No! I can't die here. I can't-
Augustine's words are cut off as his vital signs are fighting valiantly but stubbornly continue to deteriorate. One solace of peace manifests itself in the form of a family. His family. A warm smile shows coupled with a beaming look of adoration from dark cinnamon colored eyes. Here is a man proudly displaying his newfound ascension into fatherhood. His coarse hair covers a face that has borne hard labor and difficult times. His name is Jacques Dominique. A strong embrace from a weakened body, shoulder length charcoal hair matted down covering parts of a face perspired pre child birth. Light, shallow breaths rise and fall as the heart is heard in unison with the new life. A tender emerald green gaze showing infinite love for her newborn son. A nurse treats the new mother. Her name is Elena Dominique. Doctors clear the new family to go home. Home. The Frontier is what they call it. Resources and an abundant living ecosystem home to millions who left Earth in search of better. Mankind was created to have dominion over all. The stars were no different.
Home was never just one location, one city on one planet. New city meant new opportunities for his parents. For him it was a cycle of seeing a million faces he'd never get to know. No fond memories of bonding with someone over common interests, no one to relate to him his own age when seeking comfort, no one to depend on when he gets in trouble with authority. Nothing. Just an empty glass with nothing to fill it. The streets were a welcoming embrace of self discovery. He learned what he needed in order to maintain, to thrive in that metallic barren jungle. A bustling metropolis with limitless transportation was freedom. Lightrails, shuttles even a new area of a city was helping to cope with the overbearing loneliness.
The news constantly spoke of the battle scorecard by opposing Militia and IMC factions. Militia and IMC alike were gaining more territory as the years went on. Patrols were set up by whatever faction held it to the point it was ordinary to see Titans on routes bordering or guarding cities. Radio chatter is overheard constantly, yet from a distance that it is commonplace. Jacques worked tirelessly to provide for his little family, taking odd jobs wherever located. The frequency were his way of keeping his family out of harms way, as Elena who secretly worried of the toll it was taking on young Augustine.
The time of Augustine's homecoming were more and more deeper into the night. Until one night, taking the familiar side street to his two story apartment making his way along the alleyway, Augustine hears his parents arguing through the window. "I understand the danger but what about Augustine? Have you even considered that? Plus I'm carrying child Jac!" Augustine is taken aback by a wave of elation at the sudden and abrupt news. He wasn't going to be alone anymore. He finally had not just a friend, but a sibling as well.
"What?! How long?" stammers an unprepared and shocked Jacques. "That's all the more reason we have to leave!" he exclaims. The rounded blue entrance of the door humbly gave way to the light of the living room. Elena is washing dishes in the kitchen, with Jacques pacing nervously from the living room to the kitchen. Augustine's footsteps alert them and Jacques turns to face him, routinely looking through the windows every five minutes startled slightly by the opening of the door. "Thank goodness you're home Son. We were worried about y-". "Mom's pregnant?" asks Augustine as if he didn't hear the news seconds before, cutting the tension in the air. Jacques smiles as he strolls into the kitchen embracing his wife. Augustine stands back in the living room to cherish this precious moment. His father touching his mother's stomach hands interlaced, both smiling crying tears of joy. This moment would soften even the darkest of hearts. The air filled with unbridled happiness and affection.
A whistling sound perked up Augustine's ears. It was faint. No. Growing closer and sounding as menacing as a bull newly forced to fight an inept and overconfident matador. The airy assailant peaked reaching ecstasy when the roof and interior suddenly caved in right in front of Augustine, unapologetically savage and relentlessly obliterating everything in its path, including his parents. The impact was undoubtedly causing seismic activity, pushing everything in the apartment into its absence or towards Augustine.
The radiant light, in what should have been be the happiest moment of his life, gone as the desert sand blocks the sun light on Leviathan. Augustine in a catatonic state, haggard and aphasic, is staring blankly at where his parents just were. The newfound openness of the apartment toys with Augustine thrashing him around. Sending him into the only remaining apartment wall, he is knocked unconscious uncontrollably falling into the street. One single tear fell from Augustine as the wind violently swiped his cheek to carry it as a message. A eulogy of innocence lost.