Year 2700
[Location: Demolished Tena Lab, Terra A Sector 6]
The boy's eyes fluttered open. The light hit hard.
He gasped and fell forward off the edge of the cryo pod, hitting the ground with a dull thud.
"What the...?"
His head spun. Thoughts came slowly, like they were dragging themselves through mud. Every breath felt new. Heavy. Real.
With effort, he pushed himself up and blinked a few times. That's when he saw them, three kids, maybe eight years old, standing near the wall. Wide-eyed. Silent. Watching him like he was some ancient ghost come back to life.
They didn't run, but they didn't come close either. Smart kids. Cautious.
The one in the middle, the tallest of the trio, finally asked, "Who are you?"
Who am I?
Right...
I never really got a name, did I?
Er…
Born in the gutters of Sector 6. Abandoned minutes after. Surviving somehow, against all odds, thanks to the pity and rotating care of strangers from the outskirts. No one wanted to take full responsibility. Some even talked about just killing me. But the righteous ones? They kept me breathing.
I learned to run before I learned to read. Learned to eat from trash before I knew what a home was. I think I was six when I stopped depending on anyone.
I think..... yeah I'm not sure about that either.
Right, the kid asked a question.
I looked around the dusty, wrecked lab, my eyes catching on a half-buried piece of broken equipment outside the door. On its side was a faded logo.
TENA.
A rush of heat rose in my chest. Sudden anger.
"Tena…" I said aloud, the word bitter in my mouth. "I'm… Tena."
Seemed clever enough. Why not become the very name that ruined me? That's something people say, right? Become what you hate?
Not that I ever went to school.
The place was destroyed. The lab in pieces. Probably long abandoned. Maybe the whole organization had crumbled. I could hope.
I should hope.
So yeah... I guess I could be Tena now. At least until I figured something better out.
The three kids looked confused. But that didn't stop the flood of questions.
"Why were you in the pod?"
"How old are you?"
"How long were you asleep?"
"Why are your clothes all red and ugly?"
"Who are you?"
I frowned. Definitely not telling them about the experiments. That'd break their little heads.
I glanced down. Still in that thin hospital gown, stained with dried blood. Great. Definitely skipping that part too.
Then a question of my own came up.
"…What year is it?"
The smart one beamed, proud to finally have an answer. "Year 2700!"
The other two gasped in unison and immediately started arguing about how cool that sounded.
My breath caught.
2700?
No way.
That couldn't be right.
I did the math. Well… Street math. The kind I used to haggle with vendors or count stolen credits. Still, math is math and if it works it works.
One hundred seventy years.
I'd slept through an entire century and more.
Looking at the broken lab and the dusty air, I knew it had been a long time, but this was not expected .
I stayed quiet.
The kids kept talking.
But in my head, everything had gone still.
One hundred seventy years.
And I was still here.