After Cryosleep

The first thing she felt was pain, nothing intense, it was more like that awful feeling you get trying to stretch a muscle past what it’s used to, like something crawling under your skin, more so frustrating and annoying than painful.

Her senses slowly returning to her she could somewhat remember what brought her here, voices talking around her… no in her mind, memories.

‘I shouldn’t be feeling this way for you’

‘He’s better off in there than with you!’

‘Someone’s coming, hurry!’

‘Why would you do this to yourself…’

‘The government has declared you as a test subject for the Ascension project’

She can’t be sure if she dreamed but sleeping for so long without dreaming seems like a strange idea, she slowly started feeling more lucid, noting the hard metal plate she was laying on she couldn’t help but wonder if they couldn’t have put something softer in these things.

As she regained the movement of her fingers and toes she suddenly felt a wave of nausea take over her, probably an effect of her systems starting again after however long she’s been in there. She always hated feeling nauseous, whenever she got a stomach bug she would fear the idea of not having time to breathe in between bouts of sickness.

Laying in there trying to let her body calm down she tried to make out any sound around her, good or bad, this was when she heard a terrifying screech. someone in pain? No, it was something else -metal against metal- terrified of the possibilities she slowly opened her eyes weary of the possible light.

The room was dark, too dark she thought, shouldn’t there be medical staff around and scientists to see how the people handled their time in cryosleep? Another loud screech vibrated through the room so hard she could feel it through her body. That was when she noticed sparks flying from a corner high up in the ceiling, something was clearly wrong with the ship, she had to get up.

Feeling around the inside of the pod she found a latch, luckily it was still functioning as it should and pulling on the latch released the seal opening the hatch, it was freezing but rather that than burning in her opinion.

She heaved herself out of the pod quickly realizing her mistake in not taking it slower as she crumbled to the ground, her legs still weak.

Using a pipe over her pod she pulled herself up and steadied herself while surveying the room around her.

How long had it been, a few hours? A week? …longer?

Calytrix took a deep breath followed by an intense cough, was something wrong with the air in the ship or was it an after effect of the cryosleep? So many questions were racing through her head as she tried to make out the shapes around her in the vast darkness of the cryo-chamber.

Suddenly she heard a low moan a bit to her left, turning away from the wall she could barely make out a hunched over figure three pods down from hers, they might be injured or merely suffering from the same nausea she had when first waking up, but what kind of idiot would have gotten out of their pod before letting their systems calm down from the sudden wake up call?

Carefully walking toward the figure she realized that they had to be quite young “Are you okay?” she said in as careful a voice as she could muster trying not to scare the small person, a boy she guessed as they turned to her, flinched slightly before calming down at the sight of the person who had asked the question.

“I don’t know,” the child said, “where are we?”

Calytrix felt a wave of sympathy fill her at the reminder that she was possibly the only one who had any sort of warning for what had happened to all the inmates of the different prison ships, it still angered her that they would have counted delinquents among the expendable test subjects but as their government had said they dug their own grave no matter how small the crime might have been, they made their choice.

But how true could that be she wondered looking upon the confused child who was probably no more than 9 years of age?

Sitting down beside the boy she leaned her back against the cryopod

“what is the last thing you remember?”

“That big nice guard who had been sneaking me chocolates came to my cell and told me I had to follow him to the medbay but he didn’t tell me why… He looked sad.” The boy leaned his head on Calytrix shoulder tracing random patterns on the metal floor with his finger “when we got to the medbay he kneeled in front of me gave me a piece of chocolate and said that I was gonna go on an adventure so I shouldn’t be afraid”

Another screech vibrated through the ship making the boy flinch.

Calytrix put a hand on the boys brown curls trying to find the best way to explain “He wasn’t wrong you know, this will be an adventure but it will also be tough and possibly dangerous” she smiled down at the boy as he turned his head to look into her eyes “Those strange pods we were in, put us into a deep sleep, using technology we survived while sleeping for a very long time”

The boy looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling “so… we’re like snow white?”

