For the first few weeks, I tried to move. I knew I was stuck; that I'd been put into a temperature well below freezing, somehow frozen so quickly ice crystals weren't allowed to form, and then carefully maintained that way. My muscles couldn't possibly respond. The chemicals in my brain couldn't even change state; all that was left were electrical impulses.

I gave up, eventually. I should have gone into a panic. Gone completely insane. Most likely, the chemicals involved in a panic response simply couldn't activate. I wasn't even allowed to go mad to escape the void.

For the first thirty years, the same technician worked in the facility. Jenkins. Never knew what he looked like, but I knew his voice; and honestly, if I'd still believed in god I'd have thanked him for providing Jenkins with audio-books to listen to as he carefully checked all of the tubes in the facility. After the third year, I could hear the words from the other side of the facility, and never missed a phrase. I felt myself blessed. It almost felt bearable.

When he was about to die, they put him in one of the tubes. His replacement didn't listen to audio-books, or read at all; he also didn't do the maintenance he was supposed to. One of the tubes broke down in year thirty-five while the tech was watching reality tv. On the one hand, I hated the stuff. On the other, he usually forgot to turn it off when he left, and I could listen to the catchphrases and absurdities all night long.

In year thirty-six, someone caught the mistake, they cleaned out the corpse, and mister reality tv was fired. Finally heard his name there at the end; he was another Jenkins. Son of the first guy. Frankly, I was disappointed.

Years thirty seven through ninety-five were some of the better ones. Not much entertainment, but the number of tubes had grown so large by year thirty-eight there were always technicians moving around, talking. The place felt alive. Somedays I would imagine I was there, walking and talking among them.

Year ninety-five began the worst of it. They had perfected AIs, I assume, well enough they trusted them to do the maintenance. I no longer heard voices and movements except once every several years; without the daily rhythm of people moving in and out of the facility, I lost track of time; there was nothing to measure the days by.

In year three hundred and seven, they had cured all forms of cancer, and had nano-therapies to fix most other problems, and were making a big show of reviving most of the people in the tubes; from the sub-text these problems had been solved a long time ago, but population pressure had meant there was no motivation to bring more hungry mouths back. Something had changed, but they acted as if the medical breakthroughs were the key. I had hope there, for about ten hours, as one of the nearby tubes was finally thawed. I was also enthusiastic about the fact that, once again, I knew how much time had passed.

The man in the tube had been driven insane by the wait. They probably didn't know what had caused it for sure; he just started screaming, he didn't even know any words at this point. There was some violence. Banging of metal. Someone may have died; the man from the tube definitely did. The scientists were at a loss, constantly wondering whether the man might have thawed out partially, ice crystals damaging his brain; they would need to carefully research this, and figure out what had caused it, before risking the death of the other sleepers.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I wanted to beg them to open my tube. To free me. I wanted to tell them I hadn't gone mad, I could still think, just let me show them. It simply wasn't to be. The facility was re-sealed. They changed what sort of robot was maintaining things; put me through, I expect, a more advanced version of an MRI. Somehow they still didn't register that I was conscious, at least partially. Some abstract parts of my brain still active.

Sometime after this, they moved the tubes. It had been hundreds of years, I'd have guessed; but with the lack of change in routine, it might have just been two or three. The times when human technicians came to visit had become vanishingly rare; I wouldn't be surprised if it were decades between times I overheard a conversation. I wasn't certain where, but from the sound of things, I'd been lifted into orbit. I didn't know what was going on; and I couldn't ask. From what few words I heard; a conversation between two mechanics; we were going to a colony. Perhaps mars? Or some other system altogether?

And then came today. Quite frankly, the greatest day of my life. Scientists were getting ready to open the tubes, and were explaining things to some security guards, by the sound of it. Apparently there had been a few plagues; humanity had used advanced genetic editing to 'perfect' people, making them all longer-lived, healthier, giving them all sorts of advantages, immunity to all disease; and in the end, they had made a perfectly harmonious humanity; one which all had exactly the same response to a disease, resulting in every single human on earth dying off.

For the future of humanity, these sleepers would be awoken; and though they fully expected to have to kill or sedate most or all of them, their genetics would be harvested to allow for a better blend of humanity on this new colony world. The first seventeen tubes they thawed had identical responses. Stark raving madness; thrashing. Easily subdued, but violent.

When they came to thaw me, I was worried. Frightened that, perhaps, I would find myself driven to some depths of madness from pain or horror in the thawing process that I might join those who went before. Why would I be special? When I saw the light; my eyes working again for the first time in an unknown number of years; I wasn't blinded. My eyes were just as adapted as they'd been when I was frozen. My lungs; not having inhaled for a thousand years; took over instinctively, drawing breath, as the vacuum of the tube was replaced with fresh, clean air.

I stepped out of the tube; I had forgotten how to walk, and almost flopped forward onto the people standing there, before catching myself on the edge of my pod; only now noticing it, and the other surrounding pods, the differences between them. The figures looked... strange. Perhaps four and a half feet tall, with pale, hairless skin. Some clearly male and female, but all identical in height, identical in skin tone. Thin. All of them seemed surprised when I didn't scream, or yell. The two security guards; I assumed whatever they held were weapons, small silver cylinders; had them leveled at me, but hadn't fired.

I coughed a few times, struggling to speak. One of the tiny pale people held up his wrist, and a digitized voice emerged. "Do you understand us? Was your freezing and thawing successful?" I blinked. After a few seconds, the man held his wrist a different way, and what I can only assume were different languages started to play out.

Language had changed quite a bit over the centuries. But I could hear it. Sometimes widely spaced apart. New slang slowly becoming proper words. These words sounded so odd because I didn't need a translator. They'd exposed me to the changes in language often enough that I could adapt.

"I understand you perfectly. We need to have a serious conversation, and then we need to wake everyone else up. I don't suppose you have the ability to selectively erase memories? That might allow you to recover the rest of them."

The shock over those tiny, perfect faces was obvious. I hadn't spoken using some thousand-year-old language; as one of these people brought me something to wear; a simple, silver robe that looked far too small for me, but would have to make do; the one who tried the translation stepped closer.

"We do, in fact, have such technology. We have for quite some time. What purpose would it serve, in individuals whose brains have been damaged by improper freezing?" I gave him a grin; all of them took a step back. Perhaps grinning didn't mean the same thing now as it used to.

"I doubt many of them have been damaged by freezing. Most likely, they've just been driven mad by a thousand years of sensory deprivation. It looks like most of the newer pods have better insulation than mine did. I might only be sane because I could hear you. Might be best to open the other pods, about as old as mine, first, to see."