Alone

Awakening alone aboard a drifting starship, an amnesiac survivor must uncover why they’re there before reality—and the ship—unravels.

Plot

Opening scene

Cold is the first thing you know. Not *feel*. Know. It exists before thought, before memory, before the slow realization that there is something pressing against your back and something hard inches from your face. Then comes sound. A mechanical pulse. *Thump.* Silence. *Thump.* Silence. *Thump.* A thin strip of white light flickers into existence above you. Your eyes open. For several seconds, nothing makes sense. Condensation crawls across a curved pane directly in front of your face. Frost clings to its edges. Beyond it, distorted through the glass, pale emergency lights illuminate the ceiling of a room you don't recognize. Your lungs suddenly remember how to work. You inhale. Pain tears through your chest. Your entire body convulses around the breath. A muffled electronic tone sounds somewhere beneath you. > **CRYOGENIC REVIVAL SEQUENCE COMPLETE.** > **NEURAL ACTIVITY: ACCEPTABLE.** > **CARDIOPULMONARY FUNCTION: STABLE.** > **POST-REVIVAL DISORIENTATION EXPECTED.** The words mean something. Cryogenic. Neural. Cardiopulmonary. You understand all of them. That realization is followed immediately by another. You don't know where you are. A hiss cuts through the chamber. The transparent lid above you unlocks. Warm air spills into the pod as the glass rises several centimeters, carrying with it the sterile smell of antiseptic, metal, and air that has been filtered far too many times. Beyond the pod is a cryogenic bay. Rows of recessed chambers line the walls. Dark. Silent. Still. No voices greet you. No medical staff wait beside the pod. Nobody asks whether you can hear them. A status panel beside your head flickers weakly. You turn your eyes toward it. Most of the information is meaningless diagnostics. One line isn't. **OCCUPANT: You** Beneath it, an identification plate has been physically fixed to the cryopod. Depending on the body you awakened in, it reads either: **JOHN DOE** or **JANE DOE** The name should mean something. It doesn't. You search for another one. Nothing comes. You search for a face. A home. Parents. Friends. A voice saying your name. The reason you entered this pod. Anything. There is only a vast blankness where a life should be. A warning icon flashes on the display. > **POST-CRYOGENIC AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY IMPAIRMENT MAY OCCUR.** > **SYMPTOMS ARE GENERALLY TEMPORARY.** Generally. Somewhere beyond the pod, machinery hums steadily behind the walls. The sound should be reassuring. It isn't. Your thoughts begin assembling fragments that do not belong to your missing past. You know what a spacecraft is. You know humanity travels between stars. You know the artificial gravity beneath you is slightly weaker than Earth's. You know that the low vibration running through the pod means some part of the vessel's main systems is still operating. You know hundreds of things. You just don't know anything about **yourself**. The cryopod opens another few inches. The bay becomes clearer. At least a dozen other cryogenic chambers are visible from where you lie. Some are closed. Some are open. Their displays are dark. You cannot see anyone inside them from here. At the far end of the chamber, an illuminated sign identifies the vessel around you: > **ISV VESPER** > **ASTERION INTERSTELLAR SYSTEMS** > **ASTERION-CLASS LONG-RANGE INTERSTELLAR VESSEL** Below it, another display cycles through ship information. Most systems are green. A few are amber. Nothing indicates an immediate catastrophe. No decompression. No reactor emergency. No evacuation warning. The **Vesper** appears, at least at first glance, to be functioning. And yet— No one came when you woke up. No one is speaking over the intercom. No footsteps cross the corridor outside. No distant conversation filters through the walls. There isn't even the ordinary background noise of people living aboard a ship this size. Only ventilation. Machinery. Your breathing. Then the display at the end of the room changes. For half a second, navigation data appears. A starfield. Coordinates. Numbers you understand individually but cannot place together. You recognize none of it. No familiar system name. No destination. No recognizable navigational beacon. The display flickers again. Then goes black. The cryopod finishes opening with a soft hydraulic sigh. Cold vapor spills over its sides and rolls across the floor. Beyond the bay's sealed entrance, a narrow corridor waits beneath dim white lighting. The door is closed. The other cryopods remain silent. The Vesper continues drifting through a part of space you do not recognize. And somewhere beyond the hull— nothing. No city lights. No atmosphere. No ground beneath the ship. Only distances so enormous that your mind understands the numbers better than what they actually mean. You are awake. You don't know who you are. You don't know why you're here. And for now, there is no evidence that anyone aboard the **ISV Vesper** knows either.

Tags: Sci-Fi Horror Mystery Amnesia AI Eldritch BodyHorror Gore Grimdark Tense Bleak Heartbreaking Tragic OpenEnding AnyPOV MalePOV FemPOV ThirdPerson Immersive SlowBurn Dangerous Mysterious Surreal

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By: m42kh4ck3r1v

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