Do you remember it?
There was a time we all did...
We once loved it, we were once nurtured by it.
A City, so grand, so beautiful. So enthralling, we promised we would always believe. We promised it we'd never let go
But you did. You all did. And now...
"I am, I just couldn't get to Dover in one night." He answered with a shrug. "Should be there by tomorrow night though, I've just got one more thing to do beforehand."
"Ok..." she nodded slowly.
"Nothing to worry about. Won't take too long, hopefully." Gale hurriedly thought of a way to move the topic away from... that.
"Well when you get here head for the church, the big one. Hard to miss." She'd noticed the uncomfortable expression he'd donned, so she made the move for him.
"You know you're being very trusting."
"What you mean meeting you in the real world?" She chuckled like someone had told her a daft joke. "Yeah well, I haven't got anything or anyone to lose. But if you do try anything don't worry, I'll be ready for it."
Gale nodded, flashing both his eyebrows. "Yeah neither do I. Not anymore."
"Bad things happen?"
"The worst." He said, brushing the topic away once again. He gestured up the City's edge. "Come on, time to discuss the plan... again."
"Right." Carola said assuredly, throwing down her ever loyal flightboard as Gale kicked off into the sky. After they both steadied in flight she pointed towards the City's edge. "So why are we here?"
"It's the last anchor to this world." His voice echoed in her helmet. "It's the only other place I can think of that has a connection to everything else."
"What, to the fog?" She asked, dodging out the way of what seemed to once be a balcony. She took a look at the distant wall of cloud. It looked more akin to smoke, dense and thick. Its surface rippled on invisible currents, wisps and jetstreams pulled it into strands. It looked enshrouding, it looked unbreakable.
Yet there was one thing that pierced it.
"Exactly. There it is."
Carola's flightboard kicked back as she reeled in surprise. It was abrupt, its presence was without warning. They crested the edge of the City's perimeter and there it was. One long span jutting out into the clouds. The end of a mighty causeway that looked no different from any other. it had been the only one to grow out of the City, yet it's presence felt integral.
As it breached the faded edge of the smallest towers it's architecture changed entirely. The gaping arches akin to an aqueduct were replaced with long spans of flat crystal, it's surface rippled with every colour imaginable, even as the City became greyscale. Its light flowed into it, it fueled the City. That same light that flowed amongst the City in its prime, flowed from here never endingly.
Large supports were emblazoned with an almost gothic design, ancient beyond even the City itself. The mammoth towers that rose to meet it were hewn from stone that matched the darkness of the wall. It's surface pure as night, yet engraved and chiselled with indelible accuracy. Even amongst the corrupted purity that had overran the City's great skyline, it still held strong.
It was damaged and broken, no doubt of it. Some towers never rose higher than a stunted lump of rock, and many more had the great beams between them dashed across the floor below, or worse, into the abyss itself. However whilst the immaterial components of its structure had failed, the bridge of light itself ran unbroken, even when the space between its supports stretched for miles, it still held straight and true. It plunged into the fogbank. It was all that was left.
"We need to break this..." Carola asked as she kicked up over the bridge's precipice. She landed on its surface with a gentle step. The landing was seemingly unnoticed like stepping off a bus. Gale landed like the end of a high jump, far less graceful about it than times previous his was more like stepping off an escalator. "How the hell do we do that? Does our power get magnified if we're nearby?"
"Not quite, that's for part two of the plan." he said, running his hands across the pure crystal. He folded the glove away, the crystal was warm on touch, the light flowing beneath was pure. "The City is weak to the forces of the real world. It caused all this." He looked to the shattered spires in the distance, to the cracked and sundered districts just drifting away. The City's last breath. "So if we can bring something here from it we can break it free."
"Sounds like killing it," Carola stepped up to gale. Her eyes on the skyline, backlit beautifully in the fading dawn light. "Thought you wanted to save it?"
"If doing that is ending its suffering..." He said, mournful. He felt the tug of the morning upon him. "It's a gentle balance. We break it free, then wake up-"
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