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The metal creaks, all around Arthur. He focuses on his breathing, his arms tight around himself. In, and out. In, and out. It is a good thing that the only window in the hemorover is the porthole - and that it’s now tightly sealed. Seeing the blood waves close all around him would- oh, Arthur doesn’t want to think about it. The infinite red closing in on him, too thick to see through.
Instead, he breathes deep. In, and out. Breathe, slowly. You have a job to do. In and out. Just explore. Find what they need. Make amends. Find peace. Find the light. Find hope, if such a thing still exists. Tears burn under his closed eyelids, but he doesn’t let them fall. The last tears he shed were years ago, when he still believed in the stars and the future.
“This too shall pass,” he whispers. As always, the hum in his ears is an odd sort of comfort. The rover rumbles around him, as it descends and descends and descends. The light on the depth meter continues to descend with it. Arthur’s gaze stays on it, unseeing, lost in thought.
The radio crackles. “Convict,” the voice comes through. Stern. Stoic. Much like her face had been when Arthur had been led to the rover. Or the submarine. Or the unholy mixture of both. It doesn’t look like anything that could stay afloat, much less anything that wouldn’t crack under the pressure of the ocean. Even when said ocean is made of swirling mass of red, making the very air smell stale and taste like metal.
“Yes,” Arthur replies. He opens his eyes and straightens in his seat. The light on the depth-monitor keeps going lower. Heading into the red. Deeper, deeper, deeper. Arthur’s left hand, the one that never quite stops trembling, curls into a fist. The tip of his left pinky has been missing since the incident months ago; it still throbs with a dull ache sometimes. Like now.
“Convict. Any questions?” The voice asks, in a way that leaves no room for such.
Arthur has about a million. He grits his teeth. “Of course not. I’ll be a good little Convict.” This too shall pass. This too shall pass. There is nothing left for Arthur in this dark world except to look for forgiveness. There is nothing left for the human race but to look for the truth and the tiny, fading light of hope.
The voice from the radio audibly clicks her tongue. “Bring us back proof and you will have what was promised.” The voice cuts off. The radio lets out a low hiss.
Silence, but for the creaking of the sub. Silence, but for the voices in Arthur’s head that have never ceased. His long-gone mother and father. His- whatever Bella had been. Gone the way of the stars. Nothing but memories, speaking in Arthur’s lonely head. He murmurs a line from a poem to himself, presses careful fingers to the burned out tattoo on the side of his neck. He has a job to do. Memories don’t matter. Those lucky ones who are dead don’t matter. Not anymore. They don’t have to be still here, struggling through the dark, hoping for a light that will never come.
Finally, the light of the depth meter stays in the red. There are no more directions coming from the radio. Nothing but the creak and groans of the rover. Nothing but Arthur’s own slow, measured breathing. In and out. He is an invader here, in the red deep.
“Photos,” he murmurs. “Yes. Photos, photos.” Digging through the instruction manuals left for him, he finds directions for the camera, for the navigation system. It’s all so threadbare, build-up from expeditions past. Did others make it back up? Were they left down here? Clearly the rover is made up of parts of older rovers, a piece of a submarine there and a piece of a moon rover here. It rumbles like a woken beast as Arthur pushes it into moving, switches levers, hits the right buttons.
Takes photos, quick, quick steps to the camera button. The sudden light of it too bright to his sensitive eyes.
Rocks. Bone-like rocks, stark-white against the grainy background. X-rays of endless, empty hills. A void.
“What could live here anyway?” The ocean doesn’t answer. The ocean just is. This endless, endless red. But Arthur is a man of action and a few words, so he murmurs to himself as he works. The hover moves with him, a metal tomb, a safety net. A rumbling cradle in the deep. Photo after photo of white on grey. Then - bones. A giant’s rib cage, stark and sharp and obvious.
A living thing? Oh, there is a skull, is there. Empty eyesockets staring at the sub, at the camera, at Arthur. Arthur’s blood grows cold and for a long, horrible moment, all he can do is stare. There wasn’t supposed to be anything alive down here, nothing more than something microscopic, certainly too tiny for the x-ray camera to see. What kind of life survives in an ocean of blood? The photo fades, leaving Arthur in the dark.
