1: Created.
A monotonous, droning beeping sound suddenly filled the room, a room which was completely unknown to its only inhabitants. It just went on and on, like an alarm clock, begging for attention. Suddenly, the bone-rattling metallic sliding sound elevated suddenly in volume and light shone mercilessly into the inhabitant's eyes. An unaware inhabitant at that.
He, confusedly and maybe not even fully consciously, looked around at the bright room, completely unfarmiliar. Red and white tiled walls, a large desk in one corner of the room and patches of a strange, milky substance dotted zanily over the floor. Not to mention 4 other monolithic cylinders around the one he emerged from. Actually, to speak of his emergence, the male figure slowly and almost in a controlled manner stumbled out of the monolithic tube and fell into the table, his arms holding tight against it to avoid a nasty little head wound.
Well…He'd done it? He's awake! Wonderful. The person looked briefly at their arms as their muscles tensed for a short amount of time before they looked around, still with the same mesmerised bewilderment as they first awoke. The individual slowly shambled to a computer on the desk, an object he recognised. A simple, clean layout that matched the oddly clean environment around it.
As he pulled his long, dark-blonde hair to the side, he turned the computer monitor on with a gentle touch of the power button and almost immediately, the soft and relaxing muse of the startup jingle filled his ears.
…What a simple thing to oodle over. Nevertheless, the computer was on and he scoured the thing to get at least some information on where the hell he was, as it was just a yelling instinct in his head to do so. Then, something occurred to him.
He shakily typed.
date
The enter key clicked under the mild pressure of his index, as stimulating and responsive as he expected.
04/04/28
The Monochrome lettering slowly produced itself on the thin monitor, as if willed into existence by the individual's desperate eyes. This was it. And what it was surely couldn't be correct! The 4th of March was his 17th birthday, or in 2022 anyway. His fist suddenly shot up and collided with the table, uncertain confusion was taking its toll on his stability. Six years, Six years since he last checked in with the clock. As of now, there was more to be learnt.
Once again, he swiftly typed:
cmds
And also once again, lettering scanned its way across the monitor.
autom
protocol
events
logs
As the text finally completed its construction, Isaac looked hard at the commands demonstrated by the computer and after many minutes of pondering, he typed:
events
Then, In chronological order, spaced text followed by dates produced themselves onto the monitor screen.
(02/03/22) Link to Storage Bay connected. Commands are assignable.
(03/03/22) Candidates chosen and produced. Adapting…
(04/03/22)Candidate Name: (Sergei Brunov) Terminated. Disposal pending.
(05/03/22) Remaining candidates In Cryostorage.
(07/09/24) Manual override detected; System lock-down in place.
(01/04/28) Power surge detected. Emergency release; Bay 1 Hold 2 candidate Colin [Data Not Found].
(04/04/28) Bay 3 Hold 2 Opening. Candidate (Isaac Boyan) met required storage date. Instructions sent to PDA_I_BOYAN for instruction.
Long after the text stopped moving, Isaac stood and thought, and rather stupidly said aloud:
"That's me".
Many thoughts whizzed through his barely enlightened mind, many incomprehensible and many fleeting and never to be thought again, like a stack of paper rudely shoved into his face. It made no sense! It couldn't! Thinking this, he looked around and suddenly rushed to a section of the wall that seemed to be some form of a door. Yes, a door. No handle. Where's the handle? He started to pound the door feebly with his fists, hoping deep down something would open them and set him free from this room misted in mystery… But what if whatever lying ahead of him was to be worse? An impossible variable, he suggested in his mind. A variable much uncountable for.