Sarah awoke to the obvious chaos outside her pod, and was immediately gripped by fear. She was cold, naked, and standing up to her neck in fluid from the cryogenic process. The tech heard the announcement.<em>Controlled crash?!</em><br/><br/>In a state of near panic, she began fumbling for the emergency release lever to the pod. Her frantic movements and a temporary gravity failure caused the fluid to splash in her face. Sputtering and blind, she still managed to pull the lever. The power to the pod then failed, but the door was pushed open by the weight of the fluid. Without power to hold it the door flung opened too quickly, which brought her off her feet and caused her to fall out. She landed on the deck, too overwhelmed by adrenalin to even notice that she had skinned her knees.<br/><br/><em>What do I do?</em>The normal procedure would have been to go to the atrium, but Sarah was too frightened to do so—what if she fell off her level and plummeted to her death during the crash? It was difficult just to get herself moving, but Sarah rose shakily to her feet. Almost all the pods around her had already opened, and the remaining ones looked to have not even thawed yet—clearly, the cryogenic systems were malfunctioning in unpredictable ways. There was no one else in this hallway at the moment, but she could hear panicking shouting and movement elsewhere.<br/><br/>She walked over to the nearest computer, holding on to whatever objects she could in case the gravity failed again. The young tech called up the ship’s status, and found that the estimated time to the crash was less than two minutes. Not really enough time to go anywhere, especially if it turned out the estimate was overgenerous. She made her away back to the ladder at the end of the corridor and grabbed on to it tightly, pushing her legs and arms through so that she would be less likely to lose her grip. She then screwed her eyes shut and began sobbing. Sarah had never been in a life or death situation before, and she was too overwhelmed to deal with it any further than she had.<br/><br/>Then she heard Richard somewhere in the distance, shouting her name. She immediately feared that he might get himself killed looking for her. “Richard!” she shouted as loudly as she could. “Go find someway to secure yourself for the crash!” She did not think she could live with herself if he broke his neck trying to get to her. Well, truthfully she did not think she was going to live much longer regardless. She continued holding tightly to the ladder and tried to console herself.<em>There wasn’t any way I could have known. I made the most of the time I had, at least professionally I did.</em>But none of it was any comfort, and she continued crying.