Dead Earth; Right Place, Wrong Time

On February 15, 2018, a twenty-five year old man by the name of Robert Garcia was, like most people, woken up early in the morning by his alarm clock. This wasn't the only thing Robert had in common with regular people, as he was a rather average looking person; five and a half feet tall, married, had brown hair and brown eyes, skinny, not very muscular, and he lived in a small house in Cincinnati, Ohio. However, Robert was not a normal man, for he was a scientist who worked at a laboratory on the edge of the city. He was to take part in an experiment of tremendous importance later that day, but before he could go, he needed to run through his morning routine.
He dragged himself out of bed, got the clothing he would be wearing that day, which was much more casual than you might expect, went into the bathroom and used the toilet, brushed his teeth, then showered. After showering he got dressed and left his bedroom, went through the living room, and into the dinning room. There was already a freshly made plate of breakfast on the table for him, which his wife, Stella, had cooked for him, as she was a far better cook. Stella sat across from Robert at the table, and much like Robert, she was a rather average looking woman; she was five feet and seven inches tall, with dirty blonde hair and brown eyes, skinny, not very muscular, a good cook though not professional, and she would get up an hour before Robert inorder to get done before him. She was already dressed in her work clothes. You see, like Robert, Stella is not an average person, for she too is a scientist, also working at the same laboratory as Robert, and she too would be taking part in the experiment that Robert would be that day, though she would be playing a different role.
Robert sat down and began to eat his breakfast, which consisted of pancakes and eggs, while across from him Stella had already scarfed down most of what she had cooked for herself. She always cooked for the two of them, as while Robert could cook, he couldn't do it well, and tended to burn the food. Once Stella had finished her food, she got up and left, with Robert and Stella saying goodbye to one another despite both of them knowing that they would be seeing each other again soon. After finishing his own breakfast, Robert grabbed his keys, walked out of his house, locked the door, then got in his black pickup truck and drove off to work.
When Robert got to his workplace, he couldn't help but stand in the parking lot and admire the building where he worked, for even though he had worked there for several years, he was still impressed by the building; it was a massive white structure, housing many different laboratories within along with a monorail station, which could be used to reach other nearby research facilities, all of which made up a single research complex located on the western edge of the city. After standing and staring at this beautiful behemoth of modern architecture for a few minutes, Robert pulled his eyes away and made his way inside the building. He made his way through the slick, clean halls of the building until he eventually reached the room where that fateful day's experiment would take place, where he was greeted by several coworkers and his wife. The experiment was a simple one, as they had devised a way to put a human into a state of hibernation for long periods of time, and today they would be putting Robert into hibernation for three weeks. He would be placed into a special pod device that had been devised specifically for this purpose, though it could theoretically be used for hundreds of years, and from there his wife and several other researchers would monitor his vitals and wake him up after three weeks, or they would wake him up if anything went wrong.
It took about an hour for both the pod and Robert to be prepared, and once both of them were ready, Robert waved goodbye to Stella, then sat down in the pod and watched as the sliding pod doors shut in front of him. His body went numb, and after a few moments, he fell into a deep sleep, during which he had many pleasant dreams, unaware of the nightmare that he would eventually wake up to. He awoke in the pod, feeling pretty good, but as the pod's doors began to slide open, Robert became mildly concerned as the doors had noticeable trouble opening, however his concern quickly turned into shock and fear as the doors opened to reveal a trashed room with nobody in sight. He slowly stepped out of the pod, looking around at the decrepit and deserted room.
What the hell happened while I was hibernating? The thought passed through his mind as he stood in the room, which was unusually cold, and as he looked around, he saw something horrifying; a skeleton lying on the floor by a desk, which had cold weather clothes stacked on it. Robert stood frozen in place for a moment before deciding to creep his way over to the skeleton in hopes of identifying whoever it was. The skeleton was clothed in ragged, rotting clothes, and it had a golden wedding ring on its right hand. There was nothing on the skeleton which Robert could use to identify who it was, but upon glancing at the desk he noticed a note, which he picked up and began to read:
To my dearest Robert,
I don't have much time left to live due to an injury I sustained a moment ago, so I'll keep this short. Only a week after the test began, a nuclear war broke out and destroyed everything. I set the pod to wake you up in 200 years in hopes that the world would be better then and you could live a normal life, but the life support or internal power will probably fail and wake you up before then, so in case the world is still in the same state as it was when I wrote this note, I've left you some clothes so that you won't freeze. If you do wake up early, seek out the Cincinnati Subway, it may be your best bet for survival, and whatever you do, avoid Northwestern Cincinnati, that area was hit by a bomb. I'm sorry I couldn't do more for you.
