USM 2021 Bingo

Lost in the Woods (Part 4)

One time, in Carefree, Arizona, Sam watched a movie with his little sister Kaelynn – a standard thing they did. He couldn't remember what it was called, but he did remember a scene where a priest thrust a cross over his head, reaching as far up as he could go, as if warding off oncoming demons and devils as white light glowed around him. Sam couldn't help but think of that scene now as Titus lifted the helmet up in place of a cross, illuminated from behind by the control panels and dashboards, looking somehow bigger than Sam's ever seen him before. In that same sense, Sam supposed he would be the demon getting cast away, but he couldn't help but feel like Titus was the devil preparing to strike him down.

When Titus snarled, "I'll enjoy vaporizing you," the sound is violent and rough, and only added to Sam's reasoning. "And then, I'll vaporize that little Earthling of yours, and then this entire disgusting planet."

Not the desired outcome Sam was hoping for.

I should do something, he screamed at himself. I've got to move. He's going to kill me.

But his legs weren't responding anymore, nothing in his body felt inclined to get his ass up and move. His heart stopped in his chest as Titus loomed over him, like a mountain threatening to topple him in a landslide, nose wrinkled and lips pulled back to bare his fangs, the whites of his eyes so wild and frenzied it reminded Sam of those hungry wild cats from the Discovery Channel. His mind was a screaming, flailing turmoil of panic, begging his body to do something, to leave, to tackle him, but fear kept him rooted in the spot. All he could do was watch as Titus lowered the helmet over his head until the glinting red star was glaring down at him, looking so much more malicious than Sam's ever seen it.

As if finally realizing what was about to happen, blood flowed back throughout his body, making his heart pound so loudly it was deafening in his ears.

Please, he begged to all the heavens and beyond, by all the gods, please let this not be a mistake.

He didn't know what else to do, he hadn't had a choice. It was the only option that had the highest possibility of Peter and his mother and sister coming out of this alive. But seeing that helmet facing him, he wondered if he should've just refused and let Titus kill him.

What happened next was so fast, Sam wouldn't have even seen it if he weren't staring at Titus with the weight of the universe crushing his shoulders. For one full second all he felt was a soul-scraping, heart-stopping, nerve-wracking fear that he doomed the entire planet as the helmet rested on Titus's head. His family was going to die, Peter was going to die, the entire planet was going to die – and it was going to be all his fault.

And then Titus erupted into a pillar of light.

He didn't even have the time to scream. Just seconds after the helmet was in place, and maybe not even that, he was engulfed in a crackling, sizzling column of pure light that ate him up, piece by piece in a blink of an eye, and when Sam finally looked up from shielding his eyes, he heard a clang and a soft metallic rolling as the helmet spun on its side and slowly came to a stop at his feet.

Titus was gone.

No, not just gone.

Vaporized.

A tightness clamped around Sam's chest and he struggled to breathe. That's what happened when you put on a Nova helmet that didn't belong to you. It was its only safety measure and an extremely dangerous one at that.

He could recall one time, when Peter first joined the team, Sam let him inspect the helmet to satisfy his curiosity (with his direct supervision, of course). At the time, he was still fuming over the realization that he wasn't going to be team leader, as hoped, and Peter seemed fascinated by the idea of alien tech and Sam was looking for something to one-up him in. So he allowed Peter to roll the helmet in his hands, run those crafty little fingers over its grooves and trace the edges of the star while asking Sam if he ever thought about painting it to look like Patrick from SpongeBob. Everything was fine up until Peter tried to put the helmet on.