Cryostasis at dangerous levels.
Recommend diagnostic of the subject…
Analyzing….
Subject FW-256 is in standard health, signs of frosting tissues and mental health is reading active.
Recommendation for failing power supply units…
Scanning… releasing subject FW-256 is best course.
Removing hatch.
Releasing neural enticing agents into blood stream.
Subject is released.
Welcome back… scanning…
Subjects name is not on record.
Request name when power is back… on..line…
The boy pushed opened the tube in a frenzy, his body feeling as though it were swimming in a pool too long. His arms had tubes in them and they began pumping a strange clear liquid into his body, making him calm. The boy began to feel much more relaxed.
His muscles and face felt smooth. With effort, he pulled himself out of the tube, noticing right away that he was making a clanking noise. Looking down the boy noticed something about himself right away. His arms, still with tubes inside them, were woven with a ruby metal, stretching from his skin as if it was molded into his flesh. The boy, still slightly intoxicated, marveled at them, seeing them branch all over his body. He moved, but his legs gave way.
His body was beginning to feel numb, the feeling of cold returning to him. He tried to shout, scream, anything to attract help, but his voice reached no one. He laid there staring at the ceiling, recognizing something familiar in it.
He realized that this was his room, and was drawn back to a time when he was barely able to walk. The feelings of warmth began to spread to his legs, coating them as well with the strange feeling of smoothness. Testing them, he pushed himself from the floor, his legs finally able to grab and sustain his weight. Satisfied, he turned around to face where he knew his door should be. Instead, he saw a girl.
Though it was only what he thought might be a girl, for the creature before him was not human.
Whatever it was, it had strange eyes like that of a cat. She had a lithe form, her body hardened by battle. Her face covered in a smooth fur and head notably feline, jaw and eyes both, yet the being that was before him did not move, only waited as she gazed at the boy. After a few minutes of awe, the strange creature centered herself, shaking off the noticeable glare. She approached the boy, a device in her hand.
The boy became concerned as soon as she approached, putting out his arms in protest. His arms, still connected to the hoses in his flesh, ejected themselves as he moved them. The feline stood back, but the boy clearly not ready for such a thing fell to his knees in pain. He began to sob, not noticing the strange device the feline placed on his chest. It lay there, slowly setting itself in place and suctioning its form to his metallic skin.
The skin responded, grabbing hold of the device, and wrapping around it in protection. After it molded into his form, the boy noticed the strange device had a symbol emblazoned upon the screen…
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(V)
The boy looked up at the feline, as she said,
“Can you understand me now?”
He nodded in agreement, words escaping him as he realized in full clarity what had just happened. It did not seem that she was able to comprehend the notion of his bobbing head however. So, he responded.
“Yes, I can.” The boy turned his head up to her to meet her eyes, round with slitted irises, “Do you know who I am?”
The question seemed foreign to the girl, she shook her head side to side. “I know not what you mean, who are you?” The boy, his head beginning to hurt with the feeling of smoothness being replaced by pain. He shook his head, “I’m not sure. I remember… my mother, she put me inside this. Told me to wait for her… where is she?” The boy began to panic, his memories and thoughts returning to him in a flood.
“Mother? Was she your prime?”
Bewilderment clouded the boy, until the device began to make noises on his chest. The device, a translator from what the boy gathered, relayed the message in a way he might understand. Her Prime was his mother it was trying to say.
“Yes… she is…?” The boy began to despair. It was all coming back to him. The Complex was a cryogenic storage facility. It was a place he and the others were to wait until the world could be ready for them again, suitable for habitation.
The thoughts seemed to stem from his mind, but it was not his own, it was as though it were planted there by something. Noises echoed through the hall as he tried to uncover the recent thought. He concentrated on the noise, his ears acting different as the noise seemed to come from everywhere. He tried to focus and finally felt it. . The noises came from the other room outside the one he was in, a metallic scratching that pierced his head. The feline noticed them as well, and looked horrified.
“Wait here.” she said, as she backed away from him slowly. She snarled slightly as she jumped with grace to a low hanging catwalk above his tube. The boy’s mind was clouded with questions, but the noise silenced them as it came closer and closer. The boy, fear creeping upon him, backed away slowly, banging against the tube.
The noise stopped.
A screech rang out through the halls as the scraping became more intense. It reached the door to his room, bursting through the metal compartment with little resistance. The boy gazed in horror as the noise reached his ears and a hideous creature smashed through the door.
The creature was a being made of flesh and bone, covered in spiny hairs and a mouth that seemed to have been ripped apart and sown together with flesh. The eyes, were like a black void, no pupils, no white, only a hunger that permeated from them. It moved to him in a lumbering motion, as if it was injured. It's torso and legs were hobbled things, the knees and appendages made of chitin and carapace.
The monstrosity terrified the boy. He tried to move, tried to force his body to listen, but the fear had frozen him. It was an insect the boy began to fathom, huge forelegs and a carapace came into view as it closed the distance. But the face, the face was all wrong. It did not match the other features, as the other parts were clearly insectoid in nature. The boy’s thoughts began to process that this creature was an amalgamation, something strewn together using parts from others.
The eyes were clearly insect-like but the face and torso were almost identical to the Feline he saw moments. The boy was beginning to understand more and more of what he was facing, but the knowledge seemed to stem not from his own thoughts, but the thoughts of another. The thoughts became clearer, the voice he heard began to rise to his throat screaming at the monstrosity. His thoughts mixed in with the other voice and they both sung in tandem.
“Creature, be gone!”
The voice, a booming cacophony of power, rose and escaped the boy’s lips. As the being before him screeched once more, lunging at him; the boy lashed out at the monster. The aberration flew to the wall, sticking to the wall from the force of the blow. The boy felt something move over his shoulder. He turned his eyes to the feeling, and saw two large tendrils emerge from his back. They extended over him, longer than his arms and much more flexible.
He began to feel a connection to the tendrils, as if they felt like a set of arms he could move. The creature began to stir from its turmoil, looking at him with those black beads. It shot something at him. Instinctively the boy shielded his eyes and the tendrils responded, creating a thick barricade of metal stripped from the floor. The metal creaked as large spines punctured and held. Dropping the guard, the boy shot his tendril out at the creature, puncturing its skin.
The beast roared in pain, its body stuck to the wall as the tendril held it there. Motioning his other tendril, the Boy began to deal a killing blow. Moments before, the Feline unleashed her weapon upon the creature. The strange light the weapon dispersed seemed to set the creature ablaze, torching the carapace from the outside in. It screeched and squirmed, but under his grip the creature could not escape the flame. It made a guttural noise and died.
The voice that held sway over the boy began to dissipate, the clarity leaving him. As the boy’s strength left him, darkness took hold of him as he fell to the void.