Chapter 1 – Waking Up

It was cold, so cold, and she couldn't see, her eyes were frozen shut. That man, what was his name? He'd put her in the cold, he'd made her tears freeze to her skin so that when she'd rubbed her face, it had hurt even more.

Where was she? Who was she? She couldn't tell… everything was too cold and fuzzy. There was… noise? Was that what it was called? Perhaps this was what it felt like to be dead… What is dead? What is not dead?

Not being dead… was being alive. Was she alive?

Movement on the glass above her made her thoughts stop in their tracks, ice shifted and a face peered in through the gap that they'd made, light spilling in causing her to wince in pain.

There was a slow juddering hiss from the glass, and it moved to the side, warmth filling the frozen air.

Strong arms reached in and lifted her up and out of the tank, into the light and warmth. There it was again, the… noise… no not noise, the voices.

"Is she alright?"

"What's wrong with her?"

"Who is she?"

"Shut up guys, she's still in shock from the freeze; she'll be alright in a few minutes."

It was warm, too warm, and she felt her limbs tingling with the warmth, pins and needles all over her body.

Her eyes came unstuck.

She blinked in the bright light and shut her eyes again, wincing and letting out a low moan of discomfort.

"Well, she did better than the other one…" murmured someone, a female voice.

"Put her on the desk, near the heater, she'll wake up properly in a bit. We'll look at her file and see what her name is-"

"You can't do that! That's rude. Let's just ask her when she wakes up, if she dies, then we can look at the file."

"Wow… you're such a bitch…"

"I heard that…"

Ca… Caaasss… Cassan-dra… Cassandra! That was her name, she was Cassandra! Cassandra Fuller from… um…?

Oh well she could worry about that later.

Cassandra moved her arms and legs a bit, getting used to moving them again. She felt stiff, not just from the cold, but from… time? Yeah, time. She'd not moved for ages she thought to herself, why was that?

She sat up slowly, opening her eyes carefully and looking round the room.

She was in that room with the tanks, the one that General Yates had shoved her in, and six other people were in the room with her. One of the tanks was still closed, and two of them were smashed open, the glass spread over the metal floor. Two of the guys before her had cuts on them, one had bandaged knuckles, and had obviously broken his way out of the tank, and the other guy, a little younger than her, had cuts on his arms and face. By the looks of things the big guy had broken him out too.

Then there was a tall blonde girl, the only other girl there save from Cassandra herself, and she just looked at everything with distaste and disgust, like she'd rather still be frozen.

There was a tall dark hair youth in the back, he wasn't really part of the group and seemed to be trying to make himself invisible. And then there were two really young boys, perhaps only just sixteen, they both had curly hair and stood together, arms touching, the same looks of fear and worry on their twin faces.

"Hello…?" Cassandra said, her voice hoarse with lack of use.

"You okay?" asked the big guy when they all turned to look at her.

"I guess… what happened? The bombs… did they hit?"

"We don't know, we haven't been able to get out of this room, but there's some files I can't get into on this here computer, so…"

"I can fix that!" smiled the smaller boy. He stepped into Cassandra's view and she saw his bright green eyes reflecting his eager knowledge. He had messy light brown hair, and a light tan, like he'd been sunning himself a lot recently.

"I know computers, I'm a Hacker, it's my specialty…"

"Get to it then Glitch." The blonde exclaimed loudly.

"I'm Cass- hey, did you hear that?"

"Cass…?"

"Ssh!"

The seven froze and listened carefully, hearing nothing for a time, and then a distant scuttling noise and what sounded like a strong wind in the distance.

Cassandra went to the door and tried the handle; it wouldn't budge, rusted with age, so she turned back in frustration.

"I'm Rox by the way…" the blonde half smiled.

"Yeah, I'm Kenneth, and he's Lawrence, we're twins…"

"I'm Daniel." mumbled the strong man.

"So what's the shadow's name?" Cassandra asked quietly, still trying to listen.

The young man in question didn't say anything, he just looked at them all, without really looking, and shifted his weight uncomfortably.

"… Shadow it is then…" Cassandra decided.

There was a clinking, scuttling sound from outside of the door, and Rox let out a little squeal.

"Ssh!" everyone hushed.

Silence once more.

