Finding Atlas

"Why me?" I asked him once we hit the main road.

"What do you mean?" he replied, only turning away from the wheel a second.

"I mean, why are you even bothering to show me the truth? You don't know me, I don't know you. So why me?"

"Someone might as well know, I'm not all too keen on everyone thinking my mom's some broken woman." I fell silent at that.

After five minutes, the lack of conversation began to chip away at me, and my idle hands were searching for something to touch, explore, when they found the numerous CDs cluttered on the dashboard. As they fell from my hands to my lap, I mumbled to myself.

"The Strokes, Muse, Radiohead, The Smiths, Sufjan Stevens and... Debussy? This is the most interesting smorgasbord of music I have ever come across," I muttered.

"Sorry?" Atlas turns to me.

"Oh, nothing!" I shook my head and looked up to see a grand house. "Wow," escaped from under my breath as I took in the rustic beauty of the house. It still had its old charm, but it was as if someone added some idyllic touches to it. After walking up a few steps, Atlas opened the door for me before walking in himself. I heard something creak to my left, as well as what I thought to be whispers and groans, but thought nothing of it. While the renovators did a beautiful job on the outside of the house, they certainly didn't stop there. As I marveled wondrously at the grand staircase and the regal chandelier, the gleaming marble floors and the flawlessly carved ceiling, Atlas had walked into another room. I followed him into what I presumed was the living room when I noticed that he had dropped his backpack, his books, his binder on the ground and had frozen.

"Atlas?" I called. "Are you okay? What's going on?" Forgetting the moments that followed would be like forgetting Atlas altogether. Atlas stood, frozen, facing his mother and a man who both shared horrified expressions. As the gears finally turned in my head, my jaw dropped once realization had set in. Atlas mom had fear etched into her features and a blanket covering her body. The man she was with, who I assumed was not Atlas's father, looked grim with the blanket only covering the lower half of his body.

"Atlas," I said slowly as he begun to shake. I noticed his breathing started to change, become shallower. He bolted out of the room and slammed the front door shut behind him as his mom shrieked, "Atlas! I can explain!" I looked at her with a horrified expression before following Atlas. Although I hadn't followed him too long after, Atlas was nowhere in sight, so I headed for the only possible place he could have run to: the woods.