Act 1 - Chapter 1
Year 13,100 | Weau, Tweloyett | 57:88:51
“Well done Dr. Torann! 30 years of R&D right here.” The bearded scientist next to Nil Torann slapped the top of a cryogenic freezer holding a white-blonde haired android. Nil grimaced slightly at the tap, but Dr. Liviéra laughed and assured Nil that it would be fine.
“Any plans on what you’re going to do with it?”
Nil paused for a moment at the question, then smiled and remarked: “Guess we’re going to have to see, won’t we?”
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Year 13,201 | 71:63:11
Initialising...
Checking visual parameters.....🗸
Checking auditory device.....🗸
Checking sensory panels.....🗸
Checking thermal sensors.....🗸
Checking scent module.....🗸
Checking for firmware updates.....
...
Installed.
...
Syncing data from TW-B9Z1C266
...
Success
Dark.
Through the scratched, dusty glass tube I’m in, I see the pitch-darkness of a room. My visual sensors seemed to slowly adjust to the low light conditions. When my eyes finally adjusted; I saw many cabinets of various sizes in the room, mostly lining the upper half; with smaller, thinner ones below. Some of the cabinets are open, seemingly at random. Laying on a marble countertop are hastily moved containers and bottles of various chemicals, glass flasks and ampules are also left open to the environment. I could make out a faint “N” plastered onto the plain lab wall in black paint, most of the outer edges of the letter were scraped away, leaving a messy looking plaster of colour behind.
After scrutinising the environment outside of the glass coffin to a degree I was acceptable with, I glanced around inside. The area inside was taller than me, but not by much, maybe a few centimetres at best. The temperature inside was astonishing, at -150° C, the edges of the glass were caked in thick layers of snow and frost. The epoxy around the edges was beginning to show signs of age, with slight cracks at the point where two edges interconnected. The inside was cramped, leaving barely enough space for my body to fit within. I moved my right hand first, the coldness had made the artificial joints stiff—but after a few seconds of movement the thin layer of frost broke and my right arm was able to move around freely. I looked back down towards my waist, there was a toggle switch with writing above it. The lack of light prohibited my ability to see the text, but I reached my index finger forward to turn it off.
Upon hearing the switch click into place in the up position, a few dim white lights came on on the edges of the thick glass window, slightly illuminating the lab room in which I was stored. Mist abruptly shot out from the sides of the pod, seemingly depressurising me to exit the ice cold box. After some twenty seconds of depressurisation, the cryogenic pod started to move—the pistons and gears inside making the distinct whine of metal scraping against metal, all while slowly lifting upwards.
The air was thick with motes of dust and smelled of mould. The dampness from the frost inside of the pod was slowly evaporating and disappearing into the air, making it more humid. By the time the mechanical elements had finished, the pod’s door was agape, allowing me an unobstructed view of the room. The light fixtures on the ceiling that I hadn’t clearly seen before were cracked, the support wires laying bare against the elements; with the opaque white glass cracked in pieces contrasting the dark lab floor.
I pushed myself off the slanted back of the pod and looked back towards it. Beside the concave metal were a few exposed pipes and spots of dark brown rust. I looked down at my body, I looked.. human. My hair was just past my shoulders, and nearly white. I isolated a strand of it and noticed a bit of colour; that being light blonde. There was no discernible genitalia, or any orifices for that matter. My skin was fair, with small hairs lining my body, there were no marks on my body either—it was as if I was perfect. My bust was rather small, and my legs were long. If I had to assume, I’d think I’m 185.. no, 190cm tall. After examining myself for any damages, I noticed nothing, and my attention drew to the room I was in.
It was just as I’d seen it earlier, although I noticed it was a bit more messy and grimy now that the dusty surface of the glass was out of the way. Some of the glass ampules and test tubes had fallen off the counter, leaving colourless chemicals and shards of jagged, broken glass on the ground. There was a small hole in the ceiling, letting rainwater drip and collect in a small puddle in the centre of the room—the noise of the water hitting the puddle being the only sound I could hear. I stepped forward off of the elevated platform that the pod was resting on, the floor was hard, like concrete. It was tiled with oscillating shades in a seemingly random order, some tiles were cracked from erosion; particularly where the water was building up from the leaky ceiling. I walked up to the cabinet area, and saw more writing, it looked strange, but my language index immediately flagged it as originating from Tweloyett.
