Everyone was there. For one shining moment, it felt like everything was going to turn out okay. I stood at the entrance to the Cryo-Tube, my family and friends around me. With the main thought going through my mind amidst the laughter and joyous chatter was that everything will be okay. Happy endings.

“Oh! Oh!” Leila jumped excitedly, still in her graduation cap and gown, “Mom, take a picture!”

She ran up and hugged me from my side, with Joan readying her camera phone as G, Leah, and Doctor Parker stood watching beside us.

“Say freeze!” Joan punned at my situation.

My daughter and I just laughed it off and Joan took our genuine smile as a cue to snap her picture.

“Randy! You too!” Leila said excitedly, running off to G. Apparently, her nickname for the agent was Randy, which I was secretly glad for instead of being 'dad'.

Under Leila's ecstatic urging, we were pushed to go for a few rounds of picture taking, ending with a group photo in front of the Cryo-Tube, taken by one of the lab hands. With the elevated mood, the events that had transpired in the past few days for me felt like a joke. A memory even. A tough 'boot camp' that I had just returned from. At any time now, I would get in a car with my wife and daughter and we would return home to have dinner, watch TV, and wake up tomorrow to go to work.

“Milton.” Leah came up to me solemnly. “Your day's almost up.”

And suddenly, reality was back clawing at my back. I was reminded that I was still a dying man, and that the time I could spend with the people I love was drawing ever closer to a close.

“You can quit now, you know?” the professor told me.

“What do you mean?”

Leila had managed to drag Joan and G into another round of picture taking, this time with random members of the room. I watched as the girl dragged her parents around, chatting and laughing with the team of scientists and engineers that had gotten close with my family over the past few years.

Leah continued, “You're almost at the point where tomorrow with your family will never come.”

I contemplated her words. My daughter waved to me from the opposite side of the room and I waved back. “I know.” My physical body was stuck in time. Growing at a rate slower than anyone else. No. It was more than that. I was suspended in time. Stepping from period to period the same man, while the world changed around me. Even if I only had ten days left to live, at least half of it would be spent with strangers from a different age.

“Just say the word Milton...” she did not finish her sentence, but I knew what she implied.

There would be no hard feelings between anyone if I decided to step out of the program now and spend the rest of my short life with the people I love. It would be a logical move to make. I get to make the most out of my remaining days at the expense of the fate of a world neither I nor the people around me would live to see. I would lose nothing, gaining precious days in the process.

I replied, “Don't worry. I'm going to see this through.” Though I was unsure where my sudden conviction came from.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The festive mood slowly waned as my time to return to deep freeze drew to the doorstep. Doctor Parker prepared me for the freeze, doing a final check on my physical condition before patting my shoulder with a thumbs up.

“Good to go,” he said.

G and Joan, holding hands, came up to me just as Parker walked off to further the preparations.

Not giving them the chance to speak, I told G, “Thank you.”

“What for?” he replied, genuinely surprised. I wondered if he had ever felt guilt for inserting himself into my family. I'm sure he did. He was a good guy. But by taking over my life, he had given me something I could never do, something which I would be eternally grateful.

“For being there for the important parts.”

Speechless, he could only smile and extend his hand in friendship. I shook it without hesitation.

“My two boys,” Joan said with a grin. “All chummy now.”

She dragged G towards me and grabbed us both for an embrace. Caught in an awkward grip, I could only exchange gawky glances with the agent, to which he ended up laughing. From behind Joan, Leila walked into view. I gently parted from the group-hug and stepped towards my daughter.

“Dad...” she mouthed softly.

I placed my arms around her shoulder and pulled her to me. “I'm so proud of you.” She hugged back.

From beside the Cryo-Tube, Leah called out, “Milton. It's time.”

With a curt nod to her, I slowly pushed Leila apart from me. She was crying, beads of liquid crystals streaming down her cheeks, dripping from her chin like the droplets from a stalactite. I kissed her on the forehead, long and deep, with all the feelings of love I could muster, trying to mark my emotions over the years into her mind for the days to come.

“Love you, dad,” she whispered just loud enough for me to hear.

“I love you too.”

We parted and I made my way to the professor, who waited patiently by the opened Cryo-Tube. I smiled to her to signal I was ready before stepping into the machine. She began hooking me up to all the equipments and sensors.

From the outside, Joan, said, “Next time, we're going on a vacation!”

“I look forward to it!” I replied.

“To Hillbury!” Leila added enthusiastically, punching her fists in the air.

There was no helping the smile that formed on my face, “Your favourite-test place ever,” I mumbled to myself. With the set-up complete, Leah stepped back from the machine and gave a smile for a farewell.

The glass door closed on me and I could barely make out Leila's lips forming the word, “Favorite-test.”

The liquid filled up the chamber and this time, I closed my eyes early for a rest. It had been a long day, and with plenty of joy and good times to look forward to. The darkness of the back of my eyelids were soothing. I felt calm, happy, and incredible pain.

I screamed, loud enough that I thought I would end up tearing my throat. My entire body felt like it had been dipped in lava. The searing sensation was almost foreign, having not physically felt anything for weeks. Though I would have given anything to regain my nerve damage if it meant the hurting would stop. Even then, there was no doubt the pain was intense, bad enough that my ears were ringing loud enough to drown out my shriek.

Get him out! Get him out now!

The sensation of a thousand needles piercing my skin sent my arms flailing wildly, trying to tear away the very fabric of my body. The world danced red as I was dragged out of the Cryo-Tube, the warmer air of the room outside only sought to make the stinging even more noticeable.

Hold him down! Anaesthetics!

Impossibly, my right arm felt hotter than the rest of my body, a sun attached to a torso of magma. It was as if fire ants had crawled in to its very veins while shitting acid as they went around biting everything in sight. I swung my arm out, tearing lose from a grip and striking hard steel. I wanted it gone. I wanted to saw it away. To stick it in dry ice. To burn it with gasoline and have a truck run it over until it was severed from my mind. I wanted to die.

Dad! Hold on!

I couldn't move. I felt straps tightening around my arms, legs, waist, and shoulders. I felt my left shoulder dislocate as I frantically fought to scratch the full-body itch that I could only describe as laying my entire body on a grinder made of salt and pouring a Molotov cocktail over me. And then lighting it aflame. Let's not forget the fire.