You heave yourself up through the lower hatch and, like a fish, flop onto the cold floor. Convulsive gasps wrack your body as you suck down precious oxygen to placate the adrenaline flooding your system. Face turned towards the ceiling, your eyes only register flashes of the green and blue monster, a mouth full of uneven teeth. Your hands grip your abdomen, feeling torn flesh through a hole in your dive suit. You recall a red cloud trailing behind you during your frantic paddle back to safety.
Why can't you remember the creature's name? It's not like it would make a difference, but you are sure you knew it once – said it a dozen times and shrieked it just as many. The chair and headphones are gone this time. This time, it's real.
It wasn't a leviathan, no, it was one of the smaller ones. Maybe you're wracking your brain out of some obligation to finality. If you could put a name to the snaggletoothed face, you could give it its due blame and accept your fate. Maybe it's just the blood loss talking.
The emergency lights in the pod dim; a shower of sparks erupts in harsh pinpoints of fire. White smoke tinges the air, and it burns your eyes.
Out of all the games you've played, why did it have to be Subnautica? Your one mortal fear, and it checks that box in the most horrific way. Then again, compared to the others, at least you got to see sunshine and vibrant sea life before being ripped apart.
As the alien world blinks in and out, you half expect to bolt upright, free from this fever dream and the throbbing pain in your midsection. Or maybe in a hospital, judging by the head-shaped object darkening the overhead light. You'll wake up to a nurse calling you by your last name – you were in a coma, you're safe now.
The head grows an arm and shakes your shoulder. For a moment, your vision focuses on the nurse's mouth. It moves, but you cannot hear any words. The light is dimming again. You were in a coma. You're safe now.
The pain wakes you up. From the center of your core and radiating outward, a quiet agony starts. It has you writhing on the floor in less than a minute, the full intensity of your injuries lighting up your nerve endings. You fear raging infection. You fear disembowelment. Propped up on your elbows, and withstanding the fresh torment doing so brings, you take a look.
Your dive suit is torn from your navel to your left side, blood staining the gray fabric. However, instead of seeing the raw meat of your innards, an improvised bandage sits over the worst of it. Crisscrossing lacerations, shallow by comparison at an inch deep or less, surround a central point below your ribcage. Touching it sends your shoulders back to the floor, your body stiffening in rebellion to the prodding. Even without further exploration, you can tell it's packed deep with more bandages.
And what are these bandages made from? Well, your arms are bare, so it doesn't take much to guess. But you were in no condition to tear the sleeves off your suit and apply first aid. That, coupled with the bottle of water and silver cube sitting within arm's reach, leaves no mistake as to your current situation – you are not alone out here.
Stifling a groan, you reach out for the water and silver block. The water is fresh, and you drink it as effectively as you can from a prone position on the floor, resulting in a fourth of it dribbling down your chin. An outer layer of foil peels away from the cube to reveal a brown surface with the texture of cardboard, but unmistakably edible. Though it tastes marginally better than salted bread, you eat the entire thing. Occasional sips from the remaining water assist with swallowing the dry substance.
You're not alone out here. You mull this information over with the food sitting heavy in your stomach. The supplies and first aid suggest they want to help, but if that was the case, then where are they now?
Your strength returns slowly as you digest. Someone knows you are out here. If you wait, they might come back.
A few minutes turn into ten, one hour into two. Whatever they did left a tacky, yet hard, residue on your open wounds. The pain recedes to a dull roar, but the most you can manage is a single scoot in the direction of the nearest wall. When you regain consciousness, you decide not to try that again. So much for going out to look for your mystery medic. Staying in one place so they could find you again was the safer option, statistically.
Another hour passes. You begin to doubt the helpfulness of this person who may or may not have been a figment of your imagination. Left on your own, you might have bled out by now, or at least been unconscious with shock. At this rate, you might have to wait for infection to take you.
The floor hatch opens. A dark face mask appears out of the hole, followed shortly by a pair of black and orange arms, then a body. Closing the hatch, they rip off the mask.
It's a woman. When she scrambles over to you and makes a grab for your PDA, you flinch back. You want to ask questions, to ask for help, to make her back up, and to give back your PDA, but she toggles the display on and then off a moment later, and all you can manage is a pained whimper. Setting the device aside, she starts pulling items out of thin air and inches up to your injured side.
She has a few first-aid packs and more water, but when she reaches for the bandages around your middle, you weakly try to bat her hands away.
"Wait, no, wait," you croak. That's where the hurt is.
