Titan (400 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 1 review (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Steve St. IHOP of Awesome (View user info) at 2006-11-21 04:08:56 EST
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
Titus was lost in a daydream about a bus. He had ridden one once, he remembered. The bus driver had a long pole for a hand that opened and shut the wheezing doors. He seemed to have no legs, like a centaur only instead of horse he was half machine. Titus remembered being afraid of the seats and their thick smell. He held tight onto some one's hand as they marched down the aisle. Then the bus lurched to life and Titus shivered in fear.
Titus enjoyed coming to the woods and spending the afternoons in the snowy quiet of winter. He would remember things that no one else in the village ever imagined existed. He was the youngest. He still had thoughts of the city. Some days, he felt like the only one that knew there was life off their little island.
As he sat and focused on the sensation of a shaking metal beast, his memory was suddenly shattered.
Alexei had skied ahead and left Titus to capture his lost memories. Now he was shouting for him to hurry down the trail towards the shore.
Titus scrambled down the icy trail, quick to obey his older friend. The well-worn cross-country ski trail wasn't meant for Titus' felt boots. He slipped in and out of the grooves, nearly sliding down the steep hill on the edge of the forest. Titus had never heard Alexei shout before, let alone the wild screams he was making now.
Gripping the hunting knife on his belt, Titus reached the end of the trail.
Alexei had quieted but remained paled by what he saw. His short blonde hair glimmered in the sunlight as he shook his head and pointed in the distance.
Titus gripped his friend by the arm, pulling it down to his side. "Alex?"
"They're breaking through the ice," Alexei's voice was haunted when he spoke. Titus, still swimming up from his daydream, slowly followed Alexei's eyes out to the sea.
In the distance, Titus could see the longboats. Three boats were aimed towards the island shores with only one driver for each. There were no oarsmen. They were coming back.
Titus couldn't understand Alexei's fear. Deep within him, Titus had always anticipated this day and the Return. To everyone else it was just a myth, a legend they chose to ignore. But Alexei's panic was beginning to seep between them, breaking the air like the boats against the ice. Titus grabbed Alexei's hand, suddenly looking for comfort outside himself. Alexei sharply gripped back then turned towards the trail.
"We need to get Luk," he said. He repeated it as he scrambled up the hill. He left his skis on the shore as the two boys started through the woods and back to the village.
The island had visitors.
The Vikings had returned.
They ran, Alexei leading Titus through the deep snow and towards the grouping of buildings in the distance. Titus followed only because he wanted to understand why Alexei was so upset by the sight. They knew this would come. Why was he so worried by it?
Alexei pounded on Luk's door, rapping with his gloved hand until the heavy wood finally rumbled opened. Lukman was the oldest on the island. His blond hair matched the snow, but his dark skin was the colour of fresh tea. The contrast set him apart from the white village. His eyes were sharp and so was his tongue. He held his shoulders straight and had perfect posture. Titus thought he must have rode horses back in the past. Titus also thought Lukman could never panic until Alexei brought the news to him.
Alexei spoke quickly, combining English and Russian into a ramble of alarm. Alexei was a careful thinker and so was Lukman. But the boats seemed to break both of them.
"How soon do you think they'll be here?" Lukman asked, throwing on his boots. Alexei shook his head at the darker man, trying to reel in his imagination.
"They haven't reached the marker yet," Titus spoke up, slightly frightened by his own calm. Alexei nodded at the comment, still unravelling his head.
"We have time," Lukman replied, hurrying towards the bell tower. "We have time..."
After Lukman rang the gathering bell and called everyone to the main hall, Titus took a spot in the corner. He was the smallest and youngest and often ignored so he wasn't hard to miss. He sat back and studied everyone as they arrived, stamping their feet to knock off the snow. They sat on the long, log benches and shuffled their still wet feet. He played with the fur on the edge of his sleeve as he listened to Lukman and Alexei speak. Alexei liked to think of himself as a leader and being the witness to the Return, he felt it important that he be in front.
"The boats have returned," Lukman announced. Alexei stood next to him, nodding and explaining what he had seen on the shore.
One hundred and fifty one voices rose and fell, echoing inside the small hall. Voices started speaking over voices. Fear and anger, denial and despair. It was all the same. No one seemed exited to leave. Titus felt his distance from the rest of the group grow again. He wanted to pull Lukman aside and ask why he didn't feel those things. He looked down at his sleeves, continuing the muss with the fur. Nervously, he lifted his head and listened again.
"What do we do?" Finola asked. Her red hair glistened with melting snow pellets and her pale cheeks were flushed. She had rushed for this. Finola was always calm, even during the darkest of storms. She was struggling to maintain her cool, forcing her voice to be still, but Titus could see her hands shake before she stuck them in her coat pockets.
