atlas ↠ b.blake

2 ↠ a new earth

     Lane sat up and quickly discovered the dull aching in the back of her skull that made her head feel heavy. She winced as she looked around the circular room that held several beds with small tables beside each one. There were cabinets in the front part of the room. Someone had left a few of them open, revealing medkits and supplies. 

     Just when she was about to get up, a metal door beside the jumbled cabinets slid open. A woman walked into the room. She looked to be in her mid-forties. Her brown hair was pulled back out of her face, and she had a friendly look that made Lane feel like she wasn't in any danger. Lane watched the woman as she walked to stand beside the bed Lane sat on. 

     "My name is Abby," the woman said. "I'm the doctor around here. I just need to check your vitals, and then you'll be free to go."

     Abby sat a medkit on the table beside Lane's bed. She breathed steadily as Abby pressed a stethoscope to her chest. The cool metal was unpleasant against her skin, "Where exactly is... here?"

     Lane had so many questions. She felt confused because she thought humans couldn't survive on earth until two hundred years after the bombs. How did these people survive? The radiation should have killed them.

      After Abby finished checking Lane's heartbeat, she set down the stethoscope, "This is Arkadia. It was a space station where humanity survived for almost one hundred years. Until it ran out of air, and we were forced to come back to Earth."

     Lane nodded as some distant memories from before the bombs came back to her, "Yeah, I remember some people fled to space, but there wasn't enough time or room for everyone."

     Abby acted puzzled by her words, "What's the last year you remember?"

     "2052," Lane answered, "before the bombs."

     "And how did you survive in that bunker? Everyone else-"

     Lane stopped her as her headache increased at the mention of the bunker "I know, but I don't understand why I was the only one to survive. The pods weren't even supposed to open until 2252."

     Abby seemed suspicious of Lane; like she wasn't giving the whole truth, but Lane didn't even know what the whole truth was. Most of Lane's memories were buried in a faraway place she couldn't find. She couldn't remember weeks leading up to the bombs, or how she ended up in a pod in a dark bunker. She only knew that the pods were supposed to open in 2252 and that the earth was not supposed to be survivable until then. 

     "Someone told me that one of the first things you said was 'I have to warn them.'" Abby said. "What did you mean?"

     Lane didn't remember saying that. Her last real memory was being in the Atlas Science Center with her father and then... everything else was tied in knots too tight to untangle. 

     "I don't remember that," Lane looked down. "I can't remember a lot of things." Abby stayed silent for a few moments as if she was trying to decide if she believed Lane.

     "Well, maybe it will come back to you after you've been awake for a while. Your vitals look good, so you'll be free to go soon," Abby packed up her medkit, "but first, my people have more questions for you."

     "What questions?" Lane became defensive. "I've already told you I don't remember the warning. I'm not lying."

     Abby put her hand on Lane's shoulder, "Don't worry. You're not under interrogation. We're just curious about the bunker." Well, Lane could understand them having questions about seventy-four dead people in an underground bunker. She would have questions too.