"Can't wait, sorry," she replies, unwinding the makeshift bandages. When she gets to the small clump of red gauze packing the deepest punctures, she pauses.
"You might want to do yourself a favor and pass out for this," she says.
You're about to reply, but then she pulls out the first bloody ball – you don't feel anything – and the world is already tilting back. You pass out.
You have to blink away the darkness, then the overwhelming light, then the blurriness. Eventually, the lifepod's interior appears. The wall panels gleam and reflect a dozen pinpoints of fluorescent glare, much brighter than before.
It hurts to breathe, but at least the ache is easily tolerated. Moving is still probably out of the question. Turning your head, you find the girl from before. She's standing in front of the pod's instrument panel, attention bouncing between the near-holographic display and the PDA in her hand. Every few seconds, she taps one of the screens and it changes.
Your tongue is dry. It takes more effort to speak, and that effort strains the injuries along your ribs.
"What happened?" you ask.
She turns away from the wall, though she enters a few more commands into the PDA.
"You passed out," she says, taking a seat on the edge of the bench-like storage compartment. "Having your side ripped open will do that to you. Let me guess, Stalker?"
"Huh?"
"Stalker attack? Judging by the bite, it's too deep to be a Shark, doesn't have the symmetry either. And if it was a Reaper, well, you'd be missing at least one side of your rib cage."
What she's saying, it sounds familiar, but your brain feels as dry as your mouth. Despite the endless assault on your senses, the world still seems unreal – like she's talking at you through a window of thick, double-paned glass.
She goes on to discuss your low vital readings and how she accessed your PDA to monitor your overall condition. Speaking of which, she produces another bottle of water. As you drink it, you consider your unique discomfort at having another person know you were thirsty simply by looking at a screen. She briefly describes what she did to treat your injuries, adding that she doesn't have any medical training right after you start to believe she knew what she was doing. The hard, tacky residue was the result of a spray-on adhesive bandage. Almost all first-aid kits have a canister, but she used at least two. The remainder of her efforts essentially boiled down to tape and bandages.
"How did you find me?" you ask. Never mind the question of how either of you got here in the first place.
"Emergency distress signal," she says, gesturing to the pod's control panel with a glance over her shoulder. "The pod sends out an automatic message after it's deployed. Coordinates, occupant status, hull integrity – it's all right here." She picks up the PDA from her lap and shakes it back and forth. "I wouldn't have come at all, but then I saw that it was Lifepod Five."
She says it like it's of some significance, but trauma, blood loss, and aliens make for a perpetually bleary cocktail. Then she's shaking your shoulder – you must have nodded off – and asks when you think you'll be ready to head out. Your surroundings snap into focus as you recall the hazards gliding through the water. The attack was close enough to watch your pod bounce back and forth as the creature, the Stalker, shook you. You're not about to risk your life again, and you tell her as much.
She argues that your injuries need more than her limited medical experience can provide inside a little lifepod. Better equipment, more supplies, antibiotics, an actual bed for actual bed rest. It sounds promising, but at this point, you'd still rather take your chances with a quick patch job than go out there.
"I can help you," she says, an intense seriousness on her face, "and I know your wounds are deep, but I need you to at least try to swim. If you can do that, I can make sure you stay safe and don't drown. I can't do it all on my own."
"Who even are you?"
"What? Oh, sorry. My name is," she says, then her expression falls. After a few moments, she taps you on the shoulder and with a simple, "Rest," climbs up the ladder and through the hatch. The hatch closes, and once again, you're alone.
She wants you to go back outside, back where the monsters are. You can barely move – how does she expect you to swim?
Her return startles you out of a fitful doze. Once down the ladder, she crosses her arms and tilts her head down.
"Sorry for ducking out earlier," she says. "You can call me Skye." A shaky shift of her shoulders, and then, "It's midday and the weather is good. If ever there was a time to go, it's now."
Thus, the argument begins again. Those things can probably smell blood and you don't want to die. She claims to possess the means to protect you. Does she have an enclosed and fortified vehicle? No, you can borrow her Seaglide. Is that like windsurfing? Never mind, she'll help you use it. Does she have a weapon to ward off the creatures with big teeth? She has a knife.
Merely trying to convince her that you value your life is wearing you out. The very thought of swimming is exhausting. And how far does she want you to swim? Oh, not far, just a mile, two tops – depending on how many detours you have to take to avoid the local wildlife. Any chance of running into those blue-green serpents again? Of course – the route leads through their territory. How does she not understand that this is a bad idea?
