Santa Monica, California

Macrh 22, 1998,

6:15 PM PST




Adam collapsed onto his bed, using his feet to squeeze out of his sneakers without undoing the laces. A long sigh escaped his lungs.

Uck.

It had been a long day. A Monday in point of fact, and with two weeks yet before the Easter break, the days crawled. For starters he had slept through his alarm clock, missing the bus, and had to use his lunch money for a cab. Then, to suplement his lack-of-diet he ate a knuckle sandwhich, in spite of the Karate, excuse me, Jeet-Kun-Stupid-Do, lessons his mother had insisted he take after school. It was lunch time, the usual sucked. The only thing worse than being pushed around and humiliated by bigger kids at school was being pushed around and humiliated in front of the girl you had a horrible, blue-ball-busting crush on.

Uck.

Like he wasn't picked on enough in school. The instructor had yelled at him for wise-cracking in class and made him do extra push-ups. As if pounding the string cheese he called arms into beef jerky was going to make a spit-wad of difference.

Uck.

And...If all of that wasn't enough, as if the universe just could not help itself but to add insult to injury, that punk-ass Karl Brighton had spilled his crack-habit Mountain Dew all over Adam's current sketchbook. Adam sat up reluctantly and pulled the wrinkled damp cardboard edges from his backpack, opening it to the soiled drawing turned unwitting sponge.

Middle School sucks donkey dick, he thought to himself. Still the pencils came out pretty good, which was an understatment, like saying that Pamela Anderson was kinda cute, or calling Ted Kascinski mildly maladjusted. In point of fact, Adam was an artistic genius, even if that genius expressed itself in such nerdy obsessions as superheroes fighting subterranean lava monsters from the Hollow Earth. The thought made him smile. A huge behemoth of a beastie was emerging from the page, looking like the unholy union of a snapping turtle and an arachnid. As good as they were though, the pencils were only a shadow of how it would look, once he had redrawn the panel and breathed life into it with color. Color added eveything to a drawing. Gave it depth. The many spider-like eyes would gleam. Scales sketched only in vacant lines would become hard chitin plates and the magma spewing from the creature's mouth would take on a new glow as it melted the screaming pedestrian's unfortunate enough to be standing on Wilshire Boulevarde when the Deep unleashed its abyssal spawn.

This called for a Hero.

Flipping the page revealed the star of Adam's comic-to-be. The Titan. Towering above mortal men, all rippling muscle and perfection. Speed, strength, and of course, good looks to put Adonis to shame. In short, everything that Adam wasn't and would only ever be in his dreams and on the page.

Uck.

Sighing again in spite of himself, Adam slapped his ruined work on his desk and went downstairs to the kitchen.

Hi Honey,

I'll be gone again until Thursday. Left some casserole in the fridge, hotel number is below. Don't slack on your homework. Love you,

Mom.

Another business trip. Third time this month, the price of her new job. "It's only temporary honey."

Shyeah, right. At least he could slack on his homework.

Adam tossed the casserole into the microwave and turned on Cartoon Network. New show on, The Powerpuff Girls. Sugar, Spice and a dose of Chemical X.

Wicked.

He made it through most of adult swim, but by the time Cowboy Bebop was over, Adam was asleep. What little homework he had done was under the pile of sketches he had made during the evening of TV. Bubbles fighting Mojo Jojo was on top of the thick stack. A fully finished piece still lay in his lap.

It was of a brutally muscled man choking three necks of a seven headed hydra with one hand, while bashing two of the remaining heads with the other hand. The attention to detail was perfect. Todd McFarlane would have creamed his jockeys to see it.

Half of the casserole was on the coffee table. On the television, a samurai with kitten ears was explaining to a midget that he did not, in fact, have to save the world today, and wasn't feeling like it in any case. The midget didn't seem to take that very well.

On the couch, Adam snored lightly. The extra time in gym worked in combination with the fight during lunch to exhaust the reserves of his young body.

Briefly, a bright white light shone in through the east windows, bathing Adam and the rest of the house in illumination brighter than daylight. As it passed over the house, it dimmed slightly, then shone back through the west windows for some seconds before fading away.

Adam snorted, rolled onto his side, and slept on.

Santa Monica, California

Macrh 23, 1998,

12:00 PM PST


Today had been a much better day.

