1 ~1~
Opening the door to the spaceship, the sharp sting of the acidic air slaps me in my face as I took a hefty deep breath of the glorious morning air.
Hundreds of thousands of miles of uninterrupted ocean water spans out across from me in all directions I look. The sole human soul on the entire planetary body.
"Looks like it's going to be another eventful day where I fight for my life and try not to die, guys!" I joyfully call out as I attach a small electronic device behind my ear.
The device expands out once I tap it, and a small listening device embeds itself into my ear while a holographic visor expands out over my eyes, obscuring half my vision.
On a small corner of the visor, a small bordered box appears with chat messages from hundreds of people flying by.
"Good morning everyone," I delightedly hum to my viewers, "...I know, I know, it's very late back home for a lot of you. But in my defence, it's always midnight somewhere back on earth."
I continued to hastily read a lot of the chat messages as they raced by, trying my best to catch all of them.
[What will we be doing today?]
[How did you sleep?]
[Have you heard the latest gossip about so and so celebrity?]
I huffed to myself as I enjoyed the fact that my fans were eager to tell me what was going on, or were just making sure I was okay and in good health.
I love my audience deeply.
"As much as I'd love to mindlessly chat with you guys all day like we usually do. We, mostly me, have some unpleasant business to take care of."
I pack up my massive dense mass of kinky coily brown hair and begin hogtying it into a semi-manageable ponytail.
"It's moving day." I inform them.
[Oh shit.]
[God dammit!]
[I haaaaaate moving day!!]
"Who hates it more, you or me!?" I incredulously reply to the chat. "I'm the one with a 60/40 chance of survival!"
[Well good luck to you, I could never.]
[What fresh hell are we facing today, captain?]
"I believe we'll be dealing with a tsunami today." I smartly shut the front door and walk back into my small cabin to the control centre. "Although I could be wrong and it could be a sinkhole. I haaate sinkholes! I always barely survive those because they're so bloody hard to predict!!"
I reach up to take off my visor, but a shiny chat comment popped into view.
[đJudging by previous patterns on the surface that you've analyzed, I'd say it's a safe bet to assume a tsunami is what to expect.đ]
I take off my ear device and boot up my massive computer screen where I'm more easily able to read what my chat was saying, as they have a permanent dedicated spot on an entire corner of my screen, and the remaining space I use to do literally everything else.
"To the person saying a tsunami is our best bet, I think you're right. But I didn't see any signs of disturbance in the water."
I look back at my computer monitor, scrutinising the data that my outer ship sensors were feeding back to me.
A deck was also fitted with a camera that streamed back to earth my every move. I was a full fledge space live streamer with better internet connectivity 3 planets away from home than back on earth. The irony.
Another shiny message pops in.
[đDid you check behind you?đ]
I roll my eyes.
"Did I check behind me," I scoff.
Then pause.
"Did I check behind me!?" I then begin to panic as realization slowly dreadfully sinks in.
I run back to my door, picking back up my ear device because it also serves as a mini two-way camera that broadcasts what I see back to everyone watching me, as well as shows me in a miniature window off to the side.
I fling the metal door open with great ease. After months of doing so had trained my arm muscle far past the capacity of strength I ever thought they could attain.
The water sprawled out before me was quiet and calm, you could see a pin drop on it.
But the water on this planet was very deceiving.
I was already shimmying off the side ledge and reaching out to grab the outer ships ladder to swing myself around when more comments popped in.
[I do not trust...]
[Turn around, NOW!]
[Ohmigawd, BEHIND YOU! (jk, but still check behind you please)]
[If you die, can I inherit your account?]
Halfway through my swing, I reply to them.
"Could some of you shut the fuuuu...." All coherent thought died in my mouth.
My grip almost loosens as I'm faced with a nearly 60-foot tall column of sheer expanse of water enveloping the entire western skyline.
[HOLY SHIT!!]
[RUN!!]
[^ RUN *WHERE* BITCH!?]
[WE'RE (more specifically your) GOING TA DIE!!!]
[I'm out. See y'all at her funeral.]
[^^*you're]
Gritting my teeth I swing back into my ship, nearly busting my wrists from the sharp reversal of movement, and leap towards my computer.
"Analyze incoming wave. How long until impact?"
"Impact-in-3-minutes-and-20-seconds." My computer robotically says to me in an off-motherly voice, completely uninterested in the fact that I was about to get completely obliterated.
"Initiate launch sequence. After that stay in the air in hover mood until I remotely command otherwise."
"Initiating-launch-sequence. Command-prompt-required."
I hastily typed in the password as I began to feel the telltale signs of the ship shaking from the giant wave getting close.
Normally it would be at this point when I'd be alerted to the tsunami coming, and I'd begin panicking to get out of its way. But today I had a good head start and would be able to relatively safely get out of harm's way.
But the one thing that worried me was the size of today's wave.
It was twice as big as anything I'd seen before. And I don't fully understand why.
I sigh to myself.
Even after 6 months of being here, I still don't understand shit.
"Okay guys," I perk up and address my livestream chat that was still blazing by messages in a frenzy, trying to distract myself. "We have about a minute until this ship blasts off to safety, but we have a problem."
I straighten up my spine as I clap my hand to get the imaginary attention of everyone that's not in the room with me.
"There isn't enough fuel in the ship to blast off and hover in the sky with me until the tsunami passes. So I'm putting it to a vote!" I hit a keyboard button and a poll pops up on screen for everyone watching me.
All 25,000 people. Dear God Almighty!
"Do I stay in the ship as it blasts off and risk stressing the load and crashing down to the water's surface? OR do I quickly put on my underwater suit and dive deep down to wait out the wave and pop back up when it's safe, and remotely call the ship down?"
I laid out the questions in a way that greatly painted one option as the better one. I'd already put things in motion for that outcome, but I'd ultimately let chat decide.
"You have 30 seconds. Vote wisely. My life is quite literally in your hands."
The voting bars of the poll flashed up and down in a frenzied haste, as thousands upon thousands of votes poured in.
With 10 seconds left it seemed like there still wasn't a definite winner and my ship was beginning to shake like a maraca.
I made the executive decision to head for my swimsuit just in case and the ding of the poll being complete dragged back my attention.
~52% voted you should go underwater.~
"Say no more!" I cheerfully beam as I quickly stuff myself into the suit.
I zip it up and make a beeline for the door as the whole ship begins to tilt sideways, being lifted up by the crushing pressure that was about to descend upon us.
Well, mostly only me.
I almost forgot to grab my head tube that created a magnetise forcefield around my head that repelled the water from getting to my face (and most of my hair).
"Launch sequence complete. Commencing blast off."
I'd just gotten out of the door as the whole thing launches itself up in the air and I'm thrown off balance and fall into the pitch-black water.
And I mean pitch black.
Not an iota of light could be seen in any direction once you fall in and break through the water's surface.
I was able to see just a hint of the colossal wave pass through as I tumble and went under. So I vaguely knew which direction to swim to, to get away from the surface.
But that was the funny thing about Titan.
The water on it didn't behave like water.
Even now after a few moments of letting myself sink, I wasn't even sure if I'd sunken at all.
Did I move? Was I still in place? Have I been violently flung around or was I still just under the water's surface?
No amount of equipment, pressure measurement, or anything outside of taking a physical Goddamn ruler with you under the water could allow you to measure this thing.
And as the cold-crushing weight of my new environment consumed me.
I was faced with the realization that I was surrounded by nothing but empty, unending silence and darkness.
I knew this.
In my heart of hearts I knew this.
So why then...do I get the sense that I'm not alone?
