Exploring Titan

~3~

I gasp for air as I finished my long-winded explanation.

[🔴Imma need you to cut back on the hyperventilation, it's not like you have oxygen to spare. I'll need you to be holding your breath in short bursts for the time being. How much air you got left?🔴]

I swipe away the chat to the side and see the bright glowing one-digit number remaining.

"8%"

After a moment of silence, Carol's screen name "Captain Killjoy" pops up as she types a message.

[🔴Well good news, bad news.🔴]

She continued typing without waiting for me to even respond or pick an option.

[🔴Bad news is there is literally nothing I can do to help you. So my sleep was interrupted for nothing. By the time I use any of our satellites to home in on your location and get any kind of useful data, you'll be long dead from suffocation.🔴]

My mouth hangs open and I squint at her words.

"And the good news!?"

[🔴You'll be dead and I'll no longer be bothered by your stupid space shenanigans!🔴]

"Urgh! Someone ban her please!"

I peek a quick glimpse of a fast-typed response before I let my hands fall to my side in defeated frustration again.

[🔴Good luck! I was assigned to you by the federal government! It's against the law for you to silence me because I'm supposed to HELP your dumbass!🔴]

"A lot of helping you seem to be doing right now. No wonder your wife left you" I grumble as I fold my arms with a huff. 

Was I being a bit too mean and harsh?

Yes.

Did Carol deserve it?

Definitely.

But my mother had raised me better than to sink down to the petty levels of those who would try to use words and actions to hurt me.

Be better than them! She'd constantly try to drill into my head.

But unfortunately, I'd gotten my petty side from my father.

Try to be better than them AFTER you swing and throw a punch! That's how you command power and respect! Dad would boisterously say as he took a power stance on the couch.

My mother would then swat him off his chair with a rolled-up newspaper, some folded up laundry, or even a frying pan if she got mad enough. Whatever object was nearest to her that day.

Remembering my parents' loving, and at times violent, relationship calmed my nerves down and slowed down my rapidly beating heart to allow me to hold my breath longer and manage my oxygen supply.

As I still myself completely, I tried to gauge my sense of self.

If gravity worked under Titan's water level, even minutely, I should be able to sense my way up even from a slight pressure or weighted direction in my body towards one angle.

Usually, when you hung upside down, you'd feel the blood go to your head, and other parts of your body would ache.

Even if my head was protected behind the forcefield air bubble, I should still be able to feel things internally.

But the only thing I could feel was a fragile soft thud around the upper left side of my temple.

Was I then perhaps floating on my side?

Or was I feeling the effects of lack of food and too many bursts of adrenaline back-to-back?

In my hazy state of drifting off, the darkness around me slowly creeping into the edge of my vision, I feel a...sensation at the bottom of my shoe.

I quickly look down but sure enough-

Nothing.

Absolute nothingness.

I feel my heartbeat begin to pick up and I look at my wrist to see how much oxygen-

3%

The soft buzz of tears begins to sting my eyes.

This is not how I want things to end.

A million possibilities spring through my head as a way to survive.

Why don't I use my ship tracking device to locate it from my suit?

Why don't I use my emergency raft to float me to the top?

Just swim in any direction and hope for the best?

Do SOMETHING!!!

But all, or at least most, of my questions were met with the same answer.

Things don't work that way under here.

Science doesn't work properly under the water surface of Titan.

Or at least, the science we know.

At least my death would be peaceful.

I can safely finally be the first at something for once in my life.

I was the first human to arrive on Titan, and I can be the first to die here.

At least I can take solace in that.

I vaguely feel another sensation on my leg, but ignore it because it didn't have the oxygen to be bothered.

I feel a vibration on my wrist, glance down, and see a hazy golden glow try and break through the darkness, and I think I might as well read one more guaranteed sweet comment before the sweet embrace of death.

I lift my wrist up and read.

[💛I don't believe today is your day to die.💛]

"What an unbelievably sweet and hopelessly naïve comment." I couldn't help but say out loud.

[🔴Agreed.🔴]

[🔴Hopelessly naive. You're definitely dying today.🔴]

Carol's red font quickly typed.

I stifle my groan in my throat and continue to say.

"Thank you, that is the best thing I could read in my final mome-"

I didn't have enough air to finish the sentence.

I choke and desperately grab at my throat.

My whole body begins to seize up.

And the pressure around my legs grows.

But just then, seemingly out of nowhere.

I broke through the water's surface.