Lukman seemed flustered by the question. He was the leader and had always been. He was supposed to have the answers. But now his dark eyes were caught up in the storm of emotions in front of him.
Titus didn't wait for whatever lie Lukman could come up with. He felt the answer rising in his throat and it escaped before he could contain it.
"We do what we're supposed to do," Titus spoke firmly. "We go with them."
One hundred and fifty one voices rose and fell again. Was this how it was supposed to be?
Titus swallowed and slowly stood on the bench he had been sitting on. He picked himself up above the crowd so he could be seen.
"They brought us here so now it's time to go back," Titus felt like he was reading from a book he had only dreamed about. "We're going back home."
"But this is home," some one said.
"I don't want to leave," another said.
"I don't remember another home," yet another added.
Titus started to shrink down at the voices from the crowd. He quickly looked at Lukman and Alexei. Alexei met his eyes like during the silence of a hunt. They balanced each other, gripping some calm and taking hold of it.
Alexei strode over to where Titus stood and lifted himself up onto the bench.
"If Titus believes it, then it must be true," Alexei announced. "He was the last to arrive. He remembers what we all decided to forget."
The only eyes Titus could suddenly see were Lukman's. His cool, dark gaze was rimmed with panic, but Titus could sense Lukman's temper starting to rise. Lukman was in charge because he wanted to be. Now, he appeared weak and Titus strong.
"What do we do, Titus?" Lukman asked, sarcasm licking the air. Titus could hear it although no one else reacted to the tone. Finola had taken her place next to Lukman and studied Titus from across the room.
Titus swallowed but managed a quick nod despite his nerves. "We wait for them and they'll come to us. They remember the way."
---
Only Alexei would sit and wait with Titus at the shore. Lukman and Finola said they would stay and keep everyone calm in the village. But no one wanted to leave the safety of his or her bunk. Lukman had gripped Titus' shoulder before he had left. He brought his head down and breathed a warning in his ear.
"Don't bring change here," Lukman hissed. "We don't need it."
Titus didn't understand what Lukman was saying. He wasn't bringing the boats back. He had pulled himself away from Lukman's grip and started for the door before he said anything.
"You just hate the fact that I can remember and you can't," Titus snapped, finding strength he tried to hide.
Lukman had only glared and stalked away.
Titus was thankful for Alexei's company on the watch. If anything, he'd keep him safe.
"I think I remember seeing a football match in a big stadium," Alexei said, throwing a branch into their fire.
They sat on the darkened shore, watching the three lights from the three ships continue to break through the ice. They'd be at the shore by morning, Alexei guessed. Titus had no reason to think otherwise.
Titus pulled his blanket around him. "Was it at night or during the day?"
Alexei laughed, bitterly. "I...I don't know. I may have just seen a picture of a stadium in one of the books and the memory has nested in my brain."
"Do you remember coming here?" Titus asked, even though he had heard the story before. Tonight felt like a night for talking.
Alexei sat back, leaning against the log behind him. "I remember waking up in a bed that wasn't mine and not knowing any English except for 'hockey skates.' Every day since then, this has become normal. This place is my home. That bed is mine now and my English is better than my Russian."
No one ever talked about how they haven't aged since their arrival. They knew time was passing, but no one grew any taller and their skin never wrinkled. Alexei was twenty when he arrived and only his eyes showed his true age. Titus was fifteen and most days he felt like he'd never reach twenty. The island was their home but also their prison.
Titus remembered roads and subways. He remembered shopping malls and libraries. He'd look at the few books they had and recall the smell of a flower shop or the sound of a ticking clock. He remembered having a plastic football rather than the animal pelt one they had fashioned three summers ago. Titus often felt alone in his memories. If it weren't for Alexei, he would be alone. Lukman's cold shoulders were now painfully obvious. Titus was a threat that Lukman would have to find a solution to. Titus was glad the boats were coming. He was bigger than this place. His real destiny was off the island and his memories were a part of that bigger plan.
"Tell me a memory, Titus," Alexei said, watching the boats inch closer. The ice was thick enough to give the Vikings a hard time, but thin enough that they couldn't lift their boats on top and drag them forward.
"Any memory?" Titus replied with a small grin.
Alexei pulled out a flask from his coat. Alexei sipped from it and handed it to Titus. He shrugged and closed his eyes, resting his head back.
"A memory about a car," Alexei's accent suddenly strengthened. "I like cars."
Titus smirked. He took a quick sip from the metal flask. He wiped his mouth and started to speak.
