Staring at the cube in Blake's hand, the right side of the cube was rotated slightly. Atlas could see the slightest groove in the cube. The only thing was that the grooves were seamless and flushed with each other beforehand and didn't look like something that could be rotated.
"Great, Blake. You broke it." Allison said face-palming herself.
"Wha- Did not!" Blake replied taken aback by the sudden assumption and quickly handed the cube back to Atlas.
"Dude, I swear it wasn't on purpose," Blake added. Atlas stared at the slightly rotated side with a trembling hand.
Blake was worried that he actually might have broken something when Atlas didn't respond to him causing Blake to audibly gulp loudly.
"Atlas...I," Blake started but didn't continue when he heard Atlas let out a crescendo laugh. Blake's head started to sweat and he looked at Allison in his peripheral with his lips in a line and eyes wide. He looked panicked and was asking Allison for help with his eyes to which Allison just looked in a different direction staring at a poster on Blake's wall.
"Blake," Atlas broke the silence as he continued staring at the cube.
"Y-yeah?" Blake responded looking at Atlas stiff as a board slightly shaking from what his friend will say.
"You're a freaking genius!" Atlas said and twisted the right side of the cube fully. The cube continued to click as it rotated and made a sound like something slotted perfectly once it was back to being seamless like before.
"Huh?" Blake was glad and surprised at the same time that Atlas wasn't angry and relaxed. It didn't seem to be broken like Allison made him think and he wiped the sweat from his forward letting out a breath.
"It's not broken?" Allison asked tilting her head
Atlas shook his head and smiled "I think it's a puzzle."
"Sooo, it is a Rubik's cube?" Allison questioned looking at Atlas who nodded back at Allison.
Atlas confirmed nodding his head.
"And I think I know how to unlock it." Atlas continued as he looked between his two friends with a smile.
"Blake lock your door. We don't want your mom suddenly walking in."
Blake gets up and does what Atlas asked and sat back down next to him. Expectingly waiting along with Allison.
Atlas crosses his legs and holds the cube between the palm of his hands and lets out a breath.
"Guys," Atlas begins "No matter what happens. Do not speak a word of it to your parents. This is our secret." Atlas looks between his friends seriously. Both Allison and Blake gulped because they don't think they ever seen Atlas look so serious before.
"Okay." Allison responds
"Got it." Blake nods his head
Once Atlas got their verbal confirmation, he closes his eyes and the black flame with a white glow pulsating in the center came into view in a colored wireframe environment. Each time the flame pulsed the deeper in a trance he found himself getting to once again.
Soon everything around him started to disappear. First it was the room he was in, then the wireframe figure of his friends, and finally his sense of sound.
Atlas's full focus was on the black flame. As he stared, something bizarre started to happen. The colors changed rapidly from a dark red to orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Almost as if the color wheel was spinning through each color. Soon it coalesced and appeared like a multi colored jewel. It was a mesmerizing sight to see as all this happened between Atlas's hands.
Finally, a big flash of white light emitted from the flame nearly blinding Atlas causing him to turn his head. Eventually, the black flame gradually faded away to nearly black. When Atlas looked closer, the color was now a very dark black. If it wasn't for the white glow he would have thought the flame disappeared.
Throughout the process of the colors changing and settling on the black color the connection between Atlas and the flame went from 10% to 95%. It was a surreal and refreshing feeling. Like waking up from a well needed nap after a long day, or a session of yoga and meditation.
As all this was happening, Blake and Allison witnessed something unbelievable from their perspective.
All they saw at first was Atlas holding the black cube between his hands. His medium length dreads started to float up as if he was underwater.
"Allison, you seeing this?" Blake asked Allison amazed by what he was seeing.
"Wha...I...yeah? " Allison couldn't even get a word out from how shocked she was. Was what she was seeing even real or was it just some weird dream? What in the world was happening right now.
From that point, Atlas's hands moved a bit apart but the cube didn't fall from his hands. It stayed levitating and rotating as if attached by an invisible string. The sounds of mechanical clicks echoing through the air.
"Woah, this is—ow!" Blake was interrupted when he tried to reach his hand out and touch the floating cube. However, a force field of sorts zapped his hand from even making contact.
