Killing Atlas

Atlas walked a few steps ahead of me, his hands buried in the pockets of his jeans and the scruff of stubble returning to his jaw line. He stopped every now and then as we walked, his gaze trailing over the new piece of artwork before turning to me. We’d done this for the past ten paintings, his lips always alluding to say something to me, but his voice never reaching the surface before he moved on.

“There’s something about this one that reminds me of you,” he said finally.

I stopped, pulling my eyes away from the tips of my boots to study whatever it was he referred to. It didn’t look particularly special. Sure, it was a beautiful piece, just as the others had been. The difference was that this one was alight in shades of a roaring inferno. It was a landscape. A forest of spindly trees iced in autumn leaves.

“I guess,” I murmured.

Atlas had taken me to the local museum. An offer I’d been unable to refuse when he’d met me outside my apartment building that morning. It was gratitude, he’d claimed, for allowing him to stay in my car. Despite my initial decline, he hadn’t given up until I realised my only option was to accept and figure out some way to get my job done while we were out.

“This is a pretty neat place,” he continued, tilting his head to the side as he stared longer at the painting. “Don’t you think? It’s… precious, almost.”

Giving him a sideways glance, I noted the fascination he held towards the artwork before him and wondered how much of him was still there. He had amnesia, but it seemed at least some part of him remained behind. He noticed things. Small things. And though he probably didn’t realise, I most certainly did.

It was the first time he had ever told me something about himself, and I’d wondered why, in the weeks before receiving his unmarked letter, that he’d suddenly decided to open up.

At that point, there wasn’t a lot I knew about him. Sure, I knew his height and speed. I knew the length of his palm and fingers, and the scar that stretched from the base of his shoulder blade to the tip of his tail bone. But Atlas had always been a mystery to me. I was sure that was where my initial wariness of him stemmed. I knew nothing of Atlas King, and he didn’t want me to know.

Something changed in the months leading up to Atlas’s unmarked letter. We’d all known it was coming. His twentieth birthday was approaching, which signalled the appointment of his first mark. I didn’t really think much of it, perhaps aside from a fleeting belief that he would smirk at me and gloat that I was still just a runt in training.

But since watching the first movie with me, he’d surprisingly frequented the house more and more often. After weeks of his presence, it wasn’t much of a surprise when he came skulking into my room and started flicking through my movies. I’d learned to ignore him while I studied. Otherwise we would start World War III for the hundredth time and I would never get anything done.

This time was different. I’d gotten used to him watching a movie in silence before retreating to the darkness of whatever rock he lived under. So when he spoke, I didn’t immediately notice. Not until he threw a dirty sock at me.

“What are you doing?” he’d asked.

I didn’t quite know why, but I’d felt the loneliness ebbing from him in waves that could oppose a tsunami. Dark crescents had underlined his blue eyes, his hair seeming even more dishevelled than usual. It was then that I remembered the date. The date I’d always noticed he spent alone and scrunched up into a tiny ball.

I’d hesitated then, unsure what to do considering he didn’t realise I knew the significance of the day, and as my reply came to mind it had become difficult for me to admit. Atlas, who generally never cared for what I did had asked at the worst time and I felt too guilty to refuse. My cheeks reddened and I’d suddenly become self conscious.

“Is that… me?”

My embarrassment was short lived when he realised I was merely practising on the only person available to me. I’d been certain he would tease me in some way or another the way he normally did, but instead he simply smiled, and told me it looked good. To say I’d almost died of shock was an understatement. But he’d continued on to say there was nothing else in the world he could appreciate more than the beauty of art.

That was the first piece of Atlas’s puzzle that he’d given me.

“I’ve been here before,” John said, still staring at the painting. “Actually I think I come here a lot.”

I tensed. “You remember?”

John’s gaze flitted to me momentarily. “This place was precious to me,” he answered. “I’m not sure why.”

He wasn’t wrong. Atlas had admitted he visited often, which baffled me to no end. If he’d told me he frequented the local strip club, I might have believed him a little easier. But that night was different. He didn’t seem able to hold back, or perhaps he didn’t want to. It had almost felt like he had wanted me to know, though that was a ridiculous thought in itself.

I suspected he was ridiculing me. Which was exactly what I told him.

“My mother told me the most beautiful memories are locked in precious places,” he’d answered.

It was the first time he’d spoken of his family to me since I’d asked him about their death, which baffled me even more. But his words seemed to reach inside of me, nevertheless, and I had started listening intently. He explained his father had been an artist, before that, his grandfather had been a sculptor, both of whom had proposed in that very museum.

He said that one day he would take his own special person to see it.

He didn’t even realise he’d spoiled his own promise.

“Are you ready to go?”

I suppressed the urge to tell him I was seconds away from jumping out the window and falling to my death. I’d never been so bored in my life.

“Yes,” I said instead, following behind him as he headed to the elevators at the back of the building.

We’d spent four hours perusing through the art gallery, and in that time I’d worked out my next approach. If I wasn’t so relieved by the fact, I probably would have strangled him long ago.

“I just need to use the bathroom,” I said once he’d stepped onto the first elevator. “I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

I could see the confusion in his eyes at my particular timing, but he nodded anyway and I scurried off towards the bathroom, my ears pricked for the telltale noise. Leaning against the bench top, I waited, meeting my own gaze in the mirror as though it could tell me how much longer it would be.

The building shook violently as the sound of an explosion reverberated through the walls. Screams rang into the air like shrill sirens. I’d been careful, ensuring he had been the only passenger on the elevator, but I wasn’t certain on the damage caused on the first floor. I wasn’t sure if anyone had been close enough to get hurt.

In any case, my job was finally done.

The gaze on my reflection faltered at the thought. For a moment I actually thought I saw a flicker of regret. My fingers pressed into the bench.

No.

My job was done. My target had been eliminated. And I would move to my next hit tomorrow.

I do not feel regret.