Letting out a slight laugh Calytrix answered “More like sleeping beauty, I don’t actually know how long we’ve been sleeping for”

The boy frowned at the ground mumbling something sadly, at Calytrix’s questioning sound the boy spoke clearer “does that mean that the nice guard won’t be here?”

“We can always hope that we haven’t slept that long”

“Is anyone else alive in here!?”

Calytrix and the boy both looked up with a start, both relieved that someone else was awake and slightly anxious not knowing what this person might have done to end up in prison to start with, Calytrix put a finger to her lips showing the boy to stay quiet as she slowly stood up, but before she could say anything another voice joined in from the opposite side of the room.

“Yeah mate! Me and two others are over here!” answered another masculine voice in a possibly Australian accent “Let’s meet in the middle of the room under that big circle lamp!”

Looking up Calytrix saw what the guy meant, a dark lamp was welded to the ceiling not far from her position “Come here” she said in a low tone taking the boys hand as she followed the request and together they walked slightly closer to the middle of the room.

Slowly three figures started emerging from her left, a guy with dark skin and blond dreadlocks followed by a skittish looking, waifish red haired girl and a younger girl who closely resembled the boy at Calytrix’s side “Lake!” the girl shouted running forward to hug the boy whom she just now realised she hadn’t asked the name of, The boy started crying hugging the older girl back “Miri, I got so scared you wouldn’t be here when the nice girl said we had slept for such a long time!”

The other two turned to look at Calytrix the redhead staring with suspicious eyes just as two more figures joined from her right the guy from before saying “What does the kid mean by ‘slept for a long time’?” in an aggressive tone.

The man in question was probably around Calytrix age, pale blue eyes in great contrast to his tan skin and black hair which he kept in a knot at the back of his head, the person that showed with him was a slightly older man possibly in his early thirties with steel gray eyes and blond hair that was visibly receding.

“I’m guessing you heard of the Ascension and Descension projects?”

“Duh, I’m not a fucking moron”

“Could have fooled me” Calytrix huffed making Mr.Pale blues sneer at her “We are the test subjects for the ‘secret’ part of the Ascension project, the part where they froze us down to sleep until earth might have recovered”

“Cryogenic freezing!” the red-haired girl exclaimed suddenly way less skittish, an excited smile spreading on her face “I knew it was a possibility but I didn’t think they would have perfected it yet!”

Mr pale blues scoffed “They clearly hadn’t if they used it on us expendables” he said with a cruel smile making the redhead look at him with a bewildered look in her eyes ” What do you…” she suddenly stopped her smile disappearing completely as she realized “We were the test subjects weren’t we? They didn’t expect it to truly work”

The Australian laid a hand on her shoulder bending down slightly too look into her eyes “But it did work, and we’re here, alive. So that shows what they know” Redhead smiled slightly letting his words cheer her up just a bit.

His word seemingly helped lift the mood for all but Calytrix and Mr Pale Blues who simply kept sneering before walking over to an unopened pod “Didn’t work for this unlucky bastard though” he said rapping his knuckles against the glass of the hatch.

Walking over to the pod Calytrix wondered just how many were still frozen and more importantly if any more had woken up.

“we should split up” receding hairline spoke for the first time “See if we can find any tools, survivors or clues as to what happened”

Survivors?

“They’re not necessarily dead you know”

Receding hairline looked at the Australian with indifference “they might as well be if we don’t find a proper way to wake them”

Calytrix did a quick scan of the room and the people around her before saying “Miri and her brother can come with me, ’Stralia and Red can go to the left while Grumpy and Silver go towards the front of the room.”

While most of them looked confused by the nicknames no one mentioned it, probably too focused on all that’s been going on.

Mr Pale blues turned to Calytrix to say “Me and… ‘Silver’ have been hanging long enough, one can only handle so much silence in a day. I’ll go with you blondie, Miri can go with silver”

While Miri looked slightly weary to leave Lake alone after finding him she seemed to have decided that he would be safe with Calytrix.

