Frozen Crossfire

Chapter 1 - Icy Assembly

Silence. This is all that can be heard in the dark room where the souls of nine survivors are preserved for centuries to come. Tears of condensed water are gliding down the glass doors of the tube. "Click!" The massive metal doors that separates the two rooms - the cryo room and the computers' room - opens the temperature of the room starting to rise as the ice within the tubes begins to slowly melt.

The room is now depressurized and the air becomes breathable once again. With another "Click!" each tube begins to open, revealing what seems to be the soulless bodies of the research team. The sound of the sparkly ice is the only noise in the room. A perfect symphony of cold winter coming to an end.

A finger starts to move, imprinting in the air the sound of bones cracking to life. Another one follows, until, one by one, he is able to move his hands all together. His pale skin is glowing in darkness, covered by small and pure crystals. His brown hair is mixed with diamond dust, just as if he had a crown on his head. Unconciously, he knows he is alive. But just as during those kind of sleep-paralysis that last for up to a couple of minutes he is unable to feel the weight of his own body. "It feels good to be back to life." he thinks, as his left arm twitches. He tries making a sound, thinking that if his mind can cooperate with him, so will his voice. But nothing coherent comes out, only a low grunt escapes his parted lips.

As the minutes go by, the room reaches a normal temperature, though his body is still numb. He is all wrapped into a chilly blanket now. And then, it happens. He opens his eyes, the light - way too bright for his unused ability to see - making him close them right away. Blink! Blink! Blink! Another blink! And then another one. The sound of his eyes, opening and closing - a strategy to adjust to the light once again.

All the ice has melted by now and his movements are not the only ones to be heard in the room. Like zombies they rise back to life with the help of an unknown force to anybody else outside that room. They are all standing up, all wet, white and shaking. Twenty years passed since their feet touched the black surface, since their eyes felt artificial light, since they used their own bodies, since they saw each other in person.

He looked around trying to understand the reality he was trapped into living. He squinted his eyes, trying to remember anything he could about his past. But no mememory came to his mind, blank space! Only a voice, saying only a word, a simple one: "Breathe". He takes deep breaths, filling his lungs with the oxygen he missed so dearly in his prolonged sleep. One after the other, the breaths help him recover his memories, hitting him all at once. He remembered all his stupid pranks, his friends, how he got in this project, the people standing near him. He smiles, but immediately loses it when he sees Shannon.

Tears are streaming down her face, like droplets of water on the windows of a parked car during a summer storm. She zones out, being the star of her own tragedy. She is looking at the metal doors waiting for someone to open them, but no one does. Her face is the color of chocolate, her eyes are pitch black with liquid tiny balls, her face almost catches fire as she angrily moves her head from left to right, screaming to herself a big "NO!"

"No! No! No!" she starts screaming like a mad woman, from an asylum. Everyone is looking at her unable to speak, unable to understand what she is going through, what she is feeling, what she is about to do next. She runs, runs to the doors. Pulling both of the metallic atmospheric closers, she finds herself in the middle of a computerized room with holographic maps and running pixels. The room is empty, dark and odorless. It feels just as if nobody has been there for years. Nobody, except for one... The one who did not made it to the tubes, the one who now is still missing.

"Silas?" A simple word with many memories and feelings for her. "Where are you?" she asks as if the stillness of the room will answer. Her voice is low, almost a whisper in the lifeless chamber of command. "Silas?Please, answer" she says more to herself and the walls around; deep down she has hope, but the light of it is flickering. She pulls a chair and throws herself in it. With her head between her hands she starts crying once again, trembling with the fear of a meaningful loss. And then, she hears it.

Slam! a door shuts. Two footsteps. Heavy ones. Whistling. Bags rustling. They all see him, except for Shannon, who is stuck in her head. He is standing ten feet before the glass door, the only palpable piece of matter that separetes them.

Even though he does not see her face, he knows that her beauty remained untouched. She is oblivious of his presence, and he is lost at the sight of hers. The others move in the room, they surely noticed Silas, but do not want to ruin their reunion. They simply mind their own business, while he enters: "Shannon?"

The sound of a voice she knew so well vibrates in her head. She thinks she is making it up, the feeling of hurt in her heart being so deep that it resembles to being stabbed. He puts down the bags with a loud noise. She hears it instantly, her head raises in a split second. She sits up, but is afraid to take a step towards the stranger in front of her. That is not Silas. Not anymore. She makes three steps backwards. "What happened to you?"

He looks deep in her eyes with a tired and almost ashamed grimace. He simply answers: "I lived." A chuckle is heard from the opposite side of the room, but they do not mind it. Shannon moves closer and closer, leaving almost no space between them.

"You are not Silas." She states robotically, her voice emotionless. "You can't be Silas." She continues whispering to herself, thinking that the man in front of her is just a mirage of that cruel imagination of hers.

"I am, my dear Shannon, I am." He smiles, but the hurt is visible on his face. "Not the same body, but at least the same spirit." He says, his voice reaching out to her, trying to reconnect as they used to.

But it doesn't work as it used to. She makes one step behind to give a little distance between them as she analyzes him from top to bottom, bringing out an "Oh... I see now what you mean. I started to forget how time passes for the ones not as fortunate as we are." She simply adds in a voice lacking any kind of emotion. Not even a bit of remorse, sadness, not even shame could be felt in her words, just the simple opacity of words said so the room doesn't remain silent.

"Your bitterness is alerting me, Shan..." Silas looks at her with shallow eyes, trying to hide all the pain inside of him; he wonders what happened to her, but he knows the answer. She looks at the ground completely out of focus. For a split second she even considers the idea of him not existing anymore being better than the situation they have to face.

The two freshly reunited lovers are now caught in a bubble: one is stiff, the other's empty; they are not prepared to face this. Even though the others heard everything, they did not come into question, until now: "Sorry to interrupt, mate, but I've been sitting in that icy tube for what counts as a lifetime in some parts of the world. I'm surely not talking only for myself when I say that food is an absolute necessity right now."

"Liam, let them talk for God's sake! They were apart for twenty years, leave them alone." Gloria adresses the british-accented guy next to her.

"Oh, and I haven't been apart from food for the same amount of time, now have I?" Liam mutters under his breath.

"Please, I've been out of that tube for just ten fucking minutes and I've heard enough of you all. I'm going out." Sam yells, reaching towards the doors.

"If I were you, I wouldn't do just that." Silas spoke, his words surrounding the tensioned crowd.