Surprisingly, Atlas’s headache had almost completely disappeared when he had stepped in between Sarah and Lara in the cafeteria. He remembered how quickly he had moved and how when he had spoken the air itself had rumbled with the released pain. He certainly didn’t understand it, but he wasn’t going to question whatever weird psychosomatic pain relief experience he’d had, especially when it came to getting in the way of Lara Young’s constant bullying. Atlas couldn’t help but feel a little bad when he thought back to the look on her face when he mentioned her boyfriend’s “extracurricular activities.” He imagined that Lara’s boyfriend would soon be her ex-boyfriend.
His phone’s buzzing broke him from the thoughts of his ex-friend. He pulled it out from his pocket and checked the screen. He saw Sarah’s name on the email and smiled as he clicked on it. He couldn’t help but chuckle as he read the overly long thank you email, knowing that he would probably have put too much thought in it too if he had been in her position. He sent a quick response and picked up his pace for his next class. Atlas was just grateful it was his last one for the day.
He was taking notes and watching the last few minutes of class tick away on the clock in the corner when he felt his phone buzzed in his back pocket. Trying not to let his professor see him, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone, using his laptop as a shield. Thankfully, it was nothing important, just the reminder for the movie that night that he had pre-ordered tickets for. He slipped his phone back into his pocket just as the professor decided to wrap everything up. Atlas just sighed in relief as he packed his laptop and notebook up, his headache starting to come back with a vengeance. When he got back to his dorm, he popped back an ibuprofen and opened his laptop to get to work.
For the next few hours, Atlas worked on some homework until his alarm went off. He shut his laptop and stood up. He grabbed his jacket as he walked out the door, avoiding looking at the mirror, only to spin around and grab his room key from where it had fallen to the floor. “Whew, that could have been bad.” He thought for a second about grabbing his car keys and driving to the theater now that he was back in his room. “Nah. It’s only October,” he said before walking out to the hallway and letting his door come to a slow, creaking shut behind him.
The walk to the movie theater only took five minutes, and he took the time to pull up his ticket on his phone and send a quick check-in text to his mom. As he slipped his phone back into his pocket, he realized that he was already in front of the movie theater. He opened the door for a couple coming in right behind him before following behind them. Pulling his phone back out, he showed his ticket to the attendant who directed him to a theater on the second floor. He stepped on the escalator as he felt someone’s eyes boring into him. He looked around the room as he rose, confused as to why anyone would want to stare at him. However, not seeing anyone looking at him, he just shook his head and waited till the escalator carried him to the top. As he stepped off and made his way to the right room, he put the feeling out of his mind, not wanting to bring back his headache.
For the next two hours, Atlas put any concerns about Lara or school or anything else out of his mind. He let himself get lost in the movie, and when the ending credits started, he let out a sigh of contentment as he stood up. “Damn good movie,” he said out loud before he realized it. He looked around to make sure no one had heard him. “Whew. Talk to yourself too much and people are gonna realize I’m not as sane as I look,” he said before letting out a self-deprecating chuckle and walking out.
He shivered as he exited the cinema doors. He pulled on his jacket as he started walking. Atlas glanced at the different shopfronts as he walked through town, enjoying the laughter and giggling screams of kids as they walked hand in hand with their parents, faces lit a warm orange by the grated hearth fires spread across town. He passed by a pizza place when a shot of pain blasted through his head, causing him to stumble as he grabbed at his head with an agonized moan.
Atlas ducked into the nearest alley and fell against a dumpster desperately trying to hold in his screams. Tears began to well up in his eyes as he struggled to stand up against the overwhelming agony. Distracted by the pain in his head, Atlas didn’t notice the footsteps coming up behind him. A vague sense of unease was all he had the time and ability to notice before a fist crashed into his cheek and knocked him to the ground.
Atlas tried to blink through the pain so he could see who hit him. When the face of his aggressor came into focus, Atlas groaned even louder than he had been. “Agghhh… Hello to you too, Jason.”
“Shut it, you little shit!” The broad-shouldered linebacker snarled down at him. “You just had to tell her didn’t you, Driscol?”
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“Uhng… Which is it, Jason? You want me to shut up or answer your question? I can’t really do both now, can I?” Even with as much pain as he felt, Atlas couldn’t keep his mouth shut. That earned him a swift and solid kick to the side. With a yelp, Atlas couldn’t help but curl in a ball in pain.