’Stralia smiled and clapped his hands together before saying “well then seems we have a plan, we’ll each search around in the aforementioned directions and then we’ll meet back here after; sound good?”

Everyone agreed though not before Red suggested that if two groups met back in the main area and the third one was to not show they should go search.

With that, they split up, and as they walked into the darkness a worried thought slipped into Calytrix mind.

When did the screeching stop?

“Well, this is useless” Blue said from somewhere to Calytrix left.

The second they made it out of the cryo-chamber they found themselves surrounded by darkness as the soft blue light of the cryopods wasn’t strong enough to make it more than a few centimetres into the next room.

Leaving Miri by the entrance Calytrix and Blue were stumbling around in different sides of the room trying to find anything that might help.

After a few more seconds of stumbling into random objects and cursing Calytrix suddenly felt something move, letting out a small scream she jumped backwards startling Miri by the entrance.

“What happened!?” she yelled squinting into the darkness.

“Nothing, it’s just me blondie” she heard blue say from her right, they had officially manoeuvred the entire room without finding a light switch.

“Well that’s just perfect, now what?” Calytrix said with a huff leaning against the wall she had been using as a guide, she heard Miri shifting uncomfortably on the other end of the room “Maybe we should just go back and wait for the others?” the girl said with a slight tremor to her voice.

While Calytrix understood Miri’s feelings she wouldn’t feel right giving up so quickly “I felt a door on my side of the room, I could go there and see if I find something?” from further into the room she suddenly heard Blues voice “there’s a door here as well, I could go this way while you go the other way?”

When did he get there?

Calytrix wondered not having heard him move “Sounds good, Miri can you stay here so you can guide us back in case we don’t find any light sources.” she said getting an affirmative before moving towards the door she had felt earlier.

Using the wall as a guide she entered the room, while the previous room had countertops along all the walls the new room had them only along one.

Feeling around to the best of her ability she came to the conclusion that it probably was a sort of kitchen for the science team to relax in.

Every now and then she’d feel a mug or a piece of paper but nothing that would help, there was a small fridge in the corner on one of the counters but as she opened it she was met by a foul smell and more darkness.

Disappointed in having found absolutely nothing of use she made her way back to the first room while calling out “Miri?” getting a soft yes in response she asked, “have you heard anything from Blue?”

“no,” Miri said as Calytrix got close enough to see the young girls silhouette in the blue light of the cryo-chamber “I’ll follow him and see if there’s more to his room,” she said leaving Miri by the entrance again.

‘More’ was an understatement, as she entered the room Blue had gone into she called for him but got no response other than a faint echo of her own voice.

Moving along the right-hand wall she felt one door after another, obviously, she had entered a hallway, the spacing between each door wasn’t too wide.

Offices maybe?

Rather than continuing forward she walked back to the start of the corridor and started testing all the doors along the right wall, the third one was unlocked.

Entering carefully she softly called out for blue in case he was in there but was met with silence, carefully navigating the room she found a bed and a chair by a desk.

Maybe a room for the scientists and crew? Or a doctors office?

Continuing through the hallway she was met with more of the same, some doors were unlocked but all rooms identical to the first, as she came closer to the end of the hallway she noticed a soft light coming from the door at the end.

Stepping out of the corridor she stopped in awe, the room before her was maybe half the size of the cryo-chamber and on the wall to her left the was a giant window letting in the soft light of the stars outside.

Walking up to the window she felt a rush of excitement taking over mixed with a feeling of insignificance as she stared at the stars.

A sound alerted her to the presence of someone in the room with her, she turned to the sound and saw blue sitting on one of the benches behind her.

“My guess is that this is an observation deck, why they’d put that on a prison ship I have no idea,” Blue said not looking at her but out the window.

Calytrix walked over and sat down beside him and looked at the stars letting herself relax for a bit

“I’m Calytrix by the way”

Blue glanced at her before answering

“Morley”