Chapter 1 - Prologue 1 (1/2)
A man with a gun taped to his hand was sitting in his car taking a deep breath while pointing the gun to his head.
His face was full of acne scars. His black hair looked extremely unkempt with scruffy hair and unequal sides. His lean body was well defined with muscles due to his regular workout, yet he had a body thin enough to be called unhealthy, looking almost like a malnourished athlete beyond his prime.
Even though he was in his early 30's, the dark bags under his eyes made it seem like he was in his 50's, while the well-defined wrinkles on his forehead from constant frowning only further verified the theory he was beyond his 30s.
His short black hair receded enough to define the wrinkles and acne, keeping the attention there longer than anywhere else on his face.
He wore a black shirt under his leather black jacket with stains of brown-red over it and his face. his black sweat pants and black PairForces were also stained, yet it camouflaged with the color of the clothes.
Behind him was a 3 story house big enough to be capable of inhabiting 3 families of four. Its windows were smashed in and had flames burst out, while slowly yet surely destroying everything in its path.
The people outside can be seen running out of their houses in a panic. While most of them were holding their hands above their agape mouths, others were hurriedly taking out their phones while quickly mashing three numbers and putting their mobile devices next to their ears.
For Atlas, this situation all started when he was barely 7 years old, the day his mother passed away from a heart attack. He mourned and cried for 3 days straight yet no one came to console him, not his father, not his aunties nor cousins from either side of the family, no one...
He decided to skip school for a while and spend time with his father, yet his father's face showed no sadness, just indifference. His father looked at him with the coldest gazes which made Atlas lock himself in his room to reminisce on everything he did with his mother.
He would only eat breakfast and dinner while spending the rest of the time sleeping, working out which was a new hobby he gained to forget about his problems, and playing video games he recently started to enjoy more and More.
One month later, his father married another woman that Atlas had never seen before. This woman was gorgeous and had eyes full of joy and vigor. His father had married a new woman one month after the death of his wife. His eyes which the boy had expected to be dull for the next few years were full of life.
Atlas had expected that his father would pay him the same attention he paid the new women he married, yet every time they would make eye contact, Atlas could see the same face of indifference his father always made around him. It was not a face that could not tolerate the existence of Atlas, nor was it a face of pity or hatred. It was the face you would make when seeing a homeless man on the side of the street begging for money. The face of absolute indifference, where the person could not care if the one they were looking at were to die or live.
Atlas' father would constantly play with the children on his new wife and now that the children had seen the neglect their new father was giving Atlas, they had followed suit and did the same thing. Now the wife and children of Atlas' father kept tormenting him about being a ”waste of space” and told him he should ”just leave the house”.