Survivor Steve

728 Years

It seemed to only take a few seconds for me to regain consciousness and fall out of the strange capsule that had imprisoned me. The bonds had disintegrated and the air felt different, though I attributed it with being inside the capsule.
"Steve! Are you OK!?" Tim yelled from over in his capsule, where he was fighting with the last strap that entrapped him. Jeremy was still fully trapped, but grunting as he tried to break them with his strength.
"Yeah, I guess. What about you guys?" I asked. I went to pick up my pickax, but it basically turned into a pile of dust.
"What the heck did he do to us?" Tim said as he freed Jeremy. I looked around for the first time, actually taking everything in. Everything looked like it had been through a war, burn marks, shrapnel in the walls, most of the monitors shattered and all of them were dark. Everything was rusty and aged except for anything that was in the weird capsules we were forced into.
"Steve, what happened to your arms?" Jeremy asked, looking at me.
"They're fine. Do you think we can get one of these monitors working?" I asked, thinking we could figure out where everyone was and what had happened.
"We could I guess. I'm gonna look around here though," Tim said, starting to look through the debris around the room. Me and Jeremy began to look at the monitors. Jeremy went underneath the monitors to check the cords while I checked the monitors themselves. I took my pack off and tossed it to the side, where it bumped one of the monitors. The monitor flickered on, displaying the crazy scientist talking to the screen.
"I got something!" I shouted to Tim and Jeremy. Jeremy got off the floor and Tim dropped the piece of metal he was looking under and came over to watch the monitor. Jeremy hit it a few times and we got sound.
"-St. Helens! Ash covered the entire Western Hemisphere! My bio dome survived of course, but the ship sustained damage in the turbines from all the ash, temporarily grounding us. The capsules survived as well, so that experiment continues." The monitor said. The three of us looked at one another. How did he make Mt. St. Helens erupt?
"He has video journals. Maybe we can figure out where he came from," Jeremy said. He found a rewind button, cracked but still usable, and pressed it. He stopped every once in a while, but nothing that really told us anything came up.
"No, we need to go to the end and figure out the last entry," Tim suggested. Jeremy consented and found the fast forward button, which was only half there. It took a little while, but we could see the ship slowly getting more and more broken down, like it was eroding. I made Jeremy stop when I saw us being forced into the capsules. We watched as I lunged, but he pressed a button and all three of us were frozen in a blue light. The man chuckled at his victory, twirling my pickax in his hands. But all of the sudden, everything electronic went off except for the monitor and the capsules we were in and Mr. Crazy Creeper Man sighed. He went over to the opposite wall from where the monitors were and flipped a switch, making everything come back on. I looked behind us and saw the switch, but Jeremy was already flipping it. At first nothing happened and then...
Throb...
Throb....
Throb....
Almost like a heartbeat. And slowly, like some great being waking up, everything began to turn back on. We froze for a second, not even breathing, when all the monitors flashed on at once and made up Mr. Crazy Creeper Man's face.
"Oh! You're still alive! What has it been... Let's see... 728 years? Boy does the time fly!" His voice boomed.
"Where are you!? Where as our friends!?" I yelled at the screens.
"Oh, that will come shortly. But don't you want to know what happened to you all? I know you're curious," the crazy man said deviously.
"Kinda I guess," Tim consented cautiously.
"I froze you! For 728 years! And it worked successfully on all of up you! Even the bloated one," the voice nearly shrieked with joy.
"Are you talking about my wife?" Tim asked angrily. Jeremy leaned over to me and asked if Tim was married. I said yes.
"I suppose. Both her and the child survived, though a part of wished they didn't. It would make. Things interesting, you know? And as for your question, where am I? It's simpler to ask where you are," the monitors said nonchalantly.
"Where are we then?" Jeremy asked, though I wished he hadn't.
"Inside of me! Remember the contraption that scooped you up? I placed my very being into it and 7 other similar things. I am now immortal!" He shouted. I suddenly felt claustrophobic.
"So why are you in such disrepair?" I asked.
"The other seven, one for each continent, raised armies from their own experiments and fought each other. In the end I had to destroy them with Mt. St. Helens. Luckily my bio dome was completed or all life on earth would have been destroyed!"
"What about the zombies?" Jeremy asked angrily.
"Either they mutated and repopulated or died. Really they only exist in Australia anymore."
"So now what?" I asked impatiently.
"We finish the experiment! Let's see how strong mankind really is! Survive in this new world and it will be true! Die and my hypothesis was correct! Either way, it'll be hell for you."
"I'll kill you! What ever your name is!" Tim yelled angrily. I thought it was the bloated comment.
"I'm already dying! I'm using the last of my energy to tell you this all. I must see the experiment finished!"
"Why did you do this?" Jeremy asked, his expression softened.
"Because what good is man kind to anyone? This experiment will decide that."
"Enough of this! Where are our friends!?" I shouted.
"They're coming. Lead them Stephen, let your scars strengthen you and them. It is the only way to survive in this world now," the voice said, fading at the end before disappearing completely. I looked at my hands, terrible burns marring them. They still brought pain to me sometimes, a sort of ghost pain. But in the end, I did become stronger.
"Let's go," I said, leading the way out into a hallway where I ran into McKenna and everyone else.
"So he did snatch up everyone we left at the school," Tim said, embracing Brooke who looked really angry.
"I can't believe he called me bloated," she said angrily.
"What do we do now?" Corey asked, and a chorus of everyone's voices joined in.
"Quiet! How are you supposed to hear Steve if your all talking?!" McKenna yelled, quieting them.
"Since when am I in charge?" I asked.
"Since that creepy dude picked you out. Something is obviously special about you," Katie said begrudgingly.
"Fine. Then I suggest we get out of this thing," I suggested.
"Is this the end?" Emily asked. She seemed to be less thuggish now. In fact, everyone seemed toned down.
"Hopefully of the zombie apocalypse," Torin said as a joke. But I couldn't help but agree with him.