His mind shifted into that state of absolute focus he'd noticed in himself since waking on Odyssey, without ever willing it consciously. His peripheral vision narrowed, the edges of the room dimming to a blur while the beast in front of him sharpened into something almost unbearably crisp. His muscles coiled, ready to spring.
He dropped into a fighting stance, applying what he'd learned: back slightly hunched, center of gravity low, legs spaced a few inches apart, hands raised.
What the fuck is that thing... I'll never beat it barehanded, he realized as the beast began to slowly approach.
He had never seen anything like it.
Dogs weren't supposed to be this big. Weren't they supposed to be cute? he thought with biting irony, watching the bone plates shift under its skin as it advanced, the grayish flesh stretching taut over each protrusion like something trying to claw its way out from the inside. Thick saliva dripped from its unhinged jaw, hissing faintly where it struck the cold stone.
Something in his chest pulled tight, a current he didn't bother naming. His hands didn't shake. His breathing didn't change. But somewhere under the stillness, his body already knew exactly how badly this could go.
Atlas scanned the room, searching for anything that could tip the scale in his favor. Brute force was off the table. That much was obvious before the creature had even finished closing half the distance between them.
His gaze slid past the monster, landing on the spot it had emerged from. The heavy iron portcullis still hung raised, the tunnel behind it black and silent. Running for it wasn't an option, some instinct told him that turning his back here would cost him far more than the dog's fangs ever could.
But with the grate held high, the thick chains hoisting it hung slack in the air, pooling slightly against the wall, offering just enough give to work with.
He'd never built a plan with the intent to kill before. He wasn't sure of this one either. But the cellars of this place had already taught him enough about what got a man through the day, and what didn't, that hesitating wasn't on the list of options left to him.
The element of surprise remained his best weapon, especially against something that already sounded like it was choking on its own breath, each exhale dragging out in a wet, ragged rattle.
He launched off his battered legs, biting down against the pain screaming up the back of his knee. He hugged the wall as he sprinted, his bare feet slapping against stone slick with old grime, cutting toward the chains hanging behind the beast, putting everything he had into reaching them before it understood what he was doing.
Reality, as always, declined to cooperate with the plan.
The dog's deformed muscles coiled and released with a speed that made no sense for something that size, and it was already airborne by the time Atlas's mind caught up to what his eyes had seen.
He dove. No thought in it, just the dive. He hit the freezing concrete hard, shoulder and spine slamming flat, the impact driving the breath clean out of him, and a wet snap cracked the air right above his skull. The jaws had closed on nothing, missing him by less than a hand's width, close enough that he felt the displaced air brush his cheek.
His pulse spiked hard enough that for a second the room blurred at the edges. He didn't let it cost him anything. The dive had thrown him in the right direction anyway, toward the back of the hall, and he used the momentum before his body had finished registering how close that had been.
He scrambled up, ignoring the white-hot line of pain across his back. The creature had already landed, pivoting heavy and furious, claws gouging fresh white scars into the stone, clearly done playing with its food. Atlas ran. The thing was a fraction of a second slow to follow, something in its bulk or its ruined senses dragging just enough behind its rage.
That fraction was everything. He reached the heavy steel chain and grabbed it with both hands, the rusted links biting cold into his palms, flaking rust onto his already torn skin. Behind him, claws scraped stone in a frantic, heavy gallop, closing fast. He had to get the loop up before it reached him.
The beast lunged a second time, jaw splitting wide for his throat, close enough now that he could smell the rot on its breath.
Now.
He used its own momentum, twisting out of the strike's path at the last possible instant and hauling the chain up into a loop with everything his off-balance body had left. Metal met flesh in a single brutal crash as the creature's skull plunged straight into the trap. Atlas crossed his arms and pulled, closing the loop around its neck, the chain biting into the meat of his palms.
The impact nearly tore him off his feet. The beast bucked, a wet, gurgling howl ripping out of it, its massive paws hammering the flagstones hard enough to send chips of stone skittering across the floor, and Atlas held on, his arms screaming, the chain already slick with blood from his own torn knuckles. Each violent jerk threatened to take his shoulders out of their sockets.
He was going to lose his grip. He didn't have the strength left to win this with his arms alone.
It has to die. It has to stop breathing.
There was nothing else in his skull at that point. No pain, no calculation, just that one fact sitting there, absolute. Something shifted, somewhere behind his own eyes. His irises bled from azure into something paler, colder, a sky-blue so pale it barely looked like a color at all.
The air around them changed first. Inside the creature's lungs, it compressed, hard, violent, carved out from the inside by nothing he could see.
A wet, muffled hiss tore out of the beast. It froze mid-thrash, its yellow eyes bulging, its ribcage caving in on itself with a sound that turned Atlas's stomach even through the haze. Dark blood spilled from its jaws, pooling black under the dim light. It dropped, dead weight, onto the concrete, the impact echoing once through the empty hall before the silence swallowed it whole.
Atlas's knees gave out almost in the same instant. He hit the floor on his back, arms and legs spread, every nerve in his body lit with the dull aftershock of pain that told him, at least, that he was still in it. The ceiling above him swam in and out of focus. A faint smile pulled at his mouth before he could stop it, the kind his jailers would never have believed him capable of, even if it wasn't quite the smile they'd have expected from him.
I did it. I don't even know how, but I did it.
He'd felt that last pulse leave him like something answering a call he hadn't fully spoken, but he was too drained to chase the thought any further right now.
The heavy lock on the door clicked, sharp and sudden, and the panel swung open.
No applause. No words. Just the weight of a silence that felt like it was already grading him.
Atlas didn't have the strength to turn his head, but the measured click of expensive shoes against the wet concrete told him exactly who'd walked in. The footsteps stopped a few inches from him, close enough that he caught the faint, clean scent of something that didn't belong anywhere near this room.
He forced his eyes open. Isaac stood over him, his crimson suit untouched by the slaughter around them, not a single drop of blood or grime daring to cling to that fabric, looking at the dog's corpse with something close to boredom. He nudged the bloodied chain with the tip of his polished shoe, the leather gleaming even under the weak light.
"Interesting," he said, his voice cold. "You just destroyed a specimen that cost me a small fortune."
His gaze dropped to Atlas, assessing him the way a man might assess the return on an investment.
"I suppose you've also just proven the value of mine."
Isaac reached into his jacket and produced a small, matte-black capsule. He let it drop without ceremony. It bounced once on the stone before rolling to a stop by Atlas's nose.
"Swallow that. It's a neuro-stimulant. It's going to burn going down, and you'll want to bring up everything in your stomach tonight. But it'll force your tissue to close. You'll hold up tomorrow. I don't have time for convalescence."
He turned to leave, pausing at the threshold to straighten his jacket button without looking back.
"Don't disappoint me in the Rohar tomorrow. I have plans for you. Anomaly."
The door slammed shut, swallowing the room back into gloom. Atlas closed his eyes, breath shallow, staring at nothing in particular.
It was the first time anyone here had called him anything other than a dog.