The Fallen City

|Chapter XVII: It's Never Too Late

Gale awoke suddenly in the breaking sunlight. He hissed at it like a vampire, turning over hastily, trying to cling onto that fading world. Yet the never ceasing onslaught from the waking world tore it away ferociously. He opened his eyes glaring at the opposing wall. Life had great timing.

It didn't take him much long after to ready himself. He was eager to set off. Eager to get the job done, seams as the time had been taken from him oh so quickly. He sent a faint prayer to the City, stay alive. One more day.

He would've made it straight for the car, had he not noticed the unusual looks on the patrons of the service station. All who were not rushing watched a suspended TV screen high on the wall. He followed their gaze.

The headline was a shock. It stunned him to say the least, and the pessimist in him had doubts of it, just like many others.

Yet as it was for fact, he knew it was true.

"We are awaiting a statement from both the lead scientist behind the project, as well as the owner of the Mayfair Corporation. Should be happening anytime now." On hearing of his own name, even in the guise of Alban himself made him ask questions. He reread the headline; 'Alternate Dimension Found?'

"Good morning. I would like to begin by saying thank you for attending at such short notice at this ungodly hour." his son looked bedraggled, his eyes bloodshot, his hair a mess. It made Gale sigh, yet out of bitterness seeing him in a state felt good. "As I'm sure you are all aware, my company released an utter ludicrous statement last night. Yet it was one that has been confirmed by our top researchers and those that are at the head of their field." He gestured to one side at a group of assembled scientists.

"It was a statement that I myself refused to believe, until I realised that, on some level, we all knew it was true. Our dimension is one of many. We have uncovered irrefutable proof of a structure, unbound by our laws of physics that exists outside of not only our observable universe, but beyond our dimension of space itself. This structure appears to have been made by the very fringes of mankind's consciousness, since early man gained sentience. So not only have we discovered an alternate space, but the oldest artificial structure in all of history... and the evidence of a world beyond this dimension, is this."

Gale's jaw bounced off the floor. He looked upon the crystal that awoke in his hand. It was so cracked and fractured at first, yet after moments of appearing on screen in front of so many it became whole again. It even began to glow with a glorious resonance. People saw it, people believed it. Images came up of drawings, evident from children although a few images from prestigious artists appeared too. Towers, spires, a glorious cityscape of a thousand colours...

"We believe that this is concrete evidence of the construct outside our own space-time. One that came into existence long ago and to this day, still stands despite being in a ruined state. To repeat and embellish the facts; This structure, this... City... seems to exist by laws similar, yet different from our own. It is made, and dependent entirely on the power of unconscious thought... and belief, alone. It exists in what can be called a zero-energy state until such a time as a human recognises its existence as fact." Alban took a deep breath, a chart appeared onscreen beside him, quickly followed by several more drawings of the City of Dreams. "What gets even more outrageous, is that so far under query, it seems that something close to eighty percent of those interviewed last night, some sixteen thousand people of all ethnicities and age groups all recalled the existence of this city in their dreams..."

The words following the statement faded into a haze. One that caused Gale to look away aghast, shocked, and close to having his roots pulled out from beneath him...