“Cryogenic System Support deactivated. Welcome back, Prime Officer Jasih.”

The hot sensation of blood running through my veins was enough to wake me immediately. Pain, memories, desires, all came back with a violent throbbing in my head. Everything behind my eyes felt like melting, but one deep breath somehow dulled the sensation.

Cryogenic Preservation was a mean bitch. After I finally opened my eyes, my sight was still blurry, probably because of a long time of not using them. But what I saw in front of me couldn’t be mistaken. Was that...a human?

The primal being, previously thought extinct, was now standing in front of me showing its teeth in what it seemed like some kind of jovial form of communication. Humans should yet be very underdeveloped to be able to communicate with me. It was better to leave it alone.

The human before me kept talking, and talking, but I couldn’t listen to a thing it said. Pesky, insignificant fly. I couldn’t lose more of my time here.

I moved both my hands and legs, trying to regain control. As soon as I did, I decided to gently push it out of my way. If I used more strength, my big muscles would easily squash it. It was already enough it had interrupted my cryogenic sleep. Now I had to find a way out of this planet.

An array of small, handy screens was located on the other side of the room. While asleep, these screens were my lifeline, and my digital archives. They were supposed to pass the information straight into my mind, but they didn’t. I had no idea how long I was asleep, or what happened in the meantime.

Just by touching the human’s tender skin, it seemed to lose balance and almost fall on the ground. It yelled something in a vexed manner, but I really didn’t have time to spare for primal beings. I took two uncertain steps towards the wall before me, only to stop in my tracks after seeing the data on the screens.

The number 2.514 was flashing on both screens. And just then, for the first time, a cold, shaky feeling spread from my stomach to the rest of my body in a matter of seconds. My spaceship was programmed to stop keeping archives after one hundred years of continued sleep. So, that means, I was asleep for over one hundred years.

“...Earth...you...crashed…”

Amid my confusion, I recognized these three words, seemingly coming from a dialect of the far edges of the galaxy, a dialect that a human shouldn’t have known.

Things were getting weirder, and weirder.

“Who are you human? Where am I?”

The human seemed surprised that I could speak the same dialect as it did fluently. However, I was not sure why, or how, I knew how to do that. The words just rushed out of my mouth all of their own.

In what was a weak control of the language, the human said: “Eladia. Chronicler. You are on the Earth.”

Earth. The Earth. What was I doing on Earth? I decided to respond the same way I did before, only, this time, I tried to adjust the dialect a bit, to make it easier to communicate with it.

“I’m Jasih. I’m a Prime Officer of... I’m from--,” and nothing came out of my mouth. Not a word, not an image of home, nothing. Just...darkness.

“From? From where?” The human sounded surprised I managed to learn its language so quickly, but it sounded more confident than before.

However, I didn’t care to answer to it. Instead, I started walking around the spaceship, searching for a sign of purpose, anything to identify my origins. Passing by a piece of a mirror, I saw my sparkling gray skin and my black hair, and what was a set of purple eyes, and not a single piece of information came back to me.

My clothes were torn, and the last thing I could recall to my memory was me — ordering a trip to Earth—yes, I remembered now. I was heading for Earth after all—searching for something of importance. But nothing else came to mind.

“Jasich...Jacih...no. I can’t pronounce that. I’ll call you Jay, from the first letter of your name. Jay, would you mind if I let Silver run some tests on you?”

I, now called Jay for the convenience of the smooth-skinned human, tensed. “I’m not a specimen, human. I’m Jasih, the Prime Officer of…. Fuck!” I yelled and punched the wall next to me, sinking the metal to the place my fist hits.

The human seemed to get frightened by my violent ways, but it couldn’t possibly understand how I felt now. And yet, even though fear flooded its eyes, it didn’t even fret.

“I can help you if you let me. You seem to have amnesia. Silver, my assistant, can run some tests on you, and we can find out more about your condition. I promise I won’t harm you.”

Just for a moment, I laughed at its sayings. Then, I took a step towards it, trying to intimidate it. And yet, it just blinked. Nothing else. “What gives you the impression that you can hurt me?”

The human didn’t answer. Now closer than before, I started examining its characteristics, trying to put it in a category of some sort. Humans, primal mammals that shared the same DNA code and were divided into males and females. That much seemed apparent. And then why in the seven prisons I couldn’t remember anything about my people and myself?

Its chest was bloated, but it seemed like a natural extension of its body. Its face had soft, symmetrical lines, nothing indicating that it was some kind of warrior. Its voice was high-pitched yet soothing. In the end, I just couldn’t place it, so I thought of just asking straight on.

“You. Human. Are you a male or a female?”

It was taken by surprise. “A female. Why? Is that a problem?”

Again, I didn’t reply to her. I now knew what I wanted from her, not that I would ever have guessed it by myself.

The hair on the back of my neck suddenly bristled. My body turned to face the danger, chest and hands protruded. “Come out!” I growled.

And just like a shadow coming to life, a figure appeared behind the cryogenic pod. But instead of moving against me, it rushed straight towards the woman named Eladia. Holding a long, wooden stick with a sharp tip on the edge, it aimed for the woman’s heart.

Unable to react fast enough, she just stood still. The second strange creature was going to kill the only person I could communicate with in this room.

I can help you. Her voice echoed in my mind.

My hand jolted and grabbed the tiny—tiny compared to me that is—creature that looked like a human, but with lots of hair. It growled, and tried to bite me twice, but in the end, it stopped.

“Okay, so can someone explain to me, what in the hell is going on here?”