Chapter Text
They spend several hours swimming around, slowly lowering deeper and deeper into the depths. The abundance of plant life and smaller schools of fish disappear the deeper they go. Again, he feels uneasy as the water darkens, closing in on the seamoth.
It's dark enough that he can see very little outside the headlights. It appears there's not much to see, though. There's been little more than sand and dirt for a few minutes now. He doesn't even hear anything.
Which is why, when something does finally pop up, rather abruptly, into view, he flinches. He might have screamed if he were alive.
The newcomer jerks on the controls of the seamoth. He yelps loudly enough that he hears it from outside the vehicle.
They back up a few paces, the light flickering up to capture more of the creature.
It seems as if a leg was what came down in front of them. Or perhaps a mouth? It's standing on it. And walking on it. It has a line down the middle that the other two legs don't have, however, and the break continues up to just before its eyes.
It's not something he recalls ever seeing before. It's huge. The seamoth could easily fit underneath its legs and leave plenty of room.
Luckily, it pays them no mind at all. Its pupils flicker towards them, then away again, as it turns to walk away. The light from the seamoth was probably hurting it. To be able to see this far down…
The seamoth rises a bit above the creature, and continues forward. The light reveals a second, then a third- an entire herd of the creatures, all of varying sizes. Some clearly are recently born, others covered in scars and barnacles. The smallest ones are in the middle of the crowd, the largest at the front and rear.
They’re slow, and don’t seem to be paying too much attention to the seamoth. He certainly can’t complain about that. He prefers the animals that are content to coexist.
The seamoth follows them for a few minutes, lingering a bit away from the group. They keep making clicking sounds, moving slowly forward, digging in the dirt with what must be a beak. Fascinating.
Eventually, the newcomer must be bored, because the seamoth speeds up, following the treaded down empty path the leviathan was following. As they drive, plants slowly begin to reappear, and the darkness recedes ever so slightly. The sun might be rising again. Or maybe the bioluminescent life was cutting into the void. It was hard to be entirely sure. How far down were they? Was it possible for the sunlight to reach them?
Shades of blue and pink light up the reef. There were rock formations and outcrops, littered with grass and various larger plants. Schools of fish were hiding around the formations. There were no signs of anything larger than the rays, screeching to one another as they floated around, a few small groups swimming further down.
Down, down, down. Always further down. How far did the planet go? How far could they go before the pressure got to them? Before the animals got to them? Why did it feel like the very ocean itself was trying to stop him?
Why did it feel like something else was calling him?
He lets go of the seamoth. He swims forward on his own. He glances at one of the rays. It looks at him, then flickers away in a flash, swimming down. He follows it.
A few hundred meters away, there’s a large opening in the ground, yawning and practically demanding to be explored. The ray swims towards it, disappearing into the encompassing darkness.
He glances back at the seamoth. The cave was hidden by a large rock wall. There was an array of smaller outcrops built into the side. He grabs hold of one, and pulls.
It rips away from the wall with a loud cracking sound. A ray darts by, and the pull of the current swishes the dirty chunk of gold towards the seamoth. It thuds against the side. The seamoth jolts to the side, lights flickering up to the rock wall. The lights were shining directly at him. He shields his eyes with an arm. It doesn’t really help.
With a pause that feels like hesitation, the seamoth glides towards the rock, climbing in height.
He can scarcely believe it worked. He stares after the ray, which had swam in a circle, heading back towards him. He mouths thank you.
It doesn’t do or say anything back. It was an animal.
It was a rather funny coincidence. He wishes he could explain to the newcomer.
Or anyone, really.
As the seamoth passes him, he grabs onto the wing again, letting himself be pulled along, down towards the cave. There were always more caves. Endless caves in the endless ocean.
Whatever sunlight had potentially been barely reaching them was gone now, and the darkness enveloped them once more. He felt… cold. Strangely cold. He didn’t usually feel much of anything. He feels the cold so strongly he begins shivering. It was a sensation he hadn’t felt in years.
There’s more rays, and then there’s none. They get replaced with an eerie clicking, very different from the leviathans they had encountered. Almost like a creaking door. Almost like laughing. Something that did not like that they were here.