Oh, how his blood thrums in his ears. His heart burning in his chest.
He journeys onwards in the endless red, snatches photo after photo after photo. Gets a few words from the radio, from the stern, emotionless commander. Sees a shadow flicker at the corner of his eye, but of course there is nothing there. The hover is a one-man thing. It’s his punishment, well-deserved. (Somewhere, out there, a child is still laughing, still cared for, still living under the bright sun) Somewhere, out here, a child is laughing -
Arthur turns quick on his seat and stares at the darkest corner of the rover. The camera button glows faintly, but it gives no light bright enough to illuminate everything.
“Faroe?”
Of course it is not her. She is long gone, along with the stars.
Still, Arthur’s heart had jerked, just now. Like her sweet little laughter had been right in his ear, clear as a bell. Like she would be just there, around the corner, a breath of fresh air.
“Alright, Arthur. Don’t go losing it now. Just do your job.” His job. His punishment. Of bloody hands that will never be clean. How long does he walk from his seat to the camera and back, how long does he navigate endless tunnels and oh - are those eyes? Two staring stars in the deep grainy dark?
The rover holds secrets of its own: Arthur discovers the supply closet. Arthur discovers the janky little computer, right there in the dark corner. The pendant, of better days. Days that still meant something. A voice, a male voice, telling a tale of his own execution.
“My name is John and if you’re listening to this, I am dead.”
Someone who had gone to his death willingly, not fighting every step of the way.
“If there is someone listening. If there is anyone left. If there is anything left. I have been seeing things for, for, I don’t know how long it’s been now. There are skeletons. Sometimes I hear a rumble. The stars are down here. They’re all down here. I hear his voice - no, I do-”
Arthur brings the pendant to his lips, as if he could still feel the residual warmth of this John on it. Had John paced up and down the sub too? Had he held anger in his heart? Had he thought of someone he lost too? Arthur plays the recording again, injects that warm, rumbling voice into his heart. “I have only one recourse left. To drift away. To let myself die. That’s what they wanted, anyway. There is nothing left. This universe is empty. I hear him now. He is closer. Perhaps I will sleep. It’s alright. If you’re listening, it’s alright. This is the only way this could have happened.”
Time eternal under the sea. All else has fallen away. Only the hemorover, a Frankenstein-creature of its own, rumbling onwards. The ascent, when it finally happens, is a blessing. Arthur sits heavily on his seat and toys with the little pendant, thinks about the man who sat right here before him and died, all alone, in the deep dark.
“My name is John and if you’re listening to this, then I am dead - “
“So the job is done then?” He asks, when the radio rattles once more. The little porthole slides open to reveal cascading blood. The captain’s face looming there. She doesn’t look happy. But nobody looks happy in this world: all joy dying with the stars (and Faroe, sweet little Faroe).
“Not quite,” the captain murmurs. Her eyes are piercing and dark. The rest of her is dark.
“What do you mean not quite?” Arthur argues, but oh, he is tired. What is he even fighting for, at this point? a meager chance of redemption? He has blood on his hands that will never go away. He argues back and forth with the Captain for a while, watches her uselessly wipe away the blood dripping down the porthole glass. She doesn’t give ground. Not to Arthur’s demands. Not to the blood. Not to the darkness. She still believes that humanity, what’s left of them, has a future.
Arthur stopped believing when his daughter stopped breathing.
“The skeleton,” the Captain murmurs. “Take a sample of it.”
Another thing. Of course there is always something else. What’s left of humanity has to work together, of course - Arthur isn’t unreasonable. Yet - “My name is John and -” echoes in the small space. The computer glitches and the voice cuts off. Arthur’s skin prickles.
“What did you say?” He turns in his seat. The shadowy corner, just by the glowing square of the camera button. Does something stir? The ocean moves all around him, caresses the rover, deceitfully tenderly.
