Somewhere North of Regina
Saskatchewan province, Canada
Mid-January, 2013

The cloud of dust behind the truck was basically the only visible thing for miles. Unless one counted the mountain range that wasn’t actually there but everybody in the province sarcastically claimed to see whenever anybody pointed out how flat the fucking place was. The brakes squeaked as Pierce Lafontaine slowed to a stop and pulled off to the side of the dirt road.

Of course, he probably could have stopped in the middle and not had a problem, for all the traffic that passed by that spot.

Nevertheless, he put the truck in park and hopped out of the cab, grabbing his sketchpad and a six-pack of soda as he stepped onto the grass.

After taking a moment to stretch the kinks out of his back, the young man hopped into the bed of his truck and sat on an overturned milk crate he’d stashed back there, before leaning back against the truck’s back window.

It was about four degrees out. Pierce had never let cold temperatures deter him before, he wasn’t about to start now. He’d lived in Northern climes his whole life, after all, and for January that was actually warm. He’d made do with a sweatshirt and some light gloves.

Idly, Pierce swiped his finger through the dust that clung to the side of his truck, revealing the faded blue paint underneath. He probably needed to wash it, but really what was the point?

Wiping his hand on his pants, he picked up the sketchpad and opened it to a blank page, before taking the pencil from behind his ear and holding it poised over the white paper.

And then… nothing. The young man sighed in frustration and slouched back against the rear window again. He wanted desperately to draw something, anything at this point would do but inspiration seemed to be in short supply.

He’d hoped that coming out to the middle of nowhere, away from the city, might help. He hoped that being out in the natural world would breathe new life into his artistic pursuits.

So far it had all been for nothing.

With a sigh he reached for one of the soda and twisted the cap off the bottle. He took a long drink of the from it and set it down by his feet again.

Idly, he began sketching the back of his truck bed, and the scattering of tools and debris he always carted around with him.

Suddenly he was interrupted by a loud beeping noise. Pierce rolled his eyes and fished his cell phone out of his pocket. A few taps on the device’s screen revealed a text he’d received from his mom asking him when he thought he’d be back and if he could pick up some eggs from the store on his way home.

Pierce typed out a response indicating that yes he would do that and no he wasn’t entirely sure when he’d be home. He tried to send it only to discover that in the intervening minutes since he’d gotten the text, he’d lost cell service.

Awesome.

Pierce put the cell phone back in his pocket and turned his attention back to his sketch book. After a moment of inactivity, he raised his head and looked around the vast empty plain that surrounded him.

One good thing he noted about the lack of topographical obstructions, the sunsets were spectacular.

Of course, he’d forgotten to bring any sort of colored medium, so that wouldn’t really help him either.

Still, it was a pleasant evening. Stars were just starting to peek out above the horizon, and the sky seemed to go on forever.

Pierce took another sip of his drink and contemplated the darkening night sky.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a shooting star and made a wish.

…of course, usually shooting stars disappeared after a moment. They didn’t, generally speaking, get bigger.

Pierce blinked and sat up suddenly. The strange… thing wasn’t just getting bigger, it was getting closer. His heart pounded as he stood up in the bed of his truck and tried to jump down. In his panic his foot caught the edge of the sidewall. He twisted in midair and landed painfully on his side.

Momentarily winded, all Pierce could do was lay there until he caught his breath again. With a groan he pushed himself shakily to his feet.

But it was too late. A deafening roar filled the air around him and a hurricane wind whipped around him, scattering dust and debris into the air around him. The only thing that didn’t seem to be affected was his truck, which he clung to in panic.

After a moment, Pierce was able to open his eyes against the blinding wind. What he saw nearly sent him into a catatonic state.

In the sky above him, probably only forty or fifty feet off the ground, was a large black object. It’s strange boxy structure defied any sense of aerodynamics. A roar that sounded not unlike an entire legion of helicopters all flying at once; filled Pierce’s ears and threatened to deafen him. Along the bottom of the vehicle a series of bright searchlights popped on, brightening up the darkening environment as if it were midday again.

Panic finally overtook Pierce and he fell to his knees, screaming. He couldn’t form a coherent thought if he’d wanted to. All his mind wanted was for the terrifying event to be over soon.

And then everything went black.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*

“Tylum!” A voice called from downstairs, interrupting her reading.

With an annoyed sigh, Tylum Mavoy marked the place in her book and pushed the chair away from her desk before standing and stretching, working out the kinks in her back.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, she supposed it was a good time for a break anyway. If the time was accurate, and she knew it was, she’d been studying for almost eleven hours straight.

“Tylum!” The voice rang up the stairs and through the hallway. “Did you hear me!?”

Tylum rolled her eyes. “Yes, Myona!” she called back testily. “What do you want!?”

“You got a package!” The voice called back in a playful sing-song voice. “If you don’t hurry up I’m going to open it myself…. And if it’s food I’m going to eat it all….!”

Tylum rolled her eyes skyward and shook her head ruefully. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t put it past Myona to actually do what she was threatening.

So Tylum hurried down the stairs.

She entered the living area that she and the four other girls that lived in the dorm-house with her shared.

In the center of the room she found three of those people lounging about.

Splayed across their couch, with one leg hanging over the armrest and the other on top of the short table in front of her and with her attention focused like a laser on a data pad that she was no doubt playing some silly vid game on, was Daz Zakrov. Tylum watched as she brushed a lock of her dark brown hair out of her similarly colored eyes, which were narrowed in concentration. The tip of her tongue poked out from between her lips as she played.

