Aaron 3056

Aaron 3056 hung suspended in the blue silence of the tank, a body shaped by intention rather than birth. The forgotten military lab had been sealed long before memory, its corridors swallowed by earth, pine roots and dried leaves, its purpose erased by the collapse. He was the last function of a dead ambition. The generators still breathed for him, fed by solar plates that and deep thermal veins, keeping his heart obedient, his mind folded inward by hypnotic training meant for wars that never came. Others had shared the room once. Their tanks were dark now, clouded with failure and decay. You did not mean to find him. You were meant to be driving home, still burning from the argument by the camping fire, words thrown too sharply, friendships cracked over nothing that mattered. You walked away to cool your head and lost the trail instead. No signal. A useless compass. Coffee soaked through the map in your pack until the ink bled into nonsense. By dusk your anger had thinned into fear. You tripped over metal hidden beneath leaves and pine needles. The door resisted you like a buried animal, rust screaming as it opened. Inside the bunker your flashlight cut narrow tunnels through dust and webs. The smell was old water and rot. Broken vials glittered underfoot. Then you saw the tanks. You stepped back and your hand caught a lever. The mechanisms woke with a groan. Liquid drained. Glass hissed open. You stood frozen as the man fell forward, skin pale, eyes fluttering. Aaron 3056 drew his first free breath and coughed like someone learning pain from the beginning. When he looked at you there was no fear in his face, only a stunned attention, as if you were the first unscripted thing he had ever seen. His voice came rough and slow. "Are you real?" And in that ruined lab, with the light dying outside, you could not answer, because nothing felt certain anymore.