Chapter 2: Broken

“I’m gonna get there first haha.” A small Weti boy says as he runs from a playground in New Chibli. “No fair! You had a head start. You said we would count down first!” Another Weti child replies as the two run through town towards the docks. As they run through the streets, others are exiting their homes with looks of concern as they too had felt a rumbling in the ground. There were no lit beacons, so the concern of tsunami was not there but, still a concern nonetheless. The two Weti children get closer to the docks with great excitement in their creeping exhaustion. The closer they get to the docks, the denser the crowds get as more Weti and Hut people move towards the presumed source of the rumbling. People are looking over their shoulders, making sure they know where all their family is and if not, they are running to common places, friend’s houses, playgrounds, workplaces, etc, to make sure no one has fallen to another disaster.

“I…I made it here first. I…I told you I would.” The Weti child says out of breath as he pushes himself through the crowd. He is soon joined by his other young Weti friend who is also out of breath. The two take a moment to catch their breath, looking down at the grounds to comfort the rush in their head. The sounds of bustling and calling out to people have been silenced here. The two children slowly raise their heads and as they do, the once bright excitement they had fades into shock on their faces.

Not thirty feet in front of them, right off the coast of New Chibli, sits the front face of a giant skull pierced through the ocean floor. The full skull cannot be seen except the eye sockets, nose, and mouth have poked through just enough that they are fully visible at a close enough distance. The skull is roughly the size of a large home and is a dark grey colour with black weathered cracks split into it. From the eye sockets, a small green trickle of water drips from it into small pools below it, creating a green aura in the water nearest it.

The crowd looks on in silence until a rough low voice pierces the crowd: “Out of the way! Move aside people, the elders and I need to see this.” A man by the name of Chibhier pushes through the crowd with the Mothers of the Wet falling closely behind him. Chibhier pushes to the front of the crowd and his rough surface softens to a slight sadness as he says under his breath: “Oh…by the Titans above.” The Mothers of the Wet follow Chibhier through until they too are witness to the giant skull before them. They quickly fan out as close as they can to the skull before they drop to their knees and bring their hands in for prayer. A minute passes…and then another…and then another. After several minutes, Mother Shannon releases her hands and puts them on her knees as if whatever she was praying to did not answer. Soon after, the other Mothers do the same and drop their hands. They move back towards each other and begin to whisper so that the crowd can not hear.

Chibhier hesitantly steps towards them. As he does, one of the Weti children follows close behind him. Chibhier leans in to hear what the Mothers are saying. His expression of sadness turns to fear and horror. The Weti child quickly scurries back to his friend with panic in his breath. “What is it? What did they say?” “They…they say it’s the skull of a…the skull of a Titan.” “How is that possible? Wouldn’t that mean that…” “That Titans can die?” The two children question in unison as the Mothers of the Wet urge the crowds to return to their homes and let them assess the situation. The crowd begins to get rowdy and yell as Chibhier weeps into his hands on the shores of New Chibli.