Archive of Our Own

Apollo finds itself at the front door of its house, but this… isn't its house. It can't put a finger on why, but this house does not feel like the home it's made with Artemis, though it looks exactly like it should. A sense of trepidation, the paranoia of being watched, settles into its skin and over its shoulder. Instinctively, it reaches a hand to where Juno should be, but isn't, fist clenching around the nothingness instead.

A migraine threatens to rear its ugly head if Mind thinks too hard about how they got separated in the first place. They spent the morning together, sleeping in and taking time to do nothing but hold each other, and then things go blurry and painful. Instead of dwelling on the unhelpful past, it draws on what its Heart has taught it: act without thinking. If it imagines he's here, it's a little easier to put a hand on the doorknob and step into (not-)their house.

The step turns into a stumble as there's suddenly someone at its side, but not Juno's familiar warmth; this presence is also familiar, but in a way that sends chills through its body as fear spikes in its stomach. No. He shouldn't be here. He wasn't here a second ago, how is he here? It opens its eyes, taking a step back as its intuition proves correct.

Fucking Atlas.

But… like this house did not feel like its home, like their home, this also isn't the Atlas they locked in the basement. This is a different Atlas. Their hair is the same, whatever it can gather of their face behind a subtly-different mask seems to be the same, but they aren't its Soul. They dress all wrong, wearing clothes that must be representative of another Mind and Heart, and its head spins with the possibilities. Other timelines? A multiverse? What the hell?

"Where the fuck did you come from?" both of them ask at the same time. This Soul's voice is chillingly similar to what it would expect from its own.

Apollo takes another step back, arms crossing defensively over its chest. A scowl—careful to keep its teeth hidden—twists its face.

At least, for their part, this Atlas looks equally taken aback, like this Mind is equally foreign to them as they are to it. Recognizable, but wrong. They crack their neck, a subtle confirmation that this is only a familiar stranger, regarding it for a moment. "I didn't walk in with you."

"And I didn't walk in with you," it echoes, the strangeness of the situation choking whatever else it might want to say. Fuck you, maybe, or, what did you do to him. Both seem futile.

This not-Atlas squints—visible even behind their mask—as they look Apollo up and down. "You're not my Mind," they say, as if it isn't fucking obvious enough. "Who are you?"

"And you're not locked in a basement," Apollo spits in return, an edge to its voice. Much to its delight—but not relief—this other Soul's expression shifts to bewilderment.

"Cool, that's a sentence you could say to me." The blasé defensiveness is something Mind definitely recognizes, putting its teeth on edge. "Don't like the implications of that!" There's something nearing hysterical at the edge of their voice, something they're hiding behind that uncanny mask. "Well, nice meeting you, I need to go find Heart, so…"

They trail off as they wander to the rightmost door. Apollo can read their body language just well enough to pick up a sort of exhaustion, similar to the way its own Atlas carried himself at the beginning of every loop. That goddammit, not this shit again posture, the beginning of another pointless cycle.

"Fucking house," they mutter, just loud enough for it to catch, "hate this fucking goddamn stupid fucking house." (Not-)Atlas glances over their shoulder, regarding Mind almost like a hallucination. "You're just gonna do that, so… bye!" They go through the door.

There are other doors, naturally; Apollo recognizes this as their living room, at least, in appearance. The couch is in the right place, the TV, the lamps. Only the shelves are empty. Still, the same sense of pervasive wrongness coats the space like a thick layer of dust on its tongue. Something cold creeps up its spine, colder still than the shiver of recognition, the feeling of being watched returning. Christ, its paranoia hasn't been so bad since the before.

It realizes that, Atlas or not, it does not want to be alone here. Fuck, it would rather be with the Soul it locked in the basement than alone. Still a bit reluctant, it follows them through the door, leaving the living room behind it. Its moment of thought was just brief enough—though it felt like it lasted for hours—that it's practically on their heels.

"Okay, cool," this Atlas says; Mind has no doubt now that this is some Soul, and not just a weird copy, even if not the one it knows. That puts it slightly more at ease. "I guess you're tagging along. Love that for me."

Without another word, Apollo follows them into the room, having to pause while it puzzles together the lines and colors into shapes.

This is… it should be Heart's bedroom. The bed is the correct shade of purple, after all, but the dimensions of the room feel simultaneously too large and like they're trying to strangle it. This isn't Juno's bedroom, at least not the one Apollo knows. Perhaps it belongs to the Heart this Soul is seeking? Glancing aside, though, it sees them shifting from foot to foot, hands fidgeting, eyes cataloguing the shape of the space with some trepidation. Their sigh is heavy. This is unfamiliar to them, too.

"This fucking shit again."

It ventures in a little farther to stand almost shoulder-to-shoulder with Atlas. "…this isn't his room." Soul only nods, looking at the doors to either side as though weighing their options. A ray of hope comes through, a single shaft of moonlight. If you're lost, they say it's better to stay put than to get more lost, right? Let someone find you. "Maybe he'll show up if I wait here long enough." It doesn't like the uncertainty in its voice as it speaks.

"That won't work in here."

Apollo's eyes snap from the bed to Atlas.

"Well, it won't."

Curiosity wells up in its chest like blood from a wound. "How the fuck do you know?" It's both a genuine question and an accusation.

Soul sighs once again. "Not my first experience in here."

This conversation is going nowhere. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean, 'here?'"

"The house," Atlas says, as if that's supposed to explain a goddamn thing. Though it tilts its head to the side, asking an obvious question, they don't answer. They simply take the door on the left wall, walking into something that's… a room without being a room.

It's vague in here—this is still an enclosed space, though heavy with an emptiness; the presence of an absence. Just over Soul's shoulder, Mind can make out an almost-familiar, winged shape. The more it looks at this… Heart, the more wrong it seems. Plasticine, almost. Two-dimensional. But the sight still makes its breath stutter in its chest.

