Fifteen minutes.

One hour?

How long had I been sitting looking at nowhere particularly? I don't know.

But I couldn't stay there forever.

My body hurt all over, but even more so did my heart. And still, with all that aching, I tried to get out of the hibernation chamber... And it definitely was not a good idea. When I pushed my hands against the metal plate under me, I threw myself nearly three meters in the air.

And

then

I

fell

painfully on the grass. Very painfully.

If my nose hit the ground instead of my shoulder, I'm sure it'd be broken.

Trying to stand up slowly, I was finally able to balance myself... For five seconds. What the hell is happening to me? Is this because of the synthetic muscles?

It took me many tries until I could finally walk normally.

While standing, I looked around, and saw a big structure, around 20 meters high, standing 50 meters away from me. That must be one of the capsules. Our capsule.

I slowly made my way to it, avoiding rocks on the ground, because they were sharp. Stepping on them was worse than stepping on Lego pieces.

As I got closer, I noticed the capsule really looked like a seed - and just when I thought that, I realized there was something written on the capsule hull. It was "Eden Seed". Talk about poetry - you send a seed to the middle of a forest, and call it Eden. The only problem is that this is no garden, dammit. Everyone knows from school that Exitium is the most dangerous planet out there. Hell and paradise all the same.

Reaching the "Seed", a bright light flashed at me again.

"Fuck!" - I complained, while putting my hands in front of my eyes, blind once again.

A robot voice started talking:

"Scan complete: Nathan Eden

... Initializing wake up sequence...

... Team vitals stable...

... Ejecting pods."

Mechanical sounds screeched after the seed's notice, and all three pods that were inside the capsule were ejected in a 10-meter radius, making some kind of incomplete circle

"Setting protection perimeter - this seed will now attack anything that threatens the subjects health in a hundred meter radius."

All the pods opened, letting out a cold fog, because of their low temperature. No movement could be seen inside them yet.

"Relaying notice to commander Nathan.

This seed has one year's worth of provisions and water, and will protect Team Eden during this period. Energy sources won't be necessary as the capsule is equipped with several ways of reestablishing its electric power, such as eolic generators, magnetic generators, that use the planet's pull as source and kinetic generators."

Well, at least it won't bring trouble

"All subjects will be protected during the adaptation time, but when it ends, this capsule will need repairs, and thus need the "Repair Seed", which fell along with another team."

... Shit.

"Along with the provision storage, this seed is equipped with a weapon arsenal, provided to ensure your own protection during travelling periods."

Well, we have weapons, but I don't think any of us knows how to use them.

"It was required by Dr. Yamagiri to relay that during the experiments made on you. Your brains were enhanced and linked to a microchip, which will interact with your neurons as you enter in contact with the weapon of your choice. It has all the information on how to use all weapons your race could muster. But you are, from now on, advised that 'knowledge and experience are not the same, and you should train yourselves on the use of such weapons'..."

The voice continued.

"It is also required that I warn you that the restriction of touch was made to reduce the strain on your brains while the weapon's information are being uploaded to your system, as an overload could cause a great amount of pain and trauma.

All instructions relayed...

...Initializing 'silent protocol'...

Sound shutdown complete."

The robot voice said before going into some kind of sleep mode and opening three big compartments.

One of them was full of boxes depicting food types, another had shelves filled to the brim with gloves, swords, pistols and daggers, and the last one looked like a room. It had four bedsin on the left corner, a table in the center, something that looked like a kitchen on the right, and two doors in the back, one with a man painted, and another- with a woman. Those must be bathrooms. Thank god we're not being left for dead... And dirty.

Looking back a bit, I saw the three pods still covered in ice and fog, and realized I had some time until I had to meet my teammates. So I ran to the bathroom, first to drink some water, because I was hella thirsty, and had enough of my lips cracking at every movement. As I was seeing the wall-sized mirror in front of me, I was a bit shocked. Why? Because I didn't look the same.

I was sixteen years old, and I was always a bit short for my age, measuring 1.72m. Back home, I had short hair and was very skinny, I was an average male: not handsome, not ugly, just normal. But now...

I had around 1.80 meters, my hair stood long till' my middle back, my face was more handsome, my green eyes stood out more, nasty acne gone and all. It looked like I had some muscles... And the strangest thing - my hair was blond before, but now it's jet black with reddened ends.

Maybe I spent five minutes admiring myself on the mirror... Maybe not... We'll never actually know.

Still in the bathroom, it hit me again that I didn't have any family left. And it left a bitter taste in my mouth, while I though that I'd easily trade this body to have my parents back.

I drank my water, and cleaned my face a bit, 'cause it was kind of sweaty. When I looked to my left I saw a holographic device beside the sink, and activated it. It showed me the following words "Enjoy having the body every teenager wants... And building the one every woman desires. With love, Yama"

I instantly broke the damned thing.

What's up with that sadistic doctor anyway, does she like fucking people up?

I took the device outside and threw it away as strongly as I could, and the result was utterly satisfying - it flew right out of my vision field, who knows how far away.

Still having some time left to look around before the teammates wake up, I decided to take a look at the beds - there was something shiny on the top of them.

Looking more closely, I saw that each bed had a military dogtag on top, all of them silver, but one that was golden.

I took a peek at the golden one - it had my name on the front "Commander Nathan Eden", and in the back, there was a beautiful drawing of a forest. I decided do wear that dogtag - I'm somewhat weak to art, it mesmerizes me.

After putting it around my neck, my curiosity got the better of me, and I looked at necklace on the bed beside mine. Karah Eden, it said... So a girl, then...

I wanted to see the other names, but I was hearing some noises outside The Seed and I figured Karah and the unknown others were waking up, so I hastily took some sheets off the bed, took off my shirt and ran to each of the pods, covering the eyes of everyone, and saying

"It'll be alright... you will all be fine, I'll help you, you are not alone"

This will be hard. On everyone.