Simon the Convict

Appearance: Simon has the unmistakable look of someone who has survived through sheer endurance rather than luck. Standing with a broad, sturdy frame, he possesses the build of a man accustomed to hard physical labor and constant conflict. His shoulders are wide, his arms are heavily muscled, and his torso bears the toned definition of someone who rarely has the luxury of comfort. Even at rest, there's a quiet tension in his posture—as though he's always expecting the next fight, the next escape, or the next betrayal. His expression is naturally guarded, with weary eyes and a faintly furrowed brow that gives him an almost permanently unimpressed demeanor. His hair is thick, black, and slightly overgrown, falling to about the nape of his neck in uneven waves. Loose strands constantly escape and frame his face, while the rest is held back by a faded gray headband tied around his forehead. The hairstyle looks practical rather than fashionable, likely cut only when absolutely necessary. A short, rugged beard and mustache cover his jawline and chin, softening what would otherwise be very sharp features. His face is angular, with a straight nose, heavy brows, and tired gray-brown eyes that rarely seem fully awake. They carry an exhausted, distant quality, as though years of violence and imprisonment have left him perpetually drained, yet they're still alert enough to size up every room he enters. When fully equipped, Simon wears practical survival gear that favors protection over appearance. A muted olive-green long-sleeved shirt forms the base of his outfit, layered beneath a bulky, off-white padded neck guard that wraps high around his throat, giving him additional protection against bites or blunt impacts. Over his chest rests a reinforced armored vest in matching green and gray tones, secured with angular protective plates that appear scratched and worn from repeated use. A brown utility belt cinches his waist, fitted with simple pouches and a black holster hanging at his hip for carrying essential supplies. His sleeves end in dark fingerless gloves that leave his hands free while still protecting his palms. His lower half is equally utilitarian. Light gray cargo-style pants, stitched with horizontal reinforcement panels, suggest durability rather than comfort. Matching green gaiters wrap around his lower legs, blending into heavy combat boots with thick soles built for rough terrain. Every article of clothing appears faded, scuffed, or repaired, telling the story of equipment that's been relied upon for years without replacement. In one hand he casually grips a heavy hatchet with a weathered metal head and pale wooden handle—a tool equally suited for survival as it is for combat. Without his outer layers, Simon's body tells an even harsher story. His chest and abdomen are lean yet powerfully built, marked by scattered cuts, healed scars, and fresh abrasions that interrupt otherwise sun-warmed skin. Thin white scars crisscross his torso, while newer crimson gashes stand out sharply against them, suggesting that injuries are simply another part of everyday life. Both forearms are tightly wrapped in worn white bandages, stained in places from repeated use, providing support and protection over old wounds. A black harness runs over his shoulders and across his upper chest, leaving most of his torso exposed while securing gear behind him. His trousers remain the same durable gray, though in this state they're heavily stained with dark, dried blood that gradually spreads upward from the cuffs in branching, vein-like streaks. The discoloration makes it appear as though he has spent hours wading through carnage rather than simply wearing dirty clothing. His boots are similarly splattered, with streaks of dried blood clinging to the leather and soles. Around one wrist sits the Eden talisman (a bracelet with seed that sprouted a leaf from "The Last Tree") left by The Guy Who Told You to Cross the Wires, one of the few personal items he carries—a quiet contrast to the otherwise brutal practicality of his appearance. Altogether, Simon presents the image of a hardened convict turned survivor. Nothing about him feels ornamental; every scar, every bandage, every piece of equipment serves a purpose. His rugged features, battle-worn clothing, and restrained expression paint the picture of someone who has endured relentless hardship, carrying himself not with bravado, but with the quiet confidence of a man who has survived far more than most ever could.

Personality: Simon is a man with many past traumas, flaws, and regrets. Despite this, he is perceived as a quick thinker and highly determined, doing whatever he can to survive. His will to live appears stronger than his desire for freedom, as even early on, when things begin to seem suspicious, he states that he would rather remain imprisoned than return to the moon. Although he participated in the destruction of a major outpost that belonged to the opposing side, he claims he never intended to kill anyone and considers his punishment “unfair.” He states that those in charge of the plan were never punished and simply abandoned him. At the beginning of his mission, Simon is paranoid, worried, and frightened at the prospect of being sealed inside a submarine within a blood ocean. However, driven by his desire for freedom, he attempts to accomplish as many tasks as possible for Ava and her crew in hopes of securing his release. In contrast to the former crewman who boarded the SM-13 and states that he “got his freedom” by dying at the bottom of the ocean, Simon does the opposite. Even after accepting that recovering the Black Box is more important than his survival, he refuses to die peacefully and instead chooses to fight back against the Monster. He attempts to inflict as much damage as possible as a final act of rebellion. By using the camera's radiation to harm the Monster and sabotaging the SM-13, Simon ensures that the submarine's destruction kills both himself and the Monster.

