When he opened his eyes, nothing changed. The darkness of before was the same as the one he had awoken into.

He could not feel anything, smell anything, see anything, and for a moment the lack of senses made him wonder if he was awake at all. Then he coughed and everything hurt. As the coughs rattled through him, he tried to sit up, as coughing while laying down felt more like choking. His head hit something hard and smooth and he fell onto his back again.

Eventually, the coughing subsided. He moved his arm up, and he could feel his muscles stretching, his joints working. His hand came to rest against a smooth and hard surface about two feet from his body. He moved his arm to the side, found only an inch or two of space there. Same for the other side. He was in some sort of container. Panic rose in him.

How do I get out? Is this a coffin?

Barely controlling his fear, he searched the surfaces all around him, even licked it and found that it tasted metallic. After a short but agonizing time, his foot found a small round protrusion at the bottom of the container. A button? He pushed on it. Nothing happened. He tried pulling on it, his bare toes slipping on the smooth surface. Again, nothing. He took a deep breath, forcing down his fear, trying to think clearly. He gripped the protrusion between his first two toes and turned his foot.

Light, blinding. He reached out, still unable to see but for the opposite reason. His hands found air. He sat up, shielding his eyes and waiting for them to adjust.

Slowly, the room he occupied revealed itself. He was sitting up in a container of dark grey metal, its cover retracted into slits in its sides. It was laying flat on an elevated surface made of the same dark metal. There was intricate angular designs all over it and the container. Around him, the floor was the same metal, and so were the walls and ceiling. A single rectangular panel in the centre of the ceiling shed light around the small room. And in one corner was a desk of rough wood planks, jarringly out of place in the metal environment.

He lifted himself over the lip of the container, swung his legs over, and dropped the four feet to the floor. He landed and his legs buckled, sending him sprawling. It took him a moment to get up, pain in his hip and shoulder promising nasty bruises. Every part of him felt stiff, awkward, not used to moving. He looked down at himself, found that he was naked.

How long was I sleeping? He looked at the container, a chill running through him.

He turned his attention to the desk. He walked towards it carefully, feeling out his steps, getting used to walking properly. He almost fell twice in the eight steps it took him to reach the desk. On its worn surface were two items: A black folder, and a jade bracelet.

He grabbed the folder and found fifteen sheets of paper in it. The first fourteen were filled with scientific writing that seemed to pertain to the machine he had woken up in. He couldn’t understand any of it. The last sheet had a picture of him on it; Chin length rough blond hair, grey-blue eyes, an average face. It was a file of him. As he read it, memories flooded him.

Name: Michael Harris Larson

Born: April 16th, 2061, 11:12 PM, Alberta

Age: 26

Height: 5’10

Weight: 173lbs

Hair: Medium length, blond.

Eyes: Grey/blue

Ethnicity: Canadian

Notable Features: None

Age At Containment: 26 years, 3 months, 2 days

Date of Containment: July 18th, 2087, 11:51 AM.

Containment Request: Until January 1st, 3000, 1:00 AM

Michael steadied himself by leaning on the desk, splinters scratching at his palm. 3000? I’ve been sleeping for 913 years? Why? Pieces of his life were coming back to him. He’d been born into a rich family, his father Nicholas the owner of a large mining company, his mother Everly the head of a news company. He’d floundered a bit, joined his dad’s business, and gotten married. His wife had given him that jade bracelet on the desk and she was . . .

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Where is Julia?

His wife wasn’t with him. As he turned, double checking the container, he realized that the room did not have any doors. At least not any visible ones.

Michael began to circle the room, pressing his hands against the walls. He felt everywhere on two walls before he felt a click. His right hand sunk an inch into the wall. Before he could pull it away, straps of metal fastened his hand in place. Warmth touched his palm and he yelped, tried to pull back. There was a flash of pain, then a few seconds later his hand was released. Michael backed away from the wall and looked at his hand. There was a small cut below his thumb.

Part of the wall slid away, revealing a hallway. It was lit by rectangular lights just like the one in the room he stood in. There was nothing on the metal walls and it ended at a staircase that went up and right.

Michael kept hold of the papers, slid the jade bracelet over his right wrist, and stepped out into the hallway. “H-,” he tried to speak, but it came out more like a croak. He took a moment to clear his throat, move his tongue and jaw around.

“Hello?” He’d been expecting his voice to echo from the ten foot high ceilings, but it didn’t. He waited for a response. After a few minutes, he walked slowly to the stairs.

He ascended the steps on unsteady legs. The stairs went right for at least fifty steps, and Michael had to stop and sit down halfway up. It wasn’t that he was tired as much as that walking required a lot of concentration. By the time he got to the top, he was already better at it.

At the top was another hallway that ended in another stairway that went up and right. But this time there were two doors set into each side of the hallway, all four made of a near black metal.

