Project Cryogen

Chapter 3: Side Effects Part 1

"Side effects?! I didn't sign up for any side effects," Rafael told me frantically, "I'm too sexy to die," he said as he put his hand dramatically to his head and fake fainted back into a chair. He's such a dork! I took a seat in the stiff white chair next to Rafael, just out of earshot of Hazel. I can't place it, but something just feels off about that girl.

"There probably isn't even anything wrong with us, they just want to make sure that we are fine, and double check that we weren't affected by the tremors," I replied, trying to calm him.

His brows scrunched up as if he was thinking really hard about something.

"Hazel" some nurse looking lady called. Hazel stood up and followed the lady behind some double doors that required her ID to be scanned to unlock them.

Suddenly his face lit up and he gasped, "What if being frozen allowed our bodies to unlock some super cool powers!" he said as he tried to make something shoot out of his hand like he was Spiderman or Queen Elsa, and I just giggled to myself.

"R how on God's not so green earth does that make any sense?" I asked.

"Well you know like in Dead Pool where he goes through all sorts of torture to find his 'mutation' well what if being frozen unlocked ours?" he fired back.

"Dude you know that movie was fake right!?" I said as I gave him a look that said, 'are you kidding me', "R you can't seriously have thought all this time that that movie was real!?"

"Pft no! Of course I knew it was fake! I'm not stupid Fin" he replied in a 'duh' tone.

"Sure," I replied, "R they just have to make sure that our bone structure and everything is intact and that being frozen didn't screw up our brains or something."

"SO MY BONES ARE TURNING TO DUST AND MY BRAIN IS TURNING TO MUSH!?" he exclaimed hysterically.

"They could be, maybe it just takes a few hours," I said nonchalantly, feeding his anxiety.

"I can't die I haven't even come close to completing everything on my bucket list! Let alone have enough time to become a rich and famous model, or actor, I'm not picky. I'm too young to die there are so many things that I still need to accomp-" he rambled on.

I feel so bad for sending him in to a full-blown panic episode, so I interrupted him, grabbing his face and brought it down to my level, looking into his beautiful blue eyes, "Rafael, RAFAEL, clam down you are going to be fine, do you remember what the doctors from our time said?" I asked him.

"Yeah, 'There is only a two percent chance that you won't survive being frozen, and that your brain will turn to mush'," he recited. The doctors told us that being scared would increase the risk of complications, they made up some statistics for survival to try to calm our nerves. My mother was on the board of researchers, and they worked on this project for longer than I have been alive, well longer than I have been awake, and it still wasn't 100 percent ready. They were just like, here kids we are going to freeze you, we aren't sure if you will survive being popsicles, but what the heck we are probably all going to die anyway.

"That's right, the doctors just want to make sure that we are healthy, ok R? You are going to be fine," I reassured him and dropped my hands from his face once I was sure that he was done panicking.

"If there is something wrong with me will you give the eulogy at my funeral?" he asked jokingly.

"If there is something wrong with you then don't you think there will also be something wrong with the rest of us gen black icers?" I replied in a 'duh' tone.

"Yeah but women typically live longer than men because of all the stupid shit we do, so yeah I am assuming that you will die after me," he said matter-of-factly.

"Are you saying that if the doctor says that you are going to die you are going to go out and do a bunch of stupid shit?" I shot back at him.

"I mean YOLO, am I right or am I right?" He said.

"Hell no!" I replied, "YOLO should have died with the rest of our generation, along with swag and ratchet!" I exclaimed.

"How rude! You know they couldn't fit all of us in the bunker! You were just lucky that your mom was on the research board and she got you a spot." he replied.

"Well maybe they should have built a bigger bunker! Also, wasn't your dad the main funder of project Cryogen?" I argued knowing fully well that that was the exact reason that he got his spot, "Do you get that same throbbing pain that courses through your head when you get your memories back too?" I asked changing the subject.

"Yeah, but it gets less and less each time," he replied.

Suddenly the nurse lady and Hazel came back through the doors and she called out Rafael's name. He got up and shot me a worried look and mouthed 'help me'. I rolled my eyes and mouthed back 'you'll be fine'. Hazel plopped down into a seat away from mine. Why doesn't she like me, what is our history? This whole not having our memory thing is really annoying me I don't know who anybody is and what was that thing that my mom wanted me to remember?

I decide to bite the bullet and try to talk to her, "Hey so how did it go in there?" I asked referring to the checkup.

"Oh, just delightful," she replied in a sarcastic chipper tone, as she rolled her eyes.

Geez what did I do to piss her off?