Chapter One:
Initiating Derelict Sequence…
Derelict 872364 Section B initiating final shutdown protocols….
Awakening sample B33-A…
The sample shows abnormal power levels…
ADMIN override initiated loading human consciousness #98734MARK2
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First, there was light, then alarms my cortex started to initiate movement in my limbs.
My cortex? My limbs? What am I talking about?
As the first breaths of air hit my lungs, I became aware of my situation.
I don’t remember anything about me; however, I know how to move, breathe and speak. Suddenly I start retching, blue slime comes out of my stomach, and I fall onto my hands and knees as a silicon tube slides out of my airway.
Extremely flustered, I look around and wobble to a standing position.
I am in a dark, gunmetal-gray room. The walls look shiny, yet they reflect no light.
Barely at ease with my existence, I stumble towards the doorway as I can see the shimmer of light from a distant source.
As I breathe more and more, I feel my body begin to warm up. I lose a chill I had no idea I had, and my gait smoothens.
I feel an intuitive need to feel panicked. However, my body does not comply. My emotions stay as calm as a glassy lake, and texture starts to fill my world.
My eyes focus, and I can see more of a room. Looking into the polished metal of whatever pod-like contraption I emerged, I can see what I look like.
I sport a lean muscular frame, and I am wearing a skin-tight jumpsuit colored the same gunmetal gray as the rest of the room. My hair was jet black. My skin was a pale grey. I wore black minimalist boots with no ties or fasteners to keep them on my feet.
Snapping out of whatever trance I was in, the alarms started to gain traction in my thoughts.
I had to move something was wrong, and I had to get out of there before my short existence ended.
I walk down a gangway of some kind in a dark room with the floor so far down I can’t see the bottom through this darkness.
“Attending staff report, power lowering beyond safe thresholds.” These words echoed loudly in whatever cavernous hall I was standing in.
Feeling a pull like someone was tugging a rope attached to my soul, I started sprinting down the gangway.
Or sprinting as much as a newborn could, I guess…
I hear the lights behind me start to shut off, making powerful clicking noises as they lose power.
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Feeling even more of a sense of urgency to get to the end of the gangway, I seemingly tap into a different gear of my body.
My legs started grabbing the metal flooring, and I gained speed with every step. However, after about 1 minute, I began to feel a heat building in my abdomen.
Wait.. that can't be right? It is not in my abdomen; it's not even in my body; it's more of a feeling of heat than the actual thing.
Subconsciously I start to slow down like a puppet on strings. I could not continue the blistering pace needed to make it to the end of the gangway before the lights above me shut off.
So very un-newborn like I began to improvise. I shifted my weight into my heels to stop and scanned my surroundings, aware of the time limit before the darkness reached me.
I felt the heat had cooled, and I reached for it.
But instead of pushing it into my legs, I pushed it into the soles of my feet.
What I had in mind was using my feet and ankles as springs to be more efficient with whatever this heat was before I reached my limit. Instead, My ankles started to heat up.
Finally starting to become distressed, I tried to jump forward. I expected to move 7 feet forward before landing. Instead, I flew.
I soared through the air; however, with no wings and a not-so-aero dynamic body, my short stint as a bird ended.
Landing with the expectation that I should have my legs broken instead, I am fine. Mind slightly ajar, I continue running down the gangway.
As I run, the sensation of hot fire in my… soul? It starts to abate. As I run, I can see a tiny door-shaped pinprick of light at the end of this very long corridor.
Looking behind me, the lights are clicking out faster, and the pull to the door is stronger.
I run as fast as I can, and about 300 feet in front of me, I see a break in the so-far smooth and straight gangway.
Whatever thing I built, whatever superstructure I am in, did not do so well on this piece of the gangway. It was broken a hole leading down to my inevitable death.
Excellent once more; instead of the massive wrench of heat I took earlier, I simply prodded the source, powered by impossible athletic feats.
Right at the precipice of destruction, I leaped. Barely clearing the 40-foot gap, this time prepared to land. I hit the ground in an awkward run stumble before returning to the gangway.
Whereas before, my gait had been a relatively smooth run. It was slowly morphing into an efficient sprint. Whatever power animated my flesh was optimizing my gait as I ran forward.
My top speed was increasing by the minute, and before I knew it, I was faced with another “situation.”
With the gap I had to clear now almost stretching about 100 feet, I tugged from the mystical heat energy and, this time, pushed it through my whole legs instead of my ankles.
Right as my feet touched the end of the broken gangway, now slanting down into the abyss below.
I leaped once more. My whole legs were empowered this time, and I cleared the gap with 5 feet to spare.
Trying to avoid the stumble landing destroying my momentum, I landed in a tucked roll, allowing my inhumanly tough body to come out of the roll with as much speed preserved as possible.
What followed was about 5 minutes of sprinting. At this time, I began to really comprehend my situation.
I woke up with no memories besides basic how-to-function instincts. I came out of a literal metal pod. I had some magical force pulling my psyche into a frenzy to reach this door. To top all of it off, I was clearly not human.
Even though I, for some reason, expected to be human, I was not. Clearly. Whether you looked at my skin color or that I could handle the consequences of flying 100 feet through the air and landing without even a pinched nerve.
Coming out of my quick self-discovery session, I looked ahead. The light at the end of the tunnel, Literally. Still narrowly beating my race against the impending darkness, I see the most significant gap.
Nearly 300 feet in length, I knew I had to devise a solution now, or I would be doomed to find out whatever cruel end was at the bottom of the chasm below my feet.
Reaching into the Heat, I pulled as hard as possible, directing it into my legs. However, they filled up, and I instinctively knew it would not be enough to clear more than half the distance.
So I pulled the energy from my legs and circulated it through my whole body. Inadvertently by doing so, I freed up some more room and painfully pulled more heat energy from whatever pool I seemed to possess.
Reaching the edge again, I pushed all the energy into my legs and jumped…
I heard and felt an explosion like no other emanate from my legs. I soar forward and then seem to notice.
My legs are gone. Like not there. In their place is some black goo that is falling out of me. However, it is rapidly lessening in flow and intensity. My body must have some sort of healing capability.
Landing on my not-so-legs anymore. I fall onto my face right at the entrance of the door. I heard a voice.
“Come here Sample quickly before the shutdown protocol affects our area as well. I have bolstered power to this sector as long as possible, but time is short and my needs long.”
Whatever mystical force that had been driving me before really kicked in now, and I used my arms to drag my half-body through the doorway and looked inside the room.
There were screens and all sorts of terminals scattered in this room. All of the digital terminals had flashing red lights coming out of them.
I reached out one hand after another and finally clawed my way to the terminal. As soon as my hand made contact with the only screen not flashing red, my vision turned black…