It took me a while before the words really sank in. Instead, I just stared at her blankly before shaking myself back into the moment. Still, she stood there waiting for me by the door. The two bodyguards with her had moved to stand outside the open door as if telling me that my time in the room was over.

Getting to my feet, I took one last look at the room. A sense of melancholy fell on me as I realised what the room had become in the incredibly short time I had been there for. I glanced at the door, realising that as soon as I took a step out, I would be entering something completely new in its entirety.

Still, with everything that had happened to bring me to the current point, There was nothing else I could do but take the step leading forward. Perhaps, this way, I could be fortunate enough to learn more about what happened to my parents, my sister, my brother but more importantly, where they were.

I rubbed my face and flashed Sophia a brief smile and she smiled back. It didn’t touch her eyes but neither did mine. I walked out of the door and she closed it behind me before moving to walk ahead of me. The brutish men stood behind me and I stifled the slight worry.

Sophia led the way through a long corridor and I followed. As we walked down the corridor, I began to hear sounds and whispers of conversations, solidifying the conversation we had in the room. It made the revelations more real. About the people she worked for and the creatures they faced.

“How many of you are there?” I asked, drawing closer to her.

“Us? As in Blake, Mark and I?” she asked.

I nodded absently before replying hastily.

“Yeah.”

“The figures are a tad fuzzy on that, to be honest with you,” she began as we took a left turning at the end of the corridor. “We aren’t a team. We’re just a random group that tries to liberate folks like you.”

“Folks like me…” I said, repeating her words as I turned it over in my head. The term sounded weird and almost, for lack of a better word, less attached than I thought.

“Have you ever failed to rescue folks like me?” I asked, suddenly curious.

She started laughing softly as we reached a set of large double doors. The guards behind me moved to open the door and my mouth fell open.

Behind the doors was a large hall with a chandelier that illuminated the room in white light. Pristine ceramic floors contrasted with obsidian furniture everywhere I looked. Men and women, dressed in formal wear, were around discussing or moving through the hall.

At the centre, underneath the large chandelier, was a reception desk with two women working behind the counter. It was then I noticed two things. The first being that everyone in the hall had stopped to look at us. The second being that the two ladies were completely identical to the point where it was creepy.

Sophia started moving forward, towards the reception and I followed suit quickly, doing my best to ignore the eyes fixated on us. She didn’t seem to have the same problem I did and I couldn’t help but wonder if the reaction was a normal thing. The hall had gone quiet as a result and the silence was eerie.

As we got to the reception, Sophia raised a hand for me to stop before stepping forward to talk to the women.

“Hi, ladies,” she said in a neutral tone.

“Hello, Sophia,” the two women replied in perfect sync.

“Can you please tell Cranston that I’m here with him,” she said as she glanced at me. “Also, is Mark and Blake around?”

“Mark and Blake have left temporarily. Cranston will be notified immediately. Anything else that we can do for you?” they said.

“No. That will be all,” Sophia said, before taking a step away from the reception.

As soon as she moved back, the twin receptionist turned to face me and then they smiled. Except… their smiles, it was too wide. Like, it didn’t quite fit their faces.

The lights above us flickered off and on, and once it was back, there were different receptionists looking at us. Instead of the twin receptionists, in their places were two men dressed in different coloured suits.

“Cranston is waiting for you in the premium suite,” one of the men said, blond hair and sharp blue eyes.

He stared at me as Sophia began to lead the way towards the stairs. It wasn’t until we started climbing that I noticed everyone had stopped looking at me. At least, I hoped that was the case. The knot in my stomach was still tightly wound and with each step, I felt more and more unsettled.

In our silence, Sophia quietly led the way to the premium suite, which ended up being on the fifth floor of what I definitely knew to be a far taller building than that. Still, we walked down the corridor until we stopped in front of the only door on that floor. She knocked once before turning the handle.

The door opened to a simple office. There was a lot of empty space in the room but in the middle was a brown desk with documents littered over the table. Behind the desk sat a slim dark-haired man who was leafing through a large book open in front of him.

Behind him was a large office drawer and a window and that was it. There was nothing else in the room but space. The kind of space that makes you shiver.

I closed the door behind me as I walked in, stepping to stand a step behind Sophia when the man looked up at us.

“You must be William,” he said, sizing me up with a neutral stare.

“Yeah. Uhm… I-”

“Where did Blake and Mark run off to?” Sophia cut in irritably.

The man, Cranston, kept his eyes on me for a bit longer before looking at her. Slowly, he pushed a note on the desk towards her before replying.

“Timothy, Sara and Marvin are dead. I sent them to either recover the bodies or confirm that they’ve been taken over,” he explained.

I heard a gasp from her as she reached for the note.

“You could have waited for me,” she said, her voice shaky.

“I could have but you were with him,” he replied, pointing lazily at me.

I kept my mouth shut as she glanced at me and then back at the man behind the desk. The piece of paper in her hand crumbled as she formed a fist. Without a word, she turned and started towards the door.

“The door doesn’t open until I say so. So, stop. I haven’t let you go yet,” Cranston said.

The man had stopped looking at us now, returning his attention to the book in front of him. He flipped to another page before speaking.

“William. As she has probably told you, welcome to Atlas,” he began, looking up at me and getting to his feet.

I glanced to see Sophia resting on the wall by the door and covering her face with her hands as she shook quietly.

“I know you might have some questions, some of which Sophia has answered. Atlas is a place of questions, William, and we took it as our job to answer them as best as we can.”

He moved from behind the desk to stand in front of me. As he rested on his desk, I got a strong whiff of lavender that seemed to overwhelm me. He waved his hands and muttered an apology, and just as he did that, the scent of lavender reduced greatly.

“Atlas was created for the sole purpose of recording anomalies and safeguarding the public against it. Not all anomalies are evil, mind you, but most are detrimental to the average British experience and we can’t have that now, can we?” he said, flashing a small smile at me.

“Yeah, I guess” I replied quietly.

“Nonetheless, the creatures chasing you… The ‘Skin-changers’ are a new cog in the anomaly wheel and they are causing problems like never before. And you, you are going to help us fight them.”

I frowned at that.

“Me?”

Cranston nodded and grinned at me.

“You’re joking,” I said with a small laugh.

“I’m not. You’re not a victim to be saved anymore, Will. From the moment you got the package to now, you’ve been dancing to the tune of forces greater than you and I. Your dance to that tune was to end at your mother’s house and we changed that. So now, you owe us.”

“Yeah, you’re fucking joking,” I snapped.

Cranston frowned for the briefest of seconds and I found myself kneeling and bowing my head in front of him. There was a heaviness in the air, a pressure that weighed down on my back as I tried to get to my feet. And every time it seemed like I might succeed, the pressure became heavier.

All I could see were his shoes and my reflection in them. His posture changed and I knew he wasn’t resting on his desk anymore. Instead, he stood before me and the air in the room changed. I couldn’t explain what it was but at that moment, I knew that my life was quite literally in his hands.

“I don’t joke, William,” he said in a cold voice. “Whether you like it or not, you are now a pawn of Atlas. And you will be used as such until I deem otherwise.”