Lost on Titan

{Part 31}

~Videl~

Videl had held herself together during the dinner with Risa, and although Risa complimented her casserole repeatedly, Videl could hardly taste it. She was barely able to choke down a couple bites. She felt sick to her stomach. She felt numb. Her father had died in such a tragic way, and her mother had been so overcome with grief that she had taken her own life. It was all too much to come to terms with. At some point during the dinner, Videl asked why her parents' bedroom was inaccessible. A week or so after Cryo, she had walked up to the door, and noticed it wouldn't open via a motion sensor like her bedroom door did. Then, she saw a keypad lock beside it that was password encrypted. Risa explained that the Videl had spent a week in there when she was 16, after she told her how they died and when she finally came out, she asked Risa to lock it up and never tell her the password. She never wanted to go back inside. After explaining this to Videl, Risa hesitantly asked if she would like to know the password, but Videl told her she needed to think about it first. It was obvious that Risa didn't want to leave her by herself, but after she had finished her plate and hugged her goodbye with the promise to come again next week and a request that Videl call her if she needed to talk more, the door slid shut behind her. The click of the lock sliding back in place reverberated through her soul.

Alone.

The lock taunted her. The sound seemed to break through the numbness that had gotten her through dinner with ferocity. Her emotions flooded back with such force, she stumbled back from the door. Hot tears streaked down her cheeks as she steadied herself on her feet. Then a tumultuous rage ripped through her body like a wildfire. A strangled scream grated her ears, and it took her a second to realize the sound was coming from her.

She staggered toward her bedroom, feeling like she wasn't in control of her own limbs. She stomped right to the family portrait near her bed and yanked it off of the wall. Holding it in her shaking hands, looking into the eyes of her deceased parents, she sobbed,

"You left me alone!"

Videl was overcome with the grief dripping from her accusation. She threw the picture to the floor, smashing it into pieces, but it wasn't enough to quell her anger. She ripped her blankets from her bed and tore a strip of the canopy to shreds as she screamed with fury. Then, she turned to the dresser and the mirror on the wall above it. Her reflection shouted back at her wordlessly, as she knocked everything off of the dresser with a raucous clatter.

The rage was transforming into something far worse. She pulled at her hair and clawed her fingernails down her face hard enough to break the skin as the deep, soul-shattering agony enveloped her. Her father had put his life at risk, her mother hadn't loved her child enough to survive the pain his death had caused her. That fucking asteroid had ruined everything! She wished the impact had killed everyone instantaneously, so she would have never known the pain of losing them. They would all be floating among the stars together. Instead she was alone. So fucking alone that it hurt.

Why am I alive? What kind of sick joke is this!?

Videl sank to her knees, trembling all over. Then she just cried, each sob tearing through her until her vocal cords were so raw that they could hardly make sounds anymore. She wailed and shouted at nothing and no one - she sobbed until she lost her voice completely, and her screams died in her throat before they could escape her lips. She eventually cried herself to sleep, the tears stinging the scratches on her face as they streamed down endlessly. But her sleep was tainted with nightmares of her parents.

Her father's face turned blue as he gasped for air. He was drifting further and further away from the Titan. The severed tether cable floated in front of him like a headless serpent, taunting him with the broken promise of seeing his family again. The darkness of space wrapped around him, coiling tighter and tighter. Squeezing the last drops of life from him as his vision was reduced to a tiny pinpoint of light. The metallic glint of the Starship in the distance that stretched on and on, separating him from everything he had ever loved. Everything he had ever known. The scene shifted from a pitch black abyss to a blinding white light. Videl was 10 years old, standing in a lab. Her mother's face was cold and emotionless as she walked toward the Emergency Airlock. Videl shouted at her to no avail, "Mommy! Stop! Please!" But her mother couldn't hear her - she just kept walking, her eyes locked on a release catch. Videl tugged on her clothes, screaming as loud as she could. "Mommy! Don't leave me!" Her mother didn't blink, didn't look back. She pulled the release catch and stepped inside. A wall of impenetrable glass slid down between her and her mother, locking Videl on the other side. A mechanical, robotic voice sounded over Videl's tiny fists pounding on the glass, helplessly, as she cried.