It was dark…
Inky… Pitch black… Darker than the darkest night…
But that was to be expected at the bottom of the ocean.
Simon could remember countless books and T.V specials he had read and seen when he was still alive featuring the dark, mysterious depths of the oceans…
Everyone had an ocean phase at one point right?
But seeing such darkness on the television or reading about it in a book was far, far different from experiencing it…
The A.R.K was gone… Probably off among the stars by now, far, far, far away…
PATHOS-II was dark… Incredibly so…
When the A.R.K took off, it rattled all of PHI, and presumably the rest of PATHOS-II to the core. The roar of the engine was loud enough to send Simon, along with a bunch of other things, bolted down or otherwise, tumbling to the floor.
Where he remained...
Simon was on his knees between the chair and the desk, still reeling from the shock, the sound, the fall… The realization... Omni-tool clenched firmly in his hands, not that he could see it, dark and dead as it was…
The large room he was trapped? in, breathed and groaned, trembled and shook in the aftermath of the launch.
He could hear water gurgling and spilling into the room, the metal warping as the immense pressure outside sought to cripple the hull of PHI.
Not that Simon cared…
Thoughts and feelings jostled about his… Skull? Ha, he didn't have a skull anymore did he?
He wasn't human anymore was he?
Just a bunch of wires and chips and code.
Was he?
He was confused, but not in the way he was before, he wasn't questioning how or why… Those didn't matter anymore…
And neither did the 'what'...
'What am I?'
'What's happening?'
'What next?'
Those didn't matter… And maybe they never did…
When the water spilling into PHI finally reached the platform Simon was on.
How long had he been there? Like that?
Did that matter?
He allowed himself to fall onto his side, feel, but not feel the water ripple and churn around him, higher and higher until he was beneath the cold embrace of the sea…
Simon stayed there on the floor, curled around the Omni-Tool like an infant with a stuffed animal… Desperate for someone to comfort him… For someone to wake him up from this nightmare…
But he was not dreaming.
This was no nightmare.
And there was no one coming to comfort him.
Catherine was gone. And his mother had died long ago.
Oh god, mom was dead
Simon could feel the bubble of panic rising in his chest(?) a familiar tightness which had his electric heart not beating, but working overtime regardless.
He curled in on himself, closer, closer as he forced his head to be silent.
He wasn't sure why he bothered… He was dead, he had died long ago, was he even himself at this point?
He sure felt like himself…
Probably not… Hell, he wasn't human anymore.
But he wanted to live!
He was just a collection of thoughts and memories, parading around in a body also not his own.
Wasn't that enough?
It would be so easy to overload his sensors(?) and just short circuit himself as Catherine had done.
Catherine…
Simon sat up, his motion slowed due to the water filling PHI, now well over his head, gripping the Omni-tool, hard, hard enough for the screen to crack and splinter.
Not that Simon could see, it was all dark.
Catherine was gone…
Catherine was gone.
But she wasn't just gone, she had left.
Left him.
Down at the very bottom of the fucking ocean.
She had abandoned him, took the easy way out.
Killed herself.
Left him.
Simon could feel hot anger rising at the back of his skull, Had he been human he may have started to cry.
How dare she…
How dare she…
How dare she use him, lie to him. She said they were going on the A.R.K, that they were going to be among the stars, that they were going to be alright… That everything was going to be alright…
But she had lied.
She lied.
She had guided him through hell, with promises of a heaven at the end, only to pull the rug out from beneath his feet at the last moment and deny him his peace…
And then she went ahead and killed herself-
The Omni-tool splintered and cracked and shattered in Simon's hand, shattered pieces falling slowly to the floor…
The thought of perhaps, somehow… Fixing the damn thing, of fixing Catherine never crossed Simon's mind. As he tore the Omni-tool apart with his hands, (Ignoring the fact that they weren't really his hands) All Simon could focus on was the feverish turmoil boiling in his skull.
It wasn't fair…
It wasn't fair!
He had been the one to do all the heavy lifting!
He had fought the horrors! He had survived the terrors!
Why was she the only one to get peace!
There was no light at the end of the tunnel for Simon, there was no heaven waiting for him, no Catherine, no Ark, nothing!
There was only the darkness of the ocean… The crushing weight of water, the cold… The quiet… And whatever other hellish abominations remained…
Simon wasn't sure how long he remained there… On the launchpad…
But it must have been ages… Not years, but certainly a long, long while…
Long enough for the entirety of Phi, or at least the chamber Simon found himself in, to flood…
The pressure of the water shattered glass, warped steel and crippled doors… Simon wasn't sure he could be grateful for the fact that all of PHI didn't crumble…
He was human damn it!
It wasn't as if he had anywhere to go… Anything to do…
He wanted to live!
With Catherine, he had purpose… And without her he felt… Aimless, like a puppet without strings… She was the smart one, she wasn't a century out of date…
In an instant, all of Simon's fury dwindles to bitter regret and hopelessness. He found herself missing Catherin horribly, more than he hated her moments ago.
A strangled whimper escaped the speakers of his suite his throat? A sob, choked and pathetic…
He was alone…
He was so painfully alone…
He was alone at the bottom of the fucking ocean…
So alone…
The last person in all of PATHOS-II…
The realization was crushing… And there in the pitch blackness of Phi, Simon was very tempted to just give into the crippling pain burning in his Skull circuits and just… Overload himself.
Just like Catherine…
Had Simon been human, his teeth would have shattered with how tightly he wanted to clench his jaw.
Fury reignited in his chest(?) as he turned on his powersuite headlights.
Catherine was a coward, Catherine was weak. Running away, leaving Simon to suffer alone.
Simon was afraid, he wouldn't deny that…
But he wasn't going to just up and kill himself like Catherine.
Simon stood on the launch flat of Phi, the ocean swirling and churning around him as it settled into the new hollows of air within the metal caraccas of PATHOS-II
He tossed the broken Omnitool into the darkness where the ARK once slumbered before turning away…
He'd regret throwing away such an invaluable tool within the hour. But he wouldn't regret getting rid of Catherine once and for all…
He'd find his way, find another Omnitool and survive…
He'd survive…
It was all he could do…