0.3) The Thousand-Year Lie

The nameless man, flat on his face and chest, had barely moved since arriving back on Earth. He had spent these weeks fading in and out of consciousness; he was mentally tired and was trying to force himself to sleep, but his body seemed to instinctively wake itself back up like it had done an uncountable number of times while he remained standing in that other dimension.

It was torture, but he didn’t want to die. He just wanted to get some sleep. That was all. Perhaps it would have helped if he was in a cozy, warm bed, but he had ended up on the hard, cold concrete of the alleyway.

Still, it was better than anything he had before.

Then, his thoughts were interrupted when he heard someone mumbling at the entrance of the alleyway.

Just another person passing by, the man thought. They'll leave me alone soon.

But he could hear footsteps of the stranger getting closer and closer, until the stranger finally stopped in front of him and spoke.

“Excuse me,” a boy’s voice called out to the nameless man.

He was too tired to answer.

“Are you hungry?” The boy’s voice called out once more. The man could hear the boy kneel beside him. Then the sound of a plastic wrap being opened was heard. “Here.”

Then, the man could smell a warm, rich aroma that made his mouth water. What was it? He didn’t want to move, but this sensation was so powerful that his body twitched on its own.

Slowly, the man pushed himself off the cold concrete as his joints creaked, painfully forced himself up right, then took the plastic bag from the boy’s hands. After a few seconds of analyzing the object held within the plastic bag, the man finally took his first bite.

It was good. It was really good, whatever this was. Wait, he remembered this taste. That’s right. This was bread, wasn’t it? Before finishing chewing his first bite, the man dug in for another.

“Is it good? I’m glad,” the boy said. The nameless man looked up. The boy had brown eyes and brown hair, and wore a gentle expression on his face. Yet, the boy’s eyes seemed slightly unfocused and sporadic, as if he was straining his gentle expression. As if he was uncomfortable.

“... What’s wrong?” The man spoke his first words, his voice raspy and dry from being unused properly for countless years.

“Huh? Oh, nothing,” the boy said as he looked off to the side. It seemed that the boy was in deep thought.

The nameless man continued chewing, thinking about the interaction he was having now. It seemed that he was still able to understand when people were talking to him. As a matter of fact, he was able to basically understand the boy perfectly. It was almost strange. He was sure it had been at least a thousand years, so to think English remained unchanged over time seemed impossible.

Perhaps humanity had stagnated in the last thousand or so years?

“... My name is Julian Everhart,” the boy quietly said, interrupting the man’s thoughts. “Can I ask for your name?”

After a few seconds of contemplation, the man spoke. “I’m not sure what my name is.”

“Uh… you’re not sure? Are you an amnesiac?”

“Maybe,” the man said, but he wasn’t certain how he should classify himself. It wasn’t amnesia or anything of the sort, and it wasn’t a condition that had caused him to forget his name; it was the passage of time that had made him forget. He had talked to no one for an innumerable number of years. Perhaps a part of him still remembered his original name, and perhaps a guess could turn out to be correct. But it didn’t matter. He would never know the truth, because no one was left who could verify his identity.

Yet there was a name that seemed to resonate with him. He knew that this was most definitely not his original name, but he felt a strong association with the name. So, he told the boy the name he had chosen for himself.

“... My name is Atlas,” the man said.

Julian’s face lit up. “Atlas? Like the Titan who holds up the sky in Greek Mythology? Really?”

“... Yes,” the man responded.

The man considered the boy’s words. Greek mythology and Atlas the Titan. For some reason, the man seemed to still remember fragments of the story. Perhaps that was why he felt drawn to the name. But why could he still remember?

"That's really cool... Atlas, huh...?"

Slowly, Julian’s expression changed from one of excitement to melancholy as he looked up to the sky, where the light was gently shining down upon them between the two tall buildings that formed the alleyway.

“It would be nice if someone really were to push back the sky to where it belongs...”

As the boy spoke, the man realized that the boy was aware of the collapse of the universe.

Atlas looked up, following the boy's gaze. The sky was blue and clear, and to him, it didn’t feel as if the world was going to end anytime soon. But he knew that it would. Yes, the end was coming, now that he had given up his fight.

“How long do we have?” Atlas asked the boy.

“Just a few weeks,” the boy said. “It’s happening much faster than thirty-two years ago. It looks like it’s accelerating.”

The collapse of the universe was accelerating, yes, that was how it worked. That was why wielding infinite power was necessary to hold up the sky–Atlas had to continuously apply more force upwards to maintain that standstill between the sky and the Earth.

… Wait. What did he just say?

“Thirty-two?" Atlas asked. "What do you mean thirty-two years ago?”

The boy looked at the man with a confused expression. “The First Skyfall. It happened thirty-two years ago.”

“Thirty-two? Only thirty-two years ago?”

“Yes,” the boy frowned. “I… Huh. I guess I thought this was common knowledge.”

In an instant, the man realized why he seemed to have little trouble adjusting to this world: it had only been thirty-two years since the beginning of his struggle.

Thirty-two, the man thought. Two digits. About half an average lifetime. Two whole digits. But not four or five or six or seven, as he had once found himself guessing. Just two. He would have never guessed that it had been less than a thousand years. But alas, he now knew that it had been a mere thirty-two years since he had begun his battle against infinity. Not even a hundred.

The man looked down, his shoulder slumped and his grip on the plastic bag loosening. He finally understood what it meant to battle against an unbeatable foe. The unthinking sky had never stopped its relentless collapse, while his human spirit dwindled and collapsed after a mere thirty-two years. Even with the power of infinity, he could not offer a permanent answer against eternity.

“Atlas” was still mortal. And with that realization, he lost the final fragment of hope he didn’t even know he still had.