“Okay Erb, when you wake up, we’ll be counting on you. You know what to do.”

“Uh, one question?”

But the problem with suspended animation; the memory loss.

“Course; all I remember is the last thing I heard,” Erb mumbled, as he got up and looked around at the room he was in.

A collapsed ceiling had made half the room beside him impassable, heavy water pouring in from above.

“Hello!” He called.

No one answered, but he did hear something, it sounded like barking.

He got to his feet, unsteady but determined, and nearly fell as nausea hit him for his effort. He trudged slowly across the room to the door at the other side but found it jammed shut.

He looked around the room, it was dark, but some security lights lit the exit; and one other thing.

“In case of emergency?”

He walked slower this time, but with purpose, not wanting to risk the nausea again. The cabinet lights highlighted it as emergency supplies so he looked it over but couldn’t find any obvious way in. He ran his hands up and down its casing till he touched on a panel on the side and with a hiss the cabinet swung open.

There were four more of these cabinets along the wall, so, maybe, four pods in the room.

He did a double take, the other pods, remembering now.

He saw that two had been smashed beneath the collapsed bit, but one was still closed beside his.

He grabbed a food pack from the cabinet and shoved it into his mouth before shuffling over to the unopened pod.

But it seemed disappointment was the theme of the day as he walked up and saw its occupant. Face dessicated, she was long gone.

He sat down staring into the glass-fronted pod, how long had it been? And, what was he supposed to do?

Then he felt it…

“BURP! Oh, excuse me,” he looked down at the only other person in the room, long since dead, “Guess you don’t mind.”

He got up and walked over to the cabinets.

The other lockers stayed sealed at his touch, No doubt to prevent a woken person stealing all the resources. Well, the others weren’t going to mind, he assumed.

When he searched his locker the contents were exactly what he needed.

A digistruct tool.

He snapped it to his wrist and let it sync to his signature, watching as it seemed to dissolve into his skin and turn into a kind of tattoo on his upper arm.

This had been the peak of new tech when he went into stasis.

There was also a tablet, “The Apocalypse and You,” but it proved more than a bit useless. More of a form that listed dozens of scenarios that could lead to a need for him to be awoken, but not which one had actually caused it.

This place looked long since abandoned.

“Well, time to go find that dog I heard barking,” he said aloud.

The barking started up again.

“I hear you too!” He called out.

He then crafted a crowbar from the loose debris around using his digi tool and cracked open the other lockers as well.

Ready to go he stood up, grabbing a bit of rubber, and crafted a squeaky ball.

“I’m coming for you puppy dog.”

SQUEAK SQUEAK

“Follow the barking, easy, right?”.