Part Three: Wherein Atlas Knows the Sphere

    The sphere had approached Atlas while he was sleeping.  At the time, Atlas was dreaming about Earth, which wasn't rare for him.  Earth was where he went when he needed a break.  Earth was his favorite place, even despite its current state.  He was at his vacation home in the Antarctic; children playing in the yard, the trees surrounding them on three sides.  They weren't his kids.  In fact, he didn't know who's they were, but it was nice.  The children made him think of the children he'd wanted to have with Elisia, but he felt no sadness.  She was actually there, which he hadn't noticed to be weird.  You see, Elisia was four-and-a-half light years away, with her own family.  But she was his wife, he knew.  They were sharing a drink as the sun set into the purple sky.  The two flew up to the roof of the modest house, to better view the sun and the horizon. Their own son was waiting up there for them, and the three of them watched the sun rise back up, larger than it had been when it set.  It felt like a reunion, meeting his son.  He had seemed so familiar, though he didn't actually exist.  Not outside of Atlas's hopes and dreams, anyway.  Atlas was the happiest he'd ever been.  He was drinking his favorite drink, whatever it was, he didn't really know.  The sun's rays felt perfect on his skin; hot, but not too hot.  A perfect companion for the breeze.  Oh, how he had missed the sun.  It was the sun of his solar system; the sun of his Earth.  It was his sun.  It was perfect.  The Antarctic trees in the distance had disappeared, and all Atlas could see now was his sun against the horizon, knowing his family was by his side.
    The sphere had appeared out of nowhere, through a hole in the air itself.  It knew Atlas was there.  It had come here for him from very, very far away.  The sphere was hungry.  Not in the sense that you and I are hungry.  This sphere needed Atlas.  It wanted to destroy him, punish him.  It wanted to know him, to be him, and to free him.  It wanted to be his worst nightmare and his greatest savior.  You and I could never relate to this sphere's intentions with Atlas.
    The sphere was as familiar as any sphere you've ever seen or ever could see, but it was like nothing else.  It was wrong.  At least, it would seem wrong to your eyes, were you to see it.  You would second guess it, question it.  You would not recognize it as a sphere, but it could be nothing else.  It was black.  Just black.  Nothing else.  The hole it had appeared through lingered.  An ellipse stretched horizontally, pinched at the ends, not completely dissimilar to the shape of an eye.  Nothing could be seen through the hole, now just a black aura surrounding the sphere.  It, the sphere, slowly descended upon Atlas from above, hanging over him.
    The sun had turned black, as Atlas's family held him down.  They were much stronger than he had thought.  Much stronger than himself, actually.  Euphoria turned into panic.  Atlas could feel the gravity and pressure of that strange world he was once stranded on slowly seeping into this world.  The sun was bigger.  It was getting closer.  He could hear the sun screaming, and then himself screaming as his wife and son dug into him with knives.  Not daggers, they seemed more like those non-laser-edged antique steak knives some people keep around in their kitchen.  First his wife cut out his heart and tossed it into the sun, blood staining her entire front side.  His son sawed away at his lungs, ripping one out, and then the other.  They were thrown into the sun.  With each new organ or body part thrown into it, the sun grew larger and closer.  Elisia tore his intestines from his abdomen, one arm-full at a time while his son cut his ears off.  Atlas could still hear.  He was in so much pain he no longer wished to exist.  He wanted to die but obviously that wasn't happening. He could smell his own dismembered body baking in the black sun.  He vomited, expecting it to land in his chest cavity, but instead it flew into the sun, and the sun grew.  His son stabbed and carved Atlas's eyes out, and Atlas watched his eyes fly off into the distance and disappear into the sun.  As his wife sawed away at his leg with the tiny knife, the Earth burst into flame.  His arms and legs were hurled into the sun; Elisia took care of the legs, Atlas's son had the arms.  The smoke from the flames from the Earth parted at the sun, and Atlas could feel hurricane-caliber burning winds as the sun approached.  He was nothing but a head and torso now, his throat slit as his family worked together on the neck.  As the rest of him was hurled toward the sun, he could see that the Earth had completely burned up and only smoke remained.  Atlas plunged deep inside, as the surface of the sun splashed and rippled upon his impact.  The darkness consumed him, and Atlas knew the sphere.
    The sphere's black liquid continued to ooze onto Atlas as he lie unconscious. The sphere knew how much pain he was in, how much suffering he was doing.  The sphere could feel Atlas's presence in him.

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    He was inside the sun.  It was black and freezing.  He accepted this, even though he had always thought the sun was hot and bright.  He had wondered why he thought that, given how black the sun had always been.  He had been in here for years, wondering who he was or what else existed.  Was this blackness the only existence there was?  Where had he come from?  The sphere had been with him the entire time, and he was grateful to the sphere.  He recognized the interior of his ship; had he been in the ship?  He couldn't remember.  He wondered into the pod room, where all the dimensional jump packs were stored in their pods for later use.  He found his own pack, and noticed the coordinates were off.  He wondered why this was, but didn't give it much thought.  The sphere told him the appropriate coordinates, and Atlas reset them.  One of the other crew walked into the pod room and looked puzzlingly at Atlas and asked him a question, though he couldn't understand it.  Atlas was shocked at the sight of this person, as he or she was inside out; internal organs now external organs, resting against bone and muscle structure.  For reasons unknown to Atlas, he became frightened, enraged, sad.  Atlas grabbed his steak knife and ran screaming at the creature, and it too began to run, but away from Atlas.  The two ran through several rooms, a cold hallway, and another room; the creature shouting things that Atlas couldn't understand.  Atlas caught up to it and tore into its back with the knife, blood covering his hands.  The eight others had run into the room because they heard the screams, and Atlas was faster and stronger than he could believe.  They had been unarmed and Atlas had no trouble cutting into each and every one of them, leaving their bodies sprawled across the control room.  The room was red and dripping.  The sphere informed Atlas that he must go, and Atlas ran back to the pod room and grabbed his pack.  He thanked the sphere for all he had done for him, and made the jump.
    Atlas didn't wake up.  He was in the sphere, and the sphere was in him.  Atlas was now the sphere.  He liked that.  He knew the sphere was God, and that he, himself was a god.  He watched from above as his body opened its eyes and stood up slowly.  He watched as his body repaired the jump pack, over the course of several hours.  And he watched as reality blurred in a nine-foot radius around his body before it disappeared with a boom and a flash.  He no longer felt attached to his body; it belonged to the sphere now.  He could feel the sphere's intentions inside him, and he was at peace.
    Atlas thought he would make this planet his new vacation spot.  He rather enjoyed the massive star and the great pressure and the fog.  But for the moment Atlas decided he had other places to be, and left through the hole in the air.