“Last chance, dweeb. Why’d you tell Lara about my fun, huh? I wasn’t hurting nobody.”
“You keep telling yourself that, Jason. Doesn’t make you any less of a POS for cheating on your girlfriend, even if she is a witch like Lara. Ack!” Atlas cried out again as Jason dropped down on him and threw a fist into his exposed kidney. It hurt so bad Atlas didn’t even notice the pressure in his skull get joined by one in his chest. “Besides, even if she’s a different person here, she was a friend at one point. This balanced that karma as far as I’m concerned,” he forced out through gritted teeth.
Jason let out a surprised laugh before mocking the boy cowering beneath him. “That’s it?! Hope it was worth it, punk because I’m gonna pound you into the ground now.” With those words, he seemed to throw all concerns to the wind and pummeled Atlas relentlessly.
Atlas tried to fight back, but the pain had reached the point of complete debilitation with whatever was beating against his head and chest from the inside actually hurting worse than the fists of the 260-pound jock on top of him. He could feel some paper-thin barrier deep inside growing closer to crack. For some reason he didn’t understand, that scared him worse than what was happening to the outside of his body. He started desperately trying to push the larger man off of him, but his out-of-shape body was no match for the frenzied rage of—
Crack.
At the very thought of the linebacker’s rage, Atlas felt that barrier inside get covered in hairline fractures. Unnoticed, strange red threads connected him to Jason before being swept away by a sudden surge of rage that left the edges of his vision tinted red. That same rage flooded Atlas with strength which he used to throw Jason off and further into the alley.
“Finally grow a spine, eh, twerp? Well, let me show you how a real man fights,” Jason said, standing up and taking a boxing position with both hands up.
Completely swept up in the rage that had possessed his body, Atlas could only bull-rush his bully without a hint of skill or finesse. Even though each hit Atlas managed to land carried the force of five of his usual blows, Jason fought him off with ease, landing haymaker after haymaker as Atlas charged him over and over. It seemed like Atlas was rushing to his own beat down until one of Jason’s fists crashed right into Atlas’s temple.
Crack! The fractures in the barrier expanded into full cracks, and thin threads once again spread out undetected in the fight until they reached whatever destination and turned a light yellow that grew almost toxically bright as it grew closer to Atlas. Though they disappeared completely as soon as the yellow touched Atlas, their work was done.
Atlas began to giggle ominously before it grew into a mad cackle. His movements changed, turning more unpredictable. It threw Jason off his game. His angry smirk slipped into an uncomfortable grimace, and his punches started to falter and miss as he could no longer keep up with Atlas. Whereas before Atlas had been a bull blindly charging, he now acted like a hyena, each strike cruel and unpredictable yet still powered by his previous rage as his cruel cackles filled the alley.
The tables had completely turned, and soon, Jason could no longer keep up. Driven up against a wall, he could only slide to the ground and curl up into a ball not so different from the one he had forced Atlas into only a short time before. Atlas could practically taste the fear coming off the bigger man.
CRASH!
What remained of the cracked barrier inside him, shattered to pieces, and the fear that he had just been tasting of all things came rushing in to fight the rage and insane giddiness inside him. It completely broke the hold the foreign emotions held over him and caused him to drop to the ground as the conflicting emotions seemed to tear up not just his heart and mind but his very soul as well. In a moment of desperation, Atlas tried forcing the emotions out.
For a moment, it seemed to work, but Atlas quickly noticed Jason start to seize on the ground. The shock caused him to lose whatever control he’d held, and the emotions came rushing back, only this time they weren’t alone. Alongside the already maddening concoction that had been inside before, he felt additions of overwhelming sadness, confusion, and several other emotions he couldn’t even identify.
Atlas dropped to the ground and began to shake from the weight of the strange emotional overload running through him. Even if he couldn’t stand the jock recovering next to him, Atlas refused to let him get any more affected by whatever this was. It was all he could do to force his head in Jason’s direction and gasp out “Run!” Jason, barely recovered enough to hear him, could only limply nod before he took off running. Atlas could only let out a weak chuckle at the irony of him letting Jason go from the alley he’d been attacked in before he passed out, and his power took free reign on his body and soul.