Chapter 1
The names on the boxes flashed beside me as I shuffled along the corridor. Names which belonged to people. People who were inside these boxes. Like I was soon to be.
"Okay, here we are," stated Neil, the specialist scientist who was soon to freeze me. Along with my life and soul. "This is where the magic happens!" He swung the door open too enthusiastically that it crashed against the cold wall. I wondered how he could be so happy when he was about to pause someone’s life for a decade.
"Chris, you go first." My mum ordered my father.
"No, you go first." He answered back.
"How about you Hannah then?" She asked me.
"No! Not Hannah, or Thomas, they ought to see what it's like first! You go, then Hannah and Thomas can go, then I will go last."
The point was, you had to be naked when going into your chamber and neither of them wanted themselves to be seen naked, preferably, I’d rather it was mum, seeing as we had the same body parts and all.
She walked sombrely behind the screen and undressed. Her usually cuddly skin seemed wrinkled and squashed when exposed. The life seemed to be sucked out of her as she laid herself in her coffin-like chamber. "See you in a decade," she whispered with tears creeping out of her words as more slithered down her face.
"Shall we begin?" Asked Neil, it wasn’t a question, it was a command. Everybody was made to go to Victopia, no matter how old, they say it’s like Earth, except much safer.
A meteorite was in line with the Earth and it has a 99.9999999% chance that it will hit the Earth’s atmosphere and wipe out any life among it, that's why we had to go, the military were forcing everybody under the age of 55 to go.
My mum nodded at the forgotten question and, as we had said our goodbye’s earlier, in private, we were ready to proceed.
The scientist drew out a thin tube connected to two blue patches. "It is to stop you going blind." He told my father when a worried expression gathered upon his face. Carefully and slowly, he put one on each eye and turned back to his computer.
"I’m so sorry, it has to be quick," he breathed and with his index finger he pressed a button which released an acidic solution down the tube and directly to her eyes. My mum screamed in protest and thrashed around in the coffin, begging it to stop.
My father took a step forward in protection.
"Don’t! It will finish in a moment, don’t take them of her, otherwise it will blind her permanently."
However, I could tell it was killing him.
The tube grew colourless again as my mother’s screams weakened. Neil stepped forward and took them off.
"Chris, where are you Chris?” My mum asked. "Hannah! Thomas! Why has everything gone dark?!"
"Don’t worry, this is normal procedure. You will regain you’re eyesight when you wake up." He smoothly said in his posh Oxford accent. "Now, remember what you were taught, let the water drown you, then after that, you will wake up in 10 years," and, with another press of a button, water poured into glass coffin from the sides and filled up the chamber. But, my mum was frantic, her lips were pressed shut and her fingers squeezed her nose violently.
"LET IT DROWN YOU!” Neil shouted. “Let it drone you otherwise there will be nobody to freeze. NOW!"
My mum’s body relaxed and as she removed her fingers from her face and the water entered her body. She mouthed, a final, mute goodbye as the liquid turned to ice, and her mouth was left hanging open.
"Bye, bye mummy!" I whispered, I hadn’t called her that in years but I didn’t care. Embarrassment seemed like such feeble thing when you were about to be frozen for a decade.
Her chamber was pushed automatically by the computer and shut and, as it was locked so securely that no-one in the whole human race could open it until 10 years time, I saw her nametag shine upon her coffin, just like they all were.
"Right, so, who’s next?"
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