"What is this? Dude, I'm going to lose my shit."

Atlas woke up to shouts and a cold splatter of wet goo on his face. No, that wasn't really true. He had been awake for what felt like hours.

An occasional doze would drift him away. The world he hadn't bothered opening his eyes for would grow distant, like his body wasn't really lying on soft tissues that formed to his shape like memory foam, like he couldn't hear the nearby sound of sleeping people, like he couldn't hear the metronomic patter of rusty iron paws across a hide drum, like he couldn't smell something faintly salty and sour in the air.

"You're supposed to be the calm one."

He rolled over, suppressing a groan. He was completely drained. His chest dully ached when he rubbed crust from his eyes.

"That doesn't matter! What is this? It's disgusting!"

Another droplet of something wet landed on his forehead. He smeared it off with the back of his hand. "Shut up," he grumbled, finally sitting up. It was like the blood decided then to drain from his head. His vision went black and he could feel something cold rush through his skin all the way down to his finger tips. Pain bloomed further into his ribs and he winced. He pressed stiff fingers to his chest, rubbing the ache softly, and finally got his eyes opened.

His mind paused when he saw his arms. Dark bruises peeked out from his rolled sleeves, and when he pulled them back, he saw them spiral up to his shoulders. Those were from the chains, his brain told him. But he was tired. So he just stared at them.

It seemed no one had heard him, as Dizzee and Grayson continued to bicker about something.

"Hey, Atlas!"

The snapping of fingers shortly after had him startled, once more rubbing his face. "What?"

"You going to tell us what this is now that you finally get up?"

"What?" He finally looked up now.

Atlas wasn't surprised in the least when he looked up and saw himself in some kind of cell with porous flesh beneath him and black jail bars that looked oddly like a strand of hair beneath a microscope.

In front and behind him the flesh sloped upward into a half-cylinder that served as the ceiling. A dark tunnel led further down to the left where he heard the thump of metal paw steps, and when he craned his head to the right, he could see the face's lower landscape stretching out in front of him, ridged like a valley in the Appalachian mountains. They were illuminated by the gentle gray light of the movie film sky.

He was trapped inside another body part.

Wonderful.

He sighed. Did that mean the stuff Dizzee had accidentally flicked into his face was some strange magical snot?

Atlas didn't even have the energy to grimace at the thought. "Just don't question it," he responded. The words only made his chest ache more as he spoke them.

Was Chaos' world not healing them anymore? Once more he pressed his fingers to his ribs only to feel the deep ache persist. Actually, he felt rather hungry then, too. His stomach felt hollow, like he hadn't eaten all day. Which was close enough to the truth.

"Don't question it? Really? Come on, look at where we are! There's nothing to do but question it!"

He laid back down with a wince, hand still pressed to his chest.

A long silence panned out then. He closed his eyes, hoping that meant the topic was dropped. Spoiler, it wasn't.

"You okay?"

He shook his head, and said nothing.

Dizzee sat down, crossing long legs beneath him. Atlas could feel his presence close, and knew he had walked over, but the slight warmth and pressure only made unwanted feelings rise up and he didn't want to deal with them.

"We were real close to getting you out, weren't we?" Dizzee said. Grayson hummed in agreement from the same distance away as before.

Atlas placed a hand over his eyes. "Yeah," he said quietly.

"And now we're in nose jail."

"And now we're in nose jail," he repeated. Something about the absurdity made a tired smile appear on his face. If he ever got out, he'd have so many stories to tell. He could almost imagine Leia's scrunched face and his father's nervous laugh as they sat around the outside picnic tables at Asheville Pizza years after everything concluded, the interviews, the standing back as an investigative agency took the ropes from him, all of it.

He was glad he covered his face, because heat rose in his cheeks and eyes at the visualization, because he knew that wouldn't ever happen.

"I'm sorry," Atlas said.

"For what?"

He thought about it for a moment. These guys probably didn't care, did they? They put themselves into danger for other people all of the time. They probably wanted him to get out. That's why he wasn't a firefighter, that's for sure. He wasn't that selfless. But he decided to say it anyway. "For not helping you."