Atlas stands, frozen. "Oh."

The thing that isn't Heart is pointing a gun directly at their chest.

Apollo shoves them out of the way, more of an urge to protect Artemis than to save Atlas, the target unmoving from its chest. It moves left and right, slowly, watching as the fucking thing pivots smoothly to always face it, always aiming at it.

"See what I mean?" Atlas asks. "Fucked up house."

It's not fooled by what it sees. This clearly isn't Heart. But it still pulls at Mind the same way, the same magnetic draw. It hasn't felt lonely since they reached their little understanding. It hasn't felt lonely since that night with the hammer. It feels very lonely now, looking at this thing. The name comes from its lips without it having a choice, a question it doesn't mean to ask, but has to. "Artemis?"

The look Soul gives it is—its first thought is pitying, disgusting, but then it realizes that their gaze is more… understanding. They shove the mannequin, receiving no resistance. The thing just wobbles in place. "This is not Heart. We need to move on."

Mind tries to pull on that sharp bitterness so close to the back of its throat, the secret weapon in its chest, the shield it used loop after loop after loop, but it doesn't quite find what it's looking for, its words coming out defeated and quiet instead. "I know."

Atlas steps between them, Apollo and the not-Heart, blocking its ability to see the wretched thing. "Come on. We can either go back the other way or keep going this way."

It can't speak, and it doesn't want to say anything else. There's nothing it can do but nod and move toward the door on the other side of the… whatever the fuck that was, into a sickly familiar place—its own fucking room.

Admittedly, this is its room as it was the night of the détente. Its bed is unmade, white sheets stained with dried droplets of blue and purple blood, intermingling into a dense indigo. There are sharp-tipped white fragments strewn across the sheets, often stained by more blood that looks like it would flake off their porcelain-smooth surfaces with the lightest touch.

That resignation has returned to this Soul, giving them the air that well, this might as well happen. "Huh."

What's much more important lies on the floor by the bed, as if forgotten in the way Juno half-supported, half-carried it to his room.

The familiar hammer is the first true sign of—something that feels real in whatever this fucked up place is, the opposite of the mannequin in the last room. Of course Apollo has to move toward it, eyes locked on what should be a simple household object. Something inside of it breaks, wanting to cry. Wanting its Heart.

Atlas' voice jars it out of the reminiscence, the painful peace. "Are you good, man?"

Mind ignores them the same way it ignored its own Soul that night. Instead of responding, it picks up the hammer, fingers wrapping around a handle that should have Juno's fingers on it. There's a, frankly, embarrassing tremor in its hands as it pulls the tool as close to its chest as it would its sweet Heart.

"Hey," Soul interrupts, again. "Are you alright?"

"You tried to stop this." Apollo is very proud when its voice comes out without a tremor.

"Well, maybe your Soul did." Yes, Mind is very aware—and very grateful—that this isn't its Atlas. "I didn't do anything." That sense of bewilderment is back in their voice. "Because I don't know what's happening."

"What Atlas doesn't know can't hurt him," it whispers to itself, eyes closed, holding on to the first time Juno said those very words, in the haze of afterwards. When it was still feverish and recovering and he cradled it so close, so gently.

"Okay. Well."

Apollo can't fault them; what is there to say to that? It catches their movement toward a door to the right, smack in the middle of a wall that shouldn't have a fucking door, and it turns to follow forward.

Beyond the door, there is a narrow staircase that leads down into its—into their—basement. The same place where Heart found the hammer in the first place, just in time to anticipate Mind's little panic attack, the same place Atlas should fucking be, or at least, their Atlas. The bloodstains on the floor remain where they ought to, as red as ever, and Mind lets its eyes move slowly toward the bodybag.

The very clearly empty bodybag.

"It's empty," it says, taking a step back toward the stairs, adrenaline suddenly joining the mix of chaos within it.

"What do you mean, it's emp—" Atlas starts, cutting themself off. "What is— you know this room." It can hear the accusation in their voice, the threat of very sharp tines behind their words. "This isn't just the house fucking with us."

The unspoken command in that tone forces the truth from the place it's nestled deep in Apollo's chest. "This is where… not-you is supposed to be."

"In the bodybag?" Soul questions, the threat rising.

Where the fuck else? Annoyance tinges its fear, an acrid and welcome taste in its whirlwind thoughts. "Yes?"

Atlas doesn't even dignify it with a response, retreating up the stairs and elsewhere.

Mind's gaze stays locked on the bodybag, questioning, wondering, worrying. But there only seems to be the one Atlas in this place, the one that doesn't go with Apollo. Mismatched.

It realizes that it's alone here, now, and leaves before the chill can return. It barely even notices the Heart-shaped thing still pointing a gun at it before it crosses not-quite-Heart's room, stumbling after Soul into what is very clearly their room.

It's spent time in here—they've all spent time in here, before the meaningless bliss that once was Concord, braiding each other's hair, painting each other's nails, writing and planning and talking in harmony. The room is a bit different from what it remembers, but it hasn't been in Atlas' room since the last commencement of Concord, unknowable ages ago. With Atlas out of the picture, the loop has neither reset nor continued, giving just Juno and Apollo time to be themselves, together. Being us instead of "us."

But it's… not just Soul's room, because there is a very distinct sound in its walls: weeping.

Not only weeping, but Heart's weeping.

Rote familiarity means it knows this sound well. This is the weeping of a Heart having freshly lost his eyes, tears mingling with blood and chunks of gore streaked down his cheeks. A Heart whose freshly-cultivated anger has just been replaced with an existence made of pain. It makes Apollo's bones ache with the reminder of the loop they've left behind, unless this place indicates that they… haven't.

But haven't they?

