The Checkpoint

Chapter One

Flashing lights.

Blaring alarms.

Heavy breathing.

She had no clue where she was. Raeiya. The only thing she remembered about herself at the moment. Her name, gender, age, that was it.

No, not the reason why she woke up to flashing lights. That didn't stick. She was mindless.

Raeiya was cramped, claustrophobic. Sealed in a capsule with warning, blaring red lights. She was dropping, her gut wrenching to her throat.

"HELP ME!" she wretched, the elongated words making her throat dry. There was a window in front of her, small and round. All she saw was a blur of black to dark blue.

The swift movements downward moved faster and faster, causing her to almost pass out until ...

She jolted up, her seat belt rubbing against her chest. It burned, hurt her. She bounced her head up, her neck snapping, but not breaking.

"Agh!"

Her mind was asleep, her limbs as well. All she was doing was sitting down in a small capsule, cramped and sealed in.

Raeiya felt comatose, but she wasn't. She felt that her head bleed a little, her sudden movement retracted and frozen.

"Warning. Land in ten meters. Warning. Land in nine meters."

All she heard was a robotic voiced by a woman saying some annoying words, something about land.

Through the fall, she could feel her memory wipe away; her family, friends, work, feelings, they slipped away so instantly. So fast they just ran past her mind, making her slip a tear.

A man, her husband, not perceivable saying he loved her in a strange accent. She felt happy with no reason why. A girl, younger than her running around her. Her pet bird. Her job.

Then came the running. She was running and running and running down a hall ... when the visions suddenly stopped.

Every flash of memory washed away as she saw the muddy and darkened clouds covered the sky.

Her staring out the window with sudden content ended when the woman said, "Warning. Land in 1 meter."

Then, she felt a soft but hard bump. The impact made her hit her head against the metal walls of the capsule, causing her hearing to go hazy and vision to go fuzzy. Even more, blood seeped down from her head to her neck, the cold redness making her feel disgusted. Looking out the window before her vision closed in, she saw beige-like yellow.

"Successful landing, damage to capsule. Successful landing, damage to capsule."

Raeiya felt her fuzzy and dizzy head, almost like a migraine. The impact of her head caused her to gasp loudly with pain, the cold and rustic air filling her lungs.

"Successful landing, damage to-"

The voice faded out as her heart slowed down, her mind shutting off, her eyes closing ...

She sighed with pain, her head bleeding, and blacked out.