Slowly, I moved to sit at the edge of the bed directly opposite her, my eyes darting between the two mean-looking men standing behind her. From where I was, I could pick up the scent of strawberries and for some reason, it made me smile.

I looked up at the men who frowned at me and I frowned back in response. I couldn’t tell why they were there but then again, I couldn’t tell what was happening in either case. The men were built like wrestlers and the suits they wore seemed like it was a bad fit for them. Their muscles made the clothes look tight on their bodies and I wondered how they could even move with the restrictions.

Both men had buzzcuts and their faces were marred with numerous scars, one of which looked recent and raw. I shivered before tearing my eyes away from theirs, unnerved by how they were.

Resting my hands on my knees, I fixed my attention on Sophia. Her gaze was on me and we locked eyes as she spoke.

“Mark and Blake told me about your stunt,” she said in a neutral tone.

“Of course, they would. Do we have to go over that?” I asked, suppressing the irritation that came from the question.

“Yes. The men behind me are to make a point. We have endangered our lives to get you here safely but from here on out, we don’t… or rather, we won’t save you anymore,” she said.

I swallowed, looking around the room before a fit of laughter began to bubble up inside me.

“Save me? Save me! From what? A life of normalcy that was completely fine before Mark decided to fuck it up with the Oni-mask parade shit he did with my mother?” I said, the grip on my thighs tightening.

She frowned at me even as the men behind her took a step towards me but I didn’t care. I was just about done.

“You know,” I began, getting to my feet, “I have been thinking. Thinking! I was fine in my ignorance. Completely fine. But your partner or whatever, came out of nowhere to ruin it. You sent me on a run. Destroyed every bit of common sense that I held and then, left me without answers, time and time again.”

In my rant, unknown to me, I had moved away from her until my back hit the wall. The suddenness of it startled me and I turned swiftly, with my hands raised up. I heard Sophia laugh and my anger boiled over. I spun around and took a step towards her when one of the men moved to intercept.

“Stand down,” she said and the man paused, glancing back at her and then at me.

I put my fist up ready to square up in any case. I was tired of being a pushover. The man, on the other hand, simply nodded and moved back to stand behind his colleague. Sophia had an amused smile on her as she indicated I sit back down.

“The warning was important because from here on out, you stop being a ‘Person to be saved’. Here on out, you’re either going to be saving or investigating,” she said.

I screwed my face at her and she sighed.

“Come on, Will. I am trying to play fair here. Put your hands down and take a seat.”

I allowed myself to relax a little before obliging. I was still pissed but as long as she was willing to talk, I was willing to hear her out.

“Go on,” I said, staring intently at her.

“Alright,” she replied, adjusting herself on the seat.

“To start with, we don’t have an official name for the monsters. But, for the ones who have survived their encounters with ‘them’, we refer to them as ‘Skin-changers’ on account of their ability to… well, you know,” she explained.

“That’s a bad name,” I said before I could stop myself but she nodded in agreement.

“Yeah. Well, we weren’t that inspired to come up with something better. In any case, the Skin-changers have been here longer than we know and they are steadily taking over the planet in a slow but calculating way.”

“The earliest official record of meeting a Skin-changer was in September 1921, a month after the US official closed the curtain on the first world war,” she said.

“The first world war?” I repeated, unsure of what I was hearing.

“Yeah. The first. A high ranking officer in the British army was clearing out an encampment to return back home when he noticed that one of his men was not reporting back. So, he went to check for him but came up short. He ordered the rest of his men to spread out to find him and they searched the surrounding area for him.

“Just before he gave up the search, he came across a spot next to a destroyed building, a few yards away from the camp. The blood was still fresh and slick to his touch. Obviously, that meant danger so he got his gun out and was about to call for backup when he heard a sound coming from around the corner.”

Sophia let out a breath and one of the men standing behind her offered her a bottle of water and she took a sip out of it before continuing.

“So, he makes his way around the corner, right? Slowly. And when he peeked, he saw a tall hulking figure, unlike anything he knew holding something up in the air. The officer hid himself the wall for a few seconds before bursting out only to find that the figure was gone. And then suddenly-”

“The figure was behind him, naked as heck and it was his missing man?” I cut in.

She smiled at me and nodded. The story echoed a bit of what the detective had told back in the house. I frowned as I remembered Detective Wells. He had gone through the door before me.

“Where’s the detective?” I asked.

“He’s safe. He’s getting the same briefing you’re getting. The other guys don’t want to see you at the moment. So, I’m here in their stead,” Sophia replied.

I nodded reluctantly, breaking eye contact with her and fixing my gaze to the floor.

“Listen,” she began and I glanced up to see her lean towards me. “We don’t save people unless we see that they need it. But, it is hard to save people without being a tad extreme.”

“I don’t understand,” I replied.

Sophia sighed and rubbed her neck before speaking.

“If any of us had tried to tell you that your family were dead and that their replacements were monsters, would you have believed us?” she asked.

I frowned at that. The answer was obvious and it must have shown on my face because she grinned at me knowingly.

“Exactly. How many times would we have to repeat it before you called the cops? Best yet, say we decided to hurt your family to show you that they aren’t what you think and we failed, would you give us another chance to try?”

I stared at her wordlessly, playing with the information in my mind. As much as I hated to admit it, she had a point. And for some reason, it made my fake mother’s death harder to swallow.

“What are they?” I asked quietly.

“We don’t know,” she answered.

“What do they want?” I asked again.

“No idea,” she replied.

I paused as the memory of the Skin-changers chasing Blake and I flashed in my mind. Long mangled limbed freaks hurtling down the corridor towards us. The sight of the blood and ichor pooling on the ground as they changed.

“Can they be killed?” I asked softly, unable to meet her gaze.

“With great difficulty and far too much effort than we can muster,” she replied, smiling ruefully at me.

“So… What? We save and keep running until… what?” I said as a shiver went through me.

“That’s what we’re really trying to determine at the moment.”

Like a light bulb in my mind, it suddenly dawned on me that I had been missing a very large piece of the puzzle to all of this. I pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration before looking up at her.

“‘We’. Who the fuck is ‘we’?” I asked, eyeing the two men standing behind her.

“Oh, right!” she said, as she jumped to her feet in excitement. “I forgot to introduce you to the organisation I work for.”

As she stood, I watched as the chair she was sitting folded and twisted on itself in an instant, vanishing from my sight. My eyes widened at it, as my mind tried and failed to wrap itself around what I had just seen.

Sophia, on the other hand, paid no mind to it as she straightened and stretched. She let out a breath from the exertion before turning to face me, taking in my shocked face in her stride. She bowed her head, the men behind her inclining theirs, before speaking.

“Mr William, Welcome to Atlas.”