The Chronicles of a Titan

Prologue: In the Dark

A man slept, drifting in a place undefinable, in dark so deep there was not even the concept of light. Flashes of memory played through his mind, lightning bolts in the blackness.

His life went through his mind, one memory at a time. Holding his baby sister. Visiting his mother's headstone. His father's re-wedding. His graduation, and his enlistment into SRDC. He remembered his training at the military and exploration academy, learning how to fight, fire weapons, pilot ships, and set up exploration equipment. He remembered the first time that he was sent to Mars, and ended up fighting rogue scientists, the first time he had watched a friend die, the first time he had killed.

All of these were remembered in a strangely detached, unemotional way, as if they were someone else's memories. However, there was one that constantly came up, and this one, he did feel for.

It was the day he died.

He had been with his family at the time. His little sister, step-mom, dad, and a few cousins, flying from New York to London to Moscow in their small family shuttle that his parents had just bought. They had picked him up in Ohio from the Orbital Space Exploration Center, or OSEC to celebrate him coming back from a tour on Venus, and he was happily resting in the back seat, his little sister curled up next to him, head on his chest. He talked quietly with his parents about nothing in particular as they passed over the mega city of New York, which encompassed most of the old U.S. East coast. He caught the radio talking about the new nano tech that was supposed to change the world, and listened with interest. Apparently, it had already completely rebuilt Chernobyl from the irradiated ruins it had been, making it a very high tech and thriving city. Maybe it would change the world again..

Everything was peaceful, thanks to the Traveler. He hadn't been born yet, of course, but its arrival was well recorded. When it arrived, there of course had been fear and apprehension. The U.N. had even discussed possible pre-emptive measures against any aggression from the giant orb that now dominated the sky. Of course, as soon as the Traveler's gifts were shown, things changed drastically. Mankind spread like wildfire across the system, bringing peace and civilization to the stars. No longer were there wars for resources, shelter, or ideology. In many places, religions sprouted up claiming the Traveler as their god, along with many established religions claiming that the Traveler was the second coming of their own respective deity. Honestly, they had a good point. Human life spans tripling, planets being terraformed, the ecosystem recovering, it all seemed like the work of a God. It was truly an age of miracles. A life that ancient people would have called heaven.

And no one knew it was fleeting. The man certainly didn't.

He still remembered when he noticed something out of the ordinary. It was noon, according to their clocks, and yet it was as dark as a moonless night out. Wondering what was up, he rolled back the sun roof over his seat to see if there was a solar eclipse. What he saw was entirely different. The sky was black. Not cloudy, but as black as a void of dark matter. So black that it seemed like a wall between them and the sky. Of course he yelled, panicked, just like everyone else in the car. After a moment, he started to get alerts in his hand implant. Touching his gloved palm, a holographic display popped up, showing the darkness on a news feed. It was from a crowded city, he couldn't remember which, and everywhere the camera turned, people were staring with awe and fear. And then the feed went dead.

Looking up, he was trying to calm his siblings down while his father took the car out of auto pilot, just to be safe. After a few minutes of flying, things seemed to calm down, and his sister relaxed. His brother had calmed a few minutes before, and was back to playing holo games. When he looked past him to his cousins' car, he saw that they were looking back with fear mixed with confusion. He gave them a thumbs up, trying to make them relax, and it seemed to do the trick. He saw a few smiles, and a small bit of relief.

In the next instant, the cockpit of their shuttle exploded in a fireball. In that single moment, he could remember feeling so many different things; shock, fear, anger, sadness, confusion. In the next, when he saw the shuttle veering towards them, fear ruled. The shuttle impacted theirs on the left side, where his brother and father were.

He blinked.

When he opened his eyes, the seat where his brother had been was gone, along with that side of the shuttle. His father's seat was gone as well, leaving only ragged metal in its place. The engines were out, and they were in freefall. His step mother tried to reach the controls, and managed to level them out slightly. Instead of a nose dive, they instead hit the ground on the bottom of the front of the shuttle. It skidded through the trees, tumbling and smashing through everything in its path. At one point, the windshield was blasted out by a tree, and debris flew into the shuttle. He had his eyes closed and was over his sister, protecting her, or at least trying to.

After a full minute, the shuttle slammed one final time, coming to rest beside an old Russian highway. After a few moments, he opened his eyes. His step mother was gone, obliterated by the force of the impact and the trees and debris. He could see the blood actually seeping through her seat, and he didn't kid himself. Turning to his sister, he looked into her eyes, and realized that something was terribly wrong. They were staring, unblinking, past him. He realized she wasn't breathing. Looking, he saw that a branch was sticking out of her abdomen, where her heart had been. It was peculiar, in a strange way. He didn't feel sad, or angry. Sitting there in the car, staring at his sister, he just felt empty and alone. His entire family, and with them everything that he had ever cared about, was now gone. Ripped away in a minute and a half. He lifted his hand and shut her eyes. He noticed blood on his hand. Looking down, he saw that the branch that had killed his sister had pierced him as well, just above his belly button and below his heart.

He wasn't afraid. He was accepting. He wanted to be with his family, and didn't want to live without them. With that in mind, he hugged his sister tight, sliding the branch deeper into himself. He felt no pain, perhaps as a last blessing.

And there, while he held his sister tightly, he shut his eyes and waited for death. Eventually, he heard commotion on the outside of the car, and looked to see feet that could only be described as alien. Suddenly, the door was ripped away, revealing said alien in all of its disgusting glory. It was massive, with some sort of brown plating covering its body and iridescent green eyes.

They looked at each other for a moment, the man's mind fogging all the time. Somewhere, he made the connection that the thing must have been responsible for everything that had happened. As his vision clouded, he watched the alien lift its sword, prepared to strike, until it instead turned and strode away, the last image in his mind.

And so it went, again and again. Always that memory and others from his life. But that memory was the one that came up most. It shattered his peace, his slumber in the dark, and he hated it. He didn't know if he was in hell or not, but he could have believed it so.

He had no measure of time, only the memories that repeated, over and over again. And so, when something new happened, it was astounding. A bright white glow pierced his blackness, interrupting that memory. Without thinking, he moved towards it. He didn't know if he swam, ran or flew, and didn't care. He just moved towards it. Towards a light that seemed to be coming towards him as well. And when it reached him, he embraced it, ready for what came next.

And then he woke up.