As soon as Blake got zapped the different parts of the cube started twisting and rotating like something solving itself. Each part that seemed to be "solved" will fall to the floor slowly revealing the colors that were inside of it. The same colors of the flame changing that Atlas himself witnessed.
Once all the pieces of the cube were on the ground, the only thing left behind was the dark black flame flickering about. A small pulse wave spread through Blake's room with the force of a large wave from the beach knocking both Allison and Blake a bit away from Atlas surprising them both.
Blake's back ended up hitting his room wall with a slight thud causing an 'oof' sound to escape his mouth while Allison slid on the floor a couple of feet.
"What's going on up there!" Came the voice of Blake's mother from down the stairs.
Blake coughed a couple of times before yelling back "No-Nothing Mom! Just playing around!"
"You better not be play fighting!" Blake's mom yelled again as the sound of footsteps can be heard coming up the steps.
"No Mom! Allison just threw something at me and missed!" Blake yelled causing the footsteps to stop in the middle of the steps before descending again. Blake released a sigh and looked at Allison whose hair was slightly disheveled and the glasses on her face crooked a bit.
"You okay?" Blake asked Allison who was getting back up from the sudden pulse wave from Atlas. Allison only nodded her head in response and fixed her crooked glasses as they both turned their attention back to Atlas.
Atlas's eyes opened behind his sunglasses and saw that the pieces of the black cube were laying on the floor and the black flame with the white glow was floating between his hands.
"Haha, I did it...I DI—Ugh!" Atlas's excitement was cut short when the flame floating between his hands crashed into his chest and entered his body causing a prickly sensation around his heart where it entered. He gripped his chest from the sudden sensation.
"What wa—argh!" Atlas groaned in pain when the prickly sensation started to get worse. He leaned forward placing his left hand on the floor for support while gripping his chest breathing heavily. His body was getting hotter and hotter as time passed and it was only getting worse. His blood felt like a pot of water put on the stove.
"Atlas?" Blake rushed to his friend when he saw Atlas lean over and started to breathe heavily. He touched Atlas's shoulder but retreated his hand away and shook it up and down to cool the heat that transferred to his hand.
"What's going on?" Allison wondered coming next to Atlas. She was about to touch Atlas but was stopped by Blake. She turned to look at him raising an eyebrow.
"Don't," Blake began turning his attention back to Atlas "I don't know what's going on, but his body is like really hot." As Blake finished saying that Allison gave him a weird look. Looking back at Allison, Blake registered what he just said and he became red in the face from the embarrassment.
"N-not like that, idiot. I meant literally." Blake stammered. He looked back at Atlas when he saw visible steam emitting from his body.
"Gargh! It burns!" Atlas strained between clenched teeth as the arm he was leaning on gave way and he landed on his side turning onto his back clenching his chest tight. Atlas's skin took on a reddish sheen as more steam started coming from his body. Strange markings started to emerge from his arms almost as if being branded into his skin as claws grew from his hands. A whole different pain assaulted Atlas causing him to arch his back.
He opened his mouth and eyes wide wanting to scream yet not a single peep escaped him. First, he was feeling like he was being burned from the inside, and now feeling as if being branded from the outside. This was unbearable pain.
Allison and Blake looked with confusion and horror at what was happening to their friend. They wanted to help ease whatever pain Atlas was in but everything that had been happening so far just seemed surreal and supernatural.
Muffled groaning sounds kept escaping Atlas's mouth. Even though he was in a lot of pain he knew the moment he yelled out Blake's mom might come running up. Raising his trembling arms due to the ongoing pain, Atlas, stared at the claws that emerged from his hands and the markings on his body that looked similar to a henna tattoo-like design.
'What is happening to me?!' Atlas thought to himself. The tears that welled up in his eyes finally fell on his cheeks, but they weren't normal tears. These tears were bloody.
'Am I going to die?' Atlas thought
Behind his sunglasses, the pupils turned into slits like a lizard or dragon. The canines of his teeth elongated to a point nearly poking out from his mouth.
