Unearthed

Chapter 1 - Cold

It is dark. The air is crisp and extremely cold. My last protein bar, gone. It is now time for me to sit and wait. All I can do was let nature reclaim my cold, colorless corpse. But in the meantime, all I can do is wait. That is what everybody seems to be doing every second of every day. People wait for a text, phone call, for the next episode of their favorite TV show, but here I sit. Waiting helplessly for my death. Seconds felt like hours and hours felt like days. I dig a small indent into the snow and lay down on my back. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting is exhausting. I close my eyes. And wait.

I am awakened by a trembling roar that sounds like a parade of cars passing over the snow on top of me. I jolt forward and hit my head on the frozen, rock hard snow. Knocking me out cold. Very. Very cold.

I awaken one last time and hear my voice faintly being called out. "Bryan! Bry!" Only one person in the world has ever called me Bry. It was my mother. I scream back as loud as my exhausted voice could muster. No reply. I scream again. And again. And again. One last time I scream at the top of my lungs, and I begin to shed tears as some one who seems miles away says, "I heard him! He's over here!" I yell louder so they don't lose track of me and, I hear the sound of shovels digging into the thick layer of snow piled on top of the small crevice that encased my helpless body. The sound of multiple shovels was getting closer and closer. People yelling things that I can't understand, probably because the amount of adrenalin running through my body is more than it ever has been.

Very faint light is starting to show now, and that light means one thing. The one thing that I had needed thirty minutes earlier. Hope. There is now hope that I won't die an icy death twenty feet below the surface of Antarctica. I hear my mothers voice growing louder as more light begins to shine into the small cavern. Small bits of snow fall onto my head, and I realize how cold I really am. My hands are bluish purple and numb.

Fifteen or so minutes pass and the sounds of shovels has halted. A feeling of panic momentarily sets in until I hear the shovels commence a few minutes later. With my stomach empty, hands and feet frozen, head in pain, and thirst beyond reason, I finally see the sky. My life had just been saved. I black out.

I awake in an ambulance. Surrounded by a crew of people and my mom. They weren't intensely working like you'd think they would be. They were just sitting and watching. There was an IV in my arm. I try to speak but nothing but a crackle and air escape my mouth. I clear my throat and try again. "What happened?" "You are suffering from dehydration and hypothermia." "Am I going to be okay?" "You're awake aren't you?". He had a point. I am alive. I am breathing. I am speaking. I was going to be okay. "Where am I?" "You're on your way to the hospital for further evaluation. When the rescue team found you in the snow you weren't breathing. They thought you were a goner. They revived you with a defibrillator unit and loaded you into the helicopter. We picked you up off of the helicopter and here we are now." "Where is here?" "Miami" I black out in Antarctica and wake up in Miami. My first helicopter ride and I'm not awake to experience it. I've been on planes, trains, city busses, and just about any kind of boat you can think of. That's how I got to Antarctica, a cargo ship.

I didn't go to on the expedition for reasons that most go to Antarctica. I'm not a marine biologist studying whales. I'm not studying climate change. I'm not looking for fossils of long dead species. To put it bluntly, I'm looking for blood. Not new blood. Old blood. Extinct blood. Now I know what people think when I say this. But, this is not like Jurassic Park. I'm not looking to bring back an old species. I'm trying to create a new one. But only I know this. I don't tell people that I am one of the head researchers in a top secret lab, I tell them that I look for blood. Jurassic Park could never happen. The blood cells in any kind of Amber would have died leaving behind no live DNA. But blood frozen in the Antarctic would be alive. It would have adapted to freezing temperatures. Unlike blood suddenly encased in tree sap.

The ambulance makes a sharp turn into what I assume is the hospital unloading bay. It comes to a halt and the doors fly open. The stretcher I am on is carried out of the ambulance and I see the sun again. The air is thick and hot. Oh yeah, Florida. The hospital doors slam open and people rush to my aid. I'm put into a room and new IVs are put into my arm. I sit back, and for the first time in days, I relax. I close my eyes. And fall asleep.