There was a time when there was a fine balance in the world, with governments, with technology, and with the inexorable tide of progress in power. The wars were fought with guns, with tanks, with missiles—brutal, but regular. And then science opened a door to creating something more: Titans—humans pushed beyond nature's limits, reconfigured into creatures with unimaginable power.
Titans were a result of a mishap, a side effect of a mad science competition. Nations coveted a doomsday weapon—not war machines, but men and women who were war. It was a biological arms race, a series of savage experiments to produce the perfect soldier. It began with minor augmentations: soldiers with synthetic muscles, reinforced skeletons, and brain implants that sped up reflexes. But these upgrades were not enough.
And then came the breakthrough—Apex Serum, a substance that remoulded the human body at a cellular level. It was isolated from a special energy source buried in the Earth, something older even than man. When applied to a living body, the serum reprogrammed their genetic structure, unleashing powers beyond description. Strength beyond human imagination, velocity beyond sound, regenerative power bordering on immortality—these were the early gifts of the Titans.
But it had a cost.
Not all of them survived it. Most of them perished in agony, their bodies unprepared to handle the energy that flowed through them. Only a few survived, and those that did were no longer human in any conventional sense. They had been changed into something else—something beyond flesh, beyond morality. They had been transformed into Titans.
As soon as the Titans emerged, everything that existed was brought to destruction. National boundaries were irrelevant when a Titan could level a city in a matter of minutes. Governments that had Titans became superpowers overnight, and those that did not remained in obscurity. The power dynamic was violently altered.
Every nation attempted to produce its own Titans, and so a period of war commenced—The Titan Wars. Nations deployed their Titans against each other, and fought wars that reshaped the planet. Skies were set ablaze, mountains fell, and civilizations were wiped out in the destruction left behind by their conflicts.
The Titans themselves were ranked in terms of powers.
Lesser Titans – The lowest rank, upgraded beyond human capability but not immortal. They were soldiers in war, sent into conflict like disposable weaponry.
Prime Titans – More powerful than weaker variants, capable of annihilating battalions by themselves.
Apex Titans – The rarest and most feared. They were at the height of power, with abilities beyond reason. They were no longer constrained by nature's limitations and would rise to be strongest among them.
But power always has a cost. The Titans, almost immortal, were human in a way—initially. But with each power increase, they began to lose something. The more they enjoyed power, the less human they remained. They were reduced to being mere monsters in human form, acting out of instinct, ambition, or madness.
Some wanted to be rulers, believing themselves to be gods. Others lived to fight, craving war as if it were their purpose. And then there were those who sought revenge, believing power to be a means to protect what they loved.
Earth, once in men's hands, had now become a battleground for Titans. And in the end, even they would not be spared from destruction.
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Ethan (POV)
I was fifteen when my world burned. My father was a high-ranking military general, not a supersoldier or a Titan, just a man dedicated to protecting our city. My mother was loving, our family whole—until that night. The night everything fell apart.
I remember the screams.
They came first, cutting through darkness and silence, turning our home into a battleground before I even had a clue what was happening. The stench of burning metal clung to the air, mixed with the stink of blood.
My dad was the first to fall.
He was a soldier, a war veteran who had once inspired respect. But against a Titan, his skill meant nothing. I had never seen him scared before—never even when war had come to our nation, never even when he had cautioned about the superhumans who held sway in the field. But that night, standing between us and the foe, I caught a glimmer in his eyes.
The Titan who had arrived to get us was not like a normal one. His movements were too calculated, too deliberate, like he was toying with us.
My dad fired his gun into the figure in the doorway, bullets ricocheting off his armored body harmlessly. The Titan did not even blink. He covered the distance between them in a single motion and slammed his hand into my dad's chest.
There was no final word, no farewell. Just a choked-out scream as my dad fell to the ground dead.
I couldn't breathe.
My mother screamed—a scream that would echo in my mind for years to come. She attacked the Titan, realizing that she had no hope. A mother's instinct, l guess. With a swift motion of his wrist, the Titan snapped her neck, and her body slumped to the ground like a shattered doll. No mercy was to be given to the weak
I tried to move. I tried to stop it. But I was frozen in place.
"Ethan"
I then heard my sister.
She was only ten. Petite and fragile, clinging to my hand as if it were her only hope. I twirled around to shield her, but I was too slow, too weak. Titan was infront of us. The Titan's fingers wrapped around her neck, suspending her in mid-air.
I begged.
I pleaded for the very first and very last time in my life.
I do not remember what I said. Maybe I offered to give my life in exchange. Maybe I pleaded for mercy. It did not matter. The Titan just sneered and crushed.
The snap was deafening.
Her tiny body hit the ground laying lifeless. The last spark in my existence was quenched.
And then anger took over.
I have no idea how I survived that night. After that moment when my sister died, I don't remember much. Something inside me shattered. My heart, my soul—whatever it was that made me human—died with my family.
The next thing I knew, I was standing in what was left of my home, with hands full of blood—some mine, most not. The Titan was gone. Maybe he thought that I wasn't worth killing. Maybe he enjoyed leaving me broken. I don't know. I never saw him again.
But I swore, on the ashes of my family, that one day I would find him. And when I did, I would pull his heart out with my own hands.
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I do not remember how many years passed after my family was mascared.
I wandered from city to city, country to country, knife in hand and a fury in my heart. The world had changed. Titans now ruled everything, and common humans were just insects beneath them. I saw villages destroyed in a matter of minutes, whole cities in ruins in superhuman conflicts. It was a world in which power was everything, in which those with power were the only ones with a right to live.
I adapted quickly.
Mercy was weakness. Hesitation was death. I killed when it was necessary, stole when it was needed, and fought when there was no alternative. At first, I was just another survivor. Another broken soul making my way through the devastation. But rage never left me. It kept me alive. It pushed me ahead.
I conditioned my body to be as strong as it could be. I fought, not like a soldier, but like a wild animal—ruthless, unyielding, and effective. Regardless of how hard I conditioned, regardless of how many fights I fought, however, I was human. Weak.
No match for mighty titans.
It was then that I learned about a experiment. A experiment conducted by some still in power organisations to create loyal titans.
The Apex Program.
A chance to be more than human. A chance to get back at those who had wronged me.
TO BE CONTINUE...