Steady Ground | ✔

11 | We need to call 911

(I decided against the original Ashe POV in the original Chapter 8, so pretend like you haven't seen an Ashe POV yet!)

~

Atlas tried not to fidget when he followed the ghost of his mother out of eyesight. Vaulted ceilings and crystal-laden chandeliers turned into potted bonsai and dead flowers, tile into concrete and sand, and vases into statues of glass and rusted iron.

Soon he found himself standing in a large potting shed with light pooling at his feet. Rectangular windows lined the walls, and the whole room smelled like sand and wine... and sandalwood.

He could no longer hear August or his grandfather. It was just them.

"What's going on, hon?"

And that was intimidating.

Atlas took a stabilizing breath. Initiative. He needed to take initiative. Even if it still hurt to look down into his mother's hazel eyes.

There was a small bench beside a glass door that seemed to lead outside. He moved the rake and brusher leaning against it to make room for his mom. She gave him a quizzical look before they sat down together, side by side again.

"There's a lot going on, really," he started, clasping his hands together and looking down by his feet, "And you always liked me being straightforward with you when I had a problem."

She gave a confirming hum, one so similar to his father's. Atlas had almost forgotten where his father got it from.

"But I don't know if being straightforward will work here."

"Is it about that photobook?"

His mother's question caught him off guard. Atlas looked at her with wide eyes. "Yeah."

She twisted on the bench until their knees touched, placing a hand on his thigh. He swallowed when he looked down at her. She looked sad, with her eyebrows drawn and a small smile on her lips. "Hon, just ignore all that," she said, her voice soft. "What happens when you fill it won't be worth the hardships you'll go through."

Atlas slid his gaze to her hand. The warmth there felt wrong, and yet warm enough that he could almost be convinced that it was nice.

He drew a long, stabilizing breath and the overpowering sandalwood aura flooded in. That same fuzzy feeling was pumped through his veins as the moment he touched the oil slick back in Alaska. But this time, he wouldn't fall for it. He'd be his own pin through the balloon. He forced it out in a powerful breath and stood up, his mother's hand dropping back to her lap.

"It is worth it," he said quietly. "I need your help finding my memories before they disappear."

"But that means I'll disappear. Are you saying that's worth it?" His mother stood up with him, stepping in abnormally close. Her voice tapered off to a cracked whisper and she touched a hand against his cheek.

Atlas had no choice but to look at her and the raw, real emotion in her eyes.

"Are you saying you'd rather me be dead?" 

~

Something was wrong. That feeling grew and grew as Ashe waited for her coworkers to return.

She rubbed at her arms. Noon sunlight couldn't make up for the chill of sitting cross-legged in the snow, even on a warmer 40 degree Fahrenheit day. Yet she stayed seated before the strange crevice tunnel, the desire to wander about inside it far too strong for her to get any work done anyway.