BEEEP…BEEEP…BEEEP!

Disturbing the once deafening silence, an alarm of sorts reverbed throughout, one that wouldn’t be wise to simply ignore telling by its tone.

Vermilion lights danced in conjunction with the cacophony of noise around the seemingly abandoned enclosure, stirring the inky shadows populating within. The scattering of lights all originated from what looked to be an enclosed metal coffin, sitting nearly vertical against a long, deteriorated wall of which many such contraptions called home.

The coffin’s exterior looked composed of a matt, metallic shell and on it, a small, barely luminescent screen.

The aged monitor hadn’t long to live by the looks of it, not much different from the rest of the contraption. Nevertheless, it kept flashing one singular message of utmost importance.

[Low Power]

[Low Power]

[Low Power]

While the strange capsule wasn’t the only one of its kind, its uniqueness stemmed from the fact that all the others were opened wide, devoid of any electricity or signs of life. Some were even beginning to decompose into piles of metallic oxide.

The dying monitor flashed a new set of messages, in preparation for something to come.

[Manual Drainage Protocol Not Initiated]

[4:59 Remaining Before Forced Opening]

As the flickering projection of lights kept becoming more frantic, the seemingly synchronized beeping naturally followed the same footsteps. The obnoxious cries started off tame, but quickly divulged into the roaring trumpets they were now. Most terrifying of all, they were still ramping up in urgency by the minute.

[0:03 Remaining Before Forced Opening]

[0:02 Remaining Before Forced Opening]

[0:01 Remaining Before Forced Opening]

Eventually, the beeping stopped entirely.

Silence.

The room returned to a relative state of normalcy, for a short while at least. A few moments later, another noise took its place, accompanying the still dancing lights.

PSHHHH.

A searing sound reverberated throughout. The sound itself resembled the opening of a freezer… but, what was a freezer again? It sounded awfully familiar.

When thinking of the anomalous contraption, a singular word came to mind, as if brought from a deep, long-forgotten memory of the past.

‘…Cold.’

A few seconds of mechanical clangs later, the cryogenic pod’s alloy lid slid open and to the side, groaning chimes of antiquity till the end.

Immediately, a current of misty azure liquid plastered the interior’s floor, furiously turning into a gassy state not long after contact.

Revealed, a motionless corpse covered in ragged clothing sat stiffly inside the newly opened cryogenic pod. Similar to the liquid, out of its pale skin rose clouds of mist. It seemed to have been the body of a young man. Unfortunately, the corpse was just that, a corpse. Frozen solid and dead.

But oddly enough, something twitched. One of its lifeless fingers just moved.

Moments later, one more… and then another.

It didn’t take long for a fist to clench. After it, the other, and later both the feet.

As all the artificially infused oxygen fully defused from the man’s bloodstream, he started taking shallow and hoarse breaths. Air slowly began entering and exiting through the purple painted mouth, caressing his cracked lips.

Some slight movements under his frozen eyelids came to be at nearly the same time.

His twitching eyes were desperately trying to open. Be it from instinct or curiosity, seemingly nothing was going stop him from seeing the fleeting crimson rays in full.

At a snail’s pace, the frozen eyelids uncovered his foggy eyeballs like the pulling of a morbid curtain.

Whether from the extensive optical damage or the extreme light sensitivity caused by decades of hibernation, nothing but a blurry maelstrom of radiance assaulted his vision.

Before even knowing it, the dark world he had known for an eternity had become a sea of red flame; and as flame does, it burned.

Through sheer instinct, he immediately squinted with most of his facial muscles, shattering something in the process.

After the swift gaze, his breathing became noticeably quicker, but still orders of magnitude below what it should have been.

A sudden surge of unfamiliar sensations coursed through the man, and his heartbeat quickened as a natural response. Initial regret overpowered everything at first, but as the seconds passed, bliss had taken over. He had done it! He saw it! His goal had been accomplished.

Nearing the end of his brush with the fading light, another word seemed to have emerged out of nowhere, now enriching his deeply lacking vocabulary.

‘B-bright.’

That brightness didn’t last for long though. The remaining rays fizzled out, and the frozen man was back to darkness’ chilling embrace.

He didn’t really mind. This was the reality he had known for an eternity. From the first moment he could remember up until moments ago, it had engulfed his entire being.

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But now, something was missing.

‘A… goal?’

After much thinking, he figured out his next more. Literally.

While the man wasn’t particularly interested anymore in obtaining sight, he was in the endeavor of movement.

A lot of time passed, and a larger part of his mobility recovered.

His hands and extremities became mobile, while the bigger joints such as knees and elbows were still being worked on.

The main body also yearned to move, but it would have to wait a while longer. All its numerous, intricate muscles were causing problems. There was just so much to control! That being said, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t confident in succeeding.

The movement of one’s body was near instinctual, and instructions on how were already ingrained deep. It could be compared to the act of breathing.

That meant it would simply be a matter of time.

And after unknown lengths, the man had done it.

He could at last contract his musculature freely in the tight cryogenic pod, albeit rather uncoordinated. In the meantime, he also regulated his breath and brought it to a more suitable level.

Now, he took a deep breath and contracted both his core and the muscles in his legs.

A moment later, he stepped out of the rusted contraption. Balancing on his right foot, he brought his left forward also, then his right again. The movements were clumsy, but they worked.

Constant crunches sounding from the frozen fabric of his clothes, he continued on, marching.

All felt good. An intense satisfaction filled him, identical to the time he first opened his eyes. He had accomplished what he set out to do.

That satisfaction didn’t last though, as he felt a strong resistance from his last step. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see what was blocking his way to help avoid it.

‘I… can’t see.’

Yes, he couldn’t see! Revelation seemed to have struck him. That was why he needed light.

