I'm such a sucker for this shit I just wrote. Like, guys, you don't know how much I'm enjoying rewriting Iron Lung's ending.
Spoilers (kinda) of Iron Lung, be aware.
Fast. Erratic. Clinging to life even after the horrors he'd lived through in that damn sea of blood.
The screeching of the radio hadn't stopped. Not when he'd approached the SM-08. Not when that fucking monster had crossed his path.
Not that Simon could tell reality apart from the horrible creations of his mind, anyway.
"Just accept it, Butcher… It's the only thing you've known since you were born. The only thing your mother taught you… It's the only thing you're good for." The monster's voice — the man wanted to believe it was the monster and not some other torture, bigger and more painful — said to him, distorting through the space of the submarine.
The blood was up to his knees now, slowing every movement he made.
"No! I won't die here. I won't die with you." Simon screamed, not even knowing if he could be heard. The monster's voice had been momentarily drowned out by the screeching of Ava's radio, demanding that even in his final breaths he sacrifice his only chance to live in the name of a greater good.
The C.O.I. didn't deserve it. Eden didn't deserve it.
Everyone in his life, even Father… Absolutely every single one of them had ulterior motives with him. Every single one had tried to pin him for things he never did.
"Yes — accept it, Simon!" The voice flooded the ship a second before it was violently struck from one side.
His sacrifice would be in vain. Even if humanity got the answer to the silent rapture, people's addiction to the suffering of others would remain, and it would once again be the reason society fell.
"If you want the Butcher, come get him." The blood level had risen, now lapping dangerously close to his ribs — a river flowing into the cabin from the ceiling, dumping gallons of blood into the cramped space.
When had something punctured the submarine?
Naturally, one of his arms reached for the blade secured to his belt. The vague reflex of seeking protection in the dark had remained in his system, even as the years he'd spent in Eden fell behind him.
His left hand reached toward the control panel. Maybe he could hit the monster again…
That was when the blood-soaked ivory burst into Simon's view.
The monster's teeth piercing the skin of his arm.
In what seemed like an act of divine mercy, Simon didn't feel the pain of having half his arm torn off.
His right hand tightened around the handle of the knife before using it to pierce the creature's eye.
"The end is near, Butcher." The beast's screeches were somehow intelligible through all his pain.
"I'm going to live. I'm going to live." Simon screamed from the bottom of his lungs, feeling how that action seemed to tear him apart from the inside.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God…" His relationship with God had been complicated for as long as he could remember. But now, in the final seconds of his life, Simon hoped that at least some deity could hear him and forgive him for all the evil he had done.
