He opened his eyes really slowly, because the sudden light threatened to drill his brain. He tried to draw a deep breath, but immediately felt some type of irritation. He lifted his hand to touch his mouth and realized some kind of tube getting down into his throat. He got really nervous while trying to remember anything about the previous days, but his numbed mind seemed incapable of fixing any coherent thought.
In time his eyes adapted to the light and, surprisingly enough, what at first had seemed a luminous burst turned out to be a gloomy space dotted with the orange flashing lights of some artifacts here and there. Although at first his vision was quite blurry and he thought it had something to do with the light, now he discovered that it was due to the fact he was inside what he could only describe as a glass coffin, with a thick layer of dust all over it which quite obstructed looking outside.
He felt a sudden sensation of claustrophobia, only worsened by the plastic tube inserted down his throat. He dismissed any precaution and started pulling out the object in his mouth. His guts burnt when the tube moved inside him and fear only made him to pull faster. The operation took longer than expected, as the length of the hose inside his body was longer than he had thought, but finally he was able to draw a huge breath of clean air.
Next task at hand was to get out of the crystal tomb around him. He tried to push with both hands, but then realized a couple of sliding cuffs around his wrists, with several tiny needles clawed to his flesh. He ripped them off with a furious jerk that created a burst of blood pouring from the open punctures. He pushed again upwards, but the lid of the glass coffin did not budge, so he changed position, applied some more force with his knees and felt the lid started to give way. Changing his approach, he began to hit the cover rhythmically instead of applying a continuous pressure. Soon enough he heard a loud crack and the lid opened smoothly on a couple of side hinges.
He was in a rather confined space. Everything around him was in a pretty bad shape, vandalized as if some drunk punks had made the party of their lives in there. Fallen tables, smashed computers, torn cables… Around the walls there also were other seven glass coffins more, apart from his own.
He approached them to check for other people inside, but every single muscle in his body was hurting like hell and just walking was a small torture. Moreover, he suddenly felt a penetrating pain in his right foot. The floor was littered with broken glasses and he was barefoot, so he had just stepped on several of the shards. He stood still and started taking them out one by one. Pulling things out of his naked body seemed to be a painful constant since he had awaken. He started walking again, carefully avoiding the shattered glass fragments. The rest of the crystal coffins were empty and partially destroyed.
He was feeling better with each passing minute. He was breathing almost painlessly, his movements were firm, and the wounds in his wrists and feet were not hurting at all. He gave them a look to see if they were still bleeding, but to his great surprise he discovered that they were completely gone. His skin was smooth as new, perfect like if nothing ever had happened to it.
Although is body was beginning to behave, his brain was still a blur of emotions, full of random images he could not identify. He decided to go back to his sarcophagus in search of some answers, and while doing it he saw an old broom lying on the floor next to a broken chair. Out of nowhere came the thought of using it for clearing a path across the broken glasses, so he turned slightly to go and get it. He stopped right away, because the broom had literally flied across the room right into his left hand, which he had raised in its direction. He shook his head in awe. He stared at the glass fragments scattered on the floor and made a wide sweeping movement with the same arm, as if he was trying to catch a fly. All the shards on the floor flied out to a corner on his right with a crackling noise. He was starting to feel a lot of new emotions, just like if his senses were growing and multiplying their ranges. He was able to listen to the fly of an insect across the room, or smell what he knew were rat droppings on the other side of a hole in the wall. Then he started to recall some memories, like sudden flashbacks. Experiments, tests, men with white coats and blue gloves.
His mind clicked back in place, crystal clear, and he realized it was because the effects of the sedatives injected in his body through his wrists were starting to wear off. Now he knew.
Before getting out of the room he walked by his glass sarcophagus and saw the metal plaque bolted to one of its sides: “Project Prometheus”.