Michael grabbed the handle of the first left door, turned it and pulled. The door swung open without a sound. Inside was a room identical to the one he’d been in, except that the container was closed. Michael looked for a way to open it and found nothing. On the wooden desk was a folder and a child’s drawing of a family. The folder held details for a woman named Olivia Piper Williams, along with another fourteen pages of scientific writing.

He turned to examine the container again, but then a thought occurred to him: Julia could be in one of these rooms. He left the room and began looking through the others.

All of them were identical but for the personal item and info on the desks. John Declan Baxter, Danica Hadley Summers, and Anthony Richard Carter were the people in the other rooms. Julia’s not here. Maybe she’s on the next floor.

The next flight of stairs was shorter by half and opened up into a spacious room. It was circular, with shelves lining the walls and a panel on the far wall. Michael looked at the shelves first. One section contained basic black clothing, the next camouflage uniforms. He went down the shelves and found backpacks, canned foods, guns, ammo, grenades, knives, and first aid supplies. This must be a military place. A bunker? Facility?

Michael put on the clothes. Socks, underwear, pants, belt, shirt, all black and made of a soft but firm material. He folded up the papers he’d been holding and stuffed them in his left pocket. He ignored the other shelves for the moment and instead walked to the end of the room to study the panel in the wall. It was black, had glass covering it, and very small writing along the top said: “Please place a hand on the glass for scanning.” Warily, Michael followed the instructions.

After a few moments, there was a beep and the wall slid open, revealing a tiny square room. Then a mechanical voice spoke, startling Michael: “Please fully equip yourself before stepping inside the elevator.”

Michael hesitated, then figured; Why not? He put on a camouflage uniform, and a helmet with a transparent face covering. He used a backpack to store food, first aid, ammo, and grenades. After that, he settled on bringing a rifle, which he strapped over his shoulder, and a handgun and knife that he clipped to his belt. Through all this, he was thinking: Am I in danger? Why do I need all this stuff? I don’t know how to use any of it. And where is Julia?

Still troubled, Michael stepped into the elevator. The door shut immediately and Michael almost fell over at how fast the elevator lurched up. A voice began to speak, vaguely masculine sounding.

“Hello new recruit. You may be wondering what is going on. Unfortunately you are authorized only for basic details. Here they are: You have woken up in the Canadian Annealment Facility 41, located in Alberta. You have been selected for genetic modification, the details of which vary depending on your specific body and which should become apparent quickly. Only one in three survive the process, which is why most likely not all the people in this facility have joined you. If you are unlucky and no-one else survived, your journey will be much harder.”

The voice paused, leaving Michael struggling to process the information. “What?”

“Your goal from here will be as follows: Once this elevator stops, you will leave the building and step out onto the surface. As of recording this, the surface is dangerous, and can only be expected to get more dangerous over time, but we cannot predict how, so you will have to adapt to the dangers you encounter. Follow the signal in your headgear to a specified location. Once there, you will be provided with further information and goals. Good luck recruit.”

The voice stopped and did not come back. Michael leaned back against the elevator wall, staring into space. “Fuck . . .” he breathed. Genetic modification. Why would I sign up for that? Did they force me into it? Why is the surface dangerous? So far, all this ‘Annealment Facility’ had done was give him questions with very little answers.

Five minutes of running over questions in his head later, the elevator stopped. The door opened into a rough stone tunnel that sloped upward, small lights affixed to the wall casting a soft glow. Michael stayed where he was. There was a lot of food down there, and I didn’t explore the facility as thoroughly as I could have. Maybe I could-

“This elevator will not move until you exit it. Please leave the elevator.” It was a different voice than before, entirely robotic.

Michael sighed and stepped out. The door shut and a layer of rock slid down to cover where the elevator had been. Now it simply looked like the end of a tunnel. Michael started forward, steadying himself against the wall as he walked over the tilted and uneven terrain.

Eventually, Michael noticed something strange. A faint purple light touched every surface, and it grew brighter the further he went.

And then . . . well, there was nothing that could have prepared Michael for that first glimpse of the surface. A wave of dizziness hit him and he had to sit down. He felt the urge to pinch himself, to wake up from what had to be a dream.

The sky was black, purple auroras dancing across it, casting an eerie light over the world. The horizon was lined with enormous mountains that looked sharp, all jagged edges and stabbing spires. And all around Michael and into the middle distance were things that looked only slightly like trees. They were spread out, at least a dozen feet between each one. They were between twenty and sixty feet high, made of a blue-black twisting pockmarked substance. Their canopy consisted of dozens of tendrils topped by globular blue lights reaching skyward and swaying in the warm breeze. As far as Michael could see, there was no grass; just brown rocky ground lit in bright blue and soft purple.

The inside of his headgear beeped and a red dot appeared on the glass in front of his eyes, with the words “Direction to next location. From now on this will be voice activated,” underneath it.

Michael simply stared at the nightmare before him.