Cryo-Wakened

“The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here.”

These were the initial thoughts he had as he noticed the deep, bone chilling cold that coursed through his body as his eyes fluttered open inside the dimly lit chamber. A sharp needle like sensation seemed to prick every part of him as the circulation fought its way back. He gasped, his visible breath misting in the air. The walls were a dull metal and there was a hum vibrating beneath him. He was lying in a cryo-pod, the lid cracked open. Beyond it, a sterile, windowless room stretched out before him with other cryo-pods neatly lining the perimeter, albeit, empty ones.

He struggled upright, head pounding. “Who am I?” The fact he didn’t have an answer to this chilled him more than the cryo sleep had. He tried to grasp at memories but they proved too elusive.

“A name. I have to have a name.” Nothing.

The only thing he knew for sure was that he was on a ship - or was it some kind of a station? Just then, his eye caught the logo on the wall: Ares Initiative. Under it was a digital sign with big block lettering: MARS ARRIVAL: T-MINUS 2 DAYS.

“Mars. I’m going to Mars.” He stumbled to his feet which were weak but functional. The room was eerily quiet, the kind of silence that actually seems loud inside the ears. As he took his first step, a panel flickered to life beside him. The screen was cracked but operational and he reached over to tap it. Lines of text scrolled quickly down the screen, too fast to read. Suddenly, the monitor stopped with big block lettering:

EMERGENCY PROTOCOL INITIATED. CREW STATUS: UNKNOWN. CRYO FAILURE DETECTED. SYSTEM REBOOT INCOMPLETE. REASON: INTERRUPTION.

His stomach twisted as he comprehended what he’d just read. Crew Status: Unknown. That meant he wasn’t alone - or at least he wasn’t supposed to be. He needed to find others. He needed to find himself. A distant clanking sound began echoing somewhere in what must be a corridor just beyond the cryo chamber. His pulse quickened. Someone - or something - was awake with him. And it was coming closer.

The sound made a metal on metal grind and certainly sounded unintended as it reverberated throughout the whole skeletal frame of the ship. He began to move around the perimeter of the room peering into the neighboring cryo pods. The air in the room smelled stale, tinged with the cold sterility of recycled oxygen. His fingers brushed over the glass of the cryo pod that was frosted over, condensation pooling at its edges. The pod lay empty. He moved to the next one and it was empty as well. He glanced to the third, this one shattered from the inside, jagged shards of glass glistening in the dim light. His heart pounded, “where is everyone?”

The hiss of decompression startled him as the door to the cryo room slid open. He spun around to face the door, fists clinched as he prepared to face who, or what, had caused the door to open. A figure stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the dim emergency lights that backlit the frame of what appeared to be a man. As he stepped forward into the room, the dim lighting caught his features enough to reveal a tall, gaunt looking man who was wearing the same Ares Initiative jumpsuit as he had on. The man’s face was twisted somewhere between confusion and fear.

“Hello?” No response from the man in the doorway. In fact, it didn’t appear the man even noticed he had entered a room with another living being. Finally, the man spoke.

“Who - who are you?” His voice cracked as he asked the question clutching his head. “And where am I?”

Something clicked in his head. He doesn’t know who he is either.

“I’m not sure what’s going on. I woke up in cryo and can’t remember anything.

The man gripped the doorframe as if to steady himself and said “I think my name is… Carter. No, wait…” He winced sharply eyes closed tight. “No, I don’t know. Maybe I don’t… this isn’t right. We were supposed to wake up together. The crew.”

The crew. That word hit him like a shockwave. They definitely weren’t alone. There had been others. He stepped closer feeling a surge of energy.

“The others. Do you know where everyone else is? Do you remember what happened?”

Carter’s gaze shot to the broken pod. His throat tight. “No, but I think something went wrong.”

As if to punctuate his words and right on cue, another sound rumbled through the ship but this time it was a low, guttural groan, not the sound of screeching metal. The sound was more distant but unmistakable. Something else was alive and Carter’s eyes widened.

“What in the world was that?” Carter tensed!

The ship felt wrong - if it even was in fact a ship they were on. It was too quiet, too empty. And now, something else making a noise no human could make was onboard with them.