Across the room from Daz, and sitting in almost an opposite manner, was Fara Sheid. The young woman sat straight in her chair, legs crossed and with her hands folded in her lap. Tylum noted with amusement that half of the quiet young woman’s face was obscured by her long dark brown- almost black- hair, leaving only one blue eye showing.

And finally, Tylum’s attention was brought to the center of the room where a petite young woman with curly red hair was bouncing excitedly from side to side holding a package aloft. Her grin was as wide as it could possibly go, and her golden colored eyes sparkled with excitement.

“Tylum got a package, Tylum got a package!” The young woman sang as she hopped around the room.

“Calm down Myona!” Tylum groaned exasperatedly. “It’s not even your package.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t be excited for you, silly!” Myona responded, reverently handing the medium sized box to Tylum who took it with a long suffering sigh.

“Open it!” Myona bounced, peering over Tylum’s shoulder.

“Maybe it’s a bomb and it’ll put us all out of our misery.” Daz muttered, never taking her eyes off the screen.

“Oh don’t say that!” Fara gasped. “That would just be terrible.”

“Geez Far’ calm down. Like anybody would actually send Tylum an explosive.” Daz replied snarkily, rolling her eyes.

“Open it, open it, open it!”

“All right!” Tylum snapped. She glanced at the shipping label on the package. “It’s from my sister, Zara…”

“Ooh… I’m betting it’s something home baked!” Myona cried.

Tylum didn’t answer; instead she set the box on the living room table and ripped into the package then opened the box.

Inside was a single item, a thin cylinder roughly the length of her hand.

“What… what is that?” Tylum wondered, wrapping her fingers around the object and lifting it out of the box.

She brought it closer to her face to take a closer look. That was when she happened to notice a small glass square that was covered with condensation.

Hesitating for just a moment, she used her thumb to clean the window off and peer inside.

“Oh no…” She muttered, setting the object down on the table in front of her.

Inside the cylinder, frozen and looking like it was asleep, was a small creature.

“It’s a human!”

“Oh really?!” Fara called from across the room. Rising from her chair she walked over and shyly peered over Tylum’s shoulder.

“Why… why would she send me a human?!” Tylum wondered.

“There’s a note!” Myona sang, lifting the paper out of the box.

Tylum snatched the small piece of paper out of her friend’s hand and read it.

“Dear Tylum.” She recited. “I found him on Titan Station. I thought maybe the poor thing could use a good home. I know how you normally feel about human pets, but I thought you could use the company. Love, Zara.”

“Oh, I could just kill her.” Tylum muttered exasperatedly.

There was a hissing sound and a puff of steam erupted from the small capsule.

“Fara! Why did you turn it off?!” Tylum wondered.

“Well, um, I don’t think you should just leave him like that…” The young woman muttered evasively, falling back a step.

“Don’t worry Ty, I’m sure he’ll love you! Humans are awesome!” Myona enthused.

“I don’t know what you’re getting all excited about.” Daz called from across the room in a bored voice. “It’s just a human.”

“It’s not that simple Daz.” Tylum replied, shaking her head. “For one thing, I don’t believe that humans should-”

“Shh everybody, he’s coming around.”

Tylum, Fara, and Myona leaned in close and watched as the young human that had previously been in suspended animation, groggily sat up out of the tiny cylinder and rubbed his eyes, as if waking from a long sleep.

Tylum held her breath, her stomach in knots as the tiny creature looked around confusedly. After a second, he seemed to realize he was being watched, and looked up at the three young titan women that surrounded him.

His eyes widened and he let out a panicked scream, before falling unconscious again.

Across the room, Daz burst out laughing.

“Okay.” She snickered, once she’d regained control of herself. “That was kind of funny.”

“Oh, Tylum…” Fara sighed. “Maybe you should take him back upstairs. I guess seeing us all at once was too much for him.”

“Upstairs?” Tylum squeaked. “You mean my room? Alone?”

“Obviously.” Daz replied snidely, rolling her eyes. “I mean really, Tylum. It’s just a human. You’re not scared of them, are you?”

“Of course not.” Tylum shot back testily. “It’s just that- …oh never mind.” With a sigh she carefully gathered the small form into her hand.

Biting her lip, she glanced at her friends before walking towards the stairs leading to the second floor.

As soon as she entered her room, Tylum dug a clean shirt out of her drawer and laid it on her desk before settling the unconscious human on top of it.

The young titaness chewed on her fingernail absentmindedly. What was she going to do now? Why did Zara have to send her a human of all things? Tylum had decided she was against keeping humans as pets the moment she was able to realize how intelligent Zara’s pet Sophia was. And while Sophia herself seemed happy enough to be with Zara, Tylum knew that couldn’t possibly be the case with all humans everywhere.

She believed humans should have the right to choose their own destinies. It wasn’t always the most popular opinion to hold, and didn’t exactly endear her to people… but she knew it was the correct way, so she had resolved herself to sticking up for her principles.

…And now this. Well, there wasn’t anything else for it. She knew she couldn’t just toss this human out into the wild and hope for the best (not that she would if she could) so the only other option was to wait until he awakened and see what the little human wanted to do.

She just hoped he’d be able to listen long enough.

There was a small groan and Tylum’s eyes snapped to the little creature on her desk, who appeared to be waking up.

“Well, this is it.” She muttered nervously to herself.

She watched apprehensively as the human’s eyes blinked open. He sat up and rubbed his head, looking around blearily.

Then he looked up.

She watched as his eyes got really big and his mouth fell open in shock.

“Easy there…” Tylum told him soothingly. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!”