Atlas looks just as uncomfortable as it feels about this, but Apollo stares at them with undisguised hostility regardless. They return the glare. "What do you want me to do about this shit? It just happens. You think I'm happy about it?"

Apollo grits its teeth, reminded just how sharp they truly are. "It's good that you're not happy about this."

Soul's glare is palpable even through their mask. Mind catches the fingers of their hand twitch, a threat if it's ever seen one before, almost reaching for something. It's almost surprised when their nails dig into their palms instead, distantly impressed at the self-control.

Still, the crying surrounds them.

"So why were you looking for him again?"

"I was looking for both of them, actually." Atlas sighs forcefully. "It's. Whatever." Again, the reluctant pluck of defensiveness, of a threat they're talking themself down from showing. "Just. Let's keep going." But they also sound absolutely exhausted in a way Mind doesn't think it's ever heard before, at least not from its own counterpart. Not even at the peak of its fighting with Heart, at the lowest points of Cacophony, has it heard its Soul sound so… defeated.

"Well," it says, a little forcefully itself, "I suppose, if you're calling the shots… I guess that means I have no choice."

"You don't have to follow me." The note of exhaustion only grows. "You can go anywhere else in this house you want to go. Go find your Heart. I'm looking for mine."

Apollo only breaks its glare now, eyes moving to the floor. The thought of going off on its own remains unsettling. It doesn't sound altogether safe, like there's something deep inside it warning it against being alone. The feeling doesn't exactly belong to it, as though it's borrowed from something else very similar to it. Like there's another Mind just behind it, whispering in its ear.

It's reluctant as it speaks. "I don't want to be alone here." Still, it shuffles ever-so-slightly closer to Soul, who only sighs again.

"Fine. Whatever." They gesture to the door with their head, and Mind knows when to follow into a pitch-black nothing of a space.

There is a sense of something, a boundary. The room, if one could even call it that, has just enough space for the two of them (and one more person, perhaps) to stand before a pair of shut doors, both with a note of finality—only one can be chosen. They'd be identical, except…

Except for the slightest smudge of purple by the handle of the leftmost door. Except for the single white feather caught in the same door.

Atlas looks at it with a rapt attention that mirrors Apollo, but also a hefty dose of palpable dread. "So there's one thing I need you to know about this house: it will do everything in its power to trick us, to hurt us, to separate us." They take an uneasy breath. "I'm still going to go through the door. You don't want to be alone, but you probably shouldn't follow me."

With everything it's seen… that makes perfect sense. The trap is clear; the house wants Apollo to go through the leftmost door, hoping it will follow the least trace of Juno it can find. It shouldn't listen to this fucked up, haunted, whatever thing this place is. It all makes too much goddamn sense.

But that's still Juno's blood. That's still its Heart's feather. It can't just leave him like this, hurt and lost. (If he's as hurt as it is, deep inside—)

"As if I have any other choice?" It refuses to let this Atlas, however removed from the one it knew they might be, to question its devotion to Juno. Its Artemis. When it's his Apollo. When everything they ever said to each other was laced with what must be an unhealthy amount of reciprocal obsession, when its sharp nails dug into his skin with the intent to mark what belongs to it, when his fingers pulled out tooth after bloody tooth.

"Fair enough," is all Soul says before they turn the handle. As Mind follows behind them, choosing the marked door, the demeanor of the room changes completely. All at once, the other door seems to halfway fade out of existence, like a greyed-out option on a computer prompt.

The navy-walled room with its sterile tile floors is not as unfamiliar to Atlas as it is to Apollo. They almost flinch as they walk into its bright, unforgiving fluorescent lighting. Mind registers dark tally marks on the walls, clusters of them drawn in a hand that is far too familiar for its comfort. There's a cot in the furthest left corner, a drain (a fucking drain?!) in the center of the floor, and a desk to the right.

"Oh, are you fucking kidding me?" they ask.

Apollo has only just noticed the paper on the desk as Atlas steps across the room to it, grabbing it and quickly ripping it into a flurry of white, inked bits. Their gaze returns to Mind as the last few shreds of paper float to the floor. "Look, you're probably suspicious of me doing that, but trust me, that paper has nothing to do with either of us." Their words are clear, concrete, and thoroughly meant. "It just made my Mind upset."

Why the preface? Isn't drawing attention to the action's suspiciousness more suspicious? Regardless, the suspicion slides right off its thoughts. Atlas isn't lying to it. It refuses to accept the possibility that Atlas is lying about this. "What would you gain from lying to me about that?" Apollo asks, its voice joined by that of whatever other trace of itself exists in the air of this place.

"I don't know," Atlas admits. "You don't exactly seem to have a high fucking opinion of me, so…" They trail off, voice softening. "God, I just wanna go home."

So does it. "You're right. I don't." This Atlas hasn't done anything to earn that instinctive layer of ire, but Apollo feels it nonetheless, the importance of keeping its and its Heart's secrets from them. "But I have… a feeling you wouldn't lie to me about this." Is it going crazy? Is this whole stupid thing some feverish nightmare? Its own voice in its ear, is that a symptom of this god-forsaken place that seems intent on presenting horror after bizarre horror?

But… there's a strong conviction behind the words, even if the conviction doesn't seem to belong to it. This Atlas, at least, wouldn't lie to it, not about this.

"We should move on." They pause only to sigh, casting a sideways glance at a closet door that almost radiates an aura of poison, a non-option. "Fucking of course. Nothing can ever be easy."

Apollo allows Atlas to lead the way back through their bedroom, back through neither Hearts' bedroom, into and across the living room, to take the door left from the entryway.

It's pitch-black in here, the walls and ceiling only existing as the vaguest suggestions of structure. From some vague place above them come a trio of spotlights highlighting three color-coded podia—from left to right, blue, then red, then purple. Each has a card in front of it, marked with text too vague to be easily read. Behind the podia, there are three doors in the same colors. Only the blue one, the leftmost, is open.

