Chapter One: Wake Up, Sleeping Beauty

Alarms were going off, but they sounded so far away. There was a light too, but it was like seeing it through a thick fog. Eventually the alarms stopped their obnoxious blaring. Sleep called out to her, told her to come back into the dark, until another voice called out to her too.

"Wake up," Dark eyes, sharp features, and amazing lips broke through the fog for a just a moment, but that deep, sensual voice is what kept her awake, too good to be a part of those empty dreams she kept having. "You need to wake up now."

Safe. The voice and the eyes told her that she was safe. So she did her best to do what they said. Still groggy, she tried to take a step towards him, but tripped on the edge of the pod and fell out instead. He caught her easily by the upper arm and maneuvered her against the wall so she could stand straight on her own. So strong. Damsel. The word felt unpleasant as she thought it, but at the moment it described perfectly how he made her feel. His forearms flexed as he held her up while maintaining his distance and he leaned down just enough to stare into her eyes. Brows knit together as if concerned, but those dark eyes seemed to draw her in making it hard to stay focused. So dark. Like her dreams had been. What had she been dreaming?

"Who are you?" he asked and all she could do was look at him in confusion. "Do you remember who you are?"

Finally she shook her head and her voice cracked when she replied. "No, do you?"

He gave no response other than a frown that made his features all the more serious. "Follow me."

He slowly let her go, making sure that she could stand on her own before walking away. He led her to what seemed to be a storage area with a row of lockers and a group of people all wearing similar black outfits. One guy was breaking open a large container with a pretty big gun. A woman was searching the lockers. Another guy seemed to be looking around and keeping an eye on everyone. A younger girl was nosing around another locker and a larger, darker man was just standing there as confused as she was.

"Look who decided to join us," the man with the gun grinned. "Thought you were a goner for sure."

The younger girl rolled her eyes. "She was only asleep for a few minutes longer than the rest of us."

"And that's a few minutes too long when no one has a clue to what's going on."

"Hey, if anyone's feeling under-dressed," the woman held out a jacket she found in the lockers.

The younger girl held it up for a second but passed it to the black man and she went to some crates and found a more colorful selection of clothes instead. They rummaged through them while the gunman kept banging on the crate. It was beginning to give her a serious headache. She made her way to some crates near the door and sat down on one that was low enough to be comfortable as metal crates could possibly be. When she put her hands on her head she could feel hair, braided tight to her head on the sides, but puffed on top, all of it meeting to make one long braid down her back. And all of it tight enough she was sure it wasn't helping with the head ache. The man who had woken her up took up position near a support beam next to her, but didn't say anything as she began to rub her temples.

Finally, she asked him. "Out of curiosity, what color is my hair? I don't remember."

He raised an eyebrow. "Dark red."

She nodded and looked down at her hands. Pale but she was surprised to see that there were no freckles. Red hair usually came with freckles, didn't it? Maybe the color was fake. She'd have to find out later since there seemed to be no hair along her arms or legs at the moment.

The observer finally spoke up. "For now, we've named ourselves by the order we woke up in."

He went around motioning to each and gave them a number. One, himself; Two, the woman; Three, the gunman; Four, the man who'd awakened her; Five, the younger girl with green hair; and Six, the tall black man who still seemed confused.

Finally he pointed to her. "And you are hopefully lucky number Seven, unless you can't remember your name either."

Seven just shook her head in response. The pounding headache seemed to roll from one side of her cranium to the other. She felt like there were questions she should be asking, but it was like trying to watch water boil, nothing bubbled its way to the surface. How did she know that? Was she a cook? Food sounded good, but she had no clue where to find any. Instead she settled for letting her head hang down into her hands.

"So much for the lucky number," Three scoffed.

Two held up a box she'd found in the locker and stuffed something in her ear. "We've got comms."

"So what do you think?" Six looked over at Seven, but seemed to be asking this of everyone. "We the crew of a transport vessel on some sort of long-range haul?"

"Would explain what we were doing in stasis," Two passed out the ear-comms. "Ship gets into trouble. Takes some damage. Systems shut down. When life support hits critical, hazard protocols kick in and we're automatically awakened."

Six shakes his head. "Wouldn't explain the memory loss though."

"What about headaches?" Seven murmured and she saw Four shoot her a look from the corner of his eye.

Three starts banging on the lock of the container again and finally crouches down as it snaps. "Got it!"

"So what are we shipping?" One walks over to check out the crate to see as Three lifts the lid. "Seeds? Meds?"

She couldn't see the inside of the crate from where she was, but the way Three responded didn't make her very enthusiastic.

"Better." He said and lifted out another big gun. "Who wants?"

They all clamored around the box to snatch up a weapon, even Five, but Two took it away from her. Seven just stayed back and watched. Something about the guns and the way they all reached for one made her very uneasy. She had a feeling that guns were not going to be the answer for any problem they were likely to come across at the moment. However, a bunch of people with unknown levels of mental or emotional stability waving firearms around made her feel much less safe.

"We're going to need to check this place out." Two says as she checks the handgun over that she took from Five. "Let's pair off. Three you're with Six, One with Four and Seven. And I'll be with Five. We'll use these comms to keep in touch, yeah?"

As Three pulls an even bigger gun from the box, they all begin to separate into the assigned pairs but not before grabbing a more comfortable set of clothes. Seven just hid her face in her hands and did her best not to look up while everyone else changed. Eventually, she head them grouping up and footsteps making their way to the door. Something jolted the crate she was sitting on and her head snapped up to see Three grinning.

"Wake up, sleeping beauty," he grinned. "Time for everyone to earn their keep."

Six and One made a point to complain about him kicking the crate as they walked out the door Four came over and held out a small handgun for her to use. Seven looked up into those dark eyes again and then back down at the gun. With a sigh she took it from him, fingertips brushing his warm palm, and stood up. She looked the gun over, checked the clip, the safety, and then just frowned, not knowing how she knew where to check for those things.

"Hopefully he won't make my headache any worse," she said, frowning in the direction Three had gone. "I'd hate to end up with a migraine from firing this thing indoors."

It hadn't been particularly witty of her, but she could have sworn she'd seen Four's lips twitch before he shook his head and walked out the door. Seven watched him go before following, the gun both comfortable and awkward in her small hands. Both made a deep pit open inside her gut. Somehow she didn't feel she'd ever been a fan of violence.