Thawing process, complete.

Number 3 9 4 is waking up.

Condition, stable.

Please remain still and calm while your body recovers. Scientists will be with you shortly.

 

Body felt like it had just been frozen in a iceberg for a thousand years.

His body was cold on the inside while the room around him got warm, comfortably warm. His clothes were clearly drenched and heavy. His muscles ached and could not move.

He was overwhelmed with the stinging sensation, like a thousand needles was jabbed straight into him at once as his limps got their blood flow back.

Finally he could open his eyes, having to blink several times for his vision to stop looking cloudy. He was inside a dark room, blue neon light above him. How did he...get here?

Slowly his memories came back him. He was...delivering something.

The scientist told him to put it...in that room. Or he thought it was a room...

Then it got cold...yes. He was locked inside and it got cold..unbearably cold... For a minute there he was sure he was going to die...

Slowly he sat up, a puddle of water having formed around him, it was also dripping from the roof and walls, like ice melting.

The door is now going to open. Please remain calm. Personal are on their way to help you.

There was that voice again, and just it said the doors slowly opened.

The outside air felt almost warm against his skin, yet there was no sound there. No sound except for the machine he laid in.

He managed to push his head up and looked out to a dark room, no sign of any personal, not a single person in sight.

His limps felt weak as the blood flow returned, the horrible sensation of a thousand needles across every inch of his muscles kept him there, unable to move.

There was no other choice but to lay there, in soaking wet clothing, listening to the sounds of machines echoing in the seemingly dark, empty lab. What did they do to him? Where were they? Why was he locked in there? For how long was he there?

The longer he staid there to more the questions raced in his head, the bigger the feeling of dread filled anxiety rose in his gut. The feeling of something horrible happening and he could do nothing about it.

It felt like an hour at least, just laying there helpless and probably alone. The needles stopped at long last, allowing him to move again. Weakling he crawled out of the chamber, leaving a watery trail behind him, limps shuddering from the still freezing cold.

As he got outside he saw the lab, most the lights were out, leaving in it near total darkness. As his eyes adjusted he could make out the equipment, the control panel where the scientist stood. As he reached the panel he grabbed the top and pushed himself up, quickly discovering the many layers of dust settled on the surface. It looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in years.

He waddled his way to the other side of the panel, seemingly still working. He looked on the screen which was frozen with error messages.

Error: Major technical malfunction

Error: Cryochambers not working

Error: Unable to connect to network

He did not dare to press a single button but he did recognize the word Cryochambers. Was he actually frozen in there like those sci-fi movies?

And if so, how long? Looking at the state of the lab it must have been months at least! DAD!! He not only completely missed the meet up he vanished!! He and John must be worried sick now! And the company...once he got out of there they would be in a world of hurt! He would sue them straight out of existence for this!!

Unless he got his hands on that scientist first...

With his strength gradually returning he went out hallway that was pitch black, nothing in sight. He took out his phone only for it to not work, completely dead. The cryofreeze must have broken it, and with no light he had to try and guide himself via memory and feeling along the walls, a feeling of panic in the back of his head. What if he couldn’t find his way out?

He tried to push that fear out, he would get out! He would!

It was basically a straight line anyway, he eventually found the elevator doors and the panel, only for it to not respond...no power. Ok this was disturbing. The fear of being trapped in there heightened.

Luck was on his side though, there was a staircase next to it like most complexes. He found it via feeling for the door, entering and figured it out with finding the railing and the echoing of his steps.

Slowly, one step at the time, he climbed down to the bottom and somehow found the reception. Some orange light came in trough the...boarded windows? Why was the entrance boarded up? Why could he practically feel the dust with each breath he took? Whatever they used to keep the wooden boards there, it was pretty weak. Much to his surprise he saw some of them had fallen off, and with some tugging he ripped them off. The door refused to open and he could barely make out the blurry shapes outside trough the layers of dust and filth on the glass. Using one of the boards he smashed the glass door, more and more cracks appeared with each swing until finally it shattered, scattering hundreds of shards on the ground and a sudden wind of air filled his lungs. It was fresher but not complete outside air.

Somehow he was still inside...instead of the parking lot there was a some kind of complex surrounding the lab. It kinda looked like a underground parking lot only without cars, metal boxes and scattered lights. There was a roof above him that swallowed the lab, cables laid and old, abandoned construction equipment stood scattered about. But...this was the entrance right? He looked behind him and the lamps did reveal the exact reception he entered trough. Just as he remembered it! It was the same! So what the hell happened outside??