I picked up a tube and turned it around to read the text that was written in black marker on tape. It read “CHCl³” I put it back down and scanned the rest of the countertop, I noticed a hastily thrown together manila folder labelled “WANDER.” I opened it and saw a few papers stained yellow with age. The first paper’s header text was printed in bold italicised text, and it read “IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ”
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IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ
To whom it may concern, the date and time is 52:16:74 on the Fifteenth of April, 13,101. It is the day of flora, and the Silent Retribution has swept through most of Arct.
Today marks the end to the era of humanity. Those who’ve not yet met their fate by vanishment will soon. It is on this day, the Fifteenth of May, that shall henceforth be referred to as “The Day Of Flora.” For all of the flowers and plant life have bloomed spectacularly, even in those fields which have not seen life in decades.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
My name is Nil Neare Torann, I’m a senior researcher for project WANDER. WANDER is a project to reinstate the human race if the world ever falters, either from humanity itself—or from external factors. By the time you’re reading this, it will be a hundred years into the future. Certain hostile bacteria and fauna that opposed the human race would have died out, and by extension; the vanishment.
No one knows the true reality of what happened or what it’s even officially labelled. Some call it “The Silent Retribution”, others have gone on to coin it as “The Vanishment.” Whatever it is, it’s an unforgettable day in our history, the last disease man will ever encounter.
As I’m writing this, it’s reached as far as Ascusitto, all of the eastern countries have gone completely silent, and I expect more to go soon.
Wander, you are the lifeline for the future of our civilization. Our main base of operations in Tekhelc holds all that you’d need to restore humanity—human embryos, a lifetime supply of food and fresh water, as well as shelter from the elements.
May humankind forever prosper.
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Underneath the text was a picture, although its image had mostly deteriorated from age. I counted seven people, 4 men and 3 women; at the bottom there was a line of text, in messy handwriting it read: “The team behind project WANDER.”
After taking in all of the information from the first paper, I slid the second over the top and started reading it.
It was a detailed map of the compound I was in, and all the routes I’d needed to take were marked with red ink. After looking at the map, I noticed a pair of clothes wrapped in airtight plastic laying inside one of the open cabinets. I reached up and tried grabbing the wrap of clothes, the cabinet was taller than me, by half a metre, I barely inched the parcel closer to the edge. Once I knocked the package off onto the counter I ripped the plastic open and put on the coat—it fit like a glove. Tailor-made huh.
The hooded overcoat was a beige, almost coffee colour, it had black accent buttons and a buckle around the waist—it reached halfway down my thighs. The next bit of clothing I picked up was a pair of dark grey cargo pants, much like the coat, they had black accents; although barely visible in the midst of the dark grey. A pair of black boots were lazily tossed to the rear of the table, one of them knocked down on its side. I sat down on the edge of the pod and slipped both of them on, perhaps unsurprisingly, they fit perfectly. Alongside the boots were a pair of long, thin black leather gloves.
After getting everything together, I folded the papers up and shoved them into the left coat pocket. Recalling the map I’d seen earlier, I was moderately far into the complex; being underground meant a lot of upward travel, probably through flooded corridors and eroded away stairwells.
I stepped towards the metal lab door and tried pushing it in with little force, the hinges were rusted to all hell, resulting in little to no movement. Shortly after, I pushed on the door with most of my body weight and it ended up breaking the hinges, resulting in a squeal and subsequent bang as the door hit the ground. I stepped on top of the door and looked out into the hallway, the steel reinforced concrete was showing its age—many cracks protruding in a spider web pattern in every direction. The ground was slick with a thin layer of water, making the ground mossy and more cracked than the walls. There were bits of concrete that have fallen off from the ceiling over the years, crowding the foot space.
The walk through the pitch black hallways and rooms was most of the same, though the decrepit nature of the rooms gave everything a sense of unease. After walking for some 40 minutes, I stumbled across an old flashlight; I started brushing off the dense layer of dust that had accumulated over the years. After cleaning off the outside of the flashlight, I opened the battery lid; inside was a pair of lithium batteries, both horribly corroded—with a visible trail of battery acid leading right into the inner circuitry of the flashlight. Immediately I knew that it was a lost cause and threw it back onto the ground, hearing the soft splash as I walked away.
Through the rhythmic sound of my footfalls in the water, I heard small clicks treading along the upper air ducts and water I’ve already waded through—alongside the movement of small rodents, there were spider webs the size of doorways, and the sounds of distant small animals bouncing off of the concrete surrounding me. The bunker around me was alive.
Everything felt alive, as if humanity had never vanished in the first place.
