Callisto: Bound to the Alien Commander |18+

Chapter 5

We run frantically from pod to pod, holding the lighter over the glass. Each pod is the same.

"What the hell?" I think I might be sick.

"This doesn't make sense... for this to be real..." Clarisse starts counting in a frenzied panic.

"They've been dead for at least one hundred years." I don't recognize the croaky voice that comes from my own body. This doesn't feel real.

"How?" She sputters, shining the lighter over another pod.

Each pod is the same... dust and tattered pieces of cryo-suits. The aluminum helmets are the only things left intact.

"That amount of decomposition means... at least one hundred years. For the bones to be almost completely gone, it's been at least that, possibly more." I don't have the capacity to be gentle with this right now. "Everyone is dead. It's just the four of us left down here..."

Shouting in German, she starts to pace and pull at her hair.

I slide down to sit on the floor. A thousand scenarios run rampant in my mind. Did they just decide to forget about the project...abandon the whole thing and let us die? Was the government overthrown and there was no time to wake us? Was there a revolution? A war? A pandemic? A flood? In my frantic state, my mind goes as far as to consider a zombie apocalypse...

"Why did they all die and we survived?" She eventually sits down in front of me.

"I don't know..."

"They said that we were each placed in blocks, remember?" She stands and starts to do math again. "If four pods are in a block, maybe ours was the only generator and solar panel that didn't stop working?"

"I thought it was five pods per block..."

She opens her mouth to speak but the beeping starts from one of the men's pods. After a moment, the next pod starts to beep too.

I climb into my pod and she climbs in with me, both of us sitting crosslegged, waiting.

"I know we signed paperwork but... I'm definitely suing." She purses her lips.

"You and me both! I think we've got a pretty solid case..."

The wait feels shorter with her here, the desperation isn't as heavy. When their heart rates start to even out, a regular rhythm echoing through the bunker, I brace myself for the trauma we're about to inflict on them as they wake.

Dr. Santiago starts to move first, the deep, confused groan coming from his pod.

"Welcome back, Dr. Santiago."

Bewilderment, disorientation, anger, frustration, disbelief... he moves through the stages with quiet dignity. Only the furrow on his brow shows the different emotions he's working himself through.

He climbs out of his pod and follows Clarisse around the bunker, looking at the pods. He stops, paying particular attention to the rusted, broken staircase.

"We have to try to get out of here..." he starts pulling at some of the metal tables that line the walls of the room. "We're going to have to climb."

The sudden, loud beeping of Dr. Newton's pod catches all of us by surprise. The rapidly growing rhythm reaches at least one hundred beats per minute in no time, then quickly surpasses that.

"His heart is beating way too fast," I search around helplessly for something that we use to aid him.

All of us work frantically, trying to wake him, or move him into a position that might help. When the beeping stops suddenly, I start chest compressions while Clarisse tries mouth to mouth.