Titan: The Dark Path

Retreat

Days later, Eric was truly in the wilderness. He stayed off the main roads. He knew the cops would be looking for him, but he had no strength to run and he could barely walk, let alone fight. Evasion was paramount.

He trudged through forested parks south of the Ohio River separating West Virginia and Ohio. When he came upon the Route 50 bridge crossing into Ohio, he took it, moving as fast as he was able. Once over land, Eric climbed down the side of the bridge and walked along the river. It was late, it was dark, and no one suspected he had gotten so far already so he was not seen.

With a bright moon swaddled by clouds overhead, Eric walked along the Ohio River until it started to turn south. Then he cut west, taking care to stay off of the roads entirely. He was forced to cross Route 50 again, but it was the dead of night so no cars passed by while he was there.

Near dawn, he came to another smaller river but there weren't any bridges in sight. For a time, he considered trying to swim across. The water looked calm and he was baking in his clothes. Eric took off his jacket and tuxedo shirt, leaving just his pants and undershirt on. He decided against swimming across at the last moment. He was exhausted. He had just made his way off-road through the Ohio countryside. He'd never make it across. Not like this.

He continued north looking for a bridge. Just as the sun began to burn his back, he found one.

* * *

It took tremendous effort to summon Titan from his tired, weary bones. Moments after fleeing, Titan had unraveled and retreated back into Eric, its power exhausted like the man who wielded it. He realized just how much Titan was a part of him physically like an arm or a leg. Eric Steele's health impacted Titan. Great strength, endurance, and healing flowed from Titan, coiled inside of him, but it wasn't inexhaustible. Bone had beaten the hell out of Titan and Eric hadn't healed properly. Then he had worn himself down on the road. The food had helped, but walking constantly burned through it fast. In this state, calling on Titan was as painful as lifting an injured leg. It might not work either.

Eric's mental resistance to the Source waned, too. The river of power, knowledge, and emotion was too powerful for Eric even at full strength. Weak and exhausted, he had no way to control the flow. It washed over him unleashing its terrible force in his heart and mind. Waking dreams and visions struck him as he walked. They bled into his mind and he never knew when they began or ended. His awareness was diminished. There was only the path ahead and he kept to it obsessively despite not knowing where it led.

Eric began to realize that Titan and the Source didn't just "communicate" like an antenna and receiver. It was deeper than that. They came from the same "place." The longer he walked and the more he opened to the flood of information coming from the Source, the more he saw the connection. The Source was very old. It was as old as "old" could be. It connected through all of creation and was forged at the very beginning of time. The Big Bang exploded and from it the universe grew. The Source opened from that primordial event like the mouth of a river and rushed into Eric's mind unbidden.

Titan came from that moment, too. Part of it did, anyway. Eric looked at his hand and he just saw a hand. But that hand was made up of four fingers, a thumb, and flesh. Inside there was bone and blood. His bones were made of osseous tissue and marrow among other things. His blood was made of plasma, red and white cells, and platelets. Titan's mantle might have looked like a silted rise of silver and fire magma, but it had been made just like everything else. Someone had put the pieces together and forged Titan. There was metal and minerals and water, even. Eric couldn't identify all of the pieces, though. The heart of his power was alien and familiar all at once. He wasn't savvy enough to understand yet. He didn't understand why metal and elements normally toxic made him powerful.