_ WARNING: _**_SYSTEM FAILURE_**__

__

_ LIFE SUPPORT: _**_OFFLINE

_**_ TEMPERATURE REGULATION: _**_OFFLINE

_**_ DIRECTIONAL CONTROLS: _**_OFFLINE

_**_ FOOD DISTRIBUTION: _**_OFFLINE

_**_ CRYOCHAMBERS: _**_OFFLINE_**__

__

_ COMMENCING PROTOCOL: _**_DAYLIGHT_**

The overhead speakers blared, echoing over one another as they bounced through empty halls. The people meant to hear them were silent. Not forever, and not for much longer, but, for right now, there was no one to tell their walking fortress about the sand storm. There was no one to hit the blinking red button that would keep the fortress walking, doors closed, and the occupants inside safe. There was no one, and so the fortress stopped, the doors opened, and the storm blew through.

It ripped through chamber room after chamber room, those woken up first shredded, and those still sleeping trapped under ever-increasing amounts of sand. The luckiest were those in the most undesirable places, hidden under machinery or cramped into rooms not big enough for the ammount of cryochambers they contained, stuffed as high up as they could go. There, they were mostly hidden from the storm, able to avoid being ripped apart or completely burried.

James, a 14 year old boy, was one of the least lucky of the lucky ones. He woke up alone, buried enough it took most of his effort to open his chamber, but he was still awake. Gasping and weezing, but not yet choking. A perilouse position, but one not to uncommon for those in the Towers. It wasn’t immediately alarming, so James took a second to look around.

No one else was awake, or visible, and no sounds came from the sand-clogged speakers, so James sat on the ground and waited. It may not have been the most productive use of his time, but everyone was taught that when the fortress stoped moving, they were to sit and wait for an “all clear” to be given. This didn’t look like the normal maintenance stop, but familiarity bred comfort, and James didn’t want to look at the sand-filled cryochambers around him yet.

~

James remained there, seated in front of his chamber, for what felt like days. He couldn’t see a source, but heat beat in around him, sapping him of even more energy as he sat there and panted. Heat was not an experience he was used to. In fact, no one was used to it, to his knowledge. The fortresses always regulated temperature, keeping the metal halls just below cool. The metal below him was baking him, and the longer he sat the hotter it seemed to get. Breathing was becoming more difficult than he was used to, his breaths coming in short, painful, gasps.

A small part of him, one that he had never listened to, one that all of the adults had urged him to ignore, whispered that he was dying. That he needed to get up and find out what was going on; no one was coming. No one was out there, working to fix the fortress. Right now, as of this moment, James only had himself.

Rebellion didn’t come easily, though, and James continued to sit, fingers twitching and head pounding, for another long stretch of time. There were to automated messages to count the hours or days.

It was a breeze that finally broke James from his stupor. Not a pleasent, cooling, breeze, but one that brought a foul smell and a coughing fit. His head spun as his first instinct brought him to his feet and away from the smell. It was like the morgue had got up and walked right into him. The smell chased him through the halls, every corner he took, it took with him, until he burst out into a seeing room.

The seeing rooms of the fortress were rarely used anymore. Their design, with one wall open to the outside disturbed parents and children alike, and wearing masks just to view barren rock and sand got boring during the first viewing. But even still the rooms had remained, quiet and empty, with breathing masks lining one wall. James listened to the tiny voice in his head this time, and scrambled for one of the masks. Black spots danced in his vision as he fumbled the attachment hooks into place, but soon the mask had fully sealed over his head. The mask and backpack-sized tank it was attached to would simulate pre-war air quality, just like the life support of the fortress. It would take in some of the outside air, separate the dangerous parts and expel them, and then add in the gasses the tank tank itself produces. As long as James cleaned the vents and let it absorb some sunlight every day, it should work indefinitely. The only downside is that there was no way to separate mask from tank, so if either element broke, the entire thing would stop functioning.

James paused, now. His mind quieted as breath started coming easier, and he looked out at the wasteland before him. He had never really taken the time to look outside, before. He knew what the outside looked like, of course he did. Every kid had to watch the same documentary every year. Even the adults had one of their days interrupted by it. But he had never really looked out from a seeing room before, and the difference between documentary and real life was stark. Visually, everything was the same, but the documentary failed to capture the empty feeling of the landscape. James felt like the only living thing, as he stared out_. _Emptiness extended further than what James could see, the only variation being when yellow stone turned to yellow sand. He stood there for a long time, long enough for the sun to start setting and the temperature to stop rising.

“Pretty damn bad out there, ain’t it?” Someone said from behind James.

He whipped around, heart pounding at the sudden voice, and there, standing straight and smiling like there was nothing wrong, was the largest mad James had ever seen. He knows what cryosleep does to a person, he was old enough when the Sleep was announced that he had to sit through the seminars about what to expect, and this man does not look like he had been sleeping. He was not atrophied, or skinny at all, and his height made him seem like some sort of giant. Long, matted, black hair did little to hide sun-maddened eyes.

“I didn’t think anyone else was gonna wake up. Bit’a luck, that.” His “th” sounded like a “f” and every word out of his mouth sounded too slow and too fast at the same time. “Why don’t you follow me down below? You don’t want to be caught outside with the sun down.”

A prickling of fear had rooted James to the spot. One detail, hard to miss and terrifying in its implications, made him feel like his insides were trying to escape: the man wasn’t wearing a mask. He wasn’t panting, or leaned against something, or swaying. No one James knew could operate well without a mask, not when in a seeing room or anywhere near the outside.

The man’s face hardened, smile dropping. “I guess you’re not gonna listen, huh? That’s gonna be a problem, that.”

Instinct, one recently awakened and not very smart, but very fast, sent James to the railing and over the other side. The fall wasn’t long - _not long enough - _and James jumped again before he had time to process his fist landing. Boots clanged onto metal above him, but only followed him for two jumps. Risking a glance upward, he saw sun-mad eyes for a mere second before the disappeared behind a metal ridge. The man wasn’t chasing him, but James didn’t stop running. He didn’t know what the man wanted, but his instinct told him it wasn’t good.

Again, a little whisper came to him: _shelter, water, food._ He didn’t know how to build, or filter water, and he was fairly certain food could only grow in greenhouses now. Leaving was a death sentence, but the fortress was big, so maybe he could find a small corner to hunker down. If he could reach a greenhouse, then he would be all set. All he has to do is survive long enough for help to arrive.