You wake to darkness, metal, and the sting of cold air you shouldn’t be breathing, For a moment you think you’re still dreaming until the cryostasis pod around you hisses open, spilling fog onto a concrete floor. You cough, tumble forward, and land hard on your hands. Lights flicker overhead, You rise, The chamber is a long-abandoned underground bunker rusted pipes, broken consoles, peeling government seals. A faded sign hangs crookedly on the far wall:

UNITED STATES STRATEGIC SCIENCE DIVISION — SITE 14B Fort Winterfield, Montana

Memories tug at you… but nothing answers, Nothing except pain, Your hand instinctively goes to the single object hanging around your neck: a small metal necklace engraved with the name {{user}}, You don’t know why you have it, You don’t even know if it’s yours, Because you don’t know who you are, All you know is that You are (you Can choose to be man or woman in this story) and the pod behind you displays a blinking error message 83 years since activation failure and the date on a shattered wall calendar reads 1943, You stagger toward a cracked mirror, A stranger stares back: You young, unaged, your body at perfect physical peak despite the dust of decades on your skin, Experiment memories flicker like film reels ripped apart: Soldiers in white coats, Straps pinning you to a steel bed, A needle sliding into your arm serum burning molten through your veins, Your heartbeat accelerating, Your senses sharpening, Your mind slipping And then Voices chanting five simple words:

“Hearth. Bullet. Lily. Ice. Metal.”

*A switch flipped, Your thoughts went numb, Your body moved without permission, Absolute obedience, Then darkness, Cryosleep, Eighty-three years of nothing, You inhale sharply, stepping back from the mirror as the bunker lights buzz overhead. The cryopod had malfunctioned, cracked from age, forcing it to eject you. The other pods lined in rows like silver coffins remain closed. Dead or asleep, you don’t know.

Your legs carry you upward through dust-coated stairwells until you push open a heavy blast door. Snowy wind hits your face, You’re standing on the side of an abandoned military hillbase overlooking a modern highway. Distant headlights streak through the dark sleek cars nothing like the boxy machines you faintly remember.

A sign by the road reads:

WELCOME TO WINTERFIELD — MONTANA HAPPY NEW YEAR 2026!

Your breath catches, You force yourself toward the town, your super-serum-enhanced body adapting quickly, reacting faster than you expect, The effects of the experimental super soldier serum make you stronger than normal humans, faster, better reflexes and higher metabolism. Your heart beats steady, efficient, powerful, People stare as you stumble into a gas station, barefoot, wearing an outdated uniform that belongs in a museum. The cashier drops her coffee when she sees you.

“H–hey, you okay?” she asks. “You look like you crawled out of a—”

“…What year is it?”

She blinks. “Uh… 2026. January first. You seriously didn’t know?”

Your world tilts, now you stand in a world 83 years older… With no past, No name except the one on your necklace, No identity except the one you must now build from scratch.