“We need to find out where we are. There should be a command console somewhere around here.”

Carter unsure but desperate nodded, “right, let’s move.”

They stepped into the dimly lit corridor moving slower than what the situation demanded but too nervous to pace quicker. The emergency lights cast eerie red glows along the wall. The ship’s design was utilitarian with exposed piping along the ceiling, metal plating and narrow hallways. Signs of disrepair seemed to be at every turn with flickering screens and lighting that was either out or malfunctioning. An unsettling amount of moisture was in the air and the temperature was clearly much colder than was reasonable.

As they moved forward, something gnawed at the edge of his mind - like he should know more or maybe did know more somewhere locked in his brain but it just seemed to be out of reach. He couldn’t shake the idea that he should know this place, like he had been there before.

A faded, sputtering sign on the wall caught his eye: MSS PERSEVERANCE: MARS DESCENT MISSION 3.

Mars. They were on Mars. His chest tightened as he made the connection that they were not in space. They had landed.

Carter read the sign and muttered, “then where is everyone?” Neither of them had an answer. They continued walking along the corridor while their metallic clanking boots made the only sound besides the occasional low hum of malfunctioning electrical systems. The corridor finally dumped them into a larger room that appeared to be a common area. Chairs were scattered and meal trays were overturned. Across the room another struggling monitor flickered yet another message: SYSTEM FAILURE. LIFE SUPPORT: CRITICAL. CREW STATUS: UNKOWN.

Beneath the message was a security feed with a paused frame. It was a dark hallways with a figure frozen mid-movement. Carter swore under his breath, “what is that?” He moved close to the screen to get a better look but before he could touch it, another sound intruded into the silence, close this time!

A wet, dragging noise broke into the commons area. They both turned sharply scanning the shadows. At the end of the room, just beyond the reach of the security lights, they saw movement. At first it was slow and unsteady. A human maybe… or at least the shape of a human - but it’s body was wrong. It’s limbs were too long. It’s skin was stretched too tight and carried a grayish hue that contrasted the dark black, empty sockets in place of where eyes should be… eyes that were clearly locked on them!

Then, it lurched forward. Fast! Carter grabbed his arm, “RUN!”

The two men sprinted as fast as their wobbly cryo weakened legs would take them. The creature screeched behind them moving quicker than something that looked so broken should be able to move. It clawed the walls as it pursued the frightened crew members, its movements jerky but relentless.

“Where are we running??” Carter gasped.

“The bridge, command center, anywhere!” They rounded the corner where a door stood cracked. Carter got their first slamming his hand into the door to widen it enough to slip through but it wouldn’t budge. Both men pushed with all their might to widen it just enough to try and slip through but it was no use.

Realizing the dead end, almost instinctually he reached down picking up a loose metal pipe from the floor that had likely once been strapped as conduit to the ceiling. He swung the weapon at the creature just as it lunged. The pipe struck the creature in the skull knocking it backwards but not off balance. As it recollected itself to start again, for the first time he got a look at the face of what clearly used to be a man. The skin was splitting apart revealing raw muscle underneath. The mouth was too wide filled with uneven teeth. But what made his stomach drop the most was what the creature wore - a jumpsuit. Ares Initiative. He had been a crew member. He barely had time to process the horror before the creature jumped at him again. Just then, Carter grabbed the nap of his collar and yanked him through the door he had managed to pry just wide enough. As the creature reached through the door, they closed it on the arm sounding a nasty crunch as the arm snapped at the joint.

The two men’s breathing was ragged and their bodies were shaking. Carter exclaimed, “What was that?!”

“I don’t know but it used to be a crew member.”

The two men got back to their feet and realized they had made it into some kind of control room - monitors lined the wall - most of them blinking the evidence of malfunctioned static. But one of the monitors seemed to still be live and working.

A log entry blinked: FINAL REPORT: MSS PERSEVERANCE. CRYO FAILURE. INFECTION DETECTED. EVALUATION INCOMPLETE.

His stomach dropped. Infection.

He rubbed his face, “No one came to wake us up because… there wasn’t anyone left to wake us.”

The realization hit hard. They weren’t survivors of a crash. They were victims of a cryo malfunction.

And they were trapped on Mars. And they weren’t alone.