The silence was heavy.

  Not just around him—but inside.

  He sat motionless, knees against the metal floor, body covered in the residue of whatever had kept him asleep for… how long?

  He didn’t know.

  That was the first truth to settle in his mind. A thick, inescapable fog clouded the details of everything that had come before. He wasn’t sure where he was. Or why. Or even when.

  He blinked, slowly, as if movement itself required negotiation with his muscles. His skin burned from the cold, his breath fogging in the dim light. He wrapped his arms around himself out of instinct more than comfort.

  No name came to mind.

  No voice told him what to do. No flashing alert or interface explained the situation.

  But he wasn’t empty.

  Somewhere beneath the haze, things stirred. Ideas. Feelings. Structures. He knew what cities looked like. He remembered warm buildings, clean streets, the smooth hum of automated transit. The invisible presence of systems that answered every need.

  He had lived in that world.

  He was from that world.

  But this wasn’t it.

  The chamber around him was broken. Old. Sick. The panels overhead were cracked, the walls stained with time. Cold metal pressed against his legs, and the air smelled not of antiseptic or ozone—but of rust and decay.

  Something’s wrong.

  That thought pulsed through him like a beacon. Familiarity twisted into unease. His mind tried to reconcile what he saw with what he remembered—but the pieces didn’t fit.

  He closed his eyes, trying to center himself.

  Breathe. Focus. Survive.

  That, at least, felt natural.

  He opened his eyes again.

  The dim, flickering light hadn’t changed. Neither had the cold, or the silence, or the weight of confusion pressing against his skull. But something inside him had shifted—just enough.

  His hands moved first.

  Fingers stiff, trembling, still coated in the translucent residue of the cryogel. He placed them on the floor, palms flat, testing his strength. The surface was rough, metallic, grainy with settled dust. A chill leached into his bones from the contact, but he gritted his teeth and forced his arms to lock.

  Slowly, shakily, he pushed himself upright.

  Not fully. Not standing. Just enough to rise into a crouch.

  His joints protested with every motion. Knees like iron rods. Ankles twitching beneath his weight. But he didn’t fall.

  He was breathing faster now. Not from exertion—but from awareness. Every second that passed, he became more present.

  The chamber came into sharper focus.

  Circular. About five meters wide, maybe a little more. The walls curved gently inward toward the ceiling, which was lined with support struts—some broken, some bent out of place. Wires dangled from fractured conduits above, swaying slightly in the still air like vines in a tomb.

  The floor sloped just enough for a puddle of thawed gel to collect under his pod. Steam rose faintly from it, catching the weak light.

  His eyes drifted back to the pod itself.

  It was open. Split lengthwise, the upper canopy lifted awkwardly to one side. The interior was still lined with frost, patches of cryogel clinging to the inner seals. Tiny indicator lights blinked weakly on a control panel at its base—red, orange, fading in and out like dying embers.

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  He didn’t understand them.

  Not yet.

  But he knew they were wrong.

  Whatever this place was, it wasn’t functioning properly.

  And that meant help wasn’t coming.

  His legs quivered as he shifted his weight, one foot pressing down against the floor.

  It hurt.

  Not the sharp kind of pain. This was deep, slow, like muscles uncoiling after years of tension. He placed a hand on the wall beside him, using it for balance. The surface was cold, rough with corrosion. His fingertips brushed flakes of paint, and something like rust came away on his palm.

  He took a shallow breath, then began to move.

  Not far. Just along the edge of the room.

  Each step was cautious. Measured. The floor wasn’t slick, but the thin layer of gel beneath his feet made every movement feel unstable. His balance was poor. His limbs remembered how to move, but barely.

  He reached the wall opposite the pod.

  Embedded in the metal was what looked like a console—small, rectangular, sealed behind a clear surface now clouded with age. Beneath it, a series of faded symbols were etched into the frame. Letters? Numbers? He couldn’t tell. The language didn’t register, though something about the shapes felt faintly familiar.

  He wiped the surface with the back of his hand.

  No response. The console was dark. Lifeless.

  He pressed his palm against it anyway. Just in case.

  Nothing.

  He exhaled slowly, trying to ignore the rising tightness in his chest.

