One:
The Ashes
ERRT! ERRT! ERRT!*
The three chime alarm sounded sharply in the darkness. Disturbed, a weak groan escaped the sprawled figure, followed by a cough as the sound crudely fell out of his throat.
ERRT! ERRT! ERRT!*
Again, three chimes rang out, and the figure instinctively waved in the general direction of the sound, hoping to smack some sense into whatever was making that awful piercing racket. A dull thud reported as his hand smacked into something solid, and he let out another grunt, followed by another cough.
ERRT! ERRT! ERRT!*
He strained to see in the darkness, but his eyeballs ached as he flicked them left and right, and he realized fairly quickly that his eyelids were stuck shut. A soft *donk* blocked his attempt to wipe them clear as his gloved hand bounced off the protective helmet fastened around his head.
ERRT! ERRT! ERRT!*
The stale air became suddenly very unpleasant as it passed over his cracked and crusted lips. Panic was very steadily creeping over him, and the repetitive alarm was doing nothing to ease the feeling.
His fingers felt numb as he fumbled with the release latch on the helmet before finally catching the latch and breaking the seal separating him from the outside world.
He Immediately regretted it.
A not-at-all subtle sucking sound punctuated the inrush of cold, putrid air as the helmet pulled free of its interlock and an irritating sensation of subzero temperatures and flash freezing mucus thundered down his throat. A glob of discoloured snot leapt from his mouth as he coughed once more in a failed attempt by his respiratory tract to clear the freezing sensation. His face stung with cold and he clasped a hand over his mouth in an effort to stem the coughing fit.
ERRT! ERRT! ERRT!*
The alarm chime sounded again, louder and clearer now that he was free of the helmet, and with an accompanying bright red flash. He coughed again into the gloved hand covering his mouth and simultaneously tried to wipe the crusty goop out of his eyes.
A sudden wash of nausea swept through his body and he dry heaved as the overwhelming volume of sensations suddenly hit home in the form of a pounding headache. The tips of his fingers and ends of his toes all tingled with numbness and a bright light caught his eye, the sight causing his headache to flare.
Fastened just below his wrist, a small screen flashed an array of colours, words, and symbols, but they were painful to look at and far too out of focus to read. He slapped a hand over the screen in an attempt to block out the light.
The computer chirped as he did this, and called out in it's halting, robotic voice:
"EMERGENCY DISTRESS CANCELED"
"CURRENT USER I.D. 2 0 5 6"
"CURRENT VITALS: STABLE"
The man winced as the machine spoke. Between the headache and the brain fog, he was having difficulty processing what exactly was happening, but he did recognise the voice.
Unconcerned with the comfort of its charge, the computer continued to yap.
"TREATMENT APPLIED:"
"EMERGE, RESUS,"
"STIMCHEM INJECTION: ONE"
"DEFIB: FOUR"
"AT ZERO ZERO, ZERO ZERO"
"SEEK MEDICAL ATTENTION"
The voice paused for a warbling chirp, and then concluded its report with,
"WARNING!"
"LOW AMBIENT TEMPERATURE!"
"SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER."
Unable to comprehend the sudden information dump, the man could manage only one thought.
'What shelter?'
(Draft Incomplete, To be continued)
