Hyperion: Part 2

I wake, slowly. I swing my legs off the low, thin bed and rest my bare feet on the cold tiled floor. I try to stand but my legs refuse the call to action. So I simply remain sitting.

The long scars that run down my leg remind me where they drew their fill of marrow from. Precious bone marrow for their studies. I remember screaming as they cut into me, screaming for them to release me and threatening to burn their world to ash and finally pleading for them to cease.

None of that worked.

I remember his laughter as I faded in and out.

“Some god,” he said at least once, “some immortal.”

I wanted to explain that immortal does not mean invincible but I don’t think he would have cared. They wanted to know how to fight aging and disease more than they cared about semantics. Mortals are always seeking what they should not and cannot have, though they seem to have advanced quite a bit from what I remember.

They want the cure to the only disease the mortals are truly plagued by. Death.

I try to stand again but my legs shake and refuse it again.

I think back to that surgical table they had strapped me to. Using those restraints they had found. I think back to the first cuts and the needles drawing blood and the surgeons milling about with their clinical curiosity. I don’t blame them. Just the one that suggested they steal from my very bones, him I will kill.

It didn’t take long for the pain to become too much to bear and I told them everything.

The Titans had agreed to a mortal prison for a war we had not started but had certainly finished. A rebellion that devastated the mortal plane and population. So we were imprisoned for a term of one thousand years. Then the guards stopped coming.

They exchanged strange looks when they learned the facility had been built almost ten thousand years ago. It seemed as if they were surprised by the technology inside it.

I was astounded by how much these mortals had added. The prison had been large for the Titans, had to be, but now it was staggering in size. The labyrinth of halls and rooms spread out and was filled with armed guards and medical personnel.

Also more cells. Like this one.

I am startled by a knock on the door.

“Hey,” I hear the voice from the door to my cell, “I’m sorry.”

I recognize him. The one who “released” me from my former prison, only to bring me to another.

“You.”

“Yeah…I get it,” I hear the door unlock from the other side, “I’d be pissed too.”

The door unlocks and he stands before me, sheepish. Again his hands in mock surrender.

“It’s not right, I’m sorry. They forced me into it but…I just can’t watch them do this to you anymore.”

I find the strength to stand on shaky legs and glare at him but I must admit that here he stands before me. Apologetic and releasing me. Hopefully.

A Titan hoping! I’m glad my siblings aren’t here to see it.

“Is it day?” I ask him, wrapping an arm over his shoulder and leaning on him heavily.

He nods, with a confused look.

“Can you get me outside?”

He nods again and leads me into the hall, devoid of guards for the moment.

“I opened one of the other cells, they’re busy.”

“Which one?” I ask, thrilled at the prospect of one of my brothers or sisters on the loose.

“Don’t know, names are all faded off the doors. What…who are you anyway?”

I don’t speak but we close the gap towards a door, a door that leads to stairs. I glare at him for a moment and he shrugs in response.

“Only way up.”

I grunt a sort of agreement and we begin the arduous trek up the stairs. Each one sends pain shooting through my battered legs. I mumble some curses but continue, this mortal will not see the first Titan to fail on a simple stairwell. Not today.

When the door opens I feel it. The warmth of the sun. I take a deep breath and almost immediately stand on my own as the warmth and light do their work. The only thing I really need. I can feel lean muscles filling out, my hair turning from gray to it’s proper deep brown and the lines that crease my face disappearing. The ache flees from the warmth like a shadow from light and my body strengthens. I feel…I feel like myself again.

We stand on a flat space with a large white H painted on it, overlooking a mountain range that I barely remember. I turn to my rescuer and he sees a new man. He steps back and looks at me with fear. Without the sun I was fading in that deep cell, even if I would never die of age there. Like a mortal in his fifties or sixties, not the powerful man I am now.

“What are you?”

I turn to him and stretch until I hear that satisfying *pop* of my spine. Turn my head for the same in a stiff neck. Bend down to loosen up my calf muscles on healed legs. Open up with a wide stretch to really drink in the power of the light.

“What is your name mortal?”

“Derek. Are you going to kill me?”

I throw back my head and laugh, it feels good to laugh again.

“No Derek, you have earned my favour. And a favour from me does not come easily. Shall we release my brothers and sisters?”

He swallows hard and nods. Then he asks it again.

“Who are you?”

I open the door back into that staircase, down into the bowels of the facility they have built over our prison. It’s different now though. I have my strength back. All the power I need. I pause to look at him, applying just the right amount of dramatic pause that these mortals found so pleasing all those years ago.

“I am the Titan Hyperion. Now come. We have work to do.”

---

We make our way into the bowels of their laboratory quickly, Derek leading the way as I follow.

I have two goals and only two goals.

Kill the man who had kicked me and free my siblings.

I told Derek as much and he seemed to accept it.

“The guards should be busy with the others and I know where the Colonel is. Come on.”

Good, very good. Derek shall be a useful tool.

We race towards the end goals and I flex my fingers in anticipation. I do so enjoy mortal bloodshed, from time to time…it’s a vice I admit. It is deep within the halls and rooms that they had constructed before releasing me that I find the first of my goals. The guard watching the cameras dies quickly, his neck snapped like a dry twig.

Derek vomits in the corner so I ignore him for the moment, focusing on the screens. Each is one of my siblings, pacing their cells. I see a brawl in one cell where my brother Iapetus flogs the mortal guards with ease, they are his children after all and he knows them best of all of us.

He falters as more guards come. He is far too weak and they finally overpower him. The old guards had left weapons and tools behind, they would have to be destroyed or we could still be defeated. Titans are hard to kill but it’s certainly not impossible. If they decided to use the weapons…best not to think about that.

My second goal arrives on screen, the Colonel. At least that’s what Derek had called him.

He stands over Iapetus and gloats, I’m sure of that. Even though I cannot hear it.

“Come!”

I sprint off and leave Derek behind, rounding corners until I reach the door. The door to Iapetus’ cell. It is heavy but I push it open, grinding the door on it’s track.

With it open I find the Colonel!

No. No I don’t.

It’s empty. That is odd. Only Iapetus’ body laying in the center of the room.

I wheel about when I hear it but it is too late.

The door slides shut behind me, leaving me in this room. I shout and hammer on the door but it is no good. The doors were built when I was at my peak of power and they will withstand it now just the same.

“Damn you!”

click

“Well done, Hyperion, well done. Didn’t expect you would be so easy to manipulate but…well here we are.”

Derek. He and the Colonel stand in the guard post and stare down at the two Titans they have captured. Proud of themselves.

Fool! Me, not them. I should have known.

I should have known.

Damn.

 

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