Atlas Abandoned

Camp Tesla (18 months since the crash)

One drop. Two drops.

Another drop. When it started to burn, Atlas pulled back his hand. He was standing at the edge of the tree line and just inches from where the acidic rainfall was pattering down on the sand. He intentionally held his hand out so that some rain would hit the back of it. The pain was tolerable. In fact, it was keeping Atlas awake. He looked at the back of his hand. He raised his other hand next to it. Satisfied at their relatively matching burns, he turned back towards the makeshift camp with a sigh. Atlas wasn't sure if his body actually needed sleep, but judging by the amount of food he had left he thought it would be for the best to rest up. He lied down and closed his eyes. It was just another nap in the rain; one of hundreds. Or was it thousands? Or had it only been a dozen? When AGS-9 was around he tried to keep Atlas on an artificial day-and-night sleep cycle, but now Atlas' body was content with just taking naps every now and then. He was pretty much on auto-pilot, moving forward through his constant blurred grogginess and stopping to give himself a chance to deal with burns, cuts, and starvation.

Atlas opened his eyes. The trees around him looked off- like they had moved while he slept. He wasn't sure his gear was in the same place that it was when he passed out. This kind of confusion was getting more and more common as Atlas dealt with the isolation. If he missed a nap when his internal clock demanded one, Atlas would quickly become exhausted to the point of passing out. He'd fall into deep sleep right away and he'd dream. The problem was that his dreams were almost always his memories of his time on this world and in his exhaustion he found himself struggling to tell the difference between the dreams and reality. Becoming self-aware of this didn't help much, since now he was always second-guessing himself and his consciousness. He had been entranced or hypnotized by his own trek.

Atlas shrugged it off and got up, pointlessly brushing the sand off of his rhino-hide clothes. His stomach growled audibly, so after finishing the last of his rhino-meat supply he geared up to hunt. Fortunately it was still raining, which aided Atlas in his stealth as he ran around in search of a rhino.

Atlas ran tirelessly. He followed a deliberate path without even needing to pay attention, which struck him as odd since he hadn't been to this area before. He was looking around him as he ran, but not running into any trees. There wasn't much time for that to distract him, though, because Atlas soon found he had come up on a raptor.

The raptor spun around, tilting its head towards Atlas, assessing him. Atlas reflexively drew his axe.

"Hey, hey, hey. Do you have a death wish?" The raptor didn't react. "What, have you not heard of me?" Atlas spoke loudly and with confidence. He had taken down several raptors since his first and gotten much more efficient at escaping these encounters unharmed. He even fought two at once recently. Atlas felt like the alpha hunter of the forest. It had gotten to the point where raptors would acknowledge him and then leave.

This one wasn't leaving.

It took an aggressive step towards Atlas.

"This is your only warning, buddy!" he yelled. A second raptor ran up from behind the first and stood next to it. Atlas took a deep breath. He was tired, but if he focused he could survive this.

A third raptor came from out of Atlas' view and joined the first two. Then a fourth, then a fifth. Atlas took a step back. His face went from cockiness and focus to disbelief and fear. He had never even seen more than two raptors in the same day, yet here he was staring down five angry ones. They all inched closer to him together. He's legs trembled as his body argued with itself on whether to fight or run. He nearly dropped his axe as his grip momentarily weakened.

'I tried, Aegeus. Mom. Dad,' he thought, holding back a sob. Atlas' last trick would be to attack the raptor on the end and hope it would scare the others off.