At precisely 7 o'clock AM Adams eyes had popped open. This was unusual not only because of the distinct lack of any sound even remotely resembling an alarm clock, but because of the unusual level of alertness with which his usually lead-weighted eyelids slid seamlessly open into the present. Adam, who had always loved his dreams, would normally struggle and fight the return to consciouness, struggle to hold on to the gossamer thread of visions brought on by the rapidly fading Mists of Morpheus (Did I mention Adam's literacy was weaned on classic mythology?).

Invariably his efforts would only bring him to a murky fugue hiding shattered fragments, reflecting like a broken mirror his former lives, lived in other worlds. Even then, it was only a matter of moments before the snarling beast of the snooze function would come roaring at him again and he would have to fend the ferocious beast off.

He usually fought the beast 3...okay 4 times. Sometimes 5 on a particularly difficult morning. In the end though it always won. Sooner or later it would pounce on him tearing him back into the present and the prospect of another day in purgatory.

But not today.

Today, Adam Capello opened his eyes with gusto, his first deepened breath bringing him a physical pleasure, like a tingling in his toes. He had so much energy in fact, that he barely even noticed how odd it was for him to be up and at it so quickly. He didn't even turn on the televison while he ate his breakfast of cereal and buttered toast. Everything was far too crisp and clear and he wondered just what was going on.

Things got weirder on the bus. Everyone was talking about a fantastic comet that blazed the heavens and that it had been on the news all night. The new space station Galatea had dropped from the sky in a ball of flame.

Goddamnit slept through everything.

At school it seemed like everyone was talking about it, creating a sense of buzz throughout the school. What happened up there? How many astronauts were aboard? Was it an attack? We're at Defcon 3? Really? Have they found any debris? And on and on, with many students going on about how "awesome!" the fireball was. Lit up the whole sky! Blinded me! Like a blue comet. Could see it from half the world! Goddamnit slept through everything... The teachers were mostly tolerant of it, being equally concerned but they still made a point to bring their classes to order and get through the days subject material.

The morning periods passed quickly, the buzz of the school adding to Adam's own euphoria. Then all of a sudden it was lunch break and Adam felt the return of a familiar anxiety. You see for Adam, lunchtime had always been a special time of day. It was at lunchtime that he got to enjoy the tender administrations of those more fragile ego's possesed of bigger bodies and animated with mean spirits. It was also the time when he got to be the same room with her.

And so it was with a dry swallow, Adam entered the Santa Monica Middle School Main Cafeteria. Thankfully that bully Karl was nowhere in sight. Adam made his way through the food line quickly, saying hi to his few friends before finding a place to eat by himself. The she walked in.

Kristy.

Adam blanched, his heart jumping and swallowing a wave of nausea caused by a sudden lack of oxygen. Of course this was nothing unusual and the primary reason why he had never in the last year been able to summon the nerve to so much as say hi to her. He loved her, as only a middle schooler can idealize love. He knew he did, and no other girl could be as perfect, as angelic in his eyes. In his own mind he had put her on a pedestal, a Heavenly Demeter of Beauty and Purity that he could never, in the secret shame of his body, allow himself to touch. After all, he could see the way she smiled at the other boys. The more athletic, outgoing friendly ones. They were the heroes of the school, the ones everyone cheered for at the games. That's what girls want, Adam thought to himself. Not scrawny little comic book geeks.

But now remember that unusual feeling I had mentioned earlier? Well right about now it came back. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or the good night sleep, or mom's awesome casserole, but Adam had been feeling like a million bucks all day. That feeling allowed him to regain his composure quickly enough to hazard a second glance at Kristy, and when he did he noticed something else about her.

Of course, she had always been beautiful, in that dimpled, freckled, athletic way, but today Adam looked at her and subtle, ancient gears clicked into place, the genetic transmission passed down for Eons catching on the whirring cogs of hormones like a turbocharger injecting air into a fuel line. Today her skin seemed even more soft, flush with the exertion of her P.E. period. Adam noticed the swelling curves of her body and it stirred in him, for the very first time, a different sort of repsonse. And those ancient gears that turn always, the smallest of chemical nudges, that can yet move mountains in its relentless quest to survive and multiply, told him with certainty that he could no longer live in the fear of his own desire.

But... how was he going to approach her? What would we say? A plan came to mind and Adam brought forth a piece of charcoal. He worked quickly, for there wasn't much time.

...

