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PART 1 · 10 APR 1912 · SOUTHAMPTON

Part 141%

Wednesday 10 April 1912 · 11:52 to 12:31 · Out 29 October 2026

Your hand holds up a glowing phone at 41% on Titanic’s deck, four funnels against the sky.

You wake up in a third-class cabin with your phone at 41% and one message on the lock screen: Keep it alive. It has been searching for a signal all night, and searching burns battery. Airplane mode. Forty percent.

On deck, Titanic is leaving Southampton. Then a crack like gunshots: another liner’s ropes snap and her stern swings straight at you. You film it. A tug drags her clear and the crowd cheers.

A stoker just off his watch sees your screen glowing and calls you Lantern. Then a steward starts checking third-class tickets. You don’t have one.

Vote

01 · THE VOTE IS OPEN

Trust a stranger in the dark,or hide alone in a lifeboat?You decide.

Engine telegraph dial: GO on the left, HIDE on the right.GOWITH SMUDGENO BATTERY COSTHIDEALONENO BATTERY COSTCOMMENT GO OR HIDE

A · Comment GO

Go below with Smudge

No battery cost.

B · Comment HIDE

Hide alone in a lifeboat

No battery cost.

Pick a side, then comment GO or HIDE on the post. Voting is free.

Voting closes Fri 30 Oct, 8:30am ET

Ship’s logPart 1

Where you stand

Wed 10 Apr, 12:31
Battery
40%
Suspicion
10%
Lives saved
0
Impact in
4d 11h

02 · THE REAL HISTORY

The story is fiction.The history isn’t.

Here is what Part 1 is built on, where it comes from, and where the sources disagree.

The New York’s black stern swinging toward you across the water.

WIRELESS TELEGRAM

Form A

No.
1
Words
13
Date
10 Apr 1912
To
YOU

Leaving Southampton, Titanic came within about 4 feet of the SS New York.

Source: The tug Vulcan’s master, via Encyclopedia Titanica

Fact 1 · Wednesday 10 April 1912, minutes after casting off

Four feet from the New York

A coal strike had left other liners idle in Southampton, among them Oceanic and New York. As Titanic steamed past, the pull of her passing snapped New York’s mooring ropes, and New York’s stern swung out towards her.

The tug Vulcan got a line on New York and held her. The tug’s crew put the gap at “within four feet of the Titanic”, about 1.2 metres. Titanic stopped her engines, and her maiden voyage started late.

Sources

  1. 1Encyclopedia Titanica, “The New York incident”
  2. 2US Senate inquiry report (1912), “Titanic”

WIRELESS TELEGRAM

Form A

No.
2
Words
12
Date
10 Apr 1912
To
YOU

Titanic sailed from Southampton on Wednesday 10 April 1912, at about noon.

Source: Royal Museums Greenwich

Fact 2 · Wednesday 10 April 1912, about noon

Sailing day

Titanic began her maiden voyage on Wednesday 10 April 1912, from berth 43/44 of the White Star Dock in Southampton. Today it is called Ocean Dock.

Her advertised sailing time was noon. Next came Cherbourg in France that evening, Queenstown in Ireland the next day, and then New York.

Sources

  1. 1Royal Museums Greenwich, “RMS Titanic fact sheet”
  2. 2US Senate inquiry report (1912), “Titanic”
  3. 3Titanic memorial stone, Southampton

Fiction

What we made up

Based on real events. The main characters are fictional. In this part:

  • You. No stowaways are recorded aboard Titanic.
  • Smudge, and every named character in the story.
  • The ticket check at the rail.
  • The crowd cheering is ours: no account we found mentions it, and one passenger remembered a hush.