Barely holding off what felt like an anxiety attack, he forced himself onward, each footstep sounded like a roar in there. At least he had light.. But not indication where he was. He needed to get to surface, from there he could find someone and call for help.

He walked up a small staircase and was met with a elevator. A functional one! Thank god!

Eagerly he entered and pressed the top floor. The ride felt like ages, or an hour. But that could just be him, more afraid then he had ever been in his life.

All the questions kept repeating in his head. What happened to him? Why was he locked in there? How long was he frozen? Is dad and John alright? How many were looking for him? Why did FHS build cryochambers? And why was the place abandoned? With him it in?!

Nothing made sense, it all felt like a fever dream. Like he was still in the freezer and he could wake to the real world at any minute.

The elevator stopped and the doors swung open, revealing a pretty tight and claustrophobic corridor, the walls were plain concrete and trash littered the floor. Cigarettes, cans and stuff he did not recognize.

It was a foul smell in there but he pressed onward, walking over the trash, up a metal staircase, to a door covered in graffiti.

Taking a deeper breath to calm himself, Jacob opened the door and the sounds of the city filled his ears. The air was clearly outside, cars, people, he made it!

He was in a space in between buildings...or somewhat under it. Large black covered walls and a roof above him, the ground was concrete, large cargo boxes stood placed along the walls and just a little away from was a metal barrel with a fire, rugged people dressed in filthy clothes surrounded it. Homeless clearly, poor souls.

He turned to his right and saw the opening to the street but as he walked out there it suddenly dawned on him, this...this was not the London he remembered..

He stepped upon a plateau, surrounded on all sides were the largest buildings he had ever seen. Gigantic skyscrapers so high up, from where he stood they looked to pierce the sky. Car roads high above the surface and metal pipes that hat public train cars going along them. Thousands of windows, giant screens showing advertisements and neon lights everywhere he looked. The little plateau he stood on had benches, trees and small kiosks, barely the size of a smaller walk in closet, selling booze, cigarettes and snacks. This....this.....Jacob didn’t even know where to start. This couldn’t be real..could it? Was he going mad? Was he dreaming? Did he enter a alternative universe?

He walked forward and slumped down on a bench, the shock so intense that his body felt weak, his head spinning. This couldn’t be happening..

This couldn’t be real right? Like he wasn’t actually cryofrozen was he? But that could be the only explanation...expect no one had ever woken up from it! Cryofreeze was a one way trip, he read it himself once on his spare time. Yet here he was, in a unknown city, a phone broken beyond repair, all alone. It almost felt like he would be remain seated there for eternity, limps feeling so weak. What was he going to do? He couldn’t memorize his dads number, nor Johns, not anyone besides his own! So asking to borrow a phone wouldn’t help him much now. But maybe the police could help him? Surely he had be missing right? Maybe people were already asking about him?

Despite his weak body he forced himself back up, and headed for one of the kiosks, only to find no cashier. Everything was locked behind a screen and panels with card scanners to purchase. Ok he had not seen that before.... so he moved on. Walking around a corner and down a set of stairs, into a alleyway. It was mostly lit up in light blue neon, with some other signs being pink, red ect. There was different clubs, bars, metal shutters closing off whatever was inside the giant skyscrapers. Until he finally found another smaller alley with tiny restaurants and stalls along the building walls. One of shopkeepers could surely help?

Or strangers...tons and tons of strangers....and he had to ask anyone for help.... he breathed in deeply and mustered his courage, pushing back the paranoid thoughts of whatever could go wrong. It was a desperate situation, he had no choice!

He spotted a lone woman with long blond hair, shaven on one side of her head, dressed in leather adorned with spikes and chains hanging from her belt.

She looked tough, damn tough. Like she would be the kind to tell him to fuck off before he could get a word out so someone else...

Then a large man, dressed a Hawaii shirt and boxers, he had a strange look on his face, like his mind was somewhere else..something felt off about him so no.

‘You look lost.’ he heard someone next to him. He turned to see three guys standing there, all looked like street thugs.

‘And why are your clothes all wet?’ he didn’t answer, he was overwhelmed with the feeling that these guys were bad news. Without saying a word he walked away, only for them to follow him.

‘What? You’re not gonna answer? Are you rude enough to just walk off and ignore people??’ he picked up the pace, trying to loose them in the crowd but to no avail.

‘You deaf?? You dunno how to speak punk??’

