In a sterile white hospital room, someone wakes up naked under a very thin blanket, feeling a peculiar sort of tiredness or sickness, practically unheard of for Miracles.
There is nothing of interest in the room except the medical bed, some kind of jumpsuit lying folded on a small side table, and a windowless door in the corner. Nobody there to greet her, no explanatory signs. The soft, low thrum of some kind of machinery comes through the back wall, barely audible.
Huh, the girl thinks. It worked. She's not sure what worked, but it did.
She slips on the jumpsuit.
The jumpsuit has a small leaf logo on the shoulders.
There's a waiting area with snacks and chairs outside the door, and a long hallway full of doors just like hers on the opposite side.
She was somehow expecting people to be around when she woke up. "HELLLLLOOOO!" she calls out.
"Hiiiii!" responds a faint voice coming from a hallway on the other side of the waiting room.
She starts walking down it. "Hey! You wake up here as well?"
"Yeah! Alone with just a bed and this jumpsuit thing." They meet in the hall. "Weird place."
"Yeah... but I feel like it should be weirder?"
"Huh. Well we haven't looked outside yet. Maybe it's weird out there?"
"Hope so!"
He gives her an odd look. "There was some kind of movie theater over there. Maybe we're supposed to watch something?"
"Ooh, the orientation film!"
Chris goes over to the wall panel and presses a button.
"Welcome to the starship Chrysanthemum, brave colonists! The revival process does not perfectly preserve memory, so please don't worry if you feel lost or disoriented. It will pass. You should have already been- (there's an obvious cut) -so don't worry. The main living areas of the starship are designed to comfortably house 500,000 people in total, with plenty of room for wildlife and free-roaming. Ten biodome rings with living, recreation, and working facilities in each will give you a comfortable space to learn and grow in preparation for arrival at our destination: The earthlike planet Galena. We- (another abrupt cut) -and a colonial charter. Of course, the charter is only a guideline. As the only people within light-years of your destination, it will be up to you colonists to determine your own path. This concludes the orientation video! Once again, welcome to the starship Chrysanthemum! Please proceed in an orderly fashion to the processing area through the doors at the rear of the theater.
"Oh yeeeeah, that!"
"Huh. Do you remember signing up for this?"
"Yeah! Me and my brother. Simone said it would never work, but what does she know?"
"A lot, but not everything? I'm guessing she's an Inventor."
"Yup! Made our boat fly!"
"What a fascinating design choice. Inventors do stuff like that a lot?"
"Well, yeah. They built this ship."
"That explains why there's so many robots around I guess."
"How do you not know this?"
"Maybe I learned different things than you, okay?"
(Maybe he's pretending really hard in a really weird way that isn't working quite right.)
"You know what Miracles are, right?"
"Of course." He snaps his fingers and produces some sparks. "But Inventors are weird."
"Weirder than this?" Darkness plumes from her left hand.
Shrug. "When do you think more people are gonna wake up?"
A very, very blonde boy walks into the theatre room. "Did you watch the film without me?"