  He turned away, scanning the rest of the room. To his left, a door—sealed tight. Heavy. Reinforced. No handle. Just a panel beside it, cracked and flickering with a barely visible red light. To the right, another section of wall, smoother, untouched.

  He limped toward the door.

  Not out of expectation, but out of hope.

  The light beside it blinked once.

  He froze.

  It had moved. Responded. Or maybe it was just failing, cycling through some forgotten protocol.

  He waited.

  Another blink. Then… nothing.

  His heart beat faster. He leaned in slightly, examining the panel. The casing was warped, the screen fractured. He saw no prompt. No instructions. Only a faint symbol—some kind of triangle nested in a circle—etched into the lower corner.

  He didn’t know what it meant.

  But he had a feeling he would learn.

  He raised his hand toward the blinking panel.

  Hesitated. Then tapped it, once.

  The surface was unresponsive. No haptic feedback. No audible tone. Just a brief flicker—like an exhausted eye trying to stay open.

  He tried again, dragging his fingers along the side, pressing the edges in case some sensor still worked.

  Nothing.

  He leaned against the wall beside the door, breathing slowly, thinking.

  The mechanism was sealed tight. There were no visible hinges, no handholds. It was designed to open inward or retract, not swing.

  But that meant—something—should be controlling it.

  He pressed his hand flat against the door. Pushed.

  It didn’t budge.

  Out of frustration, he gave it a small shove with his shoulder. It groaned faintly—but that might have just been his bones protesting the motion.

  “Come on,” he muttered under his breath, more out of habit than hope.

  Still nothing.

  He backed away slowly, turning to survey the rest of the chamber again. If the main door was dead, there had to be another way out. Even in his foggy state, he knew that no structure—especially one with pods like his—was built with a single access point.

  He circled the room carefully, scanning the walls.

  The section opposite the door was flat, smooth, with a slight indentation running horizontally across the center. A seam?

  He ran his fingers along it. Cold. Unmarked.

  But as he crouched to examine the base, he spotted something. A small rectangular panel—nearly invisible beneath a layer of grime. No lights. No label. Just a shallow recess in the metal, about the size of his palm.

  He reached for it.

  Pressed.

  Nothing.

  But the metal felt… thinner here.

  He knocked gently. A dull echo. Hollow.

  His pulse quickened.

  Maybe not a door. But a hatch. A panel. A crawlspace. Something designed to be serviced, not used.

  He searched the edges for a grip, a latch, anything.

  And there—barely visible—was a narrow lip.

  He hooked his fingers under it. Pulled.

  It didn’t move at first.

  Then, with a sharp metallic pop, the corner shifted—just enough.

  He paused. Eyes narrowed. Muscles tensed.

  Then, slowly, he pulled again.

  The panel gave with a creak.

  Not fully—just enough for him to wedge his fingers beneath the edge and pull again. Metal resisted, old and stiff, the hinges grinding like teeth. The seal cracked open with a hiss, and a thin gust of stale air escaped from the gap, thick with dust and age.

  Behind it—darkness.

  He leaned in cautiously.

  It wasn’t a door. More like a crawlspace. A narrow shaft extending horizontally, just high enough for a human body to squeeze through on hands and knees. The interior was made of reinforced metal, ribbed with conduit lines and maintenance brackets. No lights. No markings. Just a tunnel, dead and silent.

  But it was something.

  An opening.

  A way forward.

  He hesitated only a second.

  Then dropped to his knees.

  The floor was cold against his skin. Unforgiving. His body protested, every joint stiff, every muscle sore. But he pressed on.

  He ducked his head and crawled into the passage, dragging himself forward inch by inch.

  The metal grated beneath him.

  His shoulders brushed the sides. His knees slipped. His breath echoed harshly in the confined space, bouncing off the walls in uneven patterns. There was no room to turn around. No space to stand. Only the narrow path ahead.

  His hand scraped something.

  A protruding bolt. It cut the skin just above his knuckle. He flinched, sucked in air through clenched teeth—but kept moving.

  The further he crawled, the quieter it became.

  The world narrowed to breath, metal, pain.

  He didn’t know where it led.

  Didn’t know if it did lead anywhere.

  But it was movement.

  It was progress.

  And right now, that was enough.