There is also a note just before the threshold of the blue door. This is what both Apollo and Atlas focus on, the scrap of paper with its hint of violet ink.

Was here, it reads, in a familiar scrawl. If you see this, went through this door.

It's hardly a decision—Mind and Soul meet eyes and nod, a moment of perfect understanding.

Down a short, dark hallway is a room Apollo recognizes immediately.

This is its own Heart's room. A second bed's been shoved in the space beside the first, neatly made with layers of blue and purple sheets. Everything is laid out right, it even smells right, like his body wash and conditioner. This is the room Mind left earlier today(? time doesn't seem to be working normally), before losing Artemis, before all of this.

Then it realizes that Atlas is seeing what it's seeing. Before it can even so much as blush, they give it a very knowing look.

It pulls the hammer closer to its chest, knuckles white around the handle. The urge to stay here and wait, as if Juno just left to go downstairs and get something to eat, draws it toward the bed. But everything Soul's been saying has started to sink in. This, too, is a trick. They can't stay, but it wants to crawl under those sheets and rot.

"We… probably shouldn't stay here either, should we?" it asks, reluctant.

"No," Atlas says, not unkindly. "Sorry." They don't make eye contact as they look from it to the beds and back again. One hand comes up, slipping off the mask to hang on their belt. They look even more exhausted than Mind could have predicted from their tone of voice. "You asked why I was looking for Heart."

Apollo remains perfectly still and perfectly silent.

"Same reason as you."

Its first breath in what feels like ages comes and goes in the form of a soft "oh." Understanding floods in to fill the place of embarrassment, of guilt, of hiding something. Neither of them are truly alone in this pain. Mind's tension breaks a little, relief chasing away a little of the cold and heavy thing lining its gut.

"Then I guess we have to find them both, right?" it asks.

"Yeah," Atlas says. "I imagine you're not looking for your… Soul. But I'm looking for my Mind, too. I just… I need you to know that." There's something going unspoken there, the suspicion rising in Apollo that their Mind would appreciate knowing that. Shit. It's not one to judge.

It hopes the other Mind also isn't one to judge, because it cannot imagine ever not having its Heart all to itself. There's an ugly possessive streak a mile wide carved deep inside it, and the only thing that soothes it is that Juno seems just as possessive of it in turn.

"I hope he's understanding," Apollo says, as if giving its own blessing to something that's really none of its business. If it would make him happy, it finds itself thinking. Fuck, it would give anything to make him happy. Even its blessing, no matter how it would hurt.

(He wouldn't ask. Apollo trusts him to tell it the truth in his core, the way it tells him the truth in its. Their mutual openness to each other, the emotional twining of two things that long to remain themselves despite being halves of a whole.)

Atlas leads it through the door to the left of the beds, bringing it to a kitchen, strangely. Their kitchen, even, though Atlas seems equally at ease in it. The knives are all in their block, the counters cleared of everything except the coffee machine, the sink empty. The only thing out of the ordinary is the note on a small table off to the side, plainly written in more purple ink.

Apollo reads the same feeling of oh, god in the look that Atlas gives it before they move in tandem to the note. It's only polite that it allows Atlas to read it first. They read it, then pass it to Mind with a look of confusion, like they don't quite know what to make of the thing.

The note is once more in Heart's hand and, this time, it's a break-up note. But it's… despite being written, ostensibly, by Artemis, it's so generic that it doesn't sound like something he would write. It doesn't even say who it's for, there is no address at its top. Even looking at it, knowing it's something this house-thing is making up to taunt both Mind and Soul, knowing there is no version of Heart that would ever write this, there's still a certain discomfort to it. Like Apollo is reading it in a very cold, penetrating downpour—like being alone without an umbrella because it expected Juno to bring the umbrella and he isn't present.

Its eyes raise to Atlas again. Despite the confidence at its core that neither Heart would write this letter, its voice shakes a little. "There's no way he wrote this."

"Oh, definitely not."

The agreement is all the reassurance it needs to put the note back down on the table, the wet coldness going with it. "Okay, so it's settled. Nobody wrote this."

"Well," Atlas says, "the house wrote it, but the house is a jackass, so."

The house is a jackass, and it revealed one of the few things Mind's reluctant to discuss even with its Heart. Something that must have been… probably some variety of torturous to this Soul. Fuck. And the sharpness it showed them is unfair, given everything. "I'm sorry you had to see that. The— the basement."

Its words catch Soul off-guard, their unmasked face awash in shock. "It's— it's fine? I mean, I— it's not fine, I don't know how to take that, and I don't know what's going on there, but I don't take it personally." They pause, still unsettled. "Thank you for the apology, but trust me, I've seen worse."

The matter doesn't feel entirely settled just yet. Apollo… owes them an explanation, at least. Right? That's how this is supposed to work? It takes a minute for it to come up with a succinct reason for the action, for forcing its own goddamn Soul into a bodybag and locking him in the basement, hopefully forever. "He would have torn us apart."

There's another second's hesitation before Atlas speaks again. "Well, then, he got what he deserved."

Of course you'd say that, you suicidal bastard crosses its thoughts, bringing rueful half-smile to its face. Apollo can tell the smile doesn't quite reach its eyes, but hopefully the intent comes through, even if it might be flashing the points of its teeth. Neither the teeth nor the smile seem to disturb this Atlas, though. Small miracle, that.

Instead, Soul wanders to the door behind them, hand hovering over the handle, before pausing. "Do you want to pick which way we go this time? Not that it matters much."

"Well, we're moving past this note." Like it isn't even there. Mind walks around the table to the door that had stared them down while they considered the note. Soul follows it through.

