1A: Atlas


It was late when He came in. I didn't know how much longer I should wait, and just when I thought about calling it a night, He stepped through the wall.

Yes. The wall.

The back wall of my apartment had become something of a curiosity. I would blink and it would be there - a regular old wall with an ugly coat of paint, dotted with Post-It notes and that perfect circle of photographs that caught his eye. Strands of string were drawn between it all to try and make some sense of it. It was only mildly helpful.

Then, I would blink again, and the wall was something else entirely. It was fluid; translucent; and revealed a world beyond separated from our own by some sort of thin, permeable membrane. In that world beyond, my maddened thoughts were translated into something that simultaneously made less sense but was more tangible. Photographs became doors, and behind each of those lay answers to questions I didn't even realise had been asked. But they had.

See, I never even understood what The Fall has meant. I never understood how he had predicted it. "The only person who can beat ALIAS is ALIAS." From His lips to our ears.


That barrier fell once more, and He travelled to that other world again, seemingly having only passed through to begin with so that he could catch my attention. So that I could document it for him. He opened the door to where Corey Smith's picture had been. In the antrum behind, I saw the High Lord upon his throne atop his dark tower and I saw the bodies laid to waste before him. Around the Lord's temples, the skin was stained red from the thorns of his crown. 'Heavy is the head,' I mused.

He saw the High Lord too; His Otherworldly shadow. And… He smiled.

This was not His typical, crooked smile. The grin was as far removed from one that would eat shit as I could imagine.

No.

For the first time since I fell into His orbit, I saw a smile that wasn't painted over a scar.

He was happy.

Actually fucking happy.

Staring through the door to where the High Lord sat, I watched as this patient slipped the black glove from His right hand. Underneath, it should have been mangled and scarred. He burned it to a crisp Himself over two years ago.

Today there was no burn.

His skin was perfect. Free from even a freckle.

I sat forward in my chair, trying to process what I was seeing.

The patient was… cured.

Beaming as He was, the gunslinger flicked the glove through the door. A foul wind atop that tower caught the glove and whipped it towards the High Lord. It wrapped itself around the High Lord's face before slowly and reluctantly giving up its quest to hold on, and it let itself fall. The wind tried to take it once more, but all it could muster was mixing it in amongst the carcasses of yesteryear at the foot of the throne.

The High Lord's face was freed.

And I saw his eyes close.

Whistling a merry tune, ALIAS shut the door and crossed the threshold back to this world. I could do nothing but marvel at Space Jesus's hand. It was healed. It was… a miracle.

He straightened His back and His shoulders shifted. This was the first time that anybody had ever gone toe-to-toe with Him, one-on-one, and put His shoulders to the ground. Corey Smith was the first; Corey Smith was the only.


And it was like a monkey had been taken from His back; a world from His shoulders. His whole weight shifted.

He seemed glad He had lost.

I struggled to comprehend.

He did His best to explain it.

"Now that's over with, I'm not bound by the past."

I wasn't sure that I was following His logic. Still, He persisted, taking time to appreciate the change to His hand, just as I stared at it in awe.

And He just kept smiling.

"Now I am cleansed."

…

We sat in silence for a moment. I didn't know what to say.

Eventually, His eyes drifted back to that wall.

"I'm free, my friend. Now I can close the other doors."

With that, I thought that maybe I was starting to understand. But I've been wrong about a lot of things before.

The wall was just a wall again. No metaphysical doors, just the rantings of a madman. Mine.

ALIAS picked another photograph of the wall.

"Next."