BOOM*
"What the hell?!"
Franky, who was playing a game on his computer, suddenly jumped up upon hearing the loud sound coming from outside, he quickly stepped to his window to peer out. He was horrified by what he saw.
Outside was a firey crater where the backyard garage was supposed to be, Franky couldn't piece together what was happening, he looked up and saw multiple red lines dotting the sky, like firey rain from hell.
BOOM*
"Oh god.." Franky said, sprinting out of his room.
Three weeks ago:
"What do I need to be here for exactly?" Franky asked the two men in front of him. Franky was called out of his grandmothers house and brought to a private room by police, he thought he was being interrogated.
"We understand that you're.. unsatisfied with the way your life has been going down, is that right?" The 1st man said.
Franky thought back to the death of his parents, the abuse from his childhood, the horrible living conditions he was in now, and to add to all that, the constant fear of failure.
"Y..yeah? Why?" Franky asked.
"Well, it's about to get a whole lot worse." The 1st man said.
Franky immediately shot up out of his seat.
"Whoa hey! Whatever it is you think I did, it wasn't me! I'm an innocent man!" Franky was terrified of getting accused of something he didn't do and being viewed as a bad person.
"Sit down." The man said.
Franky obliged, tears starting to form in his eyes.
"What I was going to say is, you're life is going to get a whole lot worse unless you take precautions." The man said.
"What do you mean?" Franky asked.
"Well, because of your family's contributions to the local community, we have surveyed everyone in it, and you are the best candidate to fit into the HPI." The 2nd man said.
"HPI?" Franky asked.
"Human Preservation Initiative. Preserving human life after an apocalyptic scenario."
"A.. apocalyptic?!" Franky shouted.
"Well, nothing is guaranteed, but considering the way things are, you can never be too safe." The 1st man explained.
"You will receive a state of the art survival package. It comes with a complete survival vault, capable of withstanding the toughest conditions. It's equipped with a kitchen, a bedroom, a living room, and a cryo chamber." The 2nd man explained.
"Cryo chamber? Since when did we have that?" Franky asked.
"Top scientists actually rushed to get these working properly, but rest assured, they've been tested."
"Unfortunately, the pod requires a lot of space to function properly, in the cryo chamber there will be lots of pipes leading to the pod itself, try not to damage them."
"You will receive this map, it will lead you to the vault, memorize its location, but do not enter the vault unless a dire emergency takes place, once your genetic signature is detected within the facility, the vault hatch will lock itself, preventing anything from entering or leaving the hatch until the surface is deemed habitable."
This was all coming at Franky so fast.
"Wait, so, I'm the best candidate in my family?" Franky asked.
"Yes, everyone else was either too far away or too old or too mentally unstable to be a candidate for the preservation of mankind." The 1st man stated.
"Sounds about right.." Franky thought.
"So there you go, you are now prepared for the future, but there is one drawback." The 2nd man said.
"What?" Franky asked.
"You can't bring any family members with you." The man said.
Franky's heart sank. He didn't know what to do. He surely can't just leave them in the dust, but then he thought about how many times they've screwed him over, but if he did this would he be just as bad as them? Most importantly.. what about his sister..?
"If this is a deal breaker, say the word."
"No." Franky said. "I accept."
The vault he received three weeks ago.
That's exactly where he was headed.
He ran down the hall towards the living room. Franky's family were looking out the windows to the commotion.
"Where are you going?!" His uncle asked.
Franky said nothing, taking a last look at his so called family before bolting out the front door.
"We all die or I live.. we all die or I live.." Franky thought to himself, despite his family constantly putting him down, Franky still felt guilty about all of this.
Franky sprinted as fast as he could down the street of his small town, as he ran he spotted a man and his daughter, they were both trapped under rubble. Franky stopped and tried to decide what to do, if he ignored them he wouldn't be able to live with himself, but if he helped them he'd run the risk of being killed.
Franky decided that if he's going to die, he might as well die helping people in need, he ran over and tried lifting the rubble off of them, but it wouldn't budge.
"Of course.." Franky thought to himself, he wasn't particularly strong so naturally he wouldn't be able to lift heavy chunks of steel and concrete.
"I'll help!" Shouted a woman running towards you, both Franky and the woman tried lifting the rubble off of the father and daughter, barely getting it off of them enough for them to wiggle out.
"Thank you! The both of you!" The father said to Franky and the woman.
"Don't mention it, get to a safe place as quickly as you-" *BOOM*
Franky was interrupted by an explosion behind him, knocking him and the rest forward.
Then there was nothing but black.
"Wake up!"
Franky awoke to find rubble all around him, as the father shook him awake, he was knocked out by the explosion.
"Go on, Run!" The father said as he took his daughter in his arms and ran over the rubble, as Franky stood up and came to his senses, he realized that a siren was playing throughout the area.
The Nuclear Siren.
He didn't have much time.
Franky gathered the rest of his strength to limp as fast as he could to the vault. It took a few minutes, but he arrived at a small hatch on the ground, twisting the wheel open he quickly opened the hatch and descended down the ladder.
Franky collapsed on the ground of the big main room of the vault, gasping for air, he's not in the best shape to be running for his life. After a few minutes of collecting himself, Franky stood up and took in his surroundings, the vault was giant, with a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, basically everything you'd see in a house, save for one large metal door reading, "cryo chamber".
"So that's where I'm supposed to go?" Franky thought.
"HELLO, AND WELCOME TO VAULT 528!" a computerized voice shrieked from a loudspeaker. "THIS VAULT IS DESIGNED TO KEEP YOU ALIVE IN POTENTIALLY APOCALYPTIC CONDITIONS, BEYOND OUR CONTROL, PLEASE REFER TO THE SURVIVAL MANUAL FOR DETAILED SURVIVAL ADVICE, WHEN YOU'RE READY, PLEASE ENTER THE CRYO CHAMBER AND PREPARE FOR CRYO-STASIS."
"I guess I have no other choice.." Franky said, shaken by everything that has happened. He opened the metal door and stepped inside to find pipes, big and small, on the walls and floor, leading to a large pod in the center of the room. Franky walked over the walkway to the cryopod, as he stepped in front of it, he spotted a red lever beside the cryopod. He pulled it and sure enough, the cryopod opened. After some hesitation, he entered it.
"SUBJECT ACCEPTED, PLEASE PREPARE FOR CRYO-STASIS" the A.I. said as the glorified freezer closed around Franky, while he sat in it thinking about how long he would be in here, would it work? What about his family, or that father and his daughter, or Franky's friends? Would they find a way to escape this disaster?
"They'll be fine." He told himself. "Humans are resilient. This war won't cause us any new problems.." but even after he told himself that, there was a tiny shred of doubt in the back of his head. These thoughts continued until Franky started feeling the cold around him. His thoughts slowed down and his vision faded until he fell into the long sleep.