Ah, yes. Finally, something that should be where it is: the backyard. It's supposed to wrap around to the front of the house, but all Apollo can see is the wall leading back to the kitchen, submerged in the deep, dark void that extends in all directions around them. The chalkline horizon still hovers in the distance, and high in the sky is a sun shining down with no warmth.

There is a hole not far from the door, the ground around it disturbed, a shovel sticking out of a small mound of dirt to the side. Around the hole are nearly-black splatters of dried blood, the same that runs through Apollo's veins. But it's made its peace with this scene.

Atlas… doesn't seem to be in the same place with what happened, looking at the hole with an almost-worried expression. "I'm kind of surprised you all didn't fill that in."

To be completely fair, neither Juno nor itself tend to wander in that patch of the backyard. They've discussed it, of course, as well as much more esoteric ideas about the incident in the first place, but they've never bothered revisiting it. It shrugs. "We're letting bygones be bygones."

"Probably the healthiest way to go about it."

Mind is almost-shocked that this is coming from the Soul who just learned why their counterpart is locked in the basement in a fucking bodybag. Still, it supposes that's better than a Soul who's freaking out about that fact or, worse, proving their joint decision correct. "We've reached an understanding."

"You think we should keep walking or head back into one of the rooms?" Atlas asks mildly. "It's not gonna let us out here, for the record. I feel like that goes without saying."

Apollo hadn't exactly expected it to, either. Besides, neither of them has found their matching Heart—let alone Soul finding their Mind, too. It gets the sense that this journey is far from over. "Everything just leads back to the house, anyway." No matter how far into the void beyond it one walks, they'll always inevitably end up back at the house, and that's with the regular house. There's no way this fucked up version of the house will give them an out that easy.

"Well, then we might as well just go through another door." The resignment and exhaustion have leeched back into Atlas' voice. "Make it easier."

"I have no arguments."

This time, going back through the kitchen, it doesn't even spare the note a glance—as much as it almost wants to. It manages to resist the insistent urge itching under its skin. God, it misses Juno. Nothing has ever been able to distract it from its intrusive musings the same way he has. Apollo supposes that it's just another reason to keep moving forward, following Atlas through the door across from the one that led "outside."

The room before Atlas and Apollo is dark, small, and empty but for a mirror.

Except… it's not quite a mirror. It doesn't reflect either of them, at least not as they are now.

It reflects them in tandem, in what Mind knows was its lowest moment and suspects Soul considers the same: immediately after… well… that. The reflection of Atlas is splattered in purple blood that matches what adorns the tines of their trident, dripping messy down their mask. And the reflection of Apollo…

Its vicious grin is populated by too many, too sharp, too perfect teeth.

Mind doesn't even remember the last time it ate, but the urge to vomit rises rapidly as it looks at the ground, the room spinning with claustrophobia and vertigo both. It catches, out of the corner of its eye, Soul going as pale as it feels. It suspects that their expression mirrors its, the need to violently expel some kind of imagined poison in their guts. Both of them have to breathe very, very deliberately as they recover from the shock.

Atlas' eyes go wide, though, as they seem to realize something. Whatever it was, it turns their entire body into a deliberate and steady line of action. Kinetic energy flows through them, face turning to rage and rage turning into a fist that smashes square into the mirror, fracturing the reflections. Red blood stains the shards of glass and drips from their knuckles. Apollo looks up at them to see them absolutely livid, trembling with the anger.

"Jesus Christ," it barely breathes, a statement equally about the reflection and Soul's reaction.

The look they give it is definitely an attempt at serenity, but it's so forced that they just look outright manic instead. "I hate this fucking house," they practically heave, words coming out with the same force that courses through their body, barely contained. Atlas' face contorts into what's probably supposed to be a smile, but bares too many teeth (normal, shaped like human teeth should be; this is not lost on Apollo).

They stomp out like they intend to slam the door, but they refrain at the last minute, retreating from the kitchen entirely. By the time Mind's regathered itself enough to face them again, Soul's back in the room it shares with Juno, or at least the facsimile thereof. They're leaning against the desk chair but not quite sitting on it, hands covering their face. Blood still drips down their arm from their cut-up fist, leaving dark spots on the carpet.

Apollo absolutely resents how shaky its voice comes out, but it tries very hard to lean into its role as the rational one here. "Let's move on before you permanently stain the carpet, shall we?"

There is an infinite weariness in Soul's bearing and voice. "Sure." They stand and practically drag themself to the next room, another small and dark thing with a single feature: a red noose hanging from an infinitely-high ceiling.

"Jesus Christ," Mind finds itself saying again, looking at the noose.

Atlas barely glances at the damned rope before turning and leaving once more, leading back through the last door remaining from the living room. Apollo swears the atmosphere grows heavier and stuffier every time they pass through it.

Two tables sit side-by-side in yet another dark, tiny room. On one table, to the left of the door, is Soul's trident. On the other is a gun identical to the one held by the not-Heart that remains pointed at Mind—it doesn't know how it knows this, only that it's dead certain of the fact, deep in its body. The fake Heart is oriented to face it perfectly, gun at the ready.

Curiosity brings Apollo closer to the trident. "Is that yours?"

Soul barely glances at the weapon before looking back to Apollo. "No," they say, "mine's right here." They gesture to what it initially thought was a bobby pin—looking a little more closely, though, it realizes it is a picture perfect miniature of the trident. It huffs a little surprised breath through its nose.

"Well, I guess there wasn't anything keeping that basement door closed."

Atlas sags, clearly uncomfortable, everything about them absolutely permeated with that deep-seated exhaustion. They've said this isn't their first run-in with the house, that they're separated from both their thirds. How many times have they been forced to walk these cursed hallways and rooms? How many trials have they had to face and push through? How much precious time have they wasted searching for something this goddamn house doesn't want them to find?