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Year 13,201 | 72:59:73
The journey to the entrance was one very monotonous, and uninteresting—the same type of architecture repeated with small rooms dotted about. I found an abandoned brown canvas bag and dusted it off before tossing the contents that I didn’t need aside.
After another fifty minutes, I saw the signature orange glow of a dusk sun bouncing off of the thin layer of water on the ground. I felt my pace quicken; the slow, calculated steps had become a light jog as I reached closer and closer to the entrance.
After walking past the door frame and stepping into the sunlight, I glanced out, the brightness of the environment caused my light levels to slowly adjust once more. The sun hung low into the sky, the rays of light causing alarms to go off in regards to my eyes—they closed themselves automatically to prevent any permanent damage to the optical sensor. When I forcibly opened them again my forearm was blocking the sun's direct sunlight, and I looked out at the vast, derelict forest before me.
In the distance sat tall, black monoliths that stood proud from below the canopy of the green forest, some taller than others. Their mirrored surface decrepit, and chipped away from decades of neglect. Others were completely severed, leaving a disorderly cut along the edge—the insides were chaotic, and appeared to house dozens of small rooms and chairs. The trees, now without human intervention, had grown massively, creeping their way ever so closer to the skyline which the monoliths occupied. The ground below me was completely covered in overgrown tree roots and grass that reached up to my thighs. There were animals that skittered about beneath the dense layer of foliage, they made no noises, only that of movement; or the sound of food being eaten.
The lack of noise is something I picked up on immediately, as it was essentially dead quiet—say for a few chirps from faraway birds and the sound of various insects trying to attract a mate. After stepping out into the barely visible pathway beneath my feet, I saw a horribly overgrown post. I could barely tell it was there, the vines creeping up the sides concealed it nearly completely. It was coloured red, although from years of exposure from the sun and lack of care; the colour had mostly faded from the sun’s rays—leaving the exposed bluish-grey metal bare for all to see. Upon closer inspection, I noticed faint writing on the extended gateway, I could barely make out the words:
“Weau Rsech & Experimtion Lab – Prorty of Th Penultimacy Sycate”
It was written in bold, with some of the Tweloyett characters missing, but I suppose that was to be expected. Stepping over the waist high beaten up gate, I kept walking forwards; the journey was slightly downhill, meaning the bunker must’ve been built into a tall hill. The path was heavily wooded, and slowly winding towards the left. I barely saw the orange of the sky through the cracks in the trees. The smell of mould had finally cleared itself out of my nose, and I was greeted with the beautiful scent of fresh evening air. Coming off of the tail end of Winter, the temperature was cool, at 12 degrees celsius—I could tell dew was beginning to form, as the conditions were just right. I must’ve travelled off trail by mistake, as the signature thickness of a routinely cut road verge had disappeared, without any signs or the ground to look out for; it was nearly impossible to find my way back to the designated path. Instead of spending more time wasting the natural light, I opted to walk down the hill. The angle was steeper than it was on the pathway, leading to a few slip ups when a rock was jutting out of the ground.
Upon reaching the end of the forest, I came upon a long opening, and without realising it—I’d just stepped on what used to be a roadway. The asphalt beneath my feet was barely asphalt anymore, the roots and weeds had crowded the once usable roads. After walking a bit further, I saw the signature brown coating of rust on a car; large bits of metal had been eaten away from the chassis, leaving it almost unrecognisable. Plants and vines had crowded the remaining space that the car once occupied, a small tree had grown out of the trunk, busting open the back seat and letting its roots spill over what remains of the car like cobwebs on old furniture. I saw numerous cars dotted along the rest of the roadway, most with the same characteristics of the first. The only means of identifying which cars were different was the barely visible logos on the back of the cars. On the sides of the overgrown roads were the remnants of houses long since abandoned. The walls had caved in, resulting in the bulk of the building being a pile of useless rubble, for every house that wasn’t fallen-in a dozen more would take its place. I looked at the road ahead of me and saw what seemed to be a streetlight laying indented into the ground, with plant life sprouting from beneath the asphalt and overtaking the beaten up streetlight.
I stood for several moments, staring at the tragic, almost piteous sight before me. What was once common for society to see in their everyday lives had been left behind, uncared for and alone—leaving only nature to unknot and reassemble it.
As the crow flies, it would take nearly 7 months to walk across Arct, the distance from Tweloyett to Tekhelc is 5,267km. I have a long road ahead of me.
End of Chapter 1