He woke up with a start, a sharp shiver going down his spinal cord.

Propping himself up from his back, he looked around. Apparently, he was sitting in some sort of metal coffin, in a room filled with more empty coffins. They didn’t look like regular burial tombs, but more technical, sci-fi, with extra buttons, blank screens and all that pizazz of a typical research facility.

How did he know this was a research facility? Well… he didn’t know. For some strange reason, he knew what all this equipment was, or what they were in context, but he didn’t know how they functioned or why they were here. He couldn’t even remember a single thing!

He prodded his scalp with a finger, before a draft of frigid air brought his mind back into focus. To his right was the culprit of the icy wind; a gnarly collapsed crater in the side of the gray sci-fi walls, revealing a heavy blizzard roaring outside.

Stretching out of his containment bed, he stretched and cracked his bones, each pop giving him some satisfaction. His feet touched the cold steel tiles, his toes practically shocked from the freezing floor. He was only wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of shorts, the sort of apparel you’d see at a modern hospital.

He bent down, and took a look at the foot of his bed, where a sign said, ‘Project Zen’. Guess his name was Zen now. Zen looked back at his iron coffin, surprised to find that there were no blankets, nor a mattress. It was so comfy and soft when he lay on it for that split second while he was on it. Maybe it was some sort of highly advanced fiber that stayed warm at all times. Zen had the thought of ripping it out and crafting it into a cloak, but judging from the tubes connecting all over the cradle bed, and the fact that the cushion was literally glowing, he decided not to.

Zen walked towards the other beds, reading the signs. Hmm. Project Delta, Project Alpha, Project Beta. Were these all their names? It was hard to say.

On a clothes hook near a blockaded door was a light hospital gown. Zen swiftly put it on, generally hoping it would help him warm up from the freezing updraft, which it didn’t. Zen sighed. His life was a mystery. Whatever life that now has started, has become a wild survival hell, a hell in which he was the only man out of nine thousand blinds with one functioning eye, from a story he somehow knew but couldn’t pinpoint.

Zen stooped down to his knees and picked up broken tiles of steel and rock. He thought about what to make with it, but decided that none of the shrapnel and wreckage was useful, it was all garbage.

He stood back up and walked around the cold damp casket room. All of the beds were empty. Some had whole chunks of electronic matter ripped out of it, like a wild animal tried to get into one of the beds. Large maroon and dried blood stains proved his theory possible, and Zen supposed he needed to scrounge up whatever he could that would allow him to survive the elements. He wouldn’t be staying in this bed chamber anyways. There was no food, nor was there any warmth, and maybe, just maybe, if there were any people or a town, he could get the help he needed. It was his only hope.

Zen finally searched the room, top to bottom. The only thing that was worth keeping was a linen cloth and a hemp rope. The cloth was too small for a cloak, the rope too small for any sort of climbing. So he combined the two, twisting, gnawing, and ripping the cloth and rope into useful components, where he fashioned them all together into a crude carry on bag. Now he could carry the random scrap he probably couldn’t use.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Swinging his new contraption over his shoulders, he began to pick up scraps of steel and rock. Out of the steel rods, he picked out whatever that could be used as a weapon, like a crude club. Out of the metal shards, he chose what could be used as a knife or a dagger, so he didn’t have to rip anything else with his teeth.

Now he had a weapon, and a more efficient cutting tool. Now he needed the final piece of equipment that would grant him a higher rate of survival. Zen took a handful of steel sheet metal and steel chunks and put them into his sack. Then he gingerly stepped out of the hole in the wall, his feet screaming in the snow, while he took a good look at the building he came out of.

The building was sleek and black on the outside, like jet black obsidian. It was built into the side of a snowy mountain, with rocks crumbling down the sides of the walls. Zen wasn’t leaving just yet. He had plans for these rocks.

Zen picked out different colored rocks. Brown, black, gray, red, he put them all into his sack. Then he went back into the hole in the wall where it was slightly less freezing. Then he laid all the rocks out, and began to experiment.

Taking a piece of steel, Zen hit the brown rock with the steel chunk. The brown rock exploded in chunks of dirt and grime. Brown rock, a no go. It was probably mostly clay anyways.

Zen picked up the red rock, a crusty red thing. He hit it with the steel chunk, which only let it explode like the brown one. Clay again, but good for coloring. His hands were now stained a pastel red.

He picked up the black rock. It was jet black, and shiny. It looked promising. Zen hit it with the steel chunk, only to yipe in pain and anguish as shards of the black rock broke apart and dug into his fingers. Zen dropped the black rock and stared angrily at it, for it had betrayed his expectations.

He sucked on his wound, and using his sharp steel dagger, cut off a small portion of his hospital gown to wrap around his fingers. Hopefully they won't get infected.

Zen looked at his fingers, before looking at the final rock. It was gray and brown, and was more of a shard than a chunk. The aftermath of the black shard taught him a valuable lesson, so now he was more wary of sharp stones like these, and possibly the idea of skin protection.

Gingerly, Zen held the gray rock in the cusps of his hospital gown, holding the steel chunk with his other hand. With a deep breath, he hit the chunks together.

The impact let sparks fly, like little dancing fairies exploding from the collision. Zen’s concentration quickly turned to elation, as he had found what he was looking for. Flint.

Zen smiled and jumped up, yelling and giggling in glee, or at least he tried to. No sound came from his voice. It was as if his voice had become muted. His elation from the discovery of flint swiftly changed to shock, from the brand new discovery of his missing voice.

Zen grasped his throat trying to get some sort of sound out. The only thing he could force out was some sort of gasping noise, but that was probably just him forcing more air out to exhale. He was completely mute, and this revelation about himself sank his heart down low. How was he going to communicate to people, if he found them, that he needed help? He supposed he could try to write it out, but he wasn’t sure if they’d know the same language.

Slapping his face a few times, he began to walk around the room again. Being sulky was not the answer. He needed to get ready to move out. His voice problem would have to wait. It could benefit him anyways, if he were to find food.

Knowing that the ground outside was frigid beyond belief, Zen had to make himself some crude footwear. After going around to different sheets of metal and bending them, or trying to, he found a sheet of metal that would bend easily and stay bent. Must be aluminum.

Using his steel knife, he cut two pieces out of the aluminum sheet and crumpled them around each foot, essentially creating muffin cups for his feet. Then he cut off a few more pieces of his hospital gown to tie the aluminum to his feet, so they wouldn’t fall off. The shoes weren’t comfortable to walk on, but at least his feet wouldn’t get frostbite.

Zen looked around. The room had been picked clean of whatever was useful. Donned on himself was a slightly chopped up hospital gown, and a crude carry on bag filled with steel bit and bobs and his very valuable flint and steel. In his hand he held a long steel rod, fashioned as both a weapon and a walking stick. His feet were protected from the cold with aluminum shoes. He was ready. He felt ready.

Zen took a final look around the drafty room, its beds silent in the roaring wind. Zen stepped out and trudged down the snowy trail, frigid winds battering every side. He didn’t look back.