Adam glanced down at his watch. 12:27. The bell would soon signal the dispersal and he would miss his chance. He didn't know if this feeling would last and he intended to ride the wave wherever it would lead. It was now or never. Paper in hand he stood up slowly and began walking over to the table where Kristy and her friends were sitting, laughing and talking in their clique in that initimidating way. The only thing more terrifying than talking to girls was trying to talk to a group of girls. And there they were, all 5 of them.

As he came closer and it became obvious that he was heading their way, she looked up noticing him.

And she smiled.

Adam's courage peaked, and he couldn't help but beam back! There really was something different about him today, and he felt like he was practically aglow with vitality. Then Adam's ankles stopped moving...

Abruptly, in mid stride, and forgetting that his upper body was already commited to it's forward inertia. An object in motion tends to stay in motion and and object at rest tends to stay at rest, which is why his ankles stayed resting and the rest of his body stayed in motion. Unfortunately his ankles being attached, they proceeded to redirect his forward motion, and gravity, ever eager to help, lent it's own velocity to the arc and so it was that Adam tripped on Karl Brighton's outstretched foot, banging his head against her table with a painful thud.

Damn you Sir Isaac Newton.

Laughter exploded around him as he crumpled on the floor. Karl and his crew snickered
and only Kristy stood up in shock. "Ohmygod, are you alright???", she asked kneeling over him, her hand automatically touching him on the shoulder in concern.

But Adam couldn't hear her.

It was too much. Everything. The pain in his head was so sudden and shocking and violently intense that it overwhelmed him. The laughter. The touch of her, her smell and proximity mixing with the pain to create a heaving vertigo in his head ans stomach It was all simply too much and Adam lost his freshly eaten lunch all over the floor.

Barely able to see straight, Adam fled, running as fast as he could to the bathroom before he heaved again. Every head in the room tracked his exodus, feeding on the drama. Every head but one. Kristy looked down to see the paper he dropped onto her table when he took his spill. Turning the page over she gasped. It was her, brought to life from the black of burnt carbon. It was the most beautiful gift anyone had ever given her.

Adam rinsed out his mouth and spit. He looked at himself in the mirror with disgust. Vomiting had not made him feel better.

Can't even throw up right.

He rinsed his mouth again, and watched the water swirl down the drain. The darkness in the drain seemed inviting. If only he could swirl down with the water. Live in the sewers. No, not live.

If I was the Titan, I'd be fighting lava monsters in the sewers right now.

He gagged. Spit into the sink. Gagged again. He sagged against the sink.

No way am I passing out in the bathroom.

Using the force of will that only a teenaged boy can muster, he straightened up and wiped his face. Despite his stomach, the feeling that everything was about to rush up out of him, and dispite his sudden migraine, he walked slowly back to the cafeteria.

He was almost immune from the snickers, stares, and outright laughter from the other students. He didn't think he could feel worse than he did right now. Then he saw Kristy looking at his sketch of her. His heart sank.

She looked up at him. She blinked. She looked into his face, at his hands, down at his shoes, back to his face, as if she was trying to memorize him.

"Who drew this?" She demanded.

He should have gone down the drain. The pressure in his head made him wince. He was pretty sure he was going to vomit again, too. She pinned him with her stare.

He opened his mouth to reply. Suddenly, the pain in his head popped, like a swollen bubble.

The floor to the cafeteria burst upward. Most of the students were on their way out of the lunchroom, but a few flew to one side as the tile shot to the ceiling. A gaping hole remained.

A few students took a hesitant step towards the hole. This was a generation that feared little.

A reptilian head shot through the hole. And another. And a third. Students fell over one another to back away. A girl screamed.

Adam shook his head. It was Kristi. The first head had caught her gaze. The other two turned quickly, and moved close to her. She screamed again, backing away.

The pain returned, with a vengeance. Adam's head felt like a rotten melon. He stepped wildly forward, to the girl of his dreams.

His vision grew blue at the edges, then violet. He was light-headed, and felt himself crumpling toward the floor. His vision went completely, and he knew no more.

Dimly and slowly, Adam became aware of his own body as his mind returned from the fantasia of his dreams. That awkward realizarion that he was asleep, remembering the eyes between crusted closed lids, the thick sticky dryness of his mouth, a complaint of hunger from inside his bowels.

I was dreaming, he realized. But they had been the most magnificent dreams he could recall in recent memory, and unlike many people Adam always remembered his dreams. The Titan soared through his mind, fighting off nether creatures, stopping disasters and helping people great and small. The feeling of flight, unbridled power and speed was exhilerating and Adam loathed to awaken in his warm bed. Just like every morning,he resisted the urge to open his eyes, but the pain in his stomach kept kicking him and he gave in.

