Callisto: Bound to the Alien Commander |18+

Chapter 4

Watching Dr. Schneider come out of cryosleep is like watching grass grow. I've been sitting beside her pod for what feels like hours. When her chamber finally opened after starting the unfreezing process, I started her solution bags. They've been empty for a while now and she still hasn't moved.

"Please, wake up," I whisper, leaning down to check her pulse again. I'm starting to feel desperate.

The quiet is so still and so intense that it's frightening.

Before I started her unfreezing process, I searched for a light switch or something to brighten the room. None that I found worked. In addition to mine, there are only three pods with lights on. Beyond those, the room is pitch black. I ran into several pods as I moved around the room but I couldn't see inside of them.

"Look, Clarisse, it's time to get up! Get that blood pumping!" I try to cheer her on. Maybe she just needs a little bit of encouragement.

Checking her pulse for the fiftieth time, I go back over the other illuminated pods. Dr. Arturo Santiago of Colombia and Dr. Robert Newton of the United States... looking beyond their pods into the darkness a shudder rolls down my spine.

There is a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach a rolling, gnawing anxiety that I'm trying to push to the back of my mind. Why aren't any of the other pods illuminated?

"How are things progressing over here?" I ask Clarisse enthusiastically, turning my attention away from the looming dread in my mind. If I don't think about it, it's not real. Reaching down to check her pulse, I am met with warmth. She still has no pulse, but her skin has lost the frigid stiffness that it held before.

"Holy shit, Clarisse! You're thawing!" I'm so excited that I momentarily forget the limitations of my body and try to jump up and down.

Pulling myself off the floor, my cheeks are burning, embarrassment over eating it in front of a bunch of frozen people.

"Are you ready Arturo? What about you, Rob? As soon as she's awake, you're next!" I ignore the silence and remove the IV from her arm. I find myself dusting the pods and straightening and re-straightening the medical equipment. The nervous energy I feel won't let me be still for even a second.

After several minutes in the agonizing silence, I reach down again. I can't stop checking her pulse. It's probably a good thing she isn't conscious. I'm being incredibly annoying.

"Alright, Clarisse," I whisper as I press my fingers to her neck. The gasp that leaves my throat almost echoes in the bunker.

"Clarisse!" My voice is a shrill scream but I can't seem to control the volume. "You have a pulse!"

Turning to face the other pods, I shout excitedly, "she has a pulse!" No one joins in my commotion. It's so weak its almost nonexistent but its there. A pulse, a heartbeat...signs of life.

As I pace beside her pod, I keep hallucinating movements. Was that a finger twitch? Did her eyelid just flutter? I need to stop staring at her, it's not waking her any faster.

Just to be sure, I recheck everything again. The medical supplies are still straight, and the men are still frozen. As I make my rounds, her pod starts to beep. It's a low, rhythmic tone, a heart rate monitor.

With each passing minute, the beeps become more steady, closer together. I count the beats, thirty per minute, forty per minute, forty-five, then fifty-five. They even out at sixty-eight. I keep counting, over and over, checking that she's not slipping too low or climbing too high.

I must count the minutes at least thirty times. It's not an exact science as I don't have a stopwatch so it's left to my best guess to try to restart at the one-minute mark. I have no frame of reference for how long this is supposed to take, I think it's been several hours.