The only reason she manages to overpower you is the lingering weakness from the massive blood loss you sustained. Now on your feet, though wobbling precariously, you feel a sharp sting on your arm. She withdraws a short syringe. As if you didn't have enough holes already.
"That was a shot of adrenaline," she says. "It should give you enough energy to reach the habitat. Sink or swim, I'm getting you there."
She gives you a swift push, and suddenly you're falling through the open hatch. You bang your hand on the way down. The cold water strikes you harder than that stimulant injection, and you feebly bat your limbs against the soft current. Then she's in the water with you, pushing you towards the light.
You cough and sputter once your head breaks the surface, taking big gasps of air. You try to yell at her, but salty water keeps slipping into your mouth. She's not paying attention anyhow. PDA in hand, she makes a Seaglide appear. It looks like a miniature jet engine with handholds.
"Hold here," she instructs, positioning the machine in front of you. "I'm going to set it to 'low,' so it won't pull too hard. Stay near the surface so you can breathe, but keep this submerged, otherwise it'll stall out."
"Are you sure. We won't. Be attacked?" you ask in between waves.
"No, I'm not," she replies, treading water much more effortlessly. "But if anything does come along, I can handle it. Just focus on holding on and keeping your head above water."
The Seaglide whirs to life and starts to pull you along. With her help, you learn how to hold your arms to get the small motor running level while also keeping your head above the waves. Swimming alongside, she steers the Seaglide with small adjustments. A hand on your arm or upper back keeps you steady as colorful corals pass beneath you and the sea floor drops off. A curious look proves there are, indeed, big creatures swimming around below you. The young woman, on the other hand, doesn't appear too concerned. She spends most of the trip submerged, surfacing only to replenish her air tanks. You hope she's keeping an eye out for flesh-eating monsters, and that she was telling the truth when she said she could handle it if any get too close.
You can no longer see the sea floor when she abruptly switches the Seaglide to idle. Behind you, the lifepod has disappeared – nothing but the horizon line as far as you can see. With her mask on, the young woman doesn't speak. Instead, she gives you either a "stay" or "wait" signal, and then dives straight down.
The sun shines hot on your face as you tread water, exhaustion catching up to you. Your legs burn, and it takes considerable effort to unclench your hands from the Seaglide and wiggle your fingers. You must have swum at least five miles by now. Are you lost? Is she too proud to admit it to your face? A small wave pushes you down before closing over your head. With a grimace, you kick back up to the surface. You're in open water. Alone.
By this point, you can't say for certain which direction you would have to go to find the lifepod again. You could probably figure out how to switch the Seaglide back on, but then you'd just be going in a random direction. Given your luck so far, it would likely be the wrong direction.
Something brushes against your foot. The startled squawk you let out is, admittedly, very unmanly. Fortunately, you are not dragged down to the depths – instead, the young woman breaks the surface beside you.
Prying her mask off so you can hear her, she says, "Sorry, got a little carried away down there. We're good."
"What was it?" you ask.
"Nothing I couldn't handle. Let's keep going," she says, repositioning her mask and engaging the Seaglide's engine.
The second leg of the journey is even more grueling than the first and at least twice as long. When you ask if she has any more of those adrenaline shots, she administers one without question. It isn't nearly as effective as the first. All the while, she monitors your condition on your PDA. She could just ask, and if you had the energy to give her a piece of your mind, you would.
Evening is falling as your vision starts to blur. Though she offers words of encouragement, it sounds like you're underwater. For some reason, that doesn't sound too bad right now.
You're so out of it, you almost don't notice when you bump into something hard yet squishy, solid yet fluid. You don't even argue when she takes you by the shoulders and drags you forward, only to drop you a few moments later.
Your limbs are suddenly heavy, and overwhelmingly so. The sensation of the waves' never-ending push-pull still envelops you. At the same time, there is something solid at your back, and you feel strangely dry. Your eyes continue to function improperly, and you almost don't believe that the ubiquitous aquamarine water is no longer in sight. In its place is a surface of pale gold; it's coarse when it runs through your hands.
Tipping your head back, you utter three words you thought you'd never say again. "Land. Thank fuck."
"C'mon Stalker Bait," she says, shaking your arm. "Almost there. You can sleep in a bit."
"I'll sleep when I'm dead," you mumble.
She hoists you to your feet, but you can only lean against her.
"You need to walk," she insists.
"Am I bleeding?"
"No, but you're obviously delirious. Let's go, one foot in front of the other."
The light blinks in and out. Can the sun blink, or does it only wink?