Finally standing up and recovering from the hit, Atlas just took against a tree, he decided to look around to see where exactly he was. He knew that he flew several kilometers from the initial point, and now needed to get back down. He did not have much food left and had no water left as well. Now in retrospect, things were not going that well.

Atlas initially hoped that maybe when they hit land, the best would come off and Atlas would just fly back in on it. Now it all crashed down. Quite literally, as Atlas would tell himself.

He needed a new plan. A plan good enough to survive the way back.

Looking around, it was mostly forest with blue types of evergreens.

“Everblues then?” Atlas tried to stay positive “I need to get down.

While flying on the island, Atlas made a mind map of the place. The initial point with the portal, is a variety forest which on one side was ending with a cliff. Cliff was a few kilometers high and down there was another forest. On the other side, there was another, smaller cliff with the forest. This is where Atlas was right now. Looking around, he knew he needed to get down and walk through the vast forest under.

Since the floating island crashed into the cliff and forest, Atlas needed to go around the crashed island and somehow get down. With little food and no water, he really needed to get there as fast as possible.

“I wish I had more water, the damn cat had to drink it all, didn't it?” Atlas whined, now thinking about the beast who was with him all the time, during the flight.

Without further thinking, Atlas headed east, at least what he thought was east.

The walk through the forest was quite calm, without anything really happening. Atlas even started to get bored a bit. Without the constant presence of a beast and no one to fight, this felt like an easy walk. He, however, knew that even though he was not fighting against any beast now, he was fighting against the time. He needed to get there as fast as possible. And he shouldn't rest easy, since at any moment, he could be attacked.

Overall, Atlas felt rather precautious.

“I am pretty sure that I am at least twice as fast as the island, so theoretically, it should take me twice as less time to get back, right?” Atlas tried to approximate the walk back. “Now thinking, it was probably much safer on the island, rather than here, in an unknown forest.”

This walk gave Atlas enough time to think about different stuff, yet the one thing he was thinking non stop, was his new power. Kinda power. The black lightning he produced before. He was not sure whether he could call it a proper ability, since the most he could do, is to create lightning. Was one skill really enough to be counted as an ability.

“At least it is stronger than the spark of that guy, who beat the crap out of Bond. I wonder what Bond is doing. And what is that guy doing as well.” a shiver was sent down Atlas’s spine. He suddenly remembered that a certain individual might be quite angry at Atlas.

Yet for some reason, he was not really scared or terrified, as he thought he would be. Was that because he was much stronger now, compared to himself two weeks ago? Was it because he had new abilities now? Or… was it because he has seen, endured much harder times, here on planet zero?

It did not take long ‘till Atlas reached the cliff. Time was indeed going faster, when he was occupying his mind with something.

Coming close to the cliff, Atlas looked down. About several kilometers down.

“And how do I get down?” he thought to himself. His main priority was to get down and head towards the previous cliff.

This was the first real obstacle for him. Being in this place for quite long, Atlas almost forgot how unusual it was, to have cliffs for several kilometers up. He looked around to see if there was something he could do or use to get down. He had a rope, but it was nowhere near the required length. He could theoretically climb down, yet the idea of slipping and falling down was not pleasuring him.

The first idea that came to his mind was to go towards the crashed floating island. It should be somewhere close to the edge of the cliff, somewhere to his right.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It was easy to find.

Now Atlas had a good view on what happened to the island. The smaller part was destroyed and was lying in the forest as a debris of stone and dirt. The other part, to Atlas' surprise, was still there. Well, almost there. As if it lost some to its flying power, it was slowly sinking down. That is exactly what Atlas needed exaclty. He could use it as an elevator to get down. Now he just needed to think of how to get to the sinking part, as it had already sunk down for the distance of like 5 story building height.

Looking at the destroyed part of the island, which was still here, he took a rock lying nearby.

Atlas thought process was quite simple. If the whole island was floating, then its separate parts should also be. Maybe he can use the rock as a parachute. The sentence Atlas never ever thought he would say.

But first, he needed to test his hypothesis. He came close to the edge and threw the rock down. He was hoping it would fall very slowly.

“Ehhh, I think it is going a bit slower than a normal rock would.” Atlas said and closed his eyes.

After a moment of silence and enjoyment of nature, he cried.

“Obviously it would not work! If it would, I would feel the weight of the rock when I lifted it!”

He was slowly realizing how hard it was to keep a positive mentality now.

The longer he was not doing anything, the lower the island part was sinking.

“Maybe if I jump, and at the very end use the lighting, I am going to negate the fall damage?”

Atlas said smiling. He looked as if he was at the verge of breaking

“This is not a freakin’ video game, no freakin’ double jumps exist!” he said and exhaled “Okay, I need to calm down and think properly”

He looked around trying to seize the situation he was in.

“I guess the best option is to climb down.” Atlas said, looking down.

Since it was a cliff, there were enough places he could grab.

And thus, he started his descent.

“Careful Atlas, concentrate” he kept telling himself.

To be honest, he did not really think he would die falling that height, towards the island. The 5 story building was not that high, and he would not reach the terminal velocity. The explosion he created probably sent him flying faster and he hit the tree and was mostly unharmed. Probably. So he was carefully climbing down.

“Now I need to put my leg here and use my right hand to grab the…” He tried to say every move he did, to help him concentrate, yet he failed to measure the distance to the rock he wanted to put his leg to. He underestimated how hard it would be to descend, when you cannot properly see where one should grab.

Falling. He was falling. Now the only thing he needed to think about was how to land. Does he need to fall on his legs or on his whole body to reduce the hit. That was when he remembered the moment he jumped from the island. He gathered the energy in his legs in order to jump longer. Maybe this would work on landing. Gathering the energy in his legs, and primarily in his toes he took the hit of the fall. Landing on his feet he immediately felt the insane pain on the surface of his toes. Yet no other place was hurting.

After the land, he rolled and thus reduced any kinetic energy left. He was used to jumping from some heights, since he used to climb all the different buildings in his town.

Standing up, he really did not feel anything broken in his body. Not like he could tell really.

He now was on the sinking island, going down towards the large forest. Lying down, he relaxed and closed his eyes to rest a bit.

His rest was not long, since after a while, he felt a massive shake and instantly knew the island made contact with the ground.

Jumping off the island he was now on the ground. The real ground. He really did not think there could be any lower than this. Other than caves maybe.

Now, he just needed to go forward, to eventually meet the cliff on which the portal back was.

And when he looked forward, he saw something very unexpected.

“Is that? No way it is, right? he was coming closer to the object of interest.

“There is no way that could be…” Atlas started to doubt his vision or even sanity.

Now he was very close to the object. Looking at it, walking around it, he was analyzing.

“It is definitely what I think it is, is it not?” He was saying.

Putting his hand in front, he touched the object. Nothing happened. He felt the cold feel of the stone.

“What in the world is it doing here?”

Right now, Atlas was looking at a very old water well.

“Are there, humans… here?” He said, looking at a well certainly made by someone more advanced than any beast here.

“What is this place?” the more time he spent here, the more he understood how little he knew about this place.