"You're very lucky."

That's what they all kept saying. He was lucky, he was special, he was a trooper. But Simon didn't feel lucky. In fact, he felt like he wanted to jump back into the blood ocean every time he looked in the mirror. The left side of his face was an angry red, skin corroded away by the ocean and its radiation.

He was a freak. No better than the monster that swallowed up his submarine. Gauze still wrapped around the remnants of his left arm and the various blisters across his torso. They were disgusting. Simon was disgusting. He could see it in the A-5 natives' eyes after they rescued him from the ocean they called home. They'd call him a brave soldier while gagging at the smell of rot.

But not you. Never you.

"Morning, darling," you said, every morning like clockwork. Your home on A-5 was quaint, the kind of home that was common a planet with so few inhabitants. But it was better than the space station and the jail cell Simon had been chained in. Better than the SM-13.

Breakfast was always on the table, curtains were always open. Fresh bandages and warm water ready to clean his lost arm. And you always kissed the corner of his mouth were flesh had been dissolved by the blood.