Something that wanted them gone.
The cold seems to eat at his bones. He loosens his hold on the seamoth, suddenly feeling very strongly that he did not want to go any further into this cave.
…No. He said he wouldn’t abandon this person. He was getting better at moving things, at scaring away the animals. He couldn’t just leave him. He tightens his hand again. Takes a breath. He led him here, and the least he could do was stick around.
They go over another rise, and then the ground drops off abruptly. It doesn’t go that far down; he can still ever so slightly see the bottom. There’s a few rock towers formed in the middle of the cave.
And there, in the middle of them all, was a habitat.
And then he really does let go of the seamoth. Not entirely on purpose. He simply slipped.
The seamoth continues forward, heading straight for the habitat. It looked old, destroyed, falling apart. Not all of that was because of age, though, was it?
He knew it wasn’t.
He stares after the seamoth, driving away, and it invokes something like fear. He does not feel fear. Not anymore, not really, not much. Not like he feels right now.
There was no visible danger, but that only made his heart jump further, for some reason. He knows there’s something here. Or there was.
There used to be.
He remembers watching a seamoth driving away. Or did he remember being in the seamoth? He knows there was one. He remembers the lights. There were lights before the darkness.
He doesn't want to get any closer to that awful habitat. If they had never built it, they might all still be alive. They should never have left the island. They should never have gone into the water!
The habitat can remain where it is, as it is. A blurry, distant, half-memory. He wants nor needs anything from it.
But there's a seamoth parked beside it now, and the newcomer is swimming in through a hatch. He watches him enter.
And, with a shaky hesitation that almost seems to make him dizzy, he swims closer, closer, closer, and pushes himself in through the crumpled walls.
They're in a bedroom. Or what used to be one. There's two beds, despite the fact that he's pretty sure there were three of them at this point.
And then, as he's staring -- there were definitely three of them.
He remembers the fights over the beds, over the coffee machine, over the water, over the freshest fruit, over the battery charger…
Everything. Did they really fight that much? Why did they ever fight that much? It hadn't mattered in the end. Why had they done it?
He was… Bart. There was an older man, much older than him, and a woman less old than he, but older than Bart by… at least two decades. He doesn't remember how old she was. He doesn't remember if she even would have told him. She was friendlier to him than the other, but they were not close. They were barely even friends.
He's seen the PDA logs from her, downloaded from an old abandoned one that the newcomer found at some point. She had not liked the older man -- Paul, his name was Paul, it was coming back now -- and she had tolerated Bart.
He feels some grief, and some indignation. He'd liked her. Why didn't she like him back? He'd wanted to be her friend. He'd tried so hard to be her friend.
There's beer bottles beside one of the beds. It was a wonder what the fabricator could create. It was a wonder how much she could drink.
It was a wonder none of them killed each other.
He climbs to the next floor, where the newcomer was still lingering. It's a… lab? There's certainly a good amount of lab equipment. His memory jolts a bit slower for this room.
The sickness. He was trying to cure the sickness, yes, and he'd been doing it from within here. He'd been trying on the island, too -- and within a seabase that he can scarcely remember, and that he thinks was probably destroyed at some point, if this base was anything to go off of.
Everything within is destroyed, of course. Scattered and shattered and utterly ruined by time and pressure and water. There's a radio link on the wall, above one of the desks. NO SIGNAL. Of course there was no signal. It was amazing it still had any power left to show those words.
He remembers the radio. He remembers being told to come back.
He remembers… staring at that wall.
He frowns. He can't seem to remember. Had he been inside or out? He remembers the roaring, the crunching of metal, the desperate bid to reach the surface. The panic. The panic.
He looks out the window now, heart drumming in his chest, half expecting to see a creature so large he was barely the size of one of its teeth. A creature so large it would only attack out of anger, revenge, hungry to defend its territory. He was too small to be worth hunting for a meal. He was a crumb to one of those things. The effort to swim this far out and then back?
It hadn't been hunting them for food. It had been hunting them in a desperate attempt to defend itself and its mate.
