The Rot Beneath

Chapter 2: The Rot Beneath

The next morning, Atlas wakes with the shape of the girl still burned into his mind. Her white hair, the way she didn’t move even when the wind picked up. She’d looked like she belonged there, a fixture among the dead.

His dreams hadn’t been any kinder. He’d dreamt of bones beneath his skin, shifting like they were trying to get out. He'd dreamt of voices whispering in the dark, too low to understand but heavy with meaning.

When he comes down to the kitchen, his father is already gone—not surprising. The only sign of his presence is the coffee pot still half-full and the lingering smell of oil and metal from his work clothes.

Atlas stirs the coffee, pours some into a chipped mug, and drinks it black. Bitter enough to sting his throat, but it keeps his eyes open.

School feels like it moves slower than usual. The hallways are lined with the same cracked lockers, the same faded posters warning about "Emotional Safety" and "Healthy Attachment Boundaries." A teacher drones on about calculus, but Atlas watches the clock instead, each tick dragging like it’s clawing at the fabric of time.

He sketches again in his notebook, but this time it isn’t just bones. It’s a girl with white hair, sitting on a grave, staring back at him with eyes he’d never seen up close.

"You ever gonna introduce yourself?" Jamie whispers from the desk next to his.

Atlas scowls. "What are you talking about?"

"The new girl. Everyone's talking about her. She’s in your head, man. You keep drawing her."

Atlas flips the page over with more force than necessary. "Mind your own."

But he can’t deny it. She’s taken root in his mind, just like the rot takes root in the bones of the damned.

When the bell finally rings, Atlas doesn't even pretend to follow the crowd home. His feet know where to go before his mind catches up.

The graveyard.

It’s emptier than usual. The clouds are heavy, like the sky might crack open and spill its guts, but the rain holds back.

At first, he thinks she’s not there. That he imagined her entirely.

Then he sees her. Not on the gravestone this time, but sitting on the ground itself, cross-legged, sketchbook balanced on her knee.

He steps closer. The crunch of dead grass under his feet gives him away, but she doesn’t look up.

"You always watch from a distance?" she says, pencil never pausing.

Atlas freezes. "I wasn’t—watching, I mean."

"Sure you weren’t."

"I was just... passing through."

She finally glances up. Her eyes are grey, pale but sharp, like the sky before a storm. "You passed through yesterday too."

Atlas doesn’t know what to say to that. He shifts his weight awkwardly.

"I’m Nova," she says, as if that explains anything.

"Atlas."

She raises an eyebrow. "Like the map guy?"

"Yeah. Like the map guy."

"Weird name."

"Yours isn’t?"

Nova shrugs, a small smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Touché."

Silence stretches between them, but not an uncomfortable one. She goes back to her sketching, and Atlas watches her hands move—quick, precise, as if the lines she draws are already there waiting to be uncovered.

"You live nearby?" he asks.

"Moved here last week," she answers without looking up. "Meyers place."

Atlas nods slowly. The house had been empty for years, decaying like everything else. "Why?"

She pauses, pencil hovering over the page. "My mom. She thinks a change of scenery will... fix things."

"What things?"

She looks up then, eyes locking onto his. "Things that can’t be fixed."

Atlas doesn’t press. He knows that tone. It’s the sound of doors locked from the inside.

Instead, he asks, "What are you drawing?"

Nova tilts the notebook to show him. It’s a sketch of the graveyard—but different. The trees are more twisted, the gravestones cracked and half-buried. In the background, shadows with hollow eyes watch from behind the trunks.

"That’s... pretty grim," Atlas says.

"It’s honest. This place feels like that to me. Like there’s more dead than living, even outside the graveyard."

He can’t argue with that.

"You’re not wrong," he says quietly.

A gust of wind picks up, rustling the brittle grass, the branches creaking overhead. Atlas shivers despite himself.

"Does it scare you?" Nova asks suddenly.

"What?"

"The rot."

The question punches through his chest harder than he expects. No one asks that. Not out loud. It’s something you carry in your bones, a private dread.

"Everyone’s scared of it," Atlas answers, voice low.

"But you?"

He considers lying, then decides against it.

"Terrifies me."

Nova nods like she expected that. "Good. Means you’re not stupid."

She stands, brushing dirt from her skirt. "See you around, Atlas."

Before he can say anything else, she’s walking away, leaving him alone among the graves and the watching shadows.

But he knows he’ll see her again. The rot might scare him.

But she scares him more.

And he wants to know why.