Arcadia

My head felt like it weighed 100 tons. Everything was all fuzzy. I could bearly open my eyes. My feet were submerged in some blue liquid. I didn't know what it was. Where I was. Or even who I was. I starred to panic. The ringing in my ears started to die down and was replaced by so many different sounds. A loud hissing sound, a slight banging, a long wail, and many others I couldn't quite make out. I could also feel some kind of vibration. Like a constant hum.

I raised my arms to rub my face and try to snap out of whatever I was going through. My arms felt weighted down, looking at them i saw cords leading into my skin. The thumping sound quickened and became louder. I struggled to lift my head to look straight ahead. I had to squint from the bright lights. Once my eyes started to adjust I could make out a silhouette banging against the glass door just in front of me. My senses had started to come back to me and I realized I was in some kind of tube or capsule with a glass door. Inside the capsule were cords feeding in from the roof into my arm and with pads on my head and chest. Straight ahead on the other side of the glass door was a man frantically banging his fists on the glass.

As I made eye contact he stopped banging and started talking. I could not hear him over all the other noises so I shook my head. He screamed but I still couldn't hear him. A large electrical fire was burning on the wall behind the man shooting speaks onto the metal grate flooring. The man was wearing what a scientists uniform, with what looked like an ID badge pinned to his pocket. The badge was blackened most likely from the surrounding fire and ash. The man continued to yell but I still couldn't hear him. The scientist pointed to his left at something out of my view. He made a fist then hit his fist with his other hand spreading his fingers outwards on what I could only understand as an explosion. The scientist then gave me the thumbs up waited till I nodded then ran to his left, out my my view leaving me all alone in my metal tube.

I looked around the tube for anything that could help me understand what was going on. A red button on he roof of the tube with 'emergency exit' written underneath lay waiting to be pushed. I immediately hit the button. A sudden whooshing sound and the glass door to my tube slid upwards and came to a rest at the top of the tube. All the noises I had been hearing were now several times louder and my nostrils were instantly filled with the smell of many types of materials burning as well as other smells I didn't recognize. I clumsily leaned forward and peered around my new surroundings.

I seemed to be in some Lab or other science room. Large consoles lined the walls, most covered in flames. Benches with test tubes and other science equipment, along with fancy looking computers dotted the room. In the center of the room stood a large column of cables and more computers surrounded by a few metal tubes, of which I had been a prisoner. Taking a step out onto the hard cold metal grating that covered the floor, I realized I was almost completely nude. Aside from a pair of loose fitting underwear.

On a table next to my tube was a set of clothes, shoes and socks included. The scientist from earlier must have left them for me. Suddenly without warning a large explosion could be heard several floors below me. I could feel the vibrations through my bare feet. Wherever I was, it certainly wasn't somewhere I probably should be. I hurriedly changed into the awaiting clothes and slipped on the provided shoes. A perfect fit surprisingly. A quick check for an exit and I headed out into the unknown. I was in a corridor that had met the same fate as the lab. Fire had broken out in several areas, debris lined the floor, tables and chairs overturned from some unseen, but definitely felt, force. As I jogged down the corridor, my mind wondered back to who I was or where I was. Many questions raced through my mind, but unfortunately I didn't have time to ponder such questions. Where ever I was something bad was happening and I had to get away fast.

As the corridor turned to the right several windows lined the walls. My jaw dropped as i glanced out a window. I was in space. Beyond the window was the vast blackness of space! An unfamiliar planet lay below what I assumed was a space ship on which I was a passenger. A few other large space vessels floated in orbit around this strange planet. The other ships suffering from the same fate as mine. Explosions ripping throughout the ships, chunks of ship falling towards the planet, setting ablaze as they entered the atmosphere. One ship had been torn apart, a large gaping hole where its ends would meet, almost as if something had shot straight the ship! One of the ships seemed to be losing a lot of debris, almost as if on purpose. Then I realized they must be escape pods ejecting safely to the planets surface below! My ship must have escape pods too. I searched the immediate area for any directional signage or a map of the ship of some kind.