'God! Please! Make this stop!' Atlas thought as more bloodied tears continued to fall. All of a sudden, almost as if on cue from Atlas's thoughts, his mind went blank and his arms and hands that he was looking at fell limply like a puppet on a string that was cut, and a silence filled the room.
"Atlas?" Blake called in a barely audible whisper. His heart racing in his chest and his body shaking. This all felt like some real life horror movie to him right now. Did his friend just get possessed by a demon? He couldn't tell, but what he did know is that the person that is his friend suddenly went quiet and limp. Was he possibly even dead?
Blake and Allison scurried away from Atlas's body on their hands and feet like crabs on a beach. Not to far, but far enough just in case something else were to happen...and it did.
"Fucking hell." Blake cursed nearly on the point of passing out while Allison gasped in shock when Atlas's body started to levitate off the ground. Blake hardly cursed, but anyone most likely would in his situation.
Atlas's body levitated almost as if a string was attached at his navel, his limp body creating the shape of an upside down 'U'. Atlas's eyes shot open and a white and black glow filled his eyes and markings that appeared on his body. A clear spherical shaped object began to form in his navel region internally and an unknown energy started to form gathering in that single point in his body.
That energy was soon released in an ethereal beam of black and white light around Atlas. The beam shot from Atlas through the roof of Blake's room and up towards the sky. The clouds swirled around creating a phenomenon in the sky that whoever saw it would be either creeped out or amazed.
Soon the beam faded and gradually descended down back to Atlas's body. The pieces of the cube that fell on the floor rose up around Atlas. These pieces disintegrated into tiny little bits the size of nanobots forming a black cloud swirling around his body. A black substance escaped his body that made Allison and Blake scrunch up their nose, covering their nose with their hands gagging from the smell. It smelled similar to the spoiling of rotten flesh, and as quick as the smell came. It disappeared just as fast.
The black mist-like cloud created from what was once the obsidian cube engulfed Atlas. The mist clung to the black substance escaping his pores and dissolved it away like it wasn't even there. Once that process was done, the black mist started to split and connect to Atlas's hands creating a second skin on his hands. It was like a thin layer of futuristic gloves that formed. The intriguing design of the gloves giving off the same glow and design as Atlas's marking.
On the left hand the gloves were black with a red light running through it and the one on the right was white with a yellowish light running through.
If Atlas was still awake he would have heard a mechanical female voice inside his head.
[ connection has been made with host...]
[scanning current realm...
Realm: Gaia
Energy level:0.06%
Current realm energy levels are too low to sustain the host. Entering energy savor mode]
That was the last thing the mechanical voice said before the gloves stopped glowing and dissolved into his skin. Leaving behind two bands on each wrist; one black on the left and one white on the right. From both ends of those bands emerged vein-like branches from the top and bottom giving the representation of tree roots and branches. The only difference is that the branches on the left gave a faint reddish glow and the right a yellowish glow.
The markings on Atlas's body followed suit along with his glowing eyes. All the changes that occurred in Atlas's body went away as if it never even happened.
Suddenly, Atlas's body dropped to the ground in a loud thud. His body nearly bounced twice from the height he was at prior.
"Atlas!" Blake and Allison yelled at the same time shocking them out of their fear and stupor. They scurried close to his body trying to shake him awake. They suspected that he must be out of whatever was happening to him before. Since the glowing markings went away from his body.
Blake and Allison didn't even hear the running footsteps coming up the stairs when they heard the doorknob of Blake's room wiggling followed by hard knocks on the door.
"Blake Timothy Griffins! You better open up this door right now!" Came the voice of Blake's mother followed by more hard knocks on the door. "Blake!"
Allison got up from next to Atlas's unconscious body and ran to the door, unlocking it, and swinging it open. Blake's mother's expression was angry but when she saw the worry in Allison's eyes and Blake shaking the unconscious body of Atlas with a worried expression she got worried herself.
"Oh God, what happened?"
Blake turned towards his mom. So much happened in a short amount of time that he just didn't know what to believe anymore.
"Mom, I don't know what's wrong. One minute h-he's fine, and then he suddenly passed out. A-and now he's not waking up."
Blake's mom, Claire, hurried next to Atlas placed her hand on Atlas's forehead, and released a worried sigh.
"He's burning up."