"My father had a blue car. It smelled like cigarettes. You probably don't remember cigarette smoke, but he used to smoke a lot. I was small and my feet couldn't touch the dirty mats on the floor. The car was very cramped and very messy. The doors were rusted and the handles would fall off in your hand. I hated my father's car," Titus paused. "I also think I hated my father."
Alexei reached blindly for the flask and Titus returned it to him.
"I could make up lies as to why I could hate my father," Alexei mumbled. "I bet he hit my mother. I bet I have his hands."
Titus picked up a stick and poked at the fire, "We were driving one day. We stopped at a red light. I can never see my father's face in my memories, but I remember him turning to me and saying 'Titan, this is it.' That was his nickname for me: Titan. I was confused by his words, but understood when he opened his door and left me."
Pausing, Titus frowned. "Everyone would stare at our car when we drove by, wherever we went. It took me a long time to realise it was because of me and my hair. I never saw another blond person until I came here. And now, that's all I see."
Alexei nodded. "Did your father come back?"
Shaking his head, Titus sighed. "I remember watching him walk away. He left the door open and the car running, but I was too small to reach anything. My seat belt was pinning me against my seat and I couldn't undo it myself. I wasn't scared until people stopped to stare at me. And then they started towards the car. There were people coming from everywhere, and I couldn't close the door. They hated me because of my hair that's what I always thought. A man reached inside for me and I started screaming for my father to come back. But he was gone. And I was alone with this mob."
"How did you get away?" Alexei watched the fire, finding a distraction from the boats and his friend. Alexei would avoid things and hope they would solve themselves. He'd make his own fruit wine and disappear into it. Alexei's life was all about finding distractions on a very small island with the same people, day after day.
Titus focused back in on the memory. He was the small boy again, screaming for help. Like Alexei, he also liked to avoid things. This memory was one of them.
The man that reached for him exploded. A wash of red covered the inside of the car and the rest of the crowd scattered like the bits of bone onto the dashboard. Titus remembered being covered in coagulating blood and feeling nothing for the stranger who had just died.
Inside he knew he had killed him.
He just didn't understand how.
He never told anyone what happened. He found his way out of the car and wandered to his grandfather's. His grandfather had cleaned him up and never questioned what had happened.
"I don't remember," Titus mumbled, remembering saying those exact words to his grandfather that day.
Alexei slowly nodded, knowing that Titus was falling into his memories again. Alexei would get jealous from time to time, but remained close just for the sake of having some one to talk to. Everyone else would avoid Titus and his strange mind.
His grandfather had taken him to the shore the day of the Arrival. That was when everyone was getting sick, Titus recalled. His mother refused to see him and started living at the hospital. His school shut down. He would wear a hat for fear of some stranger attacking him. He was always the foreign blond boy on the street of sick people. He didn't understand the sickness. He just knew to fear it.
They went to the beach. The small restaurant on the shore was still open and they ate grilled cheese sandwiches. Titus didn't realise how much he missed grilled cheese until that instant. Now the craving made his stomach growl angrily.
The three ships were there that day too. Titus somehow knew not to run. Everyone else fled. The few people that weren't sick were afraid of everything. His last days in the city were spent fearing sickness or dreading being attacked by another mob. But on that day, his last on the land, he knew he was finally going to safety. His grandfather led him to the boats and helped him up to one of the drivers.
Titus remembered the smell of sweat on the stranger's beard. Heavy furs covered his thick body. The boat was huge and seemed to swallow up the self of his memories. When the shore finally disappeared, Titus fell asleep. When morning came, he was on the bunk below Alexei's and began his new life.
Was life here so bad? People feared the boats because they were afraid to leave the simple life they'd come to accept as their own. They didn't have the memories that Titus had. They didn't want to go with the ships.
Titus lifted his head to ask Alexei if he was afraid but the question died on his lips. Alexei was asleep, curled up around his metal flask.
Titus smiled and settled down. He hoped to see his grandfather again when he got home. They would eat grilled cheese and he'd start to live again. This was beyond him. He was going home.
He drifted to sleep, dreaming of something to come. Which was a change from his usual dreams of something that may or may not have been.
His eyes opened when a boat reached the shore. It crashed up, breaking ice and pushing sand up around the hull. He jumped to his feet, forgetting to wake Alexei. The Viking, strong and covered in animal pelts, stepped down from the front of his boat.
Titus ran to him, excited about the adventures he'd have off the island.
But when the Viking looked at him, he wore his father's face. The face he destroyed from his memory was suddenly staring down at him, blocking his escape. Why was he here now? Why did he come back now?
