Paradisium - a tale of Sci-Fi Horror

Valen

Well-Known Member
The sound of a metallic hiss split the darkness. A flash of light, briefly illuminating the gloom.

For a brief second.

He falls forward, his vision punctuated by the explosion of light. The sudden explosion left flickers of bright light hovering at the edges of his sight. Pain suddenly lances up and down his body as he hits something solid. The breath forcibly leaves his lungs, exhaled sharply out of his body. Jumping white lights burst across the thick darkness, assaulting his senses. A sharp gasp can be heard, piercing the silence all about.

The first sensation he feels is nausea. His head spins. And although he cannot see through the thick veil of inky blackness that permeates the area, he stands sharply.

Too sharply.

The nausea rises inside of him. Turning, he falls to the side, feeling something concrete as it strikes him head on. Gasping, the figure turns his head, and he vomits.....emptying the contents of his stomach over the cold, metallic floor that echoes sharply from the sound of his boots clacking on them. Falling to one knee, the man gives a sharp, juddering sigh. To his side, a thin sliver of light banishes the gloom.....if only temporarily. Standing, slower this time, he takes one uncertain step after another. Trembling hand reaches out, touching something smooth, metallic and apparently cylindrical.

His face creases in confusion as he runs his fingers over the cold contours of the large, cylindrical object in front of him. A slight indentation seems to radiate yellow light. Touching the indentation, another loud hiss can be heard as a rectangular section of the cylinder slides to one side, spilling more yellow light into the dark chamber in which he stands. Inside, the cylindrical object is empty, yet sickly yellow light illuminates its interior.

A pod. My pod.

It is at that point that he becomes aware of something wet and sticky coating him. Running his fingers up and down his body, the man feels wet cloth....coated with something wet and sticky to touch. Grimacing, he brings his hand up and down in a sharp motion, dislodging some of the sticky stuff. Looking around him, the man sees a small, round room. The floor is comprised of metal bars.....grates of some sort. The metal walls are smooth and featureless. The bare room is featureless, apart from the metal door in front of him.....and three other cylindrical objects the same size of the one that he came out of. The doors on these one remain closed.

Inside his mind, the man tries to think back....think of where he is.....who he is. But it is all blank. There is nothing inside of his head or his memories, save for deep, dark holes, obscuring all he is and everything that he is once was. His past, his location.....everything is lost to him. The man brings his hand up, touching his face. Moving his fingers up, he feels something black and metal above his eyes. Running them to the side, the object above his eyes....whatever it is....disappears inside his skin, as if it has been grafted on.

"Who am I? Where am I?"

His voice is hoarse and gravelly. Then the sound of another metallic hiss distracts his thoughts from the dark places they were going. Turning sharply, he sees the compartment door of one of the other cylinders begin to open.....
 
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Day #374
Dad is getting worse. He's lost mobility and he's not able to speak- and I'm his only family. I have to make the decision. The doctors say that if we don't suspend his animation now, he might not make it to the new world. I'm terrified what might happen when he's frozen, but the doctor's assured that he would just feel like he's sleeping, and then wake up when we've made it to the medical center. I feel like I don't have much of a choice to make. Let him suffer or let him sleep... At least his won't be in pain.


Day #422
It's now my turn to be frozen - to sleep. I'm hoping it will be a short one and I'm not waking up in a world where Dad can get better and live out the rest of the days the way he wants. This whole thing just doesn't feel right to me. Something seems... off. Maybe it's the thought of my whole biological systems shutting down for God knows how long. But it'll be worth it when we make it. IF we make it. God - I hope we make it.



There were no dreams. There were not nightmares. There was only darkness. Darkness that consumed every inch of Emilia. Darkness that she began to stir from. She could hear the loud hissing in her ears breaking the silence. So loud that it hurt and left both of her ears ringing and wincing. She could feel her chest rising and lowering, rhythmically and then a flash of warm air that washed over her. Her knees buckled beneath her as she gave way to her body, almost hitting the pod door on the way down. She tired to catch herself with her hands onto the floor, but slipped and broke the fall with her shoulder.

She was covered in light layer of slime that she couldn't determine what it was. She frantically gasped for air as she tried to get back up. A violent string of coughs escaped her through and then came the nausea. Instead of moving and trying to get up, Emilia stopped and let the wave of the sickness wash over her and letting it run it's course before trying to move again. Although still, Emilia as if she were on a ship in the middle of a hurricane. She opened her eyes, unsure of expecting what she would see.

Not to her surprise, it wasn't much. Nothing but a sea of black before her. She first thought she lost her vision until she caught a glimpse of the soft yellow glow from her pod above her. Confusion was the next wave. Where was she? Who was she? Why didn't she hear any of the other pods opening? A light grunt escaped her chest as she forced herself to stand, using her opened pod to guide her. Another wave of nausea - but she fought to keep everything down. Her hands clutched the pod, feeling the smooth metal beneath her fingers and a hard swallow to keep the vomit down.

Emilia finally forced her eyes open and began to glance around. She could see another yellow glow in the distance. A sharp sense of fear rose up her spine. She internally debated if she should move to investigate the other pod. As she turned to take a step, she suddenly felt how dizzy she really was. Her eyes quickly became out of focus and her body swayed. She clutched onto the pod harder to keep herself from falling again.
"Shit," she whispered to herself, quickly trying to figure out how to compose herself. She could hear gasping as if someone were also trying to catch their breath.