Apollo takes the initiative to leave, mapping the remaining doors in its head, already headed for the copy of its own room, where there should be two more doors. It's already halfway there when it realizes Soul's caught up to it, not having noticed when exactly that happened, too lost in thought.

It's very glad it's not alone in this place, and it wonders just how long Atlas has spent alone here.

It puts the thought away for later.

Through a door set between its desk and its bed, Apollo leads them into a very plain hallway. It's obviously built after the style of the rest of the house, but it doesn't particularly resemble any of the hallways Mind knows, even with its unusual placement. Here, it pauses, taking thorough stock of Atlas.

It knows it's staring too long and too hard, too analytically, but it can't really bring itself to care. All there is to read from Soul is an exhaustion more bone-deep than what it would expect from its own counterpart. A sadness, too, maybe a deeper version of the loneliness that's crept into its own bones.

It doesn't want to ask, but it has to. It has to know. Apollo sighs. "Do we just have to keep going?"

"I think," Atlas says. There's a moment where they look almost more guilty than just exhausted before the weariness settles back in. They rub at their eyes. Mind gets the urge to gently discourage that habit, but doesn't know how useful it would be here. "Yeah. More or less."

There's quiet for a brief moment before it voices its doubts. "Is there even a chance we'll find either of them, somewhere in here?"

This quiet lasts significantly longer. Neither of them move, Apollo hardly daring to breathe in fear of breaking whatever rest Atlas might get out of this reprieve, however brief. "I… I don't actually know," they answer, finally. "I lost them both, the first time. I… never… I never did find them."

"How did you get out?" it asks though it truly does not want to know the answer. Evidently, Soul doesn't want it to know the answer either, at least not directly. Instead, almost unconsciously, they raise a hand to their throat. They look down and turn their back to Mind.

They actually did it, it thinks somewhere very distantly. They actually… fuck. Fuck. The thought sits sour inside it, refusing to process. Apollo has to force itself to process the thought, the image coalescing from the way Atlas turned away from that noose. That was how they got out of this fucking nightmare.

Would it be better to just give up now? To realize the house always held the cards, the house already won, to save itself the effort and to give up than keep going on a pointless journey with no better ending? Would that wake it up in its room beside Juno, held close in his arms and wings, his heartbeat beneath its ear? God, it wants that more than anything else in the world. Just that intimacy, something that should be so close but instead feels unfathomably distant.

…but would its sweet Heart want it to give up? Would he want it to wake up and explain this nightmare, proud of ending it now rather than continuing to look for him? The fear of disappointing him strikes it like a current directly to its core. It can hear the word in his voice: no.

And what if this isn't just a dream? What if they're truly separated by this monster disguised as a house? What if he's equally alone and afraid? That makes it ache so deeply that, for a moment, the ache is indistinguishable from the rest of everything it is.

"Do— can we even know if they're okay?"

"I don't know." At least it's an honest answer.

Mind doesn't know what, exactly, to do with that. It has to hope, though, right? Hasn't it learned how to hope? Maybe its Artemis isn't alone—maybe, just maybe, the house has granted him the same small mercy granted to it: there's a chance that he might have another Heart, the one that belongs with this Soul. At this point, it wouldn't even care if he was stuck with their counterpart Mind. Just… as long as he's not alone.

"Okay then." It takes a steadying breath. "Next room?"

"I guess."

Immediately down the hall is a small room, this one thankfully with walls and a ceiling and a floor instead of just darkness. It's a tiny closet of a room, the only thing of note within being a rough floorplan of the house, at least so far, pinned to the wall opposite the door. Drawn along the floorplan, weaving in and out of rooms and doorways, are a pair of lines—one red and one blue—tracing their exact steps.

Mind notes that none of the rooms beyond untaken doorways are drawn, like those doors lead to nothing.

"That's not all there is to see of this place, is it?" The question is stupid, the answer obvious, but it asks anyway.

"Not by a long shot." Soul isn't even looking at the map, nor are they looking at Mind. Their eyes remain on the floor. In a fluid, decisive motion, they pull the mask back on over their face.

Apollo knows—or, at least, thinks it knows—what this gesture means. Places, please. The curtain call. It's afraid it might fuck this up, it's been so long since it had to go through these motions. Still, it straightens out of the slight slouch it adopted from Juno. It takes a deep breath to recollect itself, centering its thoughts on the performance of rigid logic and rationality. It allows its face to fall into a comfortably neutral expression. Everything feels like it doesn't quite fit on its body anymore, like clothes it's outgrown, and it can't help but remand itself for falling so far from what it's meant to be, what it was made to be.

The time alone with Juno has spoiled it, made it lazy. Turned it into something else entirely. But, no matter how much it might prefer whatever it's become, this is not the time to indulge that particular beast—the one that's grown hungry for affection in whatever form Juno will offer. Juno isn't here and that's the entire problem.

With nowhere further to go, Mind follows Soul into… another hallway, parallel to the one branching off its room. But this one stretches on for an uncomfortable length in either direction, its wall lined with evenly-spaced doors too close together to go anywhere but the same place. It might as well go on forever, an infinite selection of new rooms to explore, all with the same exact destination. Apollo's head spins as it attempts to comprehend this infinity of predestined options.

At Atlas' sigh, it realizes that this is the house taunting them both, saying that it doesn't matter where they go next. This will just go on forever and ever and ever.

"Does it even matter which one we take," it says without bothering to raise the intonation at the end to bend the statement into a question. It knows the answer already.

"Not particularly."

Mind proceeds through the nearest door, and into a second parallel hallway, this one deeper than either of the other two that led to it. Likewise, this one seems to go on forever in either direction, but there's something… more than the pointless selection of doors that led here.

