Chapter 24

He awoke, groggy and disoriented as he attempted to get to his feet. Rising from the floor of the silo, he realized the degree of his growth. Looking at the measurements, painted along the inside of the silo, he had grown past the sixty foot mark. "It appears that I have grown twice my previous height." He thought that Titans only grew to be around fifty feet tall? "Is this normal?" Looking down to his feet, he noticed a tiny, human blonde girl, sitting cross legged and meditating.

Feeling his eyes on her, she rose to her feet and stuck out her tiny hand towards him, “Nice to meet you Mr. Titan, I’m Kristina. I was told you were here and I wanted to meet a real life primordial. I hope you don’t mind” Hearing her intention, and with his own curiosity, he kneeled to the ground, and put his hand, flat, next to her, waiting to see, if she would be bold enough to jump in. Surprisingly enough, she jumped in almost immediately. Pulling her up to his face they began their conversation.

Still feeling confused, and curious, Anom asked. “How did you know I was here little one?” Smiling, Kristina happily replied. “Your brother told me you were here. He said he could feel you when you entered his territory almost immediately. He also said that he could not meet you unfortunately because Zeus and his brother trapped him long ago in the deepest part of the ocean, crushing him under the old island of Atlantis.”

With growing surprise and intrigue, anom asked the small girl another question. "Who is the brother you are talking about? And who are you? Are you actually human or do you simply look it?"

Giggling, Kristina replied. Hehe, your brother is the true god of the waters and seas. Oceanus, the titan of all water. Unlike the pretender god, Poseidon, who tricked Oceanus into allowing him some dominion over the waters, Oceanus is the waters! Though he allows that imposter to play pretend for the time being, once he moves it will be undeniable who is the greater of the two.

Poseidon’s power comes from being able to wield the power of your brother, but tell me how he will fight Oceanus whose body is the very water he would fight with. As for my identity. Does it truly matter if I am a human or not? My sister, for instance, would no longer be considered, what most would consider human. But, she still has all the memories from before her resurrection, and if you would ask her if she were human, she would respond that she was.

She still believes that she is the same person from before she changed, though some would disagree. Though it matters little to her, and it matters even less to me. We are happy, and we even regained our family from this horrible world. This was a kindness, a gift. Not many receive such kindness in this world. You know that."

Feeling sad, Anom replied. "I see, I apologize. I have asked a foolish question. You are quite right. It is up to the individual to decide who they are, not an outsider. You said that you wanted to meet me, is there a reason why?"

Excitedly, Kristina answered. "When I heard that a real Primordial Titan was here in my family’s old silo, I almost couldn’t believe it. I don’t know where you came from or why you are here but if it doesn’t hamper your goals for coming, I was hoping you might be able to help."

Hesitantly, Anom asked. "Help you with what? You should know that I must travel inconspicuously to avoid the gazes of my enemies."

Cheerfully, Kristina rebutted. "Oh, you don’t have to worry about that too much. Oceanus said that if you help me with my plea, he will give you an artifact that can help you escape the sight of Zeus and his cronies. It works here and anywhere else you may find yourself in the multi-worlds. Also, he said that Zeus can’t materialize anywhere on this planet, due to the pledge with Aeries in not effecting anything on this material plain. Though he is pretty sure he will be sending as many cronies as he can find here."

Standing silently in shock, anom quickly pinched his thigh in an effort to get himself out of his stupor and respond to not look foolish. Clearing his throat, he began to speak. "Uh, hum… What would you have me do?"

Answering seriously, Kristina replied. "A couple of hundreds of miles away is a hidden forest. That forest is one of the last few alive that have survived all the ravages that humanity has thrown at it. This is because the forest is protected by one of Loki’s children who, for better or worse, has chosen to lay its roots down in this world, long ago, and that forest is his base. If that forest is destroyed, though the god will not die, it will go into a deep slumber and dematerialize.

Once it opens its eyes again, it may have already forgotten who it was or what it did, becoming a completely new deity. This forest is under attack from the humans, and others, as we speak. Starving refugees seek out any opportunities to survive, and Ishar is often too soft, and kind to those seeking aid. Her forest can support some, but if more and more are allowed under her shade, she will be eaten alive and her forest turned barren, leaving none alive. Go there, and settle her forests problems, in any way you deem necessary. Oceanus will give you the artifact and promises to aid you in anything you may need in the future.

Thinking seriously, Anom replied. "I will go, for my brothers asking alone is enough. Though I do not know the way."

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Looking at anom, with surprise, and happiness, Kristina nodded, and asked to be put down. Once she was on the ground she quickly disappeared out of the massive double barn doors leading outside. He sat inside to wait for their response, and was pleasantly surprised when he felt the earth tremble, and moments later, the small blonde girl returned, dragging an odd item with her and five other individuals.

