It was cold.  It was so cold. Cold to the point where it was all I could feel, all I could notice.  It was just the frostbite and the darkness. After awhile, I noticed a faint light breaking through the frosted glass.  It hurt my eyes so much, it felt like I hadn’t looked at light in years.

    I saw something move in front of the glass, it looked like a man, but it wasn’t like a man I had ever seen.  His cheeks clung to his face as if they were damned souls desperately clawing their way out of hell. His dark pupils completely filled his irises, subduing any color that tried to escape.  His dead gray skin was wrapped tightly around his bones because he had no muscle to be the barrier between the lifeless skin and his hollow bones. He bent down to press something, and I almost gagged at the sight of his head.  His scalp resembled a half finished puzzle, with skin missing in certain places, and his dirty skull could be seen through the patches where the skin didn’t cover it. I heard a pop and then a fizz, and finally some warmth spilled into my confinement.  A door popped open in front of me and I fell out flat on my face with an audible thud. A thick mist poured out from my pod and rolled over me. It ran out, and broke free from its prison and danced in its newfound freedom as it kept rolling out. At this point it completely filled the room and obscured my vision so well that I couldn’t even see my hand in front of me.  I heard something scurrying over by my left and I decided to check it out. As I walked over I held my hands out in front of me in case I hit a wall, but they were not low enough to stop me from bumping into a table.

    I stumbled back and I heard a heavy panting coming from under the table. It sounded like a starved dog waiting for its next meal.  I saw a flash of grey flesh come out from under the table and grab an object on the floor. I looked down and I saw it, that horrid, starved creature was ravenously digging its teeth into a rat.  The rat flailed around as the humanoid tore at his flesh and innards. The rat squealed and finally went limp in his hands. It picked apart the carcass and picked it clean to the bone. It looked up and made eye contact.  We held that gaze for what felt like a year, until he darted forward at me. He swung furiously at my skin, just wanting a piece of my flesh. I stumbled backwards into another table and felt something at my hand. I picked it up and saw it reflect the dim light.  It was a knife! I couldn’t believe my luck!

    I held it out in front of me ready to defend myself.  My hands were shaking so bad I could barely hold the knife.  The sweatiness of my palms made the hilt slippery. I saw it run out of the mist and into my field of view.  I held my knife up and got ready to fight, and it rushed at me on all fours knocking me to the ground. My knife went flying into the air and landed just out of my reach.  He crawled on top of me and pinned me down as his razor sharp nails dug into my shoulders. I kept feeling around for the knife just hoping I would find it, but my hands grabbed something else instead.  It was a flashlight! I swung it as hard as I could at his skull, and it cracked open. He got up to run away back into the mist and turned so I could see the hole in his head, and I was shocked. His skull was empty.  All that was in his head was a black smoke that slowly poured out and coiled around his body. It danced and mingled with the white mist, but every time it came close to being encompassed by the mist, it recoiled back as if it had a mind of its own.

   At first I asked myself, “how is he still alive?”, but now I wasn’t so sure he was.

    I couldn’t think of that now though, I had to worry about more pressing matters, like getting out of this place.  

    I couldn’t help but start to feel tired, my eyes drooped and pulled down like someone was closing the curtains on my life, and I was furiously holding them back.  I realized the mist was still coming out from the pod, and maybe that was the thing coercing me to sleep. I walked over to the pod and looked for a way to turn it off, but it was a bit hard to figure out what button did what.  I examined its steel frame and all of bright colored buttons decorating its front, but I didn’t want to press any of those yet, I was to afraid of setting something off.

    I thought I heard something behind me, but when I turned around I saw nothing but some black smoke, so I turned my focus to the pod again.  I couldn’t think of what could possibly turn this contraption off because my urge to sleep was getting stronger every moment. It was so strong, I just had to sleep, but before I could I heard him.  I heard him screech the most deafening screech I’ve ever heard. He hopped onto the table with surprising agility and flung itself at me. It sailed through the air, just hoping to turn me into its next meal.  Before it could dig into my flesh, I swung my knife at it, and cut off a piece of his already dead skin, revealing bone underneath. Its momentum carried it into the pod and he crashed into the back of it. I slammed the door shut and pressed every button on that damn thing.  Flames shot up into the pod and lapped at the creature’s legs, causing it to scream out in pain and bang on the glass. The flames started to climb up its body higher and higher as the screams got louder, and the mist started to clear as he was burnt to a crisp.

    I saw other pods, just like mine.  The only difference was they had been broken, the glass had been cracked open, exposing the contents inside.  I peeked through the hole where the glass had once been, and I saw the most grotesque assortment of rotting flesh clinging to a old skeleton.  

    “How long has that been there?” I thought as I stumbled back and bumped into another table.  

    I spun around and saw the door.  I didn’t bother looking around my surroundings anymore, I just wanted to get out of there.  

    I busted out of the building and fell out into the world around me.  Sand spanned the horizon all around the earth. The sun was just rising and it shone onto the building I was just in.  A sign that must have once lit up was plastered on the front of the building, and it read, “Cryogen: Freeze Today, for Tomorrow”.

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