Atlas had not wanted sleep, but sleep had taken him anyway.
It came not like a gift but like a hammer, slamming down on his bones, crushing the last embers of his vigilance. His body—scarred, taut, weary from the trials of Hell—collapsed onto the jagged stone. He lay there in the heat and silence, a giant subdued by the simplest tyranny: exhaustion.
Yet even as his eyes closed, he resisted. His thoughts raged like chained beasts. I cannot rest. Not here. Not now. Not while Aurora presses deeper, not while the chains of this realm coil around us. Not while Loki—
Loki. The name seared like an ember in his chest.
It was that thought, that wound disguised as loyalty, that pulled him under.
Not the soft hush of mortal night, but the cavernous void of Hell's dreaming—a silence so thick it had weight. Here the air was dry as dust and yet heavy as oceans. He felt himself float, then sink, then be wrenched.
