Fiction: The Returned, a short story

The Returned ❄️

A short story, by Erik Engström, 2025-10-29

What is scarier than entering cryo sleep? Well, that would have to be waking up from it. That's at least what the scientist told herself when she was looking down at the cryo chamber laying before her in the subterranean vault. A plaque with the name Rose Monime was the only thing giving the metal box a purpose to the unknowing eye. 

To the scientist this was a purpose greater than herself, the box had been there before her, and it had originally been intended to be there after her. In fact, no one at the Ark facility alive today had personally seen Rose. She had been frozen in time since a previous era, when cryo sleep, cloning and factory made humans were illegal, and at best instantly deadly. A horrible fate awaited most brave souls participating in the early, secret, trials. Rose had been one of the first to successfully enter cryo sleep.

Every day the scientists painstakingly ran checks and documented the vital signs provided by the now dated technology. Every day also meant a world that became more different from the world that Rose had known, should she ever return. 

And the day eventually came when the union between cutting edge science and luck were put to the test. With specially crafted microwave instruments and state of the art quantum particle analysis the scientists brought her back from this undefined state of being, neither alive or dead.

The pain of thawing after decades or centuries was indescribable. Every cell waking up from deep slumber was making it clear that this was against the wishes of any creator and the laws of nature.

The scientist looked at Rose as she became conscious after an almost 24 hour long recovery process. Her old memories, being electric impulses, were gone and new impressions flooded an almost factory reset brain. No one really knew what to expect either. In the same room, cryo chambers stood empty like open caskets gathering dust, indicating that there once had been others. She was the first one to not only make the journey but to also make it back, but some journeys make the traveler a different person. 

Rose's bewildered gaze met the scientist's and for a moment it looked like the two women shared a silent understanding. She spoke to Rose, but the woman in the cryo chamber said nothing. Her eyes had lost their human quality and she was just blankly looking at the scientist as if there was no one inside. As if the human spirit had left the body, leaving only a primitive animal behind.