Then he felt a hand grab his shoulder and he was thrown against a wall, all three now surrounding him.

‘No manners at all, guess we’re gonna have to teach ya a lesson.’ everyone else all but ignored them. This was it! He was gonna die!! It was all over!

The ringleaders hand wrapped around his neck, not holding hard to choke him but making it clear he could, Jacob completely froze. Body shaking as he waited for the punches and kicks any second now!

‘Now what to do with you?’ instead a choke he was thrown to the ground, as he pushed himself up from the ground a sudden crash of pain washed over him as he was kicked in the side of his stomach. He laid there as a human ball, a foot on his shoulder readying itself to stomp him into the ground. ‘No fucking respect at all..’

As the foot lifted of the ground, sudden sounds of kicks, punches and grunts filled his ears. The sounds of fighting! He turned his head and saw someone engaging all three men, fighting them off single handedly. It the blond woman he saw barely two minutes ago, throwing a whirlwind of expert kicks and punches, like a trained martial artist. Ducking, blocking, kicking one straight in his kneecap so he fell down, screaming and clutching his leg. The other knocked out with a uppercut and finally the man who kicked him was taken in a grip. His arm twisted, forcing him to his knees.

‘This is not your fucking street trash!’ the woman told him before before twisting his arm again, forcing facedown into the ground and then a snap, followed by a loud, agonizing scream. His arm was most likely broken, or very close to it..

He slowly got off the ground as she turned to him. ‘You shouldn’t walk these streets alone if you can’t fight. Its dangerous here.’ she said, taking out a cigarette packet and walking off.

‘Wait!’ she stopped and turned to him.

‘I uhh..I need help.’

‘Ya clearly but I got my own problem.’

‘I have gone missing! I need help to contact my dad!’

‘Can’t help ya kid. Go see Michelle instead, she’s a softie for boys like you.’

‘Where?’

‘Down at the repair store that way.’ she pointed further down the alleyway. ‘Just go down there and turn right at the strip club, her shop has this big ugly red neon sign with a bike, can’t miss it.’

She then walked off, lighting her smoke. Jacobs attackers still on the ground. Two groaning in horrible pain and the third unconscious. Without another word he hurried down in the direction she pointed at, looking carefully for a strip club. After bumping shoulders with must have been at least thirty people, he found a long, bright pink sign which read “Garden of pleasure” with a video of a woman dancing in nothing but a skinny bra and G-string. That was definitively it. So then he turned to the right, going opposite of its entrance, walking downhill till he finally reached it. On his right, at the corner of a car road, stood the repair shop. A motorcycle neon sign with the text “repair shop”. Either no official name or just very lazy, either way he stepped inside.

There was a small reception. A computer on it, a floor fan in the corner slowly turning, not doing to much for bad air in there. The window shutters were down, only allowing small glimpses of light trough, posters of cars trough almost every era adorned the white walls. Empty beer bottles and cans littered the place, a stained couch stood right next to the entrance door. Jacob stepped forward and found one of those very old ring clocks, the round ones that rang out when you almost slapped on top off. He did and nothing, the backdoor stood closed and no one was inside. He seemed to be alone for almost a full minute until someone came out off a side door he didn’t see from where he stood. It was a woman, pretty tall, black hair that faded into the purple at the bottom that she had tied into a ponytail. She wore a black top that showed a bit of her stomach, tattoos covered her arms along with some stains, probably oil.

‘Ya what can I do you for?’

‘I was told to see you.’ he said in, must have been, the most pathetic voice he had ever put on.

‘By who?’

‘A woman with a blonde buzz saw cut.’

‘Rachel? Well alright. What do you need then?’

‘I uhh..I have gone missing. Phone is busted and I’m pretty sure my card is to. I need to get in contact with my dad.’

‘Missing? Like..’

‘You probably wouldn’t believe me..’

‘Sure sure..’ she turned to the screen and began typing.

‘Whats your dads name?’

‘John Alberc.’

‘Alberc?’

‘Ya I know...’

She typed some more and turned the screen to him.

‘Does any of these look like him?’ he looked on the list of males with that name. ‘No, not a single one of them.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘Knights Hill.’

She typed some more and showed the screen.

‘Any of these?’

There was a list of only three men, not a single one was dad..’

‘No...but..he lives there. How..?’

‘Maybe he moved?’

‘Ya..I have been gone a while...or I think so at least..’

‘Suuure..? So whats your name then? Maybe I can cross reference your names.’

