Chapter Text
I’m on the beach. I’m sitting on the beach and my head is killing me.
What was I doing here? My brain strains to remember, but all that does is spike my headache up to the next level. Good grief, Ryland. Don’t think. Just observe. Sense.
Okay, I’m on the beach. Water is rolling up towards me, almost touching my feet but not quite. I’m sat at the perfect distance to miss it. I feel the breeze roll over my skin, smell the salt air—
I’m tasting the ocean at a distance. The intrusive thought creeps in before I can stop it. My head slams with a new wave of pain, words and images passing through without a filter.
My hands holding up a microscope slide spattered with areas of black sludge. Peering through strange glass into a tunnel of darkness. A lilting computerized voice overlayed with melodic warbles. The words are too far away to grasp, but I could have sworn I heard someone say—
“Grace!” someone calls from down the shoreline. Thank goodness, anything to pull me out of this nauseating flash. I turn to see Linda, walking towards me with a hand blocking the sun from her eyes. She gives me an uncertain smile, but I can’t even concentrate on that. The thought of the sunlight throws my head into another spasm.
It’s not the sun. Oh God. That’s not our sun. Stars through a porthole. An absolute bottomless pit of panic in my stomach. The flash of too many screens. Words and diagrams I don’t understand. The endless feeling of spinning, spinning spinning.
“You okay?” Linda is sitting next to me by the time I snap out of it. Jesus, I don’t remember her being that sneaky. She holds the back of her hand to my forehead. “I swear if you sit out here any longer in a sweater you’ll give yourself heat stroke.”
Maybe she’s right. I try my best at a smile, but it’s hard to grin and bear it when it feels like my neurons are coming apart at the seams. But she’s right. Pink sands, turquoise waters…I should be ecstatic. We’re supposed to be enjoying this. Our “commisery-moon” we were calling it. And boy, did I feel miserable. How can anyone enjoy a trip when their whole world is falling apart?
Striking a strong-man pose in an EVA suit. Humming along to music while hooking together chain link after chain link. A room for karaoke. No, a room for fireworks, for climbing trees, for—
Sitting on a beach.
“Grace,” Linda says again. I glance back at her. She looks really concerned. Maybe she should be. Am I having a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde moment? I don’t feel like myself at all. My mind continues to spin, tear in two. I’m actually worried I might blow chunks on her. God, I’m the worst partner ever.
If I’m already trapped with this headache, should I take a second to think how weird it is she’s calling me Grace? In all our years, it’s only ever been Ryland. Ry when she’s feeling like really shaking things up. The formality all of a sudden feels out of place.
“I’m fine. Really.” Not the truest words I could’ve chose, and I’m sure pushing up my glasses to scrub my hands over my temples doesn’t make the act any more convincing. “Are you okay? This feels…off.”
Silence. All I can hear is the waves and some nearby gulls. Linda’s stare continues to bore into me. You’d think I kicked her cat with a look like that! I glance over my shoulder then look back, somehow expecting that to change something. Her expression is unmoved. “Hello? Linda?”
“Grace,” she says again. Her tone has intensified.
Oookay, kind of feels like I should be worried now. Sweat starts beading up on my skin without permission. I find myself leaning away from her. “Yeah hun, can you hear me? I’m started to get wor—”
Her hand snaps up to the side of my face and my eyes start fluttering. “Grace!” she’s shouting now, not holding it back at all. The floodgates open all at once, and what feels like every memory my mind has ever held comes tumbling out at the same time. There’s so many flashes, so many blips of sound that there’s no way I can possibly catch any of it. And all the while, Linda sits next to me shouting “Grace! Grace! Grace!”
The beach starts to unravel around me in real time. Everything feels like it’s collapsing away into a black hole. I couldn’t hold on to any of this even if I wanted to. I’m immobilized aside from my trembling. Still the shrieking in my head builds. My chest feels like it’s rising and falling so quickly now, my insides churning until—
Yeaaahh, I definitely threw up. Yup, it actually happened this time. My throat burns as I retch up another wave, but at least my eyes are shut so I don’t have to see any of this. God forbid I see my own puke and get triggered into an endless feedback loop of puking and more puking. Persistent Puke Purgatory. I feel like we should avoid that.
That felt awful, but honestly did wonders to relieve some of the pressure inside my head. It’s definitely still there, along with a variety of other aches. Once my ears stop ringing from the force of my own projectile vomit, I begin to notice a few things.
First is that hands are on me. Specifically one on my back, and one holding my left hand and elbow steady. It feels like I was laying down just now. Oh no, that means I puked off the side of the bed. Linda is going to kill me if this doesn’t come out of the carpet….For real, we need our deposit back.
Second, someone is still saying my name. Might have puked too hard though, because nothing sounds quite right. I know it’s my name being said but all I hear is a weird chain of notes. Like I’ve been transported into an episode of Charlie Brown and the adult voices are being played by a super distressed oboe. I cough up a few final chunks and rub my tongue over my teeth. Gross.
