Sarah7
Chapter 1

Her first conscious thought was of terror.

She was suffocating. She pushed frantically outwards with her arms and felt something hard and cold directly in front of her. Without thinking she pushed and hit the surface as hard as she could. It moved slightly. She felt herself falling as she realized that she was surrounded by water that was rapidly draining around her.

Sound roared into her ears of the draining water but she was still suffocating. Something was covering her mouth and nose. Convulsively she clawed at her face as she fell forward. An apparatus came free from her mouth and she gagged as a tube came up out of her throat.

She gasped for breath and coughed over and over. Where was she? Who was she? It was dark, cold, and the air was stale and fetid. She was soaking wet and she shivered violently.

She could not remember anything before this moment, but somehow she had an awareness that she was in some kind of container. Weakly, she drew up her feet and kicked at the clear plastic. Once. Twice. A third time. Just as she was about to give up out of exhaustion, the door opened.

She heard a strange robotic voice, repeating something over and over outside her container. There were dim lights and strange sounds. Her vision was blurry but with great effort she reached out to the edge of the opening and pulled herself out, only to fall unceremoniously to the hard metal floor.

“Ouch” she said, and was surprised to hear her own voice.

It was as hollow and unfamiliar as everything else.

The robotic, yet vaguely feminine voice was still going. “Process complete. One hundred percent regenerated. Sarah seven ready for blerg fzzz.”

The voice glitched at the end of the phrase, then began the message over again .

In the dim light she looked down to see she was in some kind of body suit. It was close fitting but flexed when she moved without restricting her motion. Yet she was terribly cold, afraid, and could not remember anything of her past, or who she was.

“... Regenerated . Sarah seven ready for blurg fzzz" the voice intoned over and over.

For some reason that name sounded familiar.

“Sarah... Seven?” She said out loud to herself.

Her vision cleared slowly and she saw that she was lying on the floor in a darkened room full of dust and angular shadows. Dim lights from control panels surrounded her. Her eyes seemed to adjust to the shadowy surroundings, and she looked back at the container she had fallen from.

In glowing letters above the chamber were the letters ‘SARAH 7’

Teeth chattering, she called out “Hello? Anyone there?”

Her words echoed distantly down the corridors leading from the chamber. She stood unsteadily, her feet kicking up clouds of dust. Something told her that nobody had been anywhere near here for a long time. A very long time.

Something else felt wrong. At first she thought it was just that she felt dizzy, but soon she realized that the floor was not level, it was canted to one side slightly. She could feel the pull of gravity nudging her somewhat sideways.

She took a few steps toward one of the corridors - uphill to her reckoning - and she almost tripped over something buried in the dust and dirt of the floor. She coughed and waved her hand before the dust cleared, then her eyes widened and she screamed. Jumbled before here were tattered rags covering bones. Bones that were very old, and very human.

---