"Who the hell are you?" the man in the poncho barked instantly, his hand locked tight around Akram's throat.
"Who is this, damn it? The relic wasn't supposed to have anything left in it! What the hell is this machine?!" he yelled at his team, glancing back at them without loosening his grip.
The rest of the group looked stunned by Akram's presence. Suspicious, tense, unsure — none of them dared step closer.
Until someone finally moved.
A young girl stepped out from the group, walking calmly toward the two men locked in confrontation. She was small, barely over five feet tall.
"Mhmm… Yeah, it was supposed to be empty. This place was explored before. I seriously don't get what this guy is doing here…" she said casually, completely at odds with the tension coming from the others.
Akram couldn't move. Weak and helpless, he struggled to keep his hands on his attacker's arm. He had no strength left at all.
"Damn… I can't move a finger. My whole body's numb…" he thought, his limbs half-paralyzed.
The pressure on his throat finally overwhelmed him. The lack of oxygen dragged him quickly into unconsciousness.
"Oh, Barid, you're choking him— let him go, he's go—" someone shouted, but Akram was already fading out.
A slap.
Then a second.
Then a third.
They pulled him back from the darkness, and he woke up with a jolt in the middle of the cryogenic chamber.
In front of him stood a new face: an adolescent boy, poorly dressed, his clothes stained with blood just like the others.
"Hey, don't die on us, big guy. Wake up. We've got plenty of questions for you," he said with a crooked smile.
Akram didn't answer. He slowly turned his head toward Barid — the one who had strangled him — eyes filled with hatred.
The teen raised an eyebrow, then looked at Barid too. He snorted.
"That's Barid. Sorry if he roughed you up a bit… He's kinda a brute. Thought you were a Rusher!"
"A Rusher…?" Akram muttered, confused.
"Scum. The worst kind. Unlike us, hehe!" the boy said. "By the way, I'm Karabz — but you can call me Kra. And you?"
"Akram… Akram Crimson," he replied, softer this time.
The rest of the group finally approached, curiosity taking over their caution.
The young girl introduced herself as Leyla — Kra's mother.
The tension faded. They were more fascinated by Akram than afraid. Even Barid seemed curious now.
Akram explained what had happened to him — what he'd been through, and why he was here.
"Holy shit… We were always told it was God who punished humans for their greed and lust, destroying the world…" Kra said, completely blown away by Akram's story.
As crazy as the tale sounded, Akram's appearance and the place where they had found him — the "Relics," where ancient technologies slept — gave his words disturbing credibility.
Akram scanned the room, hoping to see comrades still asleep in their pods. But almost every cryopod had already been opened. Some even contained skeletons…
Malfunction, sabotage, or past looters — anything could have happened to his old team.
Then one pod caught his eye.
It was still sealed.
Using the furniture for support, Akram forced himself to stand. Every movement cost him.
"Hey, slowly," Barid said, helping him up.
Akram approached the cryopod, his heart pounding harder with every step. He avoided looking at the corpses in the other pods.
The group watched in total silence, just as curious as he was.
Every step felt awful. He was barely out of a coma.
But the last step was the worst — he wasn't even sure he wanted to know if someone was alive inside.
What he saw instantly shattered his doubt.
Emy Krovsky.
Assistant Director of CME.
And one of the people without whom Akram would never have become who he was.
He couldn't believe it. Out of all his former colleagues… she had survived.
Without hesitation, he entered the code to unlock the cryopod.
"ERROR," the system screamed.
Akram froze. Then tried again.
"ERROR."
Panic rising, he entered every code he knew — everything his implanted AI had stored over the years.
"ERROR. ERROR. ERROR."
The group watched, baffled, with no idea what was happening.
"Akram, what is—" Leyla began, worried, before being cut off.
"WHY won't it open?! Damn it!" Akram shouted, slamming his fist against the control panel.
Just as he was about to snap, an explosion echoed through the bunker.
"Huh?!" Kra yelled. "What the hell was that?!"
A member of the group burst into the room, breathless.
"We got company! Rushers!"
"Shit… Not now. Dammit… Kra, Harold, Venshi — with me. We handle this fast," Barid ordered.
"The rest of you, follow and cover Akram. We gotta get out of here, now."
Akram was dragged away instantly. He barely had time to cast one last look at Emy's cryopod before the door slammed shut behind him.
"I'll come back… I promise, Emy," he thought.