At first he didn't quite register what felt so strange. Then he realized with a panic that he was staring up into a blue sky rather than his bedroom ceiling, motes of pink swirling through the air. His arms and legs felt not the soft inviting folds of his covers but the prickly itching of bladed grass.

What?!

The disorientation was nauseating and he bolted upright with the sudden shock of it. He heard giggling to his left, and from the way the sound carried he could tell it was directed at him. Three Japanese schoolgirls sat on a bench, whispering at each other animatedly in Japanese and peeking shyly in his direction. Their delight in his awakening probably stemmed from the fact that he was nearly buried in the falling cherry blossoms along with almost all of the rest of the grassy park he found himself unexpectedly in.

It was then that Adam realized that everyone around him was Japanese. Kyoto castle sat regally nearby.

What?!?

Adam's mind reeled and a wave of dizzyness almost threatened to black him out again but he fought it off with his rational mind.

I must still be dreaming, he thought. Looking over at the trio of girls barely containing their curiosity over the gaijin boy sleeping in the flowers he connected the dots. This dream isn't so bad actualy, though he did look down wistfully at his once again scrawny and oh so human arms.

Blushing slightly in spite of himself he smiled back at the girls.

"Ohiyo!"

Good thing I watch anime...

The girls giggled again. They put their heads together and whispered excitedly. Finally, one of them stood and took a few steps towards Adam.

"Yu. Ara. Ayingerriss?" She said, then shook her head, and laughed. Her friends giggled behind her.

She tried again.

You. Are. Engrr-ish?"

She continued.

"You. Gno-ing. Thai Tan?...ah, knowing ThaiTan?" She seemed serious.

Adam blinks in confusion, thinking at first she is speaking in dream gibberish. Then she clarifies and he is able to decipher through her mangled english.

Not that my Japanese is any better.

"Uh..uhmerican." he responds tentatively.

Now she was asking him if he knew Thai. That threw him for a moment.

Wait...Thai-Tan. Titan?

A quick pulse of fear, a nagging uncertainty.

"Titan? Knowing Titan? I don't understand..."

The girl motioned him over to the bench, where she and her friends were sitting. One of them had open a laptop, he saw. On the screen...

Titan Omega. His Titan. Streaming media showed him fly down to where the cameraman stood, and assure the people in flawless Japanese that he would send the monster back into the sea. He turned, and flew back out over the water. The camera zoomed out, and Adam saw the beast.

Godzilla. Godzilla? A huge lizard, anyway, was screaming fury at the sky. As Adam watched, Titan Omega launched himself to attack. Hard as it was to tear his eyes away from his comics brought to life, he looked at the girl again when she tugged his sleeve.

"American TV. Carring him ThaiTan. ahem, so sorry, excusa me. Calling him Titan! He is...very much knowings there. Famous? Very famous here too. Gojiira fell to him last night. You are...knowing him?"

Adam stammers at a complete loss for words, the surreal vertigo and disorientation dropping the bottom out of his stomach.

No way. This has to be a dream. But then why don't I feel like I'm in complete control. This...this can't be happening. How did I get here?

One of the girls was tugging at him. He forced himself to look at her and she asked again if he knew.

"Uh...no, I...I've been passed out on the grass over there." he says, using his hands to pantomime as if laying his head down.

"Is that...is that real footage? That's not...you know, a movie or something? Uh...Hollywood?"

"Akiko! Kumiko! Sakura! 子で起きてください！その少年から離れてください！" An old woman called from a distant doorway. Adam didn't catch the last bit. The girls whirled at the voice, then gathered their things, and giggling, retreated. Adam was alone in the park.

He looked around again. He was really in Japan. Apparantly his comic creation, 'Titan Omega', was famous. In America and in Japan, where T.O. fought with Gojira last night. His mind reeled. He was still trying to come to grips with this, when:

Sound waves, thin from their voyage, almost as faint as the hum of the universe, bounced feebly off of Adam's eardrum. His conscious mind didn't hear it, even his subconscious mind would normally have been unaware of it. Somewhere, though, in Adam's hippocampus, resounded... "...TITAN!"

Consciously, Adam was aware that his palms were sweating, suddenly. He looked at them, and suddenly he was afraid. Something was happening.