‘Jacob Alberc.’

She typed again ‘Address?’

‘Clarence road, Lower Clapton.’

‘You sure? You don’t show up at any address there.’

She showed the scree and indeed, it did not match anything.

‘But.. I lived there for years...’

‘You said you had been gone a while, maybe they sold your place?’

‘Has it been that long?..’

‘I can search you up on the missing people register.’

She typed it in and nodded her head, furthering shooting up his already bad anxiety over all this.

‘There’s no missing person in all London that goes by your name.’

‘What??’

‘Nope, not a single one.’

‘How?...W...’ he rubbed his head and started pacing, heart and head going a million miles an hour.

‘Shit...shit..fucking shit.’

‘Look cool your jets. Is there any other family I can look up?’

‘My mom! Jessica Alberc! She’s somewhere in Highgate!’

‘No one there by that name.’

‘My best friend John Alford! Also Clapton!’

‘Nope, no one there.’

The shop fell silent, he just stood there, staring at the floor. There was nothing, the three people he had in his life were gone....vanished from the face of the world..

‘How long was I in there?’ he thought to himself, it couldn’t be..

‘Look I can see you’re in a big crises now but I got a car that needs fixed by tomorrow so how about you just sit and wait there’ she pointed to the couch ‘and come find me in the garage when you think of something?’

She went back inside, leaving him to stand there, lost in thought. What was he going to do? What the hell happened? How did all this happen? Where was everyone?

His mind kept going back to that lab, how he woke up after being frozen, how the lab was suddenly underground. The screen told him clearly..

Cryochambers not working

He...no..but...what other way was there?

He had to know! He had to confirm!

He almost ran to the other side of her desk and looked panically at the screen, down in the bottom right corner, there it was. The time, 22:01. Right under that was.....2199...... The year showed 21...99...

His legs couldn’t take it anymore, they gave out and he slumped to his knees. It was like a panic attack, mixed with the fear of death from the alleyway, but worse. A whole world was suddenly thrown onto him...

Loosing any kind of track of time, Michelle came back in and rushed over when she saw him.

‘Shit are you ok?? Need a ambulance?? Dude!’ she shook his shoulders as she kneeled down next to him.

‘Hey! Jacob!’ He turned to her, eyes filled with dread.

‘A hundred years...’

‘What?’

‘I....I was gone...for a hundred fucking years! They...they’re all dead!..’’

She didn’t understand a single word he said but it was obvious that he needed help. He apparently just lost everything, or that’s what he looked like anyway. She switched off her PC, locked the door, and took his arm, helping him off the floor.

‘I’ll take you home, you said you live in Lower Clapton?’

‘Its gone..my life...its all gone..’

‘Ok..ok look. I’ll let you crash with me tonight, we’ll talk tomorrow and work this out ok? Common I got ya.’ She switched off the fan and lights before going up the staircase in her garage, to the apartment above.

She needed to hold his arm the whole time, his eyes staring blankly at whatever was in front him. Dude was in total shock, that much was clear.

She opened the door on the second floor, her apartment was off decent size. Her kitchen and living room was the same, sink, oven and all that in one corner, right from the door. Couch and flat-screen TV build into the wall on the opposite. Windows along the right wall showing the car roads and a walkway on the other side, on the same height as her apartment, and a surprising open space behind it, showing more buildings rising high up in the distance. On her left was the bathroom, and then her bedroom door in the further left corner.

‘You take the couch, sleep it trough and we’ll fix whatever is going on tomorrow ok?’

‘Whats the point? I only had three fucking people in my life and they’re all dead...I lost everything.’

The reality set in more and more, fear was replaced with despair, tears flooded his eyes, blurring his vision and building pressure in his throat.

She sat him down and went to get a pillow before setting a blanket over him.

‘Look, Jacob. I dunno what’s going on but I’ll help you ok? We’ll find your family but now you gotta sleep on it ok?’

‘There’s nothing you can do....they’re gone...everything is..its fucking gone! Better just throw me off the fucking roof and be done with it!’

Michelle sighted, she recognized this all to well..

‘Its been a long day. Try get some shut eye..’ She helped him lie down and laid the blanket over him.

‘We’ll talk tomorrow, promise.’ She left, closing her bedroom door behind her.

This was it...it was over...they were gone....he was gone....a whole other fucking world.....his life...It was just to much..

Tears ran down his face till his mind and body reached its limit, finally giving in. He silently wept himself to sleep, knowing now how pointless it all was.