Your loving wife,
Stella
Robert felt light headed and sick to his stomach. He put the note back down, stumbled over to the nearby wall, sat down, and began to cry. Why on Earth did I ever agree to be the test subject? He thought to himself, as he reflected on what he'd just read. A fucking nuclear war? I never thought I would see such a thing. If only I hadn't agreed to this! Then I would be dead with Stella rather than alone in this place! He sat there for a little while, berating both himself and whatever fools that had caused the apocalypse for the mess he now found himself in. After a while, he wiped his tears away, stood up, and composed himself. Stella had clearly wanted him to live, and he wasn't going to let her work go to waste by letting himself freeze to death here.
He walked back over to the desk and began putting on the cold weather clothes she had left for him, and as he did, he realized that the large coat which she had left for him was the same one that she had bought him for their last anniversary back in December. After getting fully dressed, he looked back at Stella's skeleton for a few moments, then turned and left. Making his way through the crumbling building proved difficult due to the rubble piled up in the halls, but he eventually made it back out into the parking lot of the facility. It was even colder outside than it had been inside, and snow was piled up everywhere. Robert didn't even bother trying to get his truck to work, as he knew that it likely didn't, and even if it did he didn't have anything to clear out the snow around it.
Robert began walking back in the direction of his home, but as he did, he stopped and looked back at the former place of his employment; the building which had once stood strong and vibrant against the blue skies had seemingly been replaced by a dull, crumbling mess which now blended in perfectly with the grey skies above. He turned away and continued walking. As he made his way further into the city, he couldn't help but feel alone, as the once bustling city was now dead silent, with all its buildings now decrepit and crumbling. At times, he felt like he may be the only living thing within the city, though at times Robert could have sworn that he heard dogs barking in the distance.
After what felt like an hour of walking through the snow filled streets, walking past countless destroyed cars, Robert finally arrived at what was left of his home. Time had not been kind to his house, as all its windows were broken, the front door had been knocked down, and the roof had begun to sag. He went inside and began making his way through the dusty halls of peeling paint, heading towards the back door. He walked out into the backyard and began to look around; before the apocalypse, his backyard had housed a small garden and a small tool shed, but now the garden was gone and the tool shed, which thankfully still remained standing, was in as bad of shape as the house.
He walked over to the shed, pulled the door open, and stepped inside. By some miracle the building had not been looted by scavengers, but Robert didn't really care about that, as he only needed one thing; his shovel. He grabbed it, then turned and walked back out of the shed, and walked back through his house and out into the street. He turned and began walking back towards the ruined lab, but stopped when he heard a strange growl coming from behind. He turned around, and saw a strange, hairless dog with wrinkled skin and four eyes standing and growling at him. However, the dog wasn't alone, as it was soon joined by several others of its kind, all of which began growling and barking at Robert, all the while saliva dripped from their mouths.
They began to walk towards Robert who, now panicking, turned and began to run away, with the dogs quickly following in pursuit. It quickly became apparent that he wouldn't be able to outrun the dogs, so in an act of desperation, Robert began running through the various alleyways between houses in an effort to throw the dogs off his trail, and while this did slow the dogs down, they were still able to keep after him. He ran back out into the street, where he slipped and fell down. He flipped over on his back and began to crawl away from the dogs, which had slowed down but were still coming towards him. This is it. I'm going to die here in this street. Robert thought to himself as the dogs moved closer.
Then it happened, six loud bangs rang out, and two of the dogs fell dead. Another three bangs followed, and yet another dog fell dead in a pool of black blood. The remaining dogs took off running in the opposite direction, and Robert continued sitting on the ground, trying to process what just happened. Then he heard something approaching from his left, and he turned his head to see a man wearing some kind of hastily thrown together body armor and holding an assault rifle.
"That was close." the man said, as he walked over to Robert and helped him up off the ground. "I've never seen you around here before. Are you a traveler?"
"I... suppose you could say that. It's a bit complicated."
"I'm not sure how it could be complicated, but oh well. If you need a place to stay then I can take you to Lower Cincinnati. I'm actually a scavenger who was sent up to find more resources."
"I see. Well, that would be nice, but..." Robert picked up and tightened his grip on his shovel, "I have something I need to do first." Robert began walking towards the lab once more, but then he stopped and turned back towards the stranger. "By the way, you wouldn't happen to know what year it is, would you?"
"Well, I'm not entirely sure, but I think it may be 2048. Why'd you want to know?"
"Eh, just curious." Robert turned back around and continued walking. 2048. So I've been asleep for thirty years.