"When were you supposed to be helping us?"

"Nevermind."

"Well, we have all the time to figure it out now. There's no going anywhere for us!" Dizzee said.

"You're not wrong," Grayson agreed.

Atlas shook his head and rolled onto his side. He wasn't in the mood to be cheered up. "We don't, though."

"What you mean?"

His stomach knotted at the thought of saying it out loud. Why did speaking give a certain amount of actuality? Why did saying it out loud seem to only make it worse?

"If you don't speak, we can't help you," Grayson said matter of factly, his voice deep.

"Yeah." Atlas forced himself to sit back up, rubbing his face once more, mostly to hide the redness and moisture in his eyes. His hands shook. Eventually, he had the mind to show his face. He didn't look at the two firemen, choosing to look left out at the mountainous ridges of the lower face where the movie films lit up with stories Atlas had never seen before.

"I guess, well, I had a 'friend' tell me that the longer we stay here, the stronger the curse gets."

"Curse?"

Now, the films weren't showing his past, he noticed immediately. As he watched, he saw himself standing before a gravestone, still at the same age, dressed in a suit beside his father. Just like the cinematic art of a movie, the camera zoomed in, highlighting the engraved name of Grandma Georgie.

Chaos was having fun again, wasn't he?

Atlas didn't have the energy to grind his teeth. "The stronger it gets, the more it'll follow us when we leave. The longer we stay in this realm, the worse our lives will be when we get out. Chaos was cursed to have the worst life in a realm of solitude and absolute power—I don't know who cursed him, but that's why we're here, and it'll follow us out when we leave."

He could feel their eyes dig into him as he spoke. The film's movie changed again, but the moment he saw the sprung tents of a homeless camp he turned away. Dizzee met his gaze with the first look of nervousness that he'd seen. He must've seen the stories in the sky as well, of what their future would look like if they left. He must've joined it all together then.

"You're telling me crazy stuff, man."

"I know."

They lapsed into silence from there. The drumming beats of metal paws on skin sounded in the distance still, like the rusted hounds were pacing somewhere in the back of the tunnel. Atlas wished it would stop, because the heartbeat sound only made the mood more intense.

He wished he knew how long they'd been there. He wished he knew why they were even allowed into this world, if it was supposed to be a world of solitude. There were so many questions he still had and he wouldn't be at ease until he knew, for sure, that his life was doomed if he ever made it out alive. Was it too late already? Did it only take one day back on Earth for the curse to take root in them?

When August first told him, it drove him forward to finally make decisions, but after everything, now it seemed rather futile to even try, not with his mother being turned into a crazed, leather wearing hunter with a fleet of iron dogs who listened to her every command.

Why was it impossible to say anything about this world in absolute seriousness? It was ridiculous. All of it.

"So... we could ask that guy," Dizzee said suddenly, his voice quivering with a fake confidence. "Maybe he'll have some juicy info."

For yet another time, Atlas looked up in confusion at what the man said. He had to search for a while before he noticed what the rescue worker saw. Another tunnel split off parallel to them, separated from theirs by what was probably the nasal septum, that wiggly flesh splitting one's nose. There, more cells lined up, barred with magnified nose hair, although Atlas could only see a tiny section of one of them.

A familiar man stepped into view, bald head and work polo and all.

What a way to find his manager. Atlas stared speechless at him. Was this another way of Chaos "helping" him? By presenting him an almost solution, an almost win? Just like before?

Somehow, he was too wary to be excited to see Arrone.

"Well, I'm afraid I don't know a whole lot about what's going on." Arrone's voice echoed through the nose dungeon, loud and clear enough to make Atlas worry he'd attract the guard dogs, or worse, Cerberus. "But it's nice to see you again, Atlas."

"Of course you know him," Dizzee muttered. "That doesn't surprise at all."

Why did this reunion feel nothing but foreboding? He found his manager. That had been his goal since he drowned in the Eye. He mustered a fake smile.

"It's nice to see you too."