‘Where is… light?’

With his thoughts clearing up a little, he could understand its importance. It would suffice as his next goal.

Either way, before he could do anything else, he still had to pass this unseen obstacle to continue his march. The plan formulated was to use more force in order to make way. As it good enough, the man went with it.

Unexpectedly, disaster struck.

He wasn’t quite prepared for the sudden displacement of weight when the object did move, and so he started falling.

His arms desperately flailed to catch his fall, but they were still too slow and stiff to do anything in time.

With this realization, he simply did his best to brace for impact.

THUD!

The impact in question simply made him lose his breath, not the complete catastrophe he had anticipated. For some reason, it still felt off, like a certain thing was missing from the equation.

When he planted himself on the rusty floor, a wince came by instinct in expectation of something. Enigmatically, that something hadn’t come.

‘No… pain?’ The man silently wondered.

In fact, nothing came. He felt close to nothing.

With some difficulties due to his atrophied muscles, he stood back up. This time, he marched with a purpose.

The new plan was to find light. Every time he thought of it, more memories made themselves known.

Fire, electricity. Many mediums of light started to appear in his mind.

After a short pause, he remembered one of the more easily accessible sources of light.

‘…Flashlight?’

And with it, even more vague fragments of information stuck to him. It was a never-ending avalanche of memories, each bringing more with it. It seemed there was something before the darkness. While his identity and history were still covered in a thick veil of mystery, things like language, objects and concepts reemerged.

‘Flashlights! …And I think I know where.’

He now vaguely remembered the layout of the room he was in. To the man’s knowledge, it was a rectangular shape, filled on both sides with cryogenic pods. Its walls comprised of…

‘I… can’t remember.’ He realized, a slight frown forming from frustration.

Well, it didn’t really matter what the walls looked like. What did though was where the speculated flashlights were stored. To his faded understanding, two doors stood on each side of the elongated enclosure. Next to each, a sealed cabinet filled with essentials, surely containing a flashlight. If not, at least a way to easily start a fire.

‘A flashlight would be… preferred.’

Just about anything would do for now. Even if all he found were some matches, he would only have to keep the fire going. Although…

‘This place doesn’t seem very flammable.’

The rusted flooring digging into feet at the very least made it feel like it.

With his plan fully thought out, he turned to his left and started carefully walking. This time, he was sure not to stumble.

Every step the man took was thoroughly felt and thought out. Getting lost in the darkness was one thing, but getting a foot pierced by some rusted metal sticking out the ground would surely be worse.

Thanks to that, his walking pace slowed down to a crawl. When he focused on remembering units of time, he roughly calculated that it had taken him around ten minutes to merely traverse to the other side of the room. Nonetheless, he made it.

A rough wall made of the same material as the floor came to his touch. Sliding his hand further up, a cylindrical object came to form. No matter how long one followed its linear trail, it never ended.

‘I think it’s a pipe.’

The man paid it no further attention and continued on his way. At some point, he noticed the wall’s texture change, and examined it thoroughly before drawing a conclusion.

‘Found the door.’

Of course, it was sealed shut, so it didn’t act much different from a normal wall. However, it did possess something peculiar.

A thin, crystal-like layer of ice covered its surface. At some point while examining it, his right hand had become immobile.

Slightly alarmed, he tried to pull it back, but to no avail.

It was thoroughly stuck to the door, and not in some crevice. No, it was stuck to its smooth surface.

‘I need to pull, harder!’

And that he did. With one pull of his entire body, a shattering traveled through his entire being. Finally, there was no resistance sticking his hand to the wall. That also meant…

THUD!

He promptly fell to the metal-plated ground, igniting a storm of loose rust and dust into the air.

Weirdly, it didn’t look like the man cared much about his fall. Instead, he solely focused on the hand he’d just retrieved.

‘I can’t feel my fingers… not good.’

Out of reflex, he put his other hand the one that had been stuck. It was clear as day why.

Hard, sharp stumps resided where his palm ended. In place of his fingers was now emptiness, nothing.

An inner panic ensued but was hastily suppressed by calculative thoughts. His breathing followed, became coarse and fast, but calmed down after a short while.

Long moments were spent touching these stumps. Each time his hand grazed over the frozen flesh and sharp bones sticking out, the deeper he fell in thought.

‘How?’ he wondered for the millionth time.

His mind wandered back to when he woke up. Hadn’t something like this already happened?

With that, he lightly inspected his face. Indeed, there were deep cracks starting from the corners of his eyes. They were formed when he grimaced from the bright, red lights. His skin must have still been inflexible at that time, causing it to crack from the sudden flexion.

And now, something along those lines had just occurred.

‘So… did the door just freeze my hand? But how without me noticing?’ The man pieced his situation skeptically.

In essence, he was correct.

But unfortunate as it was, time wouldn’t turn back the past for anyone. Nothing he could do about it now except be more careful in the future. Still, it did give him food for thought.

Why was the door so incredibly cold?

Where did it lead to?

Why didn’t he feel a thing while his hand froze over?

Ignoring all of that for now, he shakingly got up with even more difficulties than last time and continued past where he thought the door ended. This time, he made sure not to touch any part of it.

For some reason, a few of his senses seemed to be either dull or entirely non-present, such as his pain and temperature reception. Be it for better or for worse, it was thanks to this he was able to ignore his mutilated hand.

‘Guess it’s true that under all rust lies a steel shine.’

Ding!

A high-pitched sound was made by his hand colliding with a protrusion from the wall.

‘Smooth metal. Four sharp edges. Hollow sounding interior. Seems I found what I was searching for.’

Approaching the front of the cabinet, a slight smile plastered itself on the man’s face.

Now, all he could do was hope for a light source.