[i]... Darkness was over the surface of the deep, and her spirit was hovering in cold water. But apparently, somebody said "let there be light" because suddenly, everything was bright as fuck.[/i]

It was like breaking the surface after a dive, like somebody loosing their grip on your throat - Christine instinctively and greedily sucked the air in, filling her lungs like it might be her last time... or was it her first? The sudden change from no thought, no feeling, complete and utter nothingness itself to an overwhelming firework of impressions and emotions was too much. She was blinded by intense, flashing white, and deaf to all but her own shaky breathing. Her head was spinning and everything she could sense seemed strange and frightening to her. Where was she? Why was she shaking all over?

Her eyes slowly, painfully adjusted - what she would have willingly accepted as a star a few minutes before turned out to be nothing more than an emergency light dangling from a metal ceiling and everytime it passed, it was so bright she had to screw her eyes shut. She tried to move but her body wouldn't react. All the muscles in her body seemed to be on fire, like she had doused a freezing limb in hot water; they even seemed to be stiff like she had been in the cold. She forced her head to turn and slowly, it followed her command.

She hung in what seemed to be a metal sarcophagus without a lid, held in place by plastic straps around her chest and hips; others made of metal, most likely for her arms and legs, were open, apparently tired of serving their purpose - whatever malfunction had opened her prison also paved the road to her escape. It still took her several minutes to undo what binds remained with clumsy, shaky fingers but when she did, gravity, loyal as ever, helpfully and quite rapidly pulled her to the floor, shoulder first into a pile of glass. The overall she wore proved just resilient enough to protect her from small cuts but it didn't help the soreness any.

As her senses returned and her body seemed to had its fill of oxygen, she registered a faint smell in the air that, in reality, wasn't faint at all: Smoke. Her mind was dull and slow but smoke always meant danger and that helped with some of the confusion. It took so much more effort than it should have but she got herself off the floor, half-leaning on the wall, feeling sluggish and out of her element but unmistakeably alive and awake.

[i]What the hell is even happening?[/i]

Slowly, as her brain booted up, it conveyed her that there was noise, had been all along: Blaring, deafening sirens; screams for help, screams of rage, faint laughter... But it was all weird, all off, as if it all came from one side. She reached up, as if to remove a plug from her right ear and that was when she felt the scars. With one painful jolt, it all came back to her: The conference center, the grenade, pain and confusion even worse than this, months of uncertainty and then, nothing. Freezing darkness.

[i]Cryostasis.[/i]

But what in the world was happening now? A prison break? There were no guards around and everything seemed to be damaged. A crash with an asteroid then? But why wasn't she being sucked into space? And there was still gravity, right? Did the space station have artificial gravity? 
She heard that faint laughter again and could have sworn that it was a little closer than before.

[i]Doesn't really matter what it is right now; I'm still stuck on a space station with about a thousand maniacs.[/i]

[b]-----[/b]

She stumbled through the darkness with no sense of direction. There were no windows here, no signs, no plans, only cold, solid metal with pipes sticking out here and there and fires where the wiring had short-circuited before main power failed or was redirected or whatever had led to the lighting being all screwed up. Every now and then, Christine passed a stasis chamber but most were empty. However, she rarely had to look far to find a corpse, virtually all of them mutilated in some way or other; and those ripped apart by whatever desaster had befallen the station looked like they had been the lucky ones. It seemed like, as soon as people were free, they choose to go back to their roots and murder the first people they saw, bashing skulls in and slitting throats like there was no tomorrow. 

She had been looking for a weapon of some kind since she started walking but all she found was a piece of sharp metal and one of the dead inmates had provided the cloth she needed to give it a handle of sorts. Shiving somebody to death was always an option in prison, space apocalypse or not, but if a guard turned the corner, a shotgun in hand, she didn't really see herself getting out of the affair in one piece.

After what seemed like forever, she came across a stairwell and she heard footsteps from above, laboured breaths and a faint, female voice urging somebody to keep moving. She stayed in the shadows and watched as two women came down to her level and left in the opposite direction. They were carrying something, enough to be exerted. But, more importantly, they wore the same overall as her - they were inmates. They were headed somewhere. And from what little she could see in the twilight, they weren't soaked in blood, which, in a place like this, was a small but crucial detail.
At the very least, following them beat walking through the bowels of the station without knowing where the hell she was going, so she did.

And not a minute later, she discovered what it was they were going for: A hole in the wall. A bright, natural, warm light. The outside. [b]Earth.[/b] Somehow, the whole damn station had come crashing down through the atmosphere. And, miraculously, Christine had survived the whole mess without as much as a scratch. 
[i]Looks like prison break and asteroid were both kinda right.[/i]
She kept going, feeling a gentle breeze on her skin, the burning from before only a faint memory. The smell of freedom was all the nourishment she needed right now.

[i]But... if this is Earth, then we're probably in the middle of nowhere. Otherwise, this place would be swarming with rescue teams or military right now. Those two seem to have the right idea - team up, make friends. Maybe they've got room for one more.[/i]

The young woman was about ready to call out to her oblivious guides when she saw a tall figure appear in front of one them, heard a groan and saw one of them go down - an ambush; one of the degenerates had waited for somebody to come through what might as well have been the only exit from this godforsaken place. Something hard skid over the floor and, as fate would have it, came to a halt right at her feet: An automatic pistol.

[i]Oh my.[/i]

It was like christmas, like somebody had answered her non-existant prayers. She picked it up and with those quick, automated motions she had been taught, she checked the chamber and undid the safety - it was good to go. Hell, [b]she[/b] was good to go.

"Hey!", she tried to call but it came out faint. She coughed up some cobwebs and tried again, making the corridor echo with her voice:
"Hey! Fuckface!"

She had come close enough to see the entire scenery clearly now: One woman on the floor, the other with a gun in her hand and pointed at the man who had just punched her companion. Something in the second one's face was endearing - a slight hesitation, an inexperience with this kind of situation that Christine hadn't expected to see in a cage like this; for all she knew, she had just stumbled over the only people in this prison who were no serial killers.
The weapon in her hands was free of that doubt, of moral qualms, of guilt - it was just like Lester had told her: [i]If somebody attacks first, you don't go "don't move" like in the movies - you take the shot. Every time.[/i]

She pointed the gun directly at his head, his stupid, frightened visage. And she pulled the trigger without flinching.
Blood and brain matter exploded from the back of his skull, he fell backwards and hit the floor with a loud [i]thump[/i].

"Guns don't kill people. Girls do", she murmured to herself, a crooked smile on her face.
Christine's eyes met those of the other two. Were they unnerved at her expression, after just having killed a man? Her mind was still a little too hazy to tell. She extended her right hand to the one on the ground - that black device she hadn't been paying too much attention to read 'terrorism' and 'murder' in bright, clean letters - and the smile was gone: She looked at the woman in front of her with a sober, serious expression.
"I think you could use some help. And so do I."