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I was suspended in time. While my internal "eye" was still able to see everything in the lab and my mind was still able to think, I couldn't move. Couldn't even feel my body. I couldn't remember who is was, but I remembered what it was like to be able to feel my own body. I might have gone violently crazy, if I had a body to go crazy with.

After the invading soldiers had set down their guns after their victory, they came knocking at my door. Something triggered my cryogenic chamber to open and I was immediately freed.

I didn't need time to thaw. Apparently, I was frozen internally, my blood and brain and muscles. They were immediately revived with a shot of something. The feeling of that liquid flowing through my body was the first thing I felt right before I got up and killed the nosy soldiers.

I didn't know why at the time. It wasn't like when I was in the chamber. I could feel my body and I had complete control over it. At that moment, my instinct didn't take over, it simply told me what to do, and I didn't feel the least bit bad about it.

I got right out of the chamber and thrust my fingers into the soft abdomen of the closest soldier and squeeze, while he continues to gape at the high-tech room I was housed in. He was still gaping before he realized he didn't have a working GI system anymore. For those few moments he lived afterwards, he must have wondered where the gaping hole in his gut came from, since he never laid eyes on me.

As the first soldier keeled over, the other reached for his sidearm. His main weapon, which I later found, was lying on a cafeteria table, next to some half-eaten sausage. By the time he drew it and took off the safety, I was beside him. I grasped his hold on the pistol with one hand, a few bones broke from the sounds of it, then I lifted the flesh-wrapped gun over his head and shattered his breastplate, which sent shrapnel swimming into his heart.

I looked down the hall and all around. There was no more soldiers in sight. I knew where I had to go; the only other room on that floor. The room that held her.

She wasn't frozen like I was. She was allowed to grow like any normal little girl. They gave her toys and good food and companionship and a vast living area. Confined all the while, but she was quite content. If anything calmed me down mentally those long years viewing the world through cameras, it was being able to see her grow up. She was 10 by the time I was awakened, at least by my count. I counted about 3700 days. Aside from never talking, she lived a normal life, but she really wasn't normal at all. She was the single most important being to the human race.

I hesitated going into her room, being covered in blood. I knew my role. I was to protect her and make sure she grew up to see the day she would save the world. I couldn't go in and scare her, the way I was. I went upstair to find some clean clothes and maybe a shower. At the very least, to get out of my bloody hospital gown.

I found more enemy soldiers eager to confront me. It's funny. These tough guys love pointing his gun at others, feeling strong, until he realizes it's useless, then he becomes a baby, in an instant. You would think soldiers would have more dignity than that. Soldiers are, after all, only human.

I'm human as well, in a way. You might say I'm the next stage of human evolution. Homo Something. Whatever comes after Sapiens. Not important.

Humans stopped evolving naturally. Long before recorded history. As soon as humans discovered the capacity to survive using tools, the collective knowledge of man continued to expand, but the bodies remained the same. You don't need to adapt new, larger muscles when you can just pull a trigger to kill your prey.

I eventually found some clothes in a locker. They must have been some scientist's street clothes, put away for the working hours. I looked like an average German father. Suitable, since I was about to start my pseudo-fatherhood.

I went back to the vault, to collect my reason for living. To protect and to raise as my own.