They waited in the flickering light, listening, not daring to move. When nothing happened for a few long moments, they relaxed a little, but were all keeping an ear out for that scuttling…

"So… what do we know about all… this…?" Cassandra waved her arms around, gesturing to the room in general.

"You just gestured to all of us."

"Yes."

Glitch jumped in at this point, still clutching the computer pad.

"I think I know!"

"Go on then." Daniel smirked.

"By the looks of the encrypted files, General Yates was trying to save our lives, and help regenerate the human race. He did this by picking out specialists in certain fields, I'm good with technology, Daniel's the strong man, and you know heavy artillery and stuff. So he chose us to… continue the human race after being cryogenically frozen until the radiation outside of the Vault reached a safe level. Unfortunately I don't know how long we've been frozen for, but judging from the remains of… Hannah Matthews, it's been more than… 100 years…? But that's a rough guess…"

"A hundred years!" Rox cried taking a step towards the shorter boy.

"But that's just a rough guess! I could be wrong!" Glitch backtracked.

Daniel jumped in at this point quieting the pair before an argument could arise. The twins went to stand near the door, and one of them, it was hard to tell them apart, listened at the door for that scuttling noise. Cassandra sat down again, feeling a headache coming on.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and looked up into the dark eyes of the aptly dubbed Shadow. He had a slight frown on his face, a slight hint of concern in the orbs that stared at her with great intensity.

"I'm alright Shadow, just a headache… I need to get out of here… we need to get out of here…"

Shadow nodded and took his hand away from her, returning to his corner. Cassandra went back to her tank and took out her rucksack and rifle, then heading for the door.

"Where do you think you're going?" Rox called haughtily.

"I'm getting out of here."

"And how exactly do you plan to survive in a radiation ravaged world exactly?"

"I'm a survival expert, or at least I was, I'm not sure what I might find out there, but I'm not sitting round in here to waste away. Anyone who wants to join me is welcome."

Shadow, Glitch and the twins grabbed their gear and stood with her at the door, and Daniel followed, if a little reluctantly, but Rox stood still as stone, her eyes disbelieving.

"So, Ken and Law, what skills do you have?"

"I'm good with explosives…" admitted the one on the left.

"And I'm good with making traps…" admitted the other.

"Shadow?"

The young man didn't speak; he just mimed a stethoscope in the air and nodded at them.

"You're a doctor?"

Shadow shook his head and mimed taking a step back from that.

"A trainee doctor?"

Shadow nodded.

So they had a survivalist, technical support, explosive and trap experts, a heavy artillery man, a doctor and… what was Rox?

"Rox?"

"Mechanic…"

Cassandra nodded and turned to the door, her back to the blonde.

"I'm getting out of here Rox… you can come with us or stay here alone, but I'm not going to force you to make the choice. It's all up to you. Either way, we're getting out of here."

"I'll go, just let me get my stuff…"

She slung her rucksack on and grabbed her weapon, a large hunting knife with a serrated edge, and joined them near the door.

As a second thought, Cassandra smashed open the case of poor dead Hannah, who didn't survive the freezing process, and took her pump-action shotgun from her.

She nodded to Daniel to break open the door, and put the shotgun in position, in-case the scuttler came back.

Daniel broke the hinges off the metal frame and dropped them noisily to the metal floor where they clanged making an echo in the room, and in the corridor outside.

The door fell out into the corridor and Daniel hefted his machine gun and waited, listened.

When nothing happened he stepped into the dim hallway and looked around, and then looked for an exit sign.

"So how do we get out of here again? I can't remember which way Yates took me."

Rox stepped in and led the group to the right, then left and left again. They came across a large empty room that echoed when they stepped into it. There was a large round hole where the door should be, the jagged and blackened edges suggesting some kind of explosive. The door itself was buried in the opposite wall, three feet deep.

Daylight streamed through the doorway, and a distant shout reached their ears through the gap. Daniel took point and crept up to the door, peering round the corner and waving the rest of the group forwards once he'd determined it was safe.

"This blast was recent… a day at the most." Whispered Ken, or was it Law?

Cassandra stepped out of the Vault and onto the dusty earth outside, she moved silently, shotgun ready, and walked up the slope towards the golden light of a new world.

(AN - Please tell me what you think so far! R&R)