Atlas Shift

First Shift

There's a knife in my hand.

The world around me is a blur of dark figures and bright blooming lights. Like a thick film coats my eyes. I try to move, to sit up or shake my head, but it feels like moving lead deep under the ocean. Another flash of white light sears my eyes for an instant and I roll my head to the side. Beyond the pitched squealing in my ears I can hear voices yelling, panicked and fast.

"What the fuck, man? What the fuck are we going to do?"

"I don't know, ok! Just drive! Get us to Mal, she'll know what to do, hide us or something."

I grip the knife in my hand and try to blink away the sludge in my head. Things start to clear. I can make out the car window and the street lights help bring my mind back into my body. I shifted to a better position slowly, groaning as my stiff muscles work to loosen.

"Jesus Christ, Mark, you're awake thank God." David hovered over me in the back seat of his brothers car. He looked strange, but my mind couldn't focus long enough to figure out why. Something about his face....

I struggled to make my voice work and it came out quiet and dry. "What-What's going on? What happened?"

"You fucking stabbed her, Mark! That's what fucking happened! What the fuck, dude?" Caleb was yelling from the drivers seat with rage. I looked down at the bloody knife in my hand, confused. I stabbed someone? There are sirens whining in the distance.

"What? Who? I don't-"

David cut me off. "Ellen. Mark, you stabbed Ellen. In the park, remember? When we finally got you into the car you just screamed and passed out."

Ellen. The name was familiar but trying to find her face was like trying to look through dirty, frosted glass. I was becoming more of myself and sat up straight. I dropped the knife on the floor of the car in disgust and wiped the blood off my hands onto my jeans. It was mostly dry by now and just flaked off, leaving my hands stained brown. What the hell was happening?

"I don't know any Ellen. What the fuck are you talking about? Where are we going?" Caleb took a sharp right turn that made me hit my head on the window, immediately making my headache worse. "Ow, shit, watch it man!"

"Mals place, we need somewhere shielded. Everything is so fucked right now." Caleb sounded calmer mentioning this goal. I didn't know who Mal was either, but I didn't know a lot of the people Caleb knew. He was the guy who always knew a guy. He had connections all over the Virginias. Some unsavory, some less so. 

The world was finally coming into focus, and as I looked over to my right I realized what was bothering me about David. His eyes. What I remembered to be average dark brown eyes were instead this strange iridescent yellow. "What the fuck is going on with your eyes?"

"Oh goddammit." Dave griped and turned to look back at me with annoyance "What's your number?"

"What? Uh 703 659 4322. Why do you need that, you text me all the time." None of this was making sense and it was making me more and more frustrated. David turned to shout at Caleb, who was currently pulling the car behind a copse of trees. I could barely make out the roof of a house peeking through the trunks of pine trees.

"We got a Virgin, we need to get him to Alexa before he breaks down." He turned back to me as Caleb parked and cut the engine.

"Fucking perfect. Just what we need." He pressed his head against the steering wheel and sighed deeply before straightening back up. "Get inside to Mal, I'll hide the car and get Mark. I don't think they were able to follow us but my decoys have definitely dissipated by now." He scrambled out of the drivers seat and slammed the car door shut. I'd never seen Caleb so frantic before. He always seemed so put together.