The pods opened at the same time.
Not slowly. Not dramatically.
With a violent mechanical hiss.
Five lids lifted. Five bodies jerked forward, coughing cold air into lungs that hadn't breathed in twenty-seven years.
Emergency lights flickered overhead — pale, dying strips of white that buzzed like insects.
For a few seconds, no one spoke.
Then—
"What year is it?"
The voice was hoarse. Male. Controlled, but strained.
Colonel Marcus Hale swung his legs over the edge of his pod. Even disoriented, he moved like a soldier — posture straight, eyes scanning, assessing threats that might not even exist yet.
Across from him, Dr. Elena Park ripped the IV line from her arm.
"That's not possible," she muttered, staring at the cracked digital clock on the far wall.
2047.
"That's not possible," she repeated, louder this time.
To the left, Gabriel Torres stumbled out of his chamber and hit the floor hard.
"Okay," he groaned, face pressed against the freezing concrete. "Either I'm still dreaming… or someone seriously screwed up the alarm clock."
No one laughed.
Dr. Naomi Bennett stepped out slowly, steadying herself against the side of her pod. Her hands were shaking, but her voice wasn't.
"We were scheduled for two years," she said. "Maximum. Twenty-four months."
The fifth pod opened last.
Caleb Reed didn't move at first. He just sat there, staring at the ceiling like he expected it to apologize.
When he finally stood, he whispered, "My daughter would be… forty now."
Silence swallowed the room.
The bunker was wrong.
It smelled wrong.
Not stale — abandoned.
Dust covered the consoles. Several monitors were shattered. A thin vine had grown through a crack in the ceiling and wrapped around a light fixture like it belonged there.
Gabriel stared at it.
"Please tell me underground basements aren't supposed to grow plants."
Elena stepped closer to the main control terminal. She wiped the dust off the screen with her sleeve.
"It's not a plant," she said quietly.
The vine pulsed.
Barely noticeable.
But it pulsed.
Marcus noticed.
"Back away from it."
They all did.
Elena powered up the terminal. The system took too long to respond.
When it finally did, the boot sequence date confirmed it.
Last recorded maintenance: May 3rd, 2020.
Current system date: October 14th, 2047.
Naomi shook her head slowly.
"No."
Gabriel laughed — too loud.
"No, that's funny. That's a funny glitch. Someone forgot to update the firmware before we took our twenty-seven-year nap."
Marcus grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Control yourself."
Gabriel yanked free.
"I was supposed to wake up in 2022, Colonel. That was the deal."
No one corrected him.
Because that was the deal.
They had all signed different versions of the same contract.
But the truth of why they were here had never been simple.
And none of them wanted to be the first to say it out loud.
So they didn't.
Instead, Marcus moved toward the exit hatch.
"Suit up," he said. "We assess the surface."
The hatch opened with resistance — like it hadn't been touched in years.
Technically, it hadn't.
The ladder creaked under Marcus's weight as he climbed.
When he reached the top, he pushed the final door open.
Bright red light flooded down into the shaft.
He froze.
For the first time since waking up, Colonel Marcus Hale didn't have an immediate command.
Gabriel climbed up behind him.
"Why'd you stop?"
Then he saw it.
"…Oh."
The sky was red.
Not sunset red. Not storm red.
Solid. Permanent. Bleeding across the horizon like the atmosphere itself had been replaced.
Buildings lay collapsed in the distance — skeletal remains of what had once been Denver's skyline. Towers leaned into each other like exhausted giants. Highways were broken. Vehicles rusted in place.
And everywhere — spreading across concrete, climbing over steel, threading through shattered glass —
Red growth.
Not quite plant.
Not quite fungus.
Something in between.
Naomi reached the surface next. She stared in silence for a long time.
Caleb stepped out last.
He took one slow look around.
Then he exhaled.
"Yeah," he said softly. "It's definitely the future I wished for."
No one responded.
Because they all understood what he meant.
Wind moved across the ruins.
It made a low, whispering sound as it brushed against the red growth.
Elena knelt and examined a tendril creeping over a chunk of broken asphalt.
"It's organic," she murmured. "But it's structured. Too structured."
Gabriel scanned the skyline.
"No birds."
Marcus noticed it too.
No birds.
No engines.
No distant sirens.
No life.
Naomi swallowed.
"Where is everyone?"
As if the world had been waiting for the question—
Something echoed.
A faint metallic clatter from somewhere inside a collapsed parking structure.
They all turned.
Marcus held up a hand.
Silence.
The sound came again.
Not random.
Deliberate.
Slow.
Gabriel whispered, "That doesn't sound like wind."
The red vines nearby trembled.
Not from the breeze.
From vibration.
Elena's face drained of color.
"They're reacting."
"To what?" Naomi asked.
Before Elena could answer—
A shape shifted in the shadow of the broken structure.
Tall.
Wrong.
It moved cautiously, almost delicately.
Its body seemed layered — armored yet flexible. Its head tilted slightly, like it was listening.
There were no visible eyes.
It stepped forward into clearer view.
Smooth surface where a face should have been.
Marcus inhaled sharply.
"Stay still."
The creature's head twitched.
It was listening.
Gabriel's breath hitched —
And the creature snapped its head directly toward him.
It emitted a sharp, vibrating click that pierced the air.
Then it moved.
Fast.
Marcus shoved Gabriel aside and fired the emergency flare gun strapped to his belt.
The flare exploded against a concrete pillar.
The sound thundered through the ruins.
The creature recoiled violently — disoriented.
Naomi grabbed Caleb's arm.
"Move!"
They retreated toward the hatch as the creature thrashed, not blindly — but aggressively, sweeping its limbs through the air with terrifying precision.
"It can't see!" Elena shouted. "It's tracking sound!"
Another distant clicking echoed.
Then another.
From different directions.
Marcus swore under his breath.
"Inside. Now."
They scrambled down the ladder.
The hatch slammed shut just as something heavy struck it from above.
The entire bunker shook.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
The pounding stopped.
But faint scraping continued.
Listening.
Waiting.
Gabriel pressed his back against the wall.
"…What the hell was that?"
Elena's voice barely rose above a whisper.
"I don't know."
Marcus corrected her.
"Yes, you do."
She met his eyes.
And for the first time since they woke up, guilt surfaced there.
Naomi looked between them.
"Elena."
Elena hesitated.
Then she said it.
"They were detected in 2023."
Silence.
"Detected?" Caleb asked.
She nodded slowly.
"Not an invasion. Not at first. Signals. Structures forming in the upper atmosphere. We called them Nitromorphs."
Gabriel let out a dry laugh.
"You knew."
"I suspected," she said. "The experiment wasn't just cryogenic preservation."
Marcus finished it for her.
"It was insurance."
Elena nodded once.
"In case Earth lost."
Above them, something scraped across the hatch.
Slowly.
Like a fingernail testing a surface.
Naomi closed her eyes.
"So we're not survivors."
Caleb stared at the pods behind them.
"We're specimens."
No one argued.
The emergency radio console suddenly crackled to life.
Static burst through the room.
They all turned.
A signal forced itself through the interference.
Broken. Fragmented.
"…Group Seven… status confirmed…"
Marcus stepped toward it.
"…preservation successful…"
Gabriel looked at the others.
"Preservation," he whispered.
The transmission ended.
Only static remained.
Outside, the scraping stopped.
And in the heavy silence that followed—
They realized something worse.
The Nitromorphs hadn't attacked again.
They had simply located them.
And now—
They were listening.