I am Atlas — Atlas von Roxweld. The full name felt strangely heavy in my mouth, like an old coin I'd unearthed after years of walking with bare feet. For a second, walking the frozen plain, I forgot the middle and last name; memory thinned the longer I stayed in Hell.
Maybe names fray here. Maybe people fray. I only remembered my surname when Lara's name, bright and stubborn, flickered into view beside it. That small reconnection made me laugh, a short sound swallowed by the wind.
How long had it been? Months, or a single bruise of months that the fourth layer could stretch into years if it pleased. Time here wore different clothes — dilation, contraction, a loop tucked inside a loop.
The first entry into the Fourth Layer felt like a lifetime ago, like a story told in another man's voice. The roads we'd taken were stranger than I could have imagined.
We'd crawled through geometry and memory, through the torn banter of gods and the silence after the scream of a dying prophecy.