"Hello?" She quietly called out. Stretching her hand out in front of her, she tried to feel her way around the black room. She took a step. This was good. Her knees didn't give way and she was slowly starting to feel more stable with each step.
"Hello?" She called out again. Her hand touched another cold cylindrical pod. Much colder than hers. As she touched it, a soft white glow emerged revealing the face of a sleeping man whom she did not know. She examined the face then pressed on. The light from the pod illuminated a small section of the room and helped her see her way around. She stretched and touched another one. The soft glow emerged and revealed a woman this time - also unknown to Emilia. She moved her way through the room, using the light from the pods to guide her closer and closer to the opened yellow pod. The breathing she heard grew louder and louder. As Emilia took each step closer, she tried to soften her own breathing. She could barely make out a figure in the shadows. She swallowed another lump in her throat as she cautiously called out again.
"Hello? Is someone there?" Her voice quivered with fear as she clutched onto a pod, almost cowering behind it, using the white light from an unknown pod to see. She held her breath.
 
He heard the voice from behind him. Looking around, his vision now focussing in on the metallic chamber that he was in, he saw her before she saw him. She was pretty, if looking a little bit dishevelled, which was as unsurprising given she’d seemed to come out of the same pod things that he had with auburn hair going down past her shoulders.

”Over here,” vocal chords that hadn’t had use since....whenever strained under the sudden usage.

Moving over next to the pod and it’s blinking light so that he could see her, Morgan waved over to her.

”Who are you....? Who am I for that matter. I can’t remember a damn thing.”

Morgan strained as he looked around the large oval chamber that the two of them found themselves in. In the Center of the chamber was a raised walkway that ended in what appeared to be some sort of control panel. In the Center of the panel, even from this distance Morgan could see blinking green lights flashing as if transmitting some form of futuristic morse code. From the raised dais other walkways split off, each leading to what appeared to be more pods. All of the pods formed a semi-circular shape around the edges of the large chamber,

”What the hell.....,” he muttered as he walked slowly down the walkway coming up to his pod down to the screen.

The sound of his booted feet could be heard against the steel floor as he went up to the panel.

”Status: Deceased, deceased, deceased, deceased....”

Morgan’s blue eyes surveyed the chamber, widening in surprise.

”They’re all dead. Every single one of them. Except for......” his eyes scanned across the monitor’s surface.

“Morgan. Me. Emilia. I take it that’s you.”

Once again, his eyes moved over to the strange woman as he nodded his head to her.

”Well Emilia, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I only wish it were under more pleasant.....”

His words were cut off suddenly by a loud high-pitched screeching noise. It echoed around the chamber, and Morgan looked around in shock. His eyes moved left and right, and then up to the top of the domed room that they were both in. Outside of the still shadows created by the dim light there was nothing else in there with them.

”What in the hell was that?”

His eyes moved over to Emilia’s holding an expression of concern in them.
 
Her eyes darted to the figure again as he spoke. Emilia stayed cautious of the strange man with her. He seemed harmless though appearances can be deceiving. She clutched onto the stranger’s pod as she watched him move about the dark room. She didn’t answer his question, but she suddenly realized how parched she was when she tried to speak.

When he stepped next to the next pod, it illuminated and revealed his face. Her eyes locked onto it and studied before turning away and stepping to the monitor. She took another step as he spoke.
“What?” She croaked with her sapphire eyes dancing between the man and the monitor. She was reminded again of her thirst.

Her heart sank and she heard all the others in the pods were dead. Now she was standing not only in the pod room, but in a cemetery. Her eyes shot to him again when she heard the names.
Emilia, she thought. I guess that sounds familiar. She didn’t react to him speaking her name. The eerie feeling of being surrounded by the dead and now a strange man, Morgan – she didn’t how to react.

Just as he was finishing her sentence, Emilia heard the loud screeching. She covered her ears and winced at the sound of it.
“Jesus!” She called out. She crouched next to the pod clutching onto the sides of her head. Her wide eyes followed the sound above her.
“Shh shh shh,” she said reaching out towards him. A low thumping could be heard above them but also far away. Whatever she was hearing, she was sure this was the source of the noise. Emilia froze until the low thumping grew softer and softer and then couldn’t be heard again.

She slowly rose from her crouched position and eased her way over to Morgan, both still covered in the unknown slime from the pods.
“What happened?” She asked looking at the screen with information and words that didn’t make any sense to her. “Why were we released? Why did they all die?” Her voice was almost a whisper now as her voice was horse and her throat scratched. Her eyes glanced to the screen again where she spotted her name.
ROMANO, EMILIA. WF.
ID #: 05241993.
OCCUPATION: JOURNALIST.
STATUS: RELEASED.


Her eyes danced over the screen for any other names she might recognize, but nothing jumped out at her. None of this was making sense to her and her eyes glanced up to Morgan again hoping he was making more sense of this than her.
“Are the ONLY ones alive in this place? Where the hell are we anyway?” She became slightly more frantic the longer it took to assess the situation. And the more she assessed, the more she panicked though her exterior didn’t match how she was on the inside.
 
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