WAKE UP.
Atlas knew that voice. But he couldn’t place it, not immediately.
He scrunched his eyes together tighter. His head hurt.
It was almost certainly because of the pressure.
It was agonizing, like his skull was splitting open from the inside out. It felt like his brain was swelling up against the thick bone and had run out of space some time ago. What had caused it to ache and sear smf throb so badly?
It will hurt, the voice told him. It always does. Try not to let that distract you. It will go away, and we do not have time to be delicate.
But the voice didn’t understand. The pressure was getting worse. It felt like a pick driven into the spot between his eyebrows. Sharp and endless and permanent. How was he supposed to endure when it hurt this badly? It wasn’t fair to even ask that of him.
You can hold on. You must. There is no other choice.
Wasn’t that always what he was told? Hang in there. It will get better. It has to. Just give it time. Just keep going. Just, just, just…
Open your eyes, Atlas. Now!
With a sharp breath between his teeth, he did as he was bid.
___
When the pain died down enough that Atlas could see again, the entire world was fully encircled in tight, orange boxes.
Truly, all of it. It was so much more intense than it had been before he’d lost consciousness. A cacophonous, overwhelming barrage of color and lines. Everything, every rock and cloud and bug, had more information than he could possibly ever ingest. Lines, and lists, and scrolling attributes that were difficult to read before they flickered out of existence in a perpetual motion.
Species. Temperature. Hit points. Every detail was accounted for meticulously.
It’s like an edit screen, he thought dimly. And for a single, endless moment it was as beautiful as it was overwhelming.
He should have known that the peace wouldn’t last.
Before he could truly relax, he was again flooded with the devastating knowledge of precisely who, and where, he was.
The S-Grade gate. The dragon. The quaking, terrifying split.
Izar had apparently dragged Atlas’ lifeless body back against a semi-distant tree, propping him against it with his head slumped limply into his own chest. The mud was sticky with sap and rainwater beneath his flat palms, and he wiped them absently on his pants.
Through the bright, incessant stripes of color, Atlas could make out Izar moving in frantic spurts between the fissure and more solid ground.
It looked like he had been busy.
He’d fashioned a rope pulley using the same thick trunk, and was pulling the remaining members of the team off of the ledge where the forest had cracked in two. Atlas watched him for a few long moments, dazed.
The dirt. The mud. The grass. The trees. Box, box, box.
Who do you think I am, Atlas?
The sound of Phi’s gentle voice made a spike of that same pressure lance through his forehead. He grabbed his face and groaned, squeezing like he could make it go away if he just clenched hard enough. Like he might hit a release valve if he just kept trying.
“Phi, what is this pressure?” The words were hard to spit through aching teeth. His ears were ringing, and he thought he could taste the iron of blood on the back of his tongue. Something warm and thick trickled down his throat. “What are all those boxes? Why is it so much more intense now?”
I tried to give it to you in pieces. But there’s not time. Phi nudged his ankle, and pawed at his arm. I cannot die, Atlas. I rise from the ashes and find my new host. You are the new host. That is your Skill.
“What are you talking about?” His vision was still swimming, and his fingers were cold and difficult to move. His movement was slow and uncertain, like it was taking a moment for his body to catch up. “Give me what in pieces?”
But before Phi could answer, the mountain gave another great, heaving grumble. Izar teetered on the edge of the expanding fissure, windmilling his arms as he scrambled for stability. It would have been funny if it weren’t so dangerous.
Focus on Izar. Phi told him. Her voice was so clear in his head that it was louder even than the quaking land as it shook him violently. And pick a box next to you.
“Pick a box?”
Don’t ask questions. Just follow instructions.
Atlas had never been great at following directions. Especially when he didn’t understand why he was meant to in the first place.
He’d spent most of his life doing whatever he could not to blindly do as he was told. But that had never served him well, so for the second time in as many minutes, he listened and did as Phi bid him to.
The air shimmered in front of him.
[MP: 800/1,000]
IZAR ABENE HAS BEEN TRANSLOCATED.
SYSTEM AWAITING FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.
Izar blinked into existence beside him. The long, beige rope pully he’d attached to himself fell limply to the ground, entirely detached. Izar was still trying to steady himself, and he blinked a few times before muttering: “What the hell?”
He is an A-Class. Phi trilled, and gave the air a gentle sniff. He will make a reliable ally. It is worth it to save him. You both need to leave.
“We need to go,” Atlas murmured. He knew he was slurring his words. It was hard to think as clearly as he knew he should be. “I don’t think this is going to get better.”
Izar flicked a frantic glance his way. “What?”
“Phi says so.”
“But the others —”
Atlas lurched to his feet, swaying up against the tree and grabbing the bark with his curled fingers. The bark dug, sharp and unforgiving, into his skin until it drew blood. “Are probably already dead. We have to save who we can. We tried to warn them.”
Izar hesitated.
“Who’s left?” Atlas asked. His vision was swimming, little scattered, wavy orange fractals of light dancing around every person and thing. Even the bodies, or what he thought were bodies, were a burnt orange red fading in the distant soil beneath them. “From Last Bastion?”
As if she’d been listening, Senka Cosic melted from the shadows behind Izar, her dark hair singed and lopsided.
Senka was Last Bastion’s newest member, and the one who had gone for the dragon’s eye. Atlas knew little about her, beyond her role as an assassin and damage dealer. She kept to herself, and was among the few that hadn’t been around in those early days, when Atlas was still delusional enough to think he had a chance to be a part of something bigger. Something that wasn’t useless.
“I am alive,” she said simply. Her face was blank and impassive, and she sheathed one of her daggers so should could push her smoldering hair from her face. “Charon may be alive as well. I don’t know.”
“Call our coordinates with your earpiece, Senka,” Izar said. Atlas took a long, shallow breath and tried to focus his eyes enough that he could pick out where the rest of the strike team had scattered. The skin on his hands was throbbing. “The rest of the team should still be connected if they haven’t fallen.”
“Okay,” she said, and rattled them off into a sleek black earbud to the remaining members of the strike team, wherever they may have scattered into the forest.
“Follow me,” Phi said. She had once again made herself solid, winding herself through Senka’s boots and nudging her legs to get her attention. “I can get you to the gate. You must help Atlas get there.”
Senka blinked down at her, but nodded without complaint or comment.
Phi took off in a diagonal across the purple grass, stopping periodically to ensure they were following. Izar and Senka supported Atlas on either side as they traipsed through the damp foliage. He swallowed hard and tried not to be sick.
“The fissure is expanding west,” Atlas said, breaths ragged as he fought to keep his stomach from churning. “I can see it. Go around.”
They skirted further east, Senka occasionally giving concise instructions to the others following not far behind. Every thirty or forty seconds, the ground heaved and shook, and the mountain grumbled, and the orange boxes in his peripheral vision flashed and flashed and flashed. He squinted to try and keep things steady, focusing on every footstep.
“We are nearly there,” Phi said. She came to a sudden stop and looked at Atlas as he sagged, pale and sweating, against Izar’s sturdy side. “Atlas, you need to close the gate behind us. We will bring who we can.”
“How do I close it?” He asked quietly. It was getting harder and harder to remain conscious. Senka watched him silently, her dark eyes curious. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Phi watched the remaining fragments of the strike team clamber over the rocks behind them with big, glowing eyes. Those same numbers from before covered them, and she gave him a long, eerie blink. “It is simple. You simply tell it to.”
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