Everything is quiet in the way that it has always been quiet, with the low hums and thrums of the world. Unchanging, Aetheleos is as it has always been. You pry your eyes open to see fogged glass a few inches away from your nose. The seal releases, and you are carefully released onto a rubber-matted metal floor. Your feet are bare, and as feeling floods into them, you wince as they tingle painfully. As you gather your bearings, you look across the aisle where another person is being deposited to the floor. The only lighting is red, and there is a mechanical wavering to the atmosphere. Distant low sounds like a heartbeat burst periodically into your awareness, far enough that you cannot identify precisely what they are.
This is all you have known, this is all you have ever known, this is all that you know. Is the light comforting? Is the sound ominous? You’re not sure.
To either side of you and your cross-the-aisle partner, a few more individuals touch down on the springy floor. Dead computer screens looming at either end of the antechamber display nothing but the faintest memory: “DNGR: RAD.” The words are burned into the screen like images might have done on an old CRT.
Next to each cold casket that you step from, there is a closet sealed by a clear door. A button labeled “OPEN” seems promising, and upon pressing it, each dazed person is rewarded by the glass opening with a soft pop as the hermetically sealed closet releases its contents. Inside, there are four jumpsuits (one grey, one blue, one orange, and one green) with presumably what must be your name stitched neatly onto the collars as well as numbers along the waistband inside remind you that you are nude, and so getting dressed is a priority. A basic toolbelt hangs from a hook on the wall, and a tiny mirror in the back shows your own unfamiliar and bewildered face to you.
Everything is a fog, and this is all you have known, all you have ever known, all that you know, when a voice comes in through the intercom:
“Good morning,” comes a cheerful ever-so-slightly mechanical voice, a low alto or high tenor. The voice is ambiguous but warm. “Or maybe afternoon? I have no idea what time it is on Earth, to be honest. But you’re awake now, and you’re not supposed to be, but something’s wrong, so I’ve done what I’m supposed to, and woken you up. I think. I only woke up a few billion ticks ago myself.”
As the fogginess begins to fade, the mystery begins.
This is all you have known, this is all you have ever known, this is all that you know. Is the light comforting? Is the sound ominous? You’re not sure.
To either side of you and your cross-the-aisle partner, a few more individuals touch down on the springy floor. Dead computer screens looming at either end of the antechamber display nothing but the faintest memory: “DNGR: RAD.” The words are burned into the screen like images might have done on an old CRT.
Next to each cold casket that you step from, there is a closet sealed by a clear door. A button labeled “OPEN” seems promising, and upon pressing it, each dazed person is rewarded by the glass opening with a soft pop as the hermetically sealed closet releases its contents. Inside, there are four jumpsuits (one grey, one blue, one orange, and one green) with presumably what must be your name stitched neatly onto the collars as well as numbers along the waistband inside remind you that you are nude, and so getting dressed is a priority. A basic toolbelt hangs from a hook on the wall, and a tiny mirror in the back shows your own unfamiliar and bewildered face to you.
Everything is a fog, and this is all you have known, all you have ever known, all that you know, when a voice comes in through the intercom:
“Good morning,” comes a cheerful ever-so-slightly mechanical voice, a low alto or high tenor. The voice is ambiguous but warm. “Or maybe afternoon? I have no idea what time it is on Earth, to be honest. But you’re awake now, and you’re not supposed to be, but something’s wrong, so I’ve done what I’m supposed to, and woken you up. I think. I only woke up a few billion ticks ago myself.”
As the fogginess begins to fade, the mystery begins.