The newcomer flickers into his vision, and he watches as he tentatively picks up the alien tablet. He can just vaguely remember when it had been brought back.
Marguerit had found the first one, the purple one, and miraculously, somehow, Paul had found the second. Had seen it glittering out of the corner of his eye, far below him, as they were setting up the habitat. He'd swam to pick it up, because the symbol was similar enough to the purple one, and he still thought the alien technology would be worth a pretty penny when they left. He'd seen a yawning cave expand out in front of him, past where the tablet was sitting.
And he had never mentioned it. Simply brought the tablet back to the cyclops and said he found it in the dirt. Half-buried like the purple one. Why would he ever mention the cave? Marguerit and Bart were too determined to delve deeper. They'd want to go down there, and who knows what the hell could be there with all the problems they were already facing here.
He had never mentioned the cave. None of them ever went down there. And if it wasn't for that mercenary-
The newcomer swims up, through the hole that the ladder went through, to the upper floor. He watches him, frowning.
…How did he have that memory? Those feelings? He had not found the tablet. His father had. His father lied?
Was it a lie? He had found it in the dirt.
But he hadn't mentioned the cave. What if the cave was important? What if Marguerit had set herself to exploring it instead of delving into leviathan territory?
What if there was something worse in the cave?
What if they hadn't died because of a reaper?
None of them died from the reaper.
Bart had left. He had left. He died from the sickness, months later. A reaper had not killed him. Not physically. The reaper tore apart only his heart.
Paul had drowned. A reaper had not killed him. The reaper stuck to the cyclops was already dead, and the second was long gone. He could not find which direction was up. He had gone into the cave. There had been a light, and he foolishly followed it, and it only led him into the cave.
Neither of them ever saw Marguerit again. They did not know if a reaper killed her. Maybe it did. But she could have simply drowned as well.
It had never been the reaper's fault. It was an animal. It was protecting its home. They were the intruders.
He had swam clear. He was in a seamoth, and he had seen the habitat crumple under the attack, and he had been afraid, so he went to the surface.
He had been in a seamoth.
He had seen the seamoth.
He'd watched the seamoth leave?
He'd been told to come back.
He was the one saying to come back.
Paul had been demanding, stubborn to the end.
Paul had been desperate. There was a reaper out there, and his son was in danger.
He never understood.
He hadn't. He hadn't known how. He thought it was foolish.
He was the fool.
Maybe he was.
Bart blinks.
Paul blinks?
He'd been on the island. He remembers dying.
So does he.
What was happening?
The newcomer swims back down, and he- he looks right at him. There's no recognition, no fear, no real sign that he actually could see him. But he had paused and looked at him. And then he continued on again as if nothing had happened.
Perhaps he had visible, for a moment. Just a moment.
And so he drifts up as well, looking around but not precisely seeing the final layer of the habitat. He moves to one of the observatories. He sits on the desk.
He had been on the seamoth. He had swam away. He had died on the island. He'd looked after the plants and he'd been forbade from leaving the habitat without permission and Marguerit had tolerated him and he was Bart.
But he also remembers the seamoth leaving. He had not swam away. Maida had told him to put on his rebreather and he had in a blind moment of panic and trust and reaper there's a reaper where is Bart?
He remembers the sickness in his lungs, wheezing and coughing and weakly pulling in breath after breath until he was too weak.
He remembers the panic as he swam, looking for the surface, for light, for an air pocket, anything. He remembers his vision blurring and his lungs aching and his body twitching beyond his control until he couldn't swim any further.
He had died watching the sunset. He had died in the light, on land.
He had died seeing nothing but rock. He remembers his lungs finally forcing him to breathe in, and the water hadn't hurt. The panic had faded. He had thought of nothing but Bart.
He sits on the desk, and he sees the seamoth drive away, and it's both familiar and not, and he knows he should be chasing after him, but he can't be bothered. He'd spent all this time perhaps not knowing his name, but knowing who he was, at least somewhat, and it all felt a tiny bit like a lie.
He was Bart. He… he thinks he's Bart. He saw the name and he knew it was familiar. He knew it was his own.
But he'd felt the same about the page on Paul, hadn't he?
Who was he?