27 March, 2207 — 9:37 AM
The sterile air of the laboratory hummed with the quiet rhythm of a hundred machines. White light spilled across polished steel floors as scientists moved with mechanical precision, their eyes glued to endless streams of data. At the center of it all stood the heart of the facility: a massive cylindrical pod suspended within a cage of four glowing pillars, each one pulsing faintly like the beat of an enormous heart.
Dr. Vikram Rao, lead researcher, approached the pod with practiced reverence. For four decades, this chamber — and the man inside — had been his sole responsibility. Pressing a hand against the cool surface, he watched as a dozen green lights flickered across the screen: stable. For now.
With a small sigh, Vikram slid open a concealed panel and revealed the hidden core of the machine — a compartment cradling a dull, fading red stone. Its glow had weakened to a dying ember. Carefully, he removed it, replacing it with a new one, its ruby light pulsing with fresh, almost defiant vitality.
"There goes another hundred thousand," he muttered, sealing the compartment shut. He turned, his mind already on the next task. "Who knows how long this will—"
The sound cut him short.
A thunderous crack split the air.
Vikram whirled, eyes wide. The reinforced glass above the pod had shattered into a million shards, glittering as they hung suspended in the sterile light. From within the wreckage, a figure stirred.
A man — lean, sculpted, with a shock of unruly black hair — sat upright on the pod's edge. His chest rose and fell sharply, each breath ragged and desperate, as if he were gulping air for the first time in centuries. His trembling fingers grazed his arms, his chest, his face.
"I… I'm alive," he whispered, his voice hoarse with disbelief. A shudder ran through him, and then his lips pulled into a trembling smile.
The smile widened.
The tremor gave way to a laugh — first small, then rising, swelling into a manic eruption that echoed across the silent lab. "Hahahaha! I did it! I did it!" His voice rang with primal triumph. "I achieved what no one else could!"
But the moment did not last.
A cold green light bled into the sterile white, warping the edges of reality. The lab dissolved into a hazy, shifting void. From beneath him, chains erupted — spectral links that coiled around his wrists and clamped tight with a metallic snap.
"What—?" he gasped, jerking against their pull.
Then came the footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Each one echoing like a drumbeat in the abyss.
A tall man emerged, cloaked in black, his face buried deep in the hood's shadows. He stopped before the bound figure, silent but heavy with presence.
"Who are you?" the awakened man demanded, fury and disbelief bleeding into his voice. "Why are you doing this?"
The robed figure tilted his head slightly, as though amused. His reply was a whisper, soft enough to chill bone.
"Who am I? I am the one who has come to take you away."