There is an equally-endless presentation of those empty Heart mannequins. No two are alike; they come in every shape and size, every possible combination of features, ones that look like this Mind and this Soul and ones that don't alike. Ones that don't even resemble humans in any way, ones that are barely more than silhouettes with tear-streaked faces, ones in every kind of possible garb. Ones that stare out with pure white eyes, ones that still have agonizingly beautiful violet eyes perfectly intact, ones with deep black pits where eyes should be, ones with no space for eyes, ones with far more or far fewer eyes.

None of them look right, even beyond being obvious constructs of the house. Some almost come close, but never—never look quite like its Artemis. None of them look like they should belong alongside this Atlas, either. In this lurid display of infinite Hearts, Apollo gets the distinct sense that it could look forever and never find its own—and, equally, that Atlas could do the same with the same results.

Still, neither of them can do anything but stare blankly at this array of false starts and dashed hopes for at least a minute and maybe longer. The stillness is broken by Soul turning their masked face to Mind, eyes shining in the dark with tears.

"I wanna go home."

Apollo struggles, for a moment, to not let its own vulnerability show. If one of the two of them has to be the strong one here, the unyielding one, it will play that part. This poor Soul has struggled for so long, come so far, and for nothing. Compared to them, it's a fucking child.

"Would it really be home if he wasn't there?" it asks, forcing a coolness to its voice, hopefully somehow reassuring in the blankness of its tone. Mind knows damn well that a house without its Heart could never be home.

The attempt fails, and badly. The tears start to spill over, Atlas turning away abruptly and wrapping their arms around themself. Worse, still, they start muttering. "It's not home without them— I wanna go home 'cause they're there. I want my Heart, I want my Mind."

It can't leave them alone, because then it would be an utter fucking failure in every dimension for the rest of time, so it follows them, keeping a safe distance. Just so they can hear its footsteps, even, refusing to leave them alone. Persistent. It eventually stops near enough to offer a hug, but it refrains, like it wouldn't be right.

Fuck it, it's already got its foot stuck firmly in its mouth. Nothing it can say could make things worse, right? Atlas is already basically crying. "Could be worse," it offers. "We could be alone." It cringes at how obvious that is. The fact that it's here is probably only a painful reminder that it's not the right Mind for this Soul. "I mean, I'm not your Mind, and we're all very thankful you're not my Soul, but it's better than being alone."

Maybe if it believes hard enough in this, the idea will turn true.

At length, Atlas does turn back to face it, arms loose in a way that suggests they're asking. At least the embrace seems to feel equally uncomfortable for both of them, though Mind loses itself very, very briefly. This Soul is still shaped like it, and therefore like its twin, and it reflexively rubs their back for a very short and gentle second. When they pull away, the secret buries itself within them both.

At the very least, Soul's voice is steadier when they speak. "Wait… where's another door?"

"My bedroom. I think."

"Okay."

Light catches on the fragments of teeth strewn across its bed as it passes back through its room to the last door left and into a fresh hell.

Neither cramped nor roomy, this room is normal and does not go on infinitely. And thank fucking god it doesn't, because Apollo thinks it's very likely going to go insane from what's already there.

Twin tables, with a seat on either side of each. Behind the leftmost table sits a mirror replica of itself, silent and drawn. Behind the rightmost sits a second Atlas, too, this one somehow still wearier than the one beside it. Apollo and its duplicate share an expression of abject discomfort, eyes refusing to meet anything other than the floor. In its peripheral vision, it catches the Soul beside it making uncomfortably intense eye contact with their double.

It raises its eyes to stare insistently at the Atlas who walked into the room beside it, begging for either an explanation or an escape.

Atlas looks from Apollo to their duplicates, then back at it, then back to the duplicates. They do this a few times before their gaze settles on it. "I… don't know if they're real. They're… maybe us? I don't know. It makes fake ones, sometimes. But it also does fuck with time, so I can't tell. We could probably ask… something… right?" Their gaze returns to the clone Soul, who nods and holds up a single finger before gesturing to the both of them. Clearly, Atlas isn't about to take the lead on the questioning.

Apollo makes sure its face is the picture of stoic neutrality before it finally looks at… the other Mind. Itself, maybe. "Am I real?" it asks.

Its mirror shrugs, defeated. "As real as I am."

"That's not an answer," it argues.

"It's the only answer."

In its periphery, it catches the identical Souls giving each other a look that's almost familiar to it. Whatever. Apollo turns its gaze on the second Soul.

"If he's not here, then where the fuck is he?"

Soul-not-Atlas doesn't make eye contact, staring at their own hand spread on the table before them. "If… he's not in the house… then there's only one other place we really exist. If he's not here, he has to be at home, right?" Something that's almost amused, almost ironic, crosses their face like a flicker of firelight, disappearing just as quickly. "It's easy to get split up in here, but it's easy to get split up in general. I mean, we always get split up, right? That's the joke."

Not anymore, Apollo thinks but doesn't say. It knows there's no point in saying what it's going to say, but it has to. Just so everyone here is crystal fucking clear. "But I promised."

Now Atlas looks to Soul, both of them completely silent behind their masks, making exact eye contact in something that's very almost visible to Apollo in the silence. A conversation the two are having just with their eyes and nothing else, a back-and-forth that it wishes it could listen in on. Maybe their Mind would be able to hear it, but Apollo cannot. The conversation goes on for a while before, suddenly, stopping.

And, with a flash of sudden red, Atlas throws the trident through Soul, killing them instantly. Their corpse slumps forward, onto the table, red seeping to the floor from the piercing wounds. The recall is instant as it returns to Atlas' hand, poised to throw again.

Apollo and Mind share the same uncomfortable almost-smirk, and it knows deep within itself that they're having the same thought: that this makes perfect sense for the suicidal one, to the point where it's almost a fucking joke with how utterly predictable it was. At the same time, they share the discomfort of wondering whether that put Soul out of their misery.

