To the Bone

Chapter 1: Atlas

Atlas wakes up to the sound of his own teeth chattering. It’s not cold. Not really. The air in his room is stale, too warm if anything, the early spring humidity sticking to his sheets. Still, the chattering keeps going, mechanical and involuntary, until he clamps his mouth shut with the palm of his hand.

Another dream.

Another vision of his skin sloughing off in the mirror, leaving nothing but grinning bone and gristle. Every time, it feels more real. Every time, he wakes up half-expecting to find the sheets soaked in blood and rot. But it’s just sweat.

He sits up, legs over the side of the bed, staring at his feet. They’re pale. Too pale. He presses his thumb against his shin until the skin goes white, then flushes back. Still alive. Still human.

Downstairs, he hears the creak of floorboards. His father’s awake. Always the first up, the first out the door to work at the factory that’s still somehow operating despite half the town falling to pieces. Atlas listens to the rhythm of his dad’s footsteps, the muted sound of a kitchen radio turning on, and lets himself breathe.

He’s not rotting yet.

They all know the signs. The way the skin dulls, grays, softens in places like bruised fruit. The way your hair starts to loosen, coming off in your brush in wiry clumps. It starts slow, but no one survives it. The town doesn’t even bury them anymore; there’s no point. The bodies dissolve until there’s nothing left but dust.

And it only happens when you fall in love.

Everyone in Black Salt knows the story. Not just the folk legends whispered by drunk uncles at family gatherings, but the hard, bone-deep truth: the curse is real. Some say it started when settlers desecrated a burial ground. Others blame a vengeful witch whose heartbreak poisoned the soil itself. Whatever the origin, the result is the same. Love is death here. Pure and simple.

There was a time, according to the old folks, when the town tried to fight it. Scientists came through decades ago, taking samples of the soil, the water, even the bodies. Nothing ever came of it. Some people packed up and left, but most stayed. Roots, stubbornness, fear of the unknown beyond the borders of Black Salt—whatever the reason, the town persisted.

Children are raised with cautionary tales: guard your heart, keep your distance, don’t let anyone in too close. Schools give the talk like it’s a health lesson: "Avoid prolonged intimacy, don't mistake infatuation for love, and for god's sake, if you feel the symptoms, report immediately."

But no one really reports. By the time you realize, it’s too late.

Atlas remembers his mother’s skin. Not when she was healthy, but when she was graying, her hair thinning into wiry strands, her teeth loosening until she couldn’t eat. She had loved his father. Loved him fiercely. And it had killed her slowly, piece by piece.

His father never talked about it. Just woke up earlier and earlier, worked longer hours, came home quieter every night. As if silence could build a wall between himself and the rot.

Atlas swore he would never let it happen to him.

He gets up, runs a hand through his tangled hair, and stares at his reflection. He checks his gums, the whites of his eyes, the skin around his collarbone. Still alive. Still whole.

When he finally leaves his room, the house feels abandoned despite his father’s presence. Plates sit drying in the rack, the clock ticks like it’s counting down to something inevitable, and a layer of dust has settled on every surface his father has stopped caring to clean.

He grabs a stale granola bar and heads out. The air outside is thick with the smell of early spring—wet dirt, blooming flowers, and the faint, ever-present scent of mildew. Black Salt is a town that feels like it’s sinking. The buildings sag, roads crack, the church steeple leans a little more every year.

Black Salt used to be a place of promise, or so the oldest residents claim. There was a booming mill, a busy railway, even a carnival that came through every summer. But that was before the rot claimed its first lovers publicly. Before the first girl melted in her prom dress right on the dance floor, her partner’s arm sloughing to bone. After that, nothing was the same.

Now, it’s a town of hushed voices, eyes that avoid contact, and laughter that dies in the throat before it sounds too sincere. Because joy leads to connection, and connection leads to feeling. And feelings? They’re the beginning of the end.

Atlas walks to school with the others: headphones in, eyes down, heart closed. No one speaks. It’s easier that way.

Along the route, he passes the old church. The graveyard behind it sprawls like a forgotten garden. Some of the gravestones are so worn, the names have eroded into nothing. People avoid the place—as if proximity to death might invite it.

But Atlas sometimes cuts through. There’s a strange comfort in the honesty of the dead. They don’t pretend.

At school, nothing changes. The same classes, the same bored teachers, the same students pretending not to feel anything. He sits in the back, doodling in his notebook, sketching bones and skeletons almost unconsciously. A morbid habit, but a harmless one. Better bones on paper than bones in his bed.

At lunch, Jamie slides into the seat across from him. Jamie's got a sharp face and sharper tongue, always too curious for his own good.

“You hear about the new girl?” Jamie asks.

Atlas looks up, uninterested. “What new girl?”

“Someone new moved into the Meyers place. The one near the edge of town.”

Atlas raises an eyebrow. “No one moves into Black Salt.”

“Exactly. Weird, right?” Jamie leans forward. “Saw her this morning. Pale as hell. White hair, too. She looked like a ghost.”

Atlas shrugs. “Maybe she is.”

Jamie grins. “Creepy. You should say hi.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re already halfway to being a ghost yourself.”

Atlas flicks a grape at Jamie’s head, but the words linger longer than the laugh that follows.

After school, instead of going straight home, he walks. Not anywhere in particular—just away. The streets blur past him, each house a variation of the same: drawn curtains, wilting gardens, signs of life that refuse to fully live.

By the time the sky bruises purple, he finds himself at the graveyard. He tells himself it’s just habit, but deep down, he knows better.

And that’s when he sees her.

A girl. Alone, sitting on a gravestone like it’s her rightful seat, a notebook in her lap, hair like spilled milk catching the last light of the day.

She writes, or draws, or maybe just pretends to. She doesn’t look up. She doesn’t need to. She feels apart from everything around her, like she belongs to a different time, or maybe no time at all.

Atlas watches from a distance, curiosity threading through his ribs like wire. The air is still, the graveyard quiet except for the occasional caw of a crow. He shifts his weight, feels the impulse to step closer, but fights it. Something about her presence feels sacred. Distant. Like a painting you admire but don’t touch.

He wonders where she came from. What kind of person chooses Black Salt?

He tells himself he’ll walk away.

But he doesn’t.

Not yet.

Instead, he sits on a nearby stone, far enough not to disturb her, close enough to keep watching. The wind stirs the grass, the scent of damp earth rich in his nose. The sun sinks lower, bleeding orange into purple.

Atlas closes his eyes just for a moment.

When he opens them, she’s gone.

A ghost, maybe. Or maybe just a girl.

But either way, he knows this: tomorrow, he’ll come back.