System failure
"Aaarrrrgghhh! Let me out of here!!!" Marya screamed at the revive capsule. On her advanced guide system menu, she could see one of the survivors in her group had been revived and after a while had left the area.
It was her duty to guide that person as well as the other survivors in her group but only he had been properly revived. The rest including her had not been brought to the surface. An error message kept appearing on the underside of her capsule roof. Whenever she dismissed it, it came back again.
After running diagnostics, Marya found out that the timer had been set incorrectly. She was to wake up two days later, another survivor was to wake up tomorrow and the rest in three days time.
Fortunately, the next day the person who surfaced stayed where they were for the whole day as indicated on Marya's map but it was still a pain in the ass to have to wait, hoping they wouldn't go somewhere else. Her ass also generally hurt from being stuck in her revive capsule for two days straight.
However, when Marya surfaced, she yelled in frustration and kicked a tree close to her starting point. As her capsule had broke the surface, opened up and then disappeared into the ground to leave her lying on a bed of moss, the first thing she saw was the half-eaten corpse of the last person to surface. A wolf was gorging itself on the poor boy. Marya immediately ran at it screaming before giving it a hefty kick which scared it off.
It deserved it since this person's first moments in the new world had been spent in agony and terror. Thankfully her revive capsule must have been sound proof so she didn't have to listen to their screams.
Checking her mission brief, Marya recognised him from the training program as Tarik. He had a brother called Marcus who she learned was the guy who got out early judging from her memories of where people got into the deep sleep revival capsules.
If Marya found Marcus she wouldn't have to tell him about his deceased brother. After all, she was informed that all survivors except her would have their memories wiped to make them more cooperative and easier to teach new information they would need to survive.
She didn't want the other survivors to panic either so after completing an easy system achievement she buried Tarik whilst waiting for her starter kit to arrive.
Marya had already been trained to understand exactly how the system operated as well as basic survival techniques, locations to bunkers and valleys habitable for large groups or full of useful resources. Unfortunately, the bunker locations weren't appearing on the map due to some glitch.
She new there were at least a few hundred more groups scattered throughout the country and other organizations must have had their own ways of surviving the collapse. However, finding other groups would be a difficult task. After the rest of the group woke up, she would take them to somewhere safe before worrying about communication.
That was on top of the priority list as one of her main jobs as guide. She knew that there wasn't any valuable technology with the revival capsules and scavenging it for parts was a bad idea. In case of emergency or the world's condition still not being hospitable, the sleeping pods would allow one more trip back into deep sleep. Marya didn't want to risk waiting longer though. What if all the other survivor groups were dead by then or what if Earth became uninhabitable when they woke up a second time. Still, it was useful to not risk destroying them just yet in case everything did go wrong. Like it had with Tarik...
Marya constructed a simple lean to and caught a rabbit with a snare trap she made with the parachute string she got from the crate. After unlocking the basic skills like fire starting, climbing, hunting etc. She had enough coins from achievements to purchase a water bottle which she used to make a water filter.
She had soiled herself whilst down there which was uncomfortable for the last few hours but thankfully the rest of the group would still be sleeping in their pods. Only the guide was woken up because Marcus had woken up first which sped up her recovery process and alerted her to carry out her job to help him. An unforseen logical error from Tri-cataclysm (the organisation who came up with this survival program). She glared at their logo on her water flask: A red circle on top of a blue triangle with a yellow square embedded in the centre.
She'd drunk the entire contents and hung up her clothes before finally getting to let out a well deserved sigh from the few torturous days she'd spent from waking up at the wrong time. Did she have the worst luck? Marya was a tall women in her early twenties with dark, brown hair tied in a pony tail. She had freckled cheeks and in her old life, she had been a high school teacher.
The next day, everyone began to emerge from the ground in their capsules. It was unnerving to watch the capsules sink back into the ground without a trace while the people woke up gasping for air. There were four others all alive. Most started asking questions straight away. Apart from herself, there was a guy and two girls. 'If Marcus is still alive and if Tarik hadn't died there would be a perfect ratio of men to women but now we have to find other groups with an odd number of people.'
Marya had fell into that way of thinking at some point during her training. She believed it was everyone's duty to resurrect humanity. On the other hand, this hadn't actually crossed the other survivors' minds yet and Marcus had long ago gave that page of the handbook the middle finger after waking up without anyone.
Finally getting everyone together, Marya now had to tell them the same explanation she'd rehearsed a hundred times in her head before going into her sleep pod. "Hello survivors and welcome to your new lives here after the collapse. It'll explain everything in your handbook when you collect your first starter kit but to sum it up, you have all been selected to survive the apocalypse in the new world. It's completely normal to experience memory loss as the technology was rushed. I am your guide and I have been specifically trained to aid this group." A complete lie as the organisation had perfected the technology in preparation for this decades ago...
"Hi. My name's James and I'm good at... at... I-I can't remember..." The group begun to introduce themselves and although none of them could remember their previous life, it wasn't hard for them to get along when they could all relate to each other's situation. Marya showed them how to read their stats and James continued from where he left off.
"Well it looks like I used to work out because my strength is above average and maybe I was a college student since my intelligence isn't too bad. I at least know for sure my age is 19." James had curly, blonde hair and was the tallest in the group. Marya suspected he got in through wealth and status.
"Hey, I'm Samantha Gray but I don't mind if you call me Sam. I think I must have done athletics as my stats say I am really dextrous and agile. My age is 17." Sam had a friendly vibe coming from her plus a bright smile she liked to show off. Her hair shone an orangey-red but was dominantly brown.
Last to introduce themselves was Lana. "It's nice to meet you guys. My intelligence is pretty high. I also have an above average fortitude too." Lana was noticeably pretty and all her features suggested she had been envied by all the girls in her previous life. "Oh! And I'm 18." Her hair was a light blonde too and her skin was quite fair.
The group subconsciously accepted Marya as the leader. They had a lot of questions for her since she was the guide but Marya couldn't answer them all. For one, she was told what not to tell with an utmost sternness from her superiors and two, she honestly didn't know that much either.
It was easy to say that she'd also experienced memory loss like them with some things. So off they went learning skills, opening crates, discovering everything Marcus had in the span of a single day and most importantly, following the red flashing dot on her map. Above it was a name: Marcus.