Picking the item up, it looked to be a crown. However, once he looked to Kristina for advice, she told him to place it on his head, “but do not push it down like you would when wearing a crown or hat.” Once he placed the thin golden leafed circlet on top of his head, it began to expand, perfectly forming around him, and levitated a few feet above his head. Looking at the golden branch of leafs twisted and casted into a beautiful circlet floating above his head, he began to question, "is this a halo?"

Looking at the wide eyed, and overly excited young girl, fan girling, as she jumped around, with her sister and family, anom figured, he might as well ask. “Young lady, did Oceanus mention what exactly this is? What I mean to ask is that, is this a Halo?” looking at the now giggling little girls below him, he began to feel silly, until she answered him. "what’s so strange about an old god making his little brother a halo?”

Not knowing how to respond, he simply nodded, and accepted the gift. After accepting the halo, the young girl very enthusiastically introduced me to all of her family, and even her friend. It was an odd feeling, but he felt more welcome in that single moment than almost the entirety of his previous life as a human.

The irony was not lost on him though, that his most human moment, was spent with a group consisting of pure monsters. Well, almost completely of pure monsters. Who is to say? After meeting her friends and family the young girl ran to her home, and grabbed everything that she possessed and had saved from her calamity. Stuffing it all into a backpack, she kissed her family goodbye, and jumped into anom's hand.

Placing her backpack into my pouch, and sitting on my shoulder, she produced a second halo placing it on her head, and we began our journey. Step by step I trekked the path narrated by my new shoulder G.P.S. as she filled me in on the happenings of the world.

Kristina narrated up to the point in the war that I could remember. When the resistance was able to get ahold of a cloned A.I. and the war turned even worse, wiping nearly everything out. Since then there hasn’t been any other forms of government coming into power. It was not for lack of potential candidates, but from the A.I’S that had been conducting the wars for humanity from the beginning still operating. However, the operation of the A.I. has been altered. This alteration was caused from the A.I’s targeting each other. They targeted each other’s systems of operation by erasing key coding and attempting to implant kill orders in the enemy codes to self-delete and win the war. The issue is that as a clone of the original, when one got the idea, the other had the same idea, and began to enact it immediately. This caused the programming to go haywire and any group claiming to be a government or government agency is seen as an enemy to the faulty computers. However, due to the massive damage done by each to the other they are not completely functional. This has allowed a respite in the constant war for some of the survivors to attempt to rebuild something in this world of death. One of the main enclaves of humanity for Europe is in the forest we are going to right now.

Along the way to the forest we passed by the flaming wreckage of hundreds of cities. Fires were everywhere and the smell of death was almost unbearable. I can’t believe this is still going on. I really did not miss this. Cars were lined up in the freeways, burnt out by fire. Most of these people were trying to escape the cities before the bombs went off. We didn’t see any survivors anywhere in the cities so I could make as much noise as I wanted. When I asked Kristina why, she responded with, “There isn’t anyone in the cities because they aren’t stupid enough to come here. Unless you have a radiation suite or are lucky enough to be born a primordial demi god, or have a blessing from a god, like a halo, she said pointing to her own halo, then it would be curtains for you pretty quickly. It felt frustrating for me to be back in this world. It felt like I knew it like the back of my hand yet I had massive parts of my memory that has been lost and I feel like a newborn. Looking at the grocery store in front of me I asked, What about the food?

Walking out of an old brewery cellar I was carrying two massive wooden storage vats from the old school beer making company that somehow still chose to ship and store beer like this. I thought these containers only existed in Oktoberfest for the tourists. Today’s getting better already! I also took a massive amount of food from the multiple cellars and I even found a massive vault that was left unused. Kristina seemed pretty happy with this and even made me carry a bunch of seeds and stuff in boxes that were supposed to stop radiation from getting in. Although we did not see any people along the way we were able to see a lot of cockroaches, and they were…bigger than I remembered. I also noticed that they had taken a liking to the massive amount of human meat laying around uneaten. We saw a lot of rats as well. But, they looked different too. They were completely bald, and their bodies began to resemble a crocodiles with scaly, bumpy skin. They look like they have become completely blind and hunt using their sense of smell and hearing. The most pronounced part of their transformation though is that they are exceptionally hostile to everything.

While I was pulling the massive vats of beer off of their perches, Kristina was on the floor and scavenging seeds and foods. While she was looking through the area she accidently dropped a bottle which smashed open. Almost immediately, dozens and dozens of these scaly rats the size of goats came charging at her and the area. I picked her up and crushed the whole bunch with my boot. However, like they didn’t just have their entire scout party decimated, they sent hundreds of the bastards out at the same time. Amused at the idea of playing real life Donkey Kong, I grabbed the newly liberated wooden barrel the size of a house and began to roll it towards the incoming horde of rats. This continued for a few minutes until they finally grew a brain, or ran out of rats. Picking up the now bloody and disgusting barrel I went into the natural ice beer factory, pulled a metal vat of beer for storage off the line and dumped it to clean the good vat of beer I had. Ah, best use for natty ice since college.