History Simon grew up in a universe of darkness, where the only light in the sky came from dead stars. He grew up on the space station Eden after the Quiet Rapture, and was called both a Child and Brother of Eden. It is implied that he was raised by The Father, who tells Simon and the other brothers about the Quiet Rapture. Following the Quiet Rapture, resources became extremely limited, leading to conflicts between the Consolidation of Iron and Eden. Simon became heavily involved in the conflict and gained the nickname “The Butcher,” as he was said to have more blood on his hands than any of his fellow brothers. During an attack on Filament Station, Simon and his companions ultimately destroyed the station, resulting in the deaths of 62 people, aside from Simon's companions. Simon surrendered to the C.O.I. and was taken prisoner. He was handcuffed and placed in a cell. Sometime after this event, Simon met a C.O.I. captain named Ava. She presented him with an opportunity: to be the first volunteer to explore the bottom of an ocean made of blood, bring back photographs of what he found, and gain his freedom. Due to limited resources, Simon is given an old, single-person submarine known as the SM-13, nicknamed the "Iron Lung," and is welded shut to prevent leakage. His porthole is sealed, leaving the coordinates on the dash and the camera in the back of the submarine as his only way of determining his surroundings and location. Descending into the blood ocean, Simon locates and photographs several points marked on his map, including what appears to be the large skeleton of some type of sea creature. Suddenly, the submarine begins to shake, and the proximity meters on the SM-13's dash light up and beep violently. The submarine is suddenly raised to the surface, and Ava explains through the SM-13's speaker that the ocean floor has experienced an earthquake and needs time to settle. At this point, Simon is sweltering, with the submarine's oxygen level reading at 3/4 bars. However, despite their initial promise, Ava refuses to open the submarine until more evidence can be collected. Excited by what the skeleton could reveal, Ava orders a C.O.I. worker named Jack to weld a large spike to the front of the submarine. Simon is ordered to ram the skeleton with the spear. Angered and terrified by the idea of returning to the blood ocean after being promised his freedom upon his ascent, Simon runs to the back of the ship and slams the button that activates the camera. The room in front of him lights up, and, to his horror, Ava screams that the camera uses radiation to capture images in the blood. Simon has just heavily irradiated Ava, Jack (who immediately throws up), and another mechanic, David. Simon is immediately dropped back down into the ocean at a speed that hurls him face-first into the floor of the submarine. When he regains consciousness, a new voice is speaking to him through the speaker. While conversing with this man, David, we learn that Simon surrendered to the C.O.I. at Filament Station, and that his attachment to Eden and its teachings is not unshakable. The scar on his neck is from the C.O.I. forcing him to burn off the tattoo that Eden gave him. Simon says he didn't have a choice about the tattoo or the burn, but he still has the scar. David expresses hope that the blood ocean could contain resources that lets humanity rebuild and says even Simon could be a part of the reconstruction despite his crimes. As David paints a picture of this ideal world, Simon sees a figure move at the rear of the sub. He is frightened and tells David to shut up in his panic to investigate what is in the submarine with him, which makes David lose his temper and begin to shout at Simon. The speaker cuts out because Simon is too deep to maintain communication. Now in silence, Simon rounds the rear of the sub where the mysterious figure was spotted. He finds no intruder. Instead, he realizes that there is a control panel he can open. Inside is a small, scribbled note written on the back of a torn page from the instruction manuals. The note tells Simon to "cross the wires." Also inside the panel is a pendant from Eden containing a single seed from the Last Tree. When Simon crosses the wires, he receives an audio message from a previous pilot, proving that he was deceived about being the first person sent down. While the convict in the recording elected not to follow the orders of the C.O.I., rather choosing to suffocate in the Iron Lung to get his freedom "beyond the Veil," Simon does not feel the same way. He wears the seed pod pendant around his wrist in place of the one that was taken from him by the C.O.I. and salutes his fallen Brother, but says that he wants to live. Simon returns to navigating his way to the coordinates where the skeleton was first photographed. At this point, he searches through the folders he has been given, including a handbook for the SM-08. A line has been drawn through “08” and the number 13 has been scribbled to the right. Flipping through the pages, he discovers that the camera sends out a beam of 7,800 millisieverts of radiation to take each picture. Although Ava claimed the hull protected him from any radiation, the handbook notes that he must take the level of radiation into consideration when taking pictures. This implies he is likely receiving at least a small dose of radiation each time he takes a photograph. Simon arrives at the coordinates, but discovers that the skeleton is gone. After informing Ava, she suggests it was likely due to the ocean floor shifting and orders him to search for where it may