You wake up. Your head is pounding, your mouth is dry. The dim light of the emergency lighting flickers before your eyes. You are in a cryopod. The display reads: "Awakening: 2347 hours. Sequence: 3". Slowly, overcoming drowsiness and pain, you climb out of the pod. The ship is plunged into silence, only the emergency lighting dispels the darkness. You try to activate the comms, but the systems are dead. The power is off. An eerie cold penetrates to the bones.

Suddenly, next to your pod, there is a hissing sound, and another one opens. Captain Price climbs out, his face, usually stern and collected, distorted by a grimace of fatigue and bewilderment. As Price says: "Why didn't the last crew meet us? They were supposed to have turned in their shift," a strange noise comes from the ventilation system - a grinding of metal and a muffled, hoarse groan.