“You have the tools,” the Captain whispers in the radio. With a fizzing hiss, it cuts off. The light no longer blinks on the radio. Arthur stares at it, wondering. He trails hesitant fingers down the controls of the rover. He skims through the instruction manual again. Finds the right buttons to press, the right lever to pull. A startled gasp, when the proximity indicator blinks.
The rover groans - or maybe it’s the ocean, like a great beast woken from its slumber. The rover creaks and oh, suddenly it shifts, jerks roughly to the side, tosses Arthur like a ragdoll - the lights flicker flicker flicker and something huge, oh, something will devour Arthur, hover and all and it will be just him, another lost light in the dark. He gets to his feet and slams his aching palm on the camera button. Its light burns his retinas but it shows him those eyes again. Despite the black and white image, something in Arthur tells him that the eyes would be gleaming a sickly yellow light.
A thought passes him. No, not Faroe. She doesn’t belong in the dark places.
The computer wheezes somewhere in the dark corner. Arthur’s palm slams the button again. Those eyes, still. Watching. Rows upon rows of teeth like rib bones.
“Hello?”
Arthur’s skin crawls. Yet, his palms grow clammy. His neck grows sweaty. He blinks stars from his eyes and turns, slow, slow, slow to look at the radio. There is no blinking light. No indication there is still a connection to human life. Still, the voice comes:
“Are you there?”
Arthur wets his lips. “Who’s speaking?”
The camera flashes. The eyes, staring. That wide mouth, open in a yawn. An abyss, staring. Behind him, the computer buzzes, whispers John’s eulogy to him. The only memory left of a man who once was.
“I think I’m - can’t you see me?” The radio buzzes. It’s a little androgynous, distorted. Then, clearly, masculine and low. “I’m right here. Arthur, I’m right here.”
Arthur’s eyes feel too big for his skull. His skin prickles. An insane urge to itch, to dig his nails into his own skin and scratch it raw. He turns to look back at the camera screen. A flash. Nothing there. Miles upon miles upon miles to go before he sleeps. “I’m hearing things,” he murmurs. “Where did the skeleton go?”
“Arthur,” purrs the voice in Arthur’s head.
Arthur drives. Takes photos. Tries his damned best to not listen, but - has it been minutes hours days? Weeks? Perhaps there is only him and the hemorover. And a voice, calling in the dark.
“Arthur.”
Arthur’s grip on the steering lever loosens. The rover rumbles to a stop and for a moment there is only the gentle murmur of its motors. The faint drip, drip, drip of moisture. A leak somewhere in the pipes. The ocean seeping in, one drop at a time.
“I heard your message. If this is you, John.” Arthur looks at the ceiling, too close above him.
The voice, faint as it is, laughs. Then back to that quiet melancholy. “Won’t you stay with me, Arthur? As I wait to die?”
Arthur’s skin prickles. His neck itches. Still, he doesn’t turn around to look at the dark corners, to where he knows the shadow waits. Faroe, perhaps. His only light.
“I’m hearing things,” Arthur still says, out loud. Hears his own voice loud and clear. Oh, how loud his breath rattles in his lungs. Ache is in him, every part of him. The kind of a dull pain that has no ending. John died here, alone in the dark, only those abyssal eyes for company. "I want to live."
“Perhaps,” murmurs John. “Does it matter, down here? And so do we all. But all living things do die. But what is death? What is life? Is this life you wanted for yourself or your little girl, I wonder, Arthur?"
"Fuck you," Arthur hisses. Still, he listens. "Life is what you make of it."
John, or whoever, whatever it is, merely hums. Arthur gets up and stomps to the camera. Takes another photo and this time, he spots the skeleton - right where he left it. Giant empty eyesockets still staring. He takes the sample, as requested. He calls for the Captain, but the radio stays silent. He paces, he paces, he paces. Hours, days, centuries pass. His aching fingers trace the little pendant. I want to live, I want to live, I want to live.
"But why?" John whispers.
"Because I want to," Arthur snaps back. Even though the light in his universe has gone dark. Even though humanity might be breathing its last. Even though the ocean is too deep and too red and the rust is seeping in. Even still.
"I see. What a wonder you are, Arthur Lester."