And whether or not Atlas is willing to perform another mercy killing.

Mind outright asks them. "And me, too?"

Atlas glances quickly to Apollo, who nods in the same instant, a call-and-response. They perform the same on Mind, whose face goes very blank as its vacant body falls back in its chair. Red and blue blood intermingle on the tines Atlas pulls from its chest, melding into a beautiful, perfect purple. So close to being right. So, so fucking close.

They continue to avoid eye contact as they continue to clutch their trident. "If… they were real, it might get them out. And, if they weren't— they're not here anymore."

Apollo—once more the only Mind present—stares at, and through, its replica's corpse. Or its own future corpse. If Atlas couldn't tell, there's no way for it to know the truth. Or maybe both are true, maybe the house made these copies based on their joint actual future. At least they hadn't been split up. At least they would never be split up, joined in death in the same instance of eternal recurrence. Endlessly walking the same steps over and over.

The loop, but worse, because at least the loop had whatever diminishing relief Concord could bring at the end of it, no matter how disproportionately short those times were. A loop without oneness. A loop of eternal separation. It stews and stews on the implications there, thoughts churning like the sea, nonsensical and rational in turn. The most outlandish conclusions return the most sensible questions, the most logical of queries answered in fantastically deranged ideas.

The thoughts come so goddamn hard and thick in its fucking head, roaring, drowning out the chaos and the house around it until it's very nearly drowning in its own cogitations.

"Come on." The utterance shatters the whirlpool, Apollo surfacing for air above the insistence of the undertow. Atlas stands across the room, their hand on the handle to the next door. The only door forward, unless the house decided to put a new one somewhere—and it's very certain the damn thing could. But it wants to move forward alongside Atlas, not backward.

It nods and follows once more.

The hallway and staircase aren't familiar—the hallway Mind knows doesn't have a bend, nor does it turn directly into stairs, but the house is leading them both up. It walks comfortably beside Soul up the stairs to a small landing. Every wall has a door, the wall directly opposite the stairs featuring a double door. Apollo watches as Atlas reaches the landing, leaning heavily on the trident as though it's a cane.

It can't disagree. It wishes it had something, someone to support it right now. It slumps against the corner instead, the silence making the wave of thoughts crest over its head once again, chilling and dark and unfathomable. It can't lose itself to them again, even if only for Atlas' sake.

"Are you doing okay?" it asks, very softly, barely audible above the raging sea of thoughts.

Atlas' answer is automatic. "I'm fine." Don't worry about it. How many times had it heard its Soul say those words? Enough that they became a taunt, in time, as if there's something you could do for me.

This house is clearly driving it fucking insane if it misses its own version of Atlas.

"If we did that to us now," it starts, "would it…?"

"Well, there's no guarantee. I only did it the first time because I gave up."

It knew, already, of course it knew. No Soul would ever hang themself as the first given option. If that were the case, Apollo would be long since dead. It knew that this Atlas had been pushed to their absolute limit, but it's still terrifying to hear out loud. I gave up, in that voice, from that mask, however dissimilar to the one it knew.

"How… how long were you there, first?"

They shrug and it swallows, trying to press down the rising fear and nausea both. There's a long, long moment of silence as Mind tries to push forward.

"Are you ready to give up now?" It didn't even know its voice could be that soft.

Atlas is silent for long enough that it's ready to leave the conversation there, never hearing an answer. Long enough that it's surprised when they do speak. "If it was just me." They pause to sigh. "I… we owe it to them to try."

"Right. You're right. I shouldn't…" There remains the very, very real possibility that its Artemis is suffering, too, stuck in this domestic deathtrap. Apollo shivers, feeling the cold and the loneliness sink clean through its bones, hunching inward to try and be small. Because maybe if there's less to hurt, it'll hurt less. "I hope he isn't alone," it adds, feeling the tears threatening to spill forth. How fucking embarrassing would that be? "I hope… yours isn't alone, either." It's a struggle to breathe around the wet, painful thing that's taken up space inside its chest.

"Maybe," Soul starts, sounding a little more hopeful, at least, "they got lucky. Maybe they have each other."

Mind's hands hurt around something it only now realizes it's been clutching for a long time. Looking down, it sees the hammer still held tight to its chest. Which is stupid, of course it's not the actual fucking hammer that its Heart actually used to smash its actual fucking teeth. It's another fabrication of the house currently spiraling them, surrounding them in doom and futility.

It's disgusting.

Apollo drops the hammer, denting the hardwood floor of the landing and not giving a single damn when Soul jolts. Sensation floods back into its hands, all pins-and-needles from just how tight it'd been holding the facsimile. It flexes its fingers, ensuring they're all functional and haven't atrophied around the beacon of false hope. Once it's certain everything is working as it should, it offers its left hand to Atlas.

"So we don't get separated," it says, feeling more than a little silly, a tint of blue rising to its cheeks—a reaction it usually reserves for Juno alone. But… this Atlas has more than proven themself, it thinks. This Atlas saw it at its worst, saw its teeth bared in gruesome victory, and hadn't flinched away from it the way its own Soul had.

If they had been its Soul instead, there would have been no reason to lock them in the basement.

Atlas' hand is warm and dry when it links with the sweaty clamminess of Apollo's. From their eyes alone, it can tell they're smiling behind that mask. There's a light in them that was sorely missing.

This Atlas had proven worthy of an Artemis' love and trust. And there is nobody Apollo can trust more than its own Heart. So if their Heart and its Heart are anything alike… there must be something good in this Soul, too, the same way its Heart found something good inside his Mind.

This Apollo and this Atlas owe it to their respective Artimises, owe it to each other, to keep trying. As long as it takes. As difficult as it gets. They will succeed. It's their only option.

Apollo squeezes the hand held in its and keeps fucking going.

[End volume 1.]