burst from the opened film and into the water. He audibly gagged, Rocky trilling at him in response, most likely in amusement, possibly concern. He took a deep grateful breath of odorless air and hauled himself through the nearest hole. He flicked his headlight on.
The inside of the cylinder was filled knee deep in the blood like substance.
What the hell could make this much blood? Surely this isn’t anything from Earth…
The small cylinder was in ruins. Coagulation covered it from wall to wall. The remains of what looked like a desk and still flickering green monitor built into it lay on the far end. Desperate human handprints covered its surface, in the same red and browns that coated the rest of the metal interior. Pipes lining the length of it hissed as air escaped their confines. He waded through the clotted liquid towards the light, his heart in his stomach. The large boney piece pierced through it from the outside, radius larger than his entire forearm. His eyes focused on the monitor. He gingerly brushed some of the veins off of it.
“There’s English in here. I think this was made by people.”
“Grace is first alien on Erid. Not possible, statement.”
What looked like longitude and latitude stared up at him. He couldn’t breathe. The place closed in on him steadily the more he looked down at them. He raised his hands in defeat.
“I’m done. This is going to have to be a problem for the morning. I don’t want to deal with this.” A dry laugh managed its way out.
He turned and made to stride right back out the way he came in, and smacked head long into something stuck to one of the pipes with a responding clank. His glasses were on the bottom of his helm now, stuffed up against his cheek. Damn it. He shook his head slightly to try and unstick them to no success, and instead squinted up at the thing he banged into. His helm had a splatter of blood across the visor and he clumsily wiped it off with one hand and reached out to touch the thing with the other. He didn’t fully understand it at first. An arm was stuck to the pipes, the end of it torn and ragged like it had been ripped slowly and painfully off its owner.
“FUCK THIS!”
“Rocky not understand.”
“We are burning this thing. Shoot it back to space, I don’t care, we are not keeping this.”
“Grace will not burn it. Object is very interesting, should be studied.”
“There is human remains in here. I would really rather not. I think I can live my life never knowing the truth quite happily.”
“Grace is coward.”
“I know. Now I’m coming home to shower. We can burn the suit too, I have another somewhere I’m sure.”
Their arguing overshadowed the movement happening at Grace’s feet. A piece of coagulation coughed and pulled itself to its feet, holding onto the pipes for support. He choked on his words as it gripped onto his shoulder. He slowly forced himself to look it in the face.
A single bloodshot eye was staring back at him from the gore, long hair plastered against their face. Man or woman he couldn’t tell, but a human was standing before him. While the blood around them was stale, they were freshly bleeding, blood dripping down an arm that was no longer there, slowed by the substance that had coagulated over it.
His breath came in short bursts, horribly close to hyperventilation as his vision swam. Rocky was again saying something but he didn’t care or notice. There was another human.
It’s been 10 years at the least since he’d seen another human being, and suddenly there was one standing before him, covered in blood he prayed wasn’t their own and staring him down with a hatred that could have crushed him. That single eye was narrowed, and though unsteady, they stood tall, holding onto the wall of the cylinder for support.
“Fuck you!”
They shoved him against the hull, their remaining right arm jammed against his neck through the suit. He gasped at the violence and the words. They can talk? He struggled under the grip, but despite their injuries, he was thoroughly overpowered.
“You promised me 3 hours and then you’d pull me out. You left me down there to die. You have your fucking black box, now let me go.”
Grace had his hands held up in what he prayed looked harmless.
“I think there’s been some confusion… I don’t…”
They were unfazed, pushing him harder into the wall. Their face was practically touching his visor, breath ragged and pained.
“I don’t give a fuck, you COI can take your black box and shove it…”
They suddenly stopped, their eye locked slightly above them. The arm was dangling over them. The little of their face he could make out twisted in disgust before being overcome by a fit of coughing, more blood poured from their mouth and nose. They stumbled and fell hard into his chest, coughing harder as if gasping for air. Slightly recovered from the shock, Grace managed to stop them before they slipped under the surface. They were heavy and waterlogged, and he buckled slightly under their weight. Despite their initial anger, they clutched onto him with their arm, pulling him close. They choked on their words, dense with emotion and a desperation that tore at his heart.
“I don’t want to die. Please, I can’t go down there again…”
They passed out, limp into Grace’s arms.
Rocky was exploding in his ear as he attempted to extract the person from what he now believed to be a crude submarine. For what he tried hard not to think about. The person was barely discernible through all the gore clotted over their face and body, but they were human and that’s all that mattered in that moment. Tears threatened to spill over and onto the glasses now jabbing themselves into his neck.
“Grace Grace Grace Grace is that another human, question. Another person, question.”
“I think so. Rocky go tell Armando to be ready, they are bleeding a lot.”
“Rocky was right. Object important. Would not have found other human without. Does all blood belong to person, question.”
“Not all of it.” He groaned as their full weight fell into his arms out of the sub. God they were heavy. “But a good portion is.” He struggled to keep his voice level.
He carried them princess style back onto the beach, careful to keep them out of the water. The blood still dripping off of them left a visceral train behind them, a veil of stiff hair covering their face. His chest throbbed at the sight of them, their last words ringing through his head. He’d heard almost those exact words, a lifetime ago, from his own mouth, held down in the grass, his throat raw from yelling. He clutched tightly at the person in his arms.
He wasn’t alone.