“Grace!” says the distressed oboe. Except this time, it sounds a bit more relieved. “Grace, you’re awake now! Can you hear me?!” Loud and clear as concrete, Little Oboe! I strain to pick up on the full range of sound, only to find notes like whale song, the chitter of birds, the clacking of rocks all together.
“Yeah. M’sorry I got sick. I—” Please keep it in, I beg myself. I don’t want to go back for Pukemageddon 2. “I’m m’kay now.” I’m not. But I don’t want to freak Linda or myself out anymore than as it already stands. My bones hurt and my head feels puffy and everything tastes like bile. So I’m gonna play it cool. “I need an Aspirin.”
The hand rubs circles into my back, while the other squeezes my own. Feels nice to be cared for while being sick. Feels even better to be out of that weird nightmare. “Bring Grace water and pain relief medication, now!” The warbling in my ears now is still distressed, but a touch softer. Who could she be talking to? Is someone else here? I open my eyes but realize the lights are still off. I can’t see a damn thing! Despite that, I hear movement all around me. I allow my hearing to focus in, expand, and realize I’m surrounded by voices. More distorted, instrument-like voices.
Something is wrong. Something is really, really wrong and I can feel it in the pit of my stomach. Literally. I’m worried it’s going to come out again. Now that I touch around, this doesn’t feel like my bed. Shit, am I in the hospital? This kind of does feel like a hospital bed. But if so, why are all the lights off? Continuing to stare off into the dark isn’t doing anything but make my head spin.
“Linda please, can you hit the lights?” I ask. “I think there’s more coming. I need a trash can.”
“Oh, forgot light switch mechanism for Doctor Captain Ryland Grace!” I hear a voice trumpet from somewhere in front of me. There’s an unsettling click-clack of what almost sounds like glass running along tile.
My heart starts beating overtime in my chest. Everything feels really wrong right now. “Heart rate is elevated,” a tuba comments from my left. There isn’t an EKG going off. What kind of hospital is this?! I close my hand tighter around Linda’s and receive another comforting squeeze. I go to lay my head on her shoulder so I can try to breathe, but in the dark, I miss and have to catch myself from falling. Am I that messed up right now? I swear she should be right in front of me.
Then, I fear my heart stops entirely. The voice I thought was Linda’s is clearer now, as if my ears popped. I’m not crazy. It’s not a voice at all. A string of cascading notes is in its place, sounding out a message to me in dissonant tones. “Grace, who is Linda?”
At that moment, the lights flash on. To my retinas it’s like a bomb went off. The effects on my head and gut aren’t any better. All I can make out is the hospital equipment, the empty walls surrounded by strange tables and odd silhouettes. That’s it, I think I’m officially broken. Words are music notes, people are blobs, none of my senses work except for my nose picking up the horrible smell of puke!
I’m tasting at a distance.
Somehow in front of me, a third arm emerges. Before I can register anything the glasses are already on my face. The world strains to pull into focus. Except that’s only made it all worse. Without a doubt, a hundred percent, a billion times worse. Because now there’s nothing stopping me from looking at the nine rock spiders that are running around the room.
You’re dead, Ryland. You’ve finally punched your ticket and somehow ended up going through the wrong turnstile at the end of the tunnel. My body outright rejects that explanation though, because I feel my skin go clammy and my heart is still beating despite its feeble attempt to give up. There’s no control over my eyes widening and the tears that creep down my cheeks. I’m so afraid that I can’t feel my limbs. I’ve been rendered completely immobile. These things don’t have faces, but somehow I know they’ve all turned to face me now. They wiggle back and forth, pound their feet on the ground, fidget with their little claws while looking at me with such intensity.
Oooohh this is bad. Really really really bad. I’m not dead but I’m about to be. I’ve been abducted and now I can see whose chopping block I’m on. I think I’m about five seconds away from crossing over into hyperventilation territory. My body is still scared stiff and all I can do is squeeze down as hard as I can on the hand in mine. So hard in fact it feels like it might cut me.
Wait. Why would it cut me?
This is a horror movie and I’m being forced to live it. There’s so much tension in my neck, trying to lock my muscles and make it impossible for me to turn and see the truth of what I’m holding onto. Somehow I still manage to turn my gaze, until my head budges to follow. You know, I hate being right.
My eyes trail down my arm until it reaches my hand, which is held firmly in the claw of one of the creatures. Even with me being on the short operating table, it barely peeks over the edge.
Peeks. How can it be peeking when there’s no eyes? It doesn’t even have a face but I know instinctively I’m being looked at. Just like how I can tell it’s perked up now that I’m looking back at it, raising higher on its five limbs. It leans towards me and brings another claw to rest on top of my hand.
“♩♩♪,” it says, although that’s not what I hear. My brain automatically processed it before I could name the pitches. “Grace,” it says, shaking with…relief? Anxiety? There’s so much nuance layered in the notes that I have no idea how I’m able to decipher. A taller creature approaches from behind, holding a hexagonal pill in a claw, and a small cup of water in the other. “I’m here. Everything will be alright. How do you feel?”
I finally fucking scream.