His father's hand came around his throat, strangling him. Titus gasped, grabbing at the hand. His throat threatened to crack under the pressure. Titus could feel the grip getting tighter and tighter. His lungs began to burn. He tried to kick out but his legs had no strength.
The man in the car. The man in the car. Remember what you did then and fight back.
Titus focused on his father, hoping he'd explode into a cloud of blood like the stranger had.
Just when things were fading black, the grip was released and Titus gasped.
And he woke up.
He was still on the beach. Morning was just breaking the horizon and the boats were nearly ashore. The fire was out and the air was crisp and new.
But behind him, he heard struggling. Alexei had Lukman pinned in the snow. Lukman shouted at him in his foreign tongue and Alexei cursed him right back. Lukman's hands swatted at Alexei's face, but Alexei knocked them away. Alexei caught Lukman by surprise with a solid punch to the face. Alexei's fist cracked against Lukman's soft cheek and nose. Again and again Alexei hit the darker man. Titus finally heard a wet crunch and Lukman went limp.
Feeling his neck, Titus stood. Alexei still knelt over the bleeding, unconscious man. He didn't move until Titus touched his shoulder.
All they could hear was their breathing until Alexei cleared his throat.
"He said if you were dead, they'd leave us alone," he said. "What is he talking about, Titus?"
Titus swallowed hard. He wanted to ask a question but understood neither of them knew the answer.
The loud breaking of ice brought them both to the moment.
Alexei stood and turned to face the sound. Titus turned as well, suddenly fearing the boats. He readied himself to run if it was his father. He didn't know where that fear came from, but it was at the front of his mind now.
Instead it was the same man that had picked him up from the beach on the day with his grandfather. Only one boat was on shore and the driver stood at the stem, looking down at them.
"Titan," he bellowed, his voice cracking. "You're needed now."
Alexei had stood in front of Titus, but slowly stepped back. He gave his friend an encouraging smile and then dropped to his knees.
"If you find my family, tell them I miss them," Alexei said lightly. "I may not be able to remember them, but I know I miss them."
"I promise I'll tell them," Titus felt himself speaking, although he didn't remember opening his mouth.
And once Titus started moving, he never looked back.
---
Sergei answered the door in his bathroom. An eighty-year-old man has such luxuries.
"Yes?" He answered. "What is it?"
A young blond man stood at the door. He must have been twenty-five. He was well dressed and carried himself with the authority only the blonds could afford. It had been nearly twenty years since the Illness swept across the world. It started in Asia. They thought it was the bird flu pandemic, but they were wrong. Sergei didn't understand it, but he understood that blond was a recessive trait. Over the years, there were fewer and fewer natural blonds. He remembered his son and the strange looks he got growing up. When everyone was getting sick, they realized the blonds were immune. Things started bad and only got worse. Many died from illness and violence. Worry took over Sergei's mind, for himself and his family. And while everyone was dying, his son just disappeared.
This young blond man looked very lucky.
"Sergei Volchenkov?" the young man looked up from a piece of paper with Sergei's name and address on it.
Sergei nodded gruffly. "What is it? An old fart like me could get sick and die from this weather."
The young man smiled looking up at the sunlight. "But it's a beautiful day out."
"Never you mind. What are you here for? Trying to sell me something?" Sergei pulled his robe closer around him, unwilling to admit how nice the weather actually was.
"I knew your son Alexei. I just wanted to tell you that..."
Sergei tossed up a hand. "Wait, just wait. You knew him? Where was he? Where is he?"
The young man shrugged, tight-lipped. "I only know he's safe. He misses you, sir. I've searched for you because I promised him I'd tell you that."
"Wait, just wait. You...you've been on the news. You're helping with the cure. You're a real titan out there, helping everyone," Sergei squinted. "You don't need money, you've got enough of your own."
Grinning, the blond man smoothed his hair. "I just wanted to give you that message. I'm glad to see you're well. A lot of people died. I'm glad you're okay."
"I'll be okay once my hair turns blond and I'm immune forever," Sergei replied.
"It's a lot more complicated than that, but you're on the right track," he answered, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
Sergei sighed. "Think Alex will ever come home?"
Smiling sadly, the young man shrugged. "He's got a new home now."
Then he turned and trotted down Sergei's front steps and into an old blue car.
Sergei never knew he had just had a brush with eternity.
He bumbled back into his house and sat down heavily in his favourite chair. Glancing up, he saw his son's picture hanging on the way.
"Glad to hear from you, Alexei," he said to the picture. "Glad to know you're still thinking of us. Maybe you'll come back one day."
And on the shores of a protected eternity, an ageless son thought he heard his father's voice and knew his friend had kept his promise.
User Reviews
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-06-05 12:17:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2