And They Continued [PT 1]

Bring Me To Life

That was weird.

You inhaled the fresh air rushing around you as you stumbled, eyes closed, into a wall. Or... something similar?

Slowly eyes opened, unfocused and bleary. It was dark. Too dark. Disorienting as awareness came slow, memories filtering in.

Everything inside of your body felt heavy and soft; musty. Like after taking an early afternoon nap and waking up just before dinner. You tried to swallow, mouth tasting like death. Bone dry. As though-

You snap out of that train of thought, instead moving hands forward. Through the dark. Fingers stumbling against the metal beneath your shoed feet, surrounding your body. The cold.

Why was it so cold?

It felt like yesterday, it felt like eons ago. The sky flashing bright as the platform lowered. As Shaun cooed against his swaddle. As-

You cut yourself off. Focusing on the task at hand, relieved to discover that despite the deep-sleep weight in your limbs and chill that felt as though it settled into your bones, you still seemed to be mobile enough. Fine motor skills intact enough as fingers groped along wires and metal.

It took a moment for you to decipher the voice in the background. The cold recorded announcement warning of critical failure, urging immediate evacuation.

"Weird dream..." You whispered, yawning so hard your eyes watered. Jaw ached.

Fingers found it. The button to open your pod. Red lights flashing warning, illuminating the darkness, the repetitive overhead warning in the background set your teeth on edge.

"Critical failure-"

With dawning awareness came the stomach wrenching dread.

No staff, no lights. A sea of cryopods. The dampness in the air. The stench of rot. The blaring alarms.

Horrified, looking up and across from yourself. The sight making your body lock. Shock, adrenaline, racing under your skin. Fine hairs pricking. Making the world tilt for a moment, seesawing back and forth, before it righted itself. You sucked in a breath, vision spotty as your knees lost strength and you stumbled back against the interior of your own cryopod, sinking to the floor.

You had watched - you had-

"It wasn't a dream." The realization a hammer to you chest, stomach. Guts roiling as you fought to comprehend. Eyes finding your dead spouse, your child missing from their arms. "No..." a whisper on your tongue, voice weak and pathetic from years of being unused. "No!"

The world had ended; your world had ended.

In that flash of light. In that locker room changing into a stupid, stupid Vault suit. In that cryolocker where you had watched them climb into. Willingly, sheepishly.

You gagged, thick mucus falling in a string from your lips before standing. Clumsily falling across the way. Futility as you all but fell onto the prison that held their body, fist using gravity more than force to bang on the glass door.

It had been real. Your vision blurred, hand aching as you looked them over.

Blood had frozen across their chest, the ice from the cryolocker encased them, preserving their body so that, had you not seen the blood and mangled flesh, they would have looked merely sleeping in suspended animation.

"Wake up!" You screamed, fist banging one last time in desperation as the tears fogged your vision, spilling over, running hotly down your cheeks. "Please-" A pathetic whine even to your ears.

You weren't sure how long you lay against the sealed pod, death filling your nose, your head. But by the time you had gathered your wits again your head was throbbing. Your eyes were swollen and it burned to blink. The sleeve of your vault suit damp with tears and snot and drool.