Out of Cryo | A Horizon: Zero Dawn Fanfiction

Chapter 18: Inferno

No.

I stayed on my knees, not caring about how sore they'd be after being on the concrete floor, unable to hold back my wails of sorrow to the world. Dead. No, murdered. My family had been murdered – their lives snuffed out with a single shot each.

And I had been left alive. Why?

My cries echoed against the metal walls of the bunker – repetitive sobs of denial that did nothing to bring comfort or reason to what I was witnessing.

A hand came down on my shoulder. "Becks..."

I shoved it away. Climbed to my feet so that I was facing Aloy – looking her straight in the eyes. "Why?!"

Her eyes were glossy. I didn't care. She had no idea. No idea. "You could have saved them!" I exclaimed.

"Becks, t-they were gone when we got here – I swear to you," she tried. Her voice was broken – she wasn't trying to argue with me. Just telling me how it was.

I still didn't care. "No! You could have-something could have been done. Look at them!" I screamed.

"Becks, I-,"

"No! Don't fucking say anything. You should have told me when I woke up-,"

She grabbed my shoulders. "I told you what I knew, Becks. I'm-I'm so sorry-,"

I pushed her away. She was much stronger than me, and barely moved, but she released me anyway.

"I'm sorry," she repeated.

I paced near the cryo tanks, a thousand threads of thought running through my mind. Who did this? Why? Why was I spared? The only thing that seemed remotely plausible was that Ted or Jenna had done this – they were the only ones that knew my family was down here. But that made no sense – Ted was friends with my dad, and Jenna loved my family. Neither would gain anything from doing this.

"Becks," Aloy called.

"Go away."

"I-I think you should see this." She sounded hurt, I knew that much, but I didn't care how much she hurt right now. I cared about finding out who had done this so that I could find them and end them. I was not a violent person but if being violent was what it took to get vengeance for my family, then I was more than happy to embrace that.

"What?" I snapped and faced the redhead. She pointed at the floor near my dad's cryo tank. The silver, triangular shape of it was obvious against the dark surface of the floor.

"Dad's Focus." I bent down and picked it up.

"There's a message on it," Aloy said. "I can see it lighting up through my Focus."

I sniffed. "Someone probably tried to leave one for him before the grid went down." I held the device up to my head and put it on. It beeped, the familiar sound of a Focus unlocking – its contents free for me to access.

"Weird. It's letting me in."

"Did your father give others access to his Focus?"

I shook my head. "No." A flashing symbol. "'Priority Message'. Let's see what this is, I guess."

I swiped the confirmation button. The message was a hologram – we watched as it set up in front of us. The quality was shit but it was preserved enough that we could see and understand it. A man stood a few paces away – all too familiar.

"Is that...?"

I nodded. "My dad."

The crunch of interference static prevented us from hearing the first few seconds before the recording stabilized. Dad looked to be talking to someone else.