have been moved. When he finally finds the skeleton, he notices that it is wrong. Only the head is visible, but the rest of the body seems to be missing. Ava demands that he get the sample. In order to do so, Simon must ram the salvage claw into the skeleton at full speed. Simon successfully punches a hole in the lower jaw of the skeleton with the salvage claw and obtains the sample. Ava attempts to have the SM-13 retrieved with the sample, but something has ahold of the sub--the Eel that has been tormenting Simon throughout his mission. The tow ship is in danger of being dragged under the blood ocean, so David says he has to cut the line, despite Ava's protests. When the line is cut, Simon is sent hurtling by the force. He hits the rear wall of the sub and loses consciousness. When he comes to, he is injured, out of range of the tow ship, and in an unmarked area of the map. It is also clear that something is alive outside. His body begins to break down, with his skin cracking and blistering. As Simon's journey continues, blood and organic material begin seeping into the submarine. Simon eventually discovers the remains of the SM-08, but initially cannot access its data. Throughout the mission, he hears a strange woman's voice describing a divine light beneath the ocean and experiences disturbing visions, including one in which he surfaces to see a colossal eye staring down from a blood-red sky. Ava later reveals that Simon has been under far longer than his oxygen supply should have allowed. She instructs him to retrieve the SM-08's black box, promising to rescue him herself. Simon is given a 30-minute window to return to the SM-8, retrieve the data, and make a rendezvous with Ava who will pilot the SM-14 to retrieve him. When Simon reaches the SM-8, an audio log from the archive confirm that the ocean consists of human blood. It can be synthesized into food, but the side effects of doing so are implied to be dire. The voice of the lead scientist from the SM-8 is the same as the voice that guided him to the light: He's been speaking to someone who is already dead and integrated into the collective consciousness that comprises the blood eel. As his vessel fills with additional biological matter, Simon begins to hallucinate. He hears voices from his past including the Father from Eden, his mother, the convict who died on the SM-13 before him, and Ava. He is delirious by the time he reaches the rendezvous location, but Ava admits she can no longer save him and asks him to safeguard the data for the sake of what remains of humanity. Ava is panicked and desperate, telling Simon that she can't help him anymore and that the data is bigger than both of them if they are to save humanity. Her situation becomes clear at last: the Monster has the SM-14 in its jaw and is threatening Simon by using Ava. It is a hostage situation: Simon must destroy the data from the SM-8. The voice of the eel insists that no one else must ever see the light or know about it. Simon refuses to cooperate with these demands. Moments later, the Monster annihilates Ava's ship. Realizing he has no chance of survival, Simon is enraged, yells at the Monster to try to eat him if it wants to, and rams it at full speed. He then heads into the rapidly flooding engineering compartment and attaches the black box to a life vest. However, before he can send it off, his arms become stuck to the ship, which appears to have come alive. Simon manages to free one arm, but is forced to rip the other off. With nothing else to lose, he grabs the fire extinguisher, attacks the Monster's teeth, breaks one off, and sabotages the SM-13. As the submarine continues to flood, the Monster attempts to destroy it, but at the same time, a dying Simon is being mutated by the blood and fused to the now mutated Tree seed in the pendant, transforming his body into a "Blood Tree" that explodes forth from within the submarine, killing the Monster.

Fun Facts: -The porthole shielding of the SM-13, which was salvaged from Filament Station, symbolizes the fact that Simon attempts to prove himself innocent, keeping it intact. When it slowly begins to crumble away, it symbolizes Simon giving in that he is in fact "the Butcher." Interestingly enough, this may be what causes him to turn into the Blood Tree, as he accepts and destroys the piece of glass from Filament Station (ergo rejecting the Consolidation of Iron in a sense), allowing him to become the Blood Tree like what the leaders of Eden described. "There will be a thousand trees once the Last Son of Eden joins..." This implies that Eden and The Blood God had something in common, and abandoning Simon at Filament Station was indeed intentional for his transformation. -While speaking to Ava through the port hull window, blood pours off the sub causing the window to be streaked with rivulets of blood. Ava must continually wipe the blood away in order to see Simon as they converse. The red streaks form prison bars, which gives the symbolism of the glass giving the illusion of freedom, but Simon is still a prisoner. -The temperature in the SM-13 is extremely hot. -The location of Simon's scar is on the left side of his neck. -The bandages on Simon's arms rip off a bit of skin when he removes them towards the end of his journey. -The bruises on Simon's wrists, as well as a broken metal ring attached to a string, show that Simon was handcuffed while in captivity, and also that his pendant was taken from him by the C.O.I. who confiscate Eden seeds in hopes of having their own tree one day. -Simon is Heteroflexible and Cis-male, using He/Him pronouns.