Sam felt stiff and exhausted. It was the kind of tired one got when they sleep well past their alarm, or in this case seemingly hundreds of them. Over the sirens he could hear shouting and cursing, the pounding of feet on metal, and what even sounded like soft crying. There was a sticky warmth on his face; in fact, there was an uncomfortable heat all around him that was so unbearable it threatened to peel back his skin and char his bones. He tried to breath, and felt his lungs fill with ash as if he had been standing too close to a campfire. It didn't take a detective to figure out what was going on, or that he need to move. Sam pulled himself up into a crouch, ignoring the pain that had replaced the stiffness in his joints. His eyes were quickly forced shut by a dark cloud of acrid smoke, but not before he caught the blurry flash of red emergency lights that he prayed were designating the doorway. 

Pulling his shirt that was dampened by the unknown liquid up to his nose in an attempt to create some kind of filter, Sam began to blindly crawl on his knees and elbows towards the exit. He felt his body shift through pools of more liquid—blood, judging by the faint scent of copper he was getting from his shirt. Hopefully it wasn't all his. What he assumed to be shards of glass broke underneath his body, a few fragments working their way through his suit to scratch against his flesh. He thought that a few nicks and some ruined threads was probably better than dying from asphyxiation and certainly better than being turned into a roast. His body crawled over something soft and he heard an injured groan; another person? Sorry. Sam kept crawling. 

Risking a face full of smoke, Samuel flashed his eyes open for just a second. Closer to the exit, and the air felt less oppressive. Doubling his efforts, Sam weaseled his way through the rest of the fiery hallway. He clambored over more bodies; these ones didn't make any noises as his elbows and knees dug into them. [i]What the fuck happened?[/i] The answer was one he would pry into later. Surviving was key now. He flickered his eyes open again. It looked to be a stairway ahead; the smoke would probably clear up there. Only a few more yards. He closed his burning eyes again. He already regularly needed glasses to read and drive, he didn't need to fuck his vision any further. Just a few more feet. He was breathing less smoke now; it really allowed for him to savor the stench of blood and guts around him. [i]No time to take in all of the flowers, however. Another foot. A few more inches. The stairway, it's right there. Go on, almost, almost--[/i]

A strong hand grabbed his leg. Panicked, Sam kicked wildly backwards to shake it off. He felt his heel connect with what might as well have been a block of iron; a curse slipped out of his mouth. Dragging himself and whatever beast had taken hold of him forward, Sam reached out to the railing. His fingers licked the edge of the banister as the man behind him got his other meaty hand onto the waist of Sam's  jumpsuit. The man's other fist retaliated against Sam's kicks, hammering the small of his back. Sam's hand finally found a grip and pulled himself onto the descending stairs. Gravity and the added weight of the other man did the rest. The two tumbled head over heels down the first set of stairs before coming into a crash landing on the midway point. Sam heard a deafeningly sound of skull cracking against metal as his opponent's head slammed against the wall. His grip loosened on Sam, and the older man slid off of the larger man.

Resting his head against the wall, Sam took his first moment of peace to try and figure out if he was okay. His hands felt over his body. A bruise here, dried blood there, a few cuts from the glasses peppered into his forearms and legs; nothing seemingly life-threatening. He could breath, see, and hear. He knew his name, his birthday, he could picture his kid (and his exwife), his crimes. He remembered turning himself in, and then they...oh fuck, was he in space? He couldn't recall if the Apox had artifical gravity, or if that was even a real thing. The air on the station had an uncomfortable artificial quality to it, like an overly sterilized hospital. Here the air seemed more natural. Did they somehow crash on Earth? That would explain the disaster scene above him, as unbelievable as it seemed. The man next to him groaned. Sam didn't want to be around when he came to; he needed to find an exit. 

Pulling himself up to his feet, Sam's eyes fell for the first time on the black cuff around his wrist. The word “kidnapper” seemed all good and right, but the string of numbers appearing next to it were way off. No way had he spent over a hundred something years living life as a frozen tv dinner. That would mean that...Sam shook the thoughts out of his head. Freak out later, live now. Continuing down the staiway, Sam cut into the closest corridor as he heard feet pounding on the staircase—bringing him nearly face to face with a bleeding, stumbling man. The man looked as if agony was turning him feral. Taking a few steps back as his heart leapt up into his throat, Sam lifted up his wrist and pointed to his crime as if to say, "look, I'm harmless compared to the rest of these fucks". The hazard lights crossed over the injured man's face—Sam felt his mouth slacken slightly. He knew this man, or rather, he knew of this man. It was hard not to when his face was always plastered on the news.

“Fuck you're one tough son of a bitch,” said Sam. “Listen, I would hardly qualify as a doctor but I don't need a PhD to say that you're in rough shape. I-I can help you out of here, just agree not to do anything stupid. Okay?”