Invictis: Eaternum Five

Chapter 1

Long before he opened his eyes he could hear that ominous beep that had haunted his dreams past remembering. Other than that, silence, tangible and oppressive. When he finally opened his eyes, he did not recognize where he was, but found himself floating in a luminescent tank.

Suddenly he realized that he was underwater. With a start he tried to shoot himself up to the surface, but he was so entangled in a mesh of long thin rubbery tubes that he began to panic. Then the realization hit him, he was breathing.

The liquid he was in felt cool in his lungs but what felt so natural seemed completely irrational to his mind. He loosed himself from the tubes holding him down and lifted himself out of the tank to see where he was. He was amazed to see four other cylinders just as his own, each containing one individual.

He lifted himself up out of the tank and slid gently to the floor. It felt cold to his feet, and slippery. His mind raced, wondering where he was and what happened to him.

Suddenly with his first breath of air after being in the tank, a searing pain that shot through the entire length of his body rent an excruciating scream from his throat. He fell to the floor gasping. His lungs desperately sought, not for air, but for the oxygen rich liquid from which he had just emerged.

The blazing fire in his chest slowly subsided and he began to breath normally. The air seemed stale and dry compared to the liquid that he had been submersed in.

He looked around him and none of the people in the tanks seemed to be in least disturbed by his outburst. Their eyes gently closed, they had very blank expressions on their faces. He felt cold and looked down at himself and realized that he was naked.

For the first time he took a survey of the room. It was filled with elaborate electronic equipment, machinery that he did not recognize and five cylinders including the one of which he had just emerged from. Each of them had a numbered plaque and an occupant in early adulthood. The tanks had refractive textures on the lower half of the glass to, somewhat obscure their nakedness. The only light in the room was given by the luminescence of the liquid in the cylinders.

The tank he had been in was marked "Eaternum 5." The nearest tank, number 4, arrested his attention. Inside was a beautiful young woman, who looked to be about twenty. He found her face intriguing. In spite of being fully mature, even alluring, her visage had the pristine innocence of a child. All of them did, they all showed their ages but they were, every single one of them, perfect in form.

He went to each of the cylinders and looked at the individual inside. Each one was amazing in perfection. They each looked somewhat familiar and yet alien at the same time. The mix of emotions, while disturbing, was the least of his concerns.

After studying them for a moment, he felt awkward standing there gawking at them while he himself was also naked, so he began to look for some clothing. He searched and found nothing suitable until he opened the door to a small side room.

It looked like a prep room. There were mostly smocks and medical supplies. In one section, there were somewhat regular clothes. He noticed there were five numbered bins that resembled those on the cylinders. So he went to his corresponding bin, number 5, to see what they had for him.

He found clothing they had left for him and as he dressed, he thought about who 'they' might be. Who are these people, where am I, and how did I get here? Nothing made sense. Trying to piece things together, he couldn't remember anything before he awoke. Amnesia? It was possible; after all he couldn't recall who he was. Flitting feelings and images would surface just out of reach momentarily. Who am I? He couldn't quite reach that yet.

The clothes he assumed were his were a dark grey tunic of a very lightweight material with a line of self-adjusting metal clasping mechanisms down the left side of the chest that effectively tailored the shirt in a fairly tight, form-fitting fashion that provided excellent mobility and comfort.