The Fallen City

|Chapter XXII: The Falling City

It took a lot of work for the battered and aging man to even get to his knees. He couldn't even muster the words to get his companion to look at the restored City. It stunned him, it shocked him, and when it couldn't get any more incredible, it did.

On Earth it was far less tranquil. People panicked and watched as thousands and thousands of towers proved their existence once again to humanity. Appearing above their world, they then silenced every voice. A rumble sounded out that echoed even into space itself. The massive geode suddenly erupted with light of all colours. It streamed through every broadwalk, down every causeway and over every skywalk. It flowed into the Spires and ignited them with a flowing mirage of coloured light encased in their crystal form. It all flowed from a single point within the City itself now. Its will was strong, it was faultless in form.

Deep within the City, upon an ocean that rose steadily from its seabed. Millions upon millions of flowers bloomed upon the City's great tree. It glowed bright like a captured star on the ascending ocean. The flowers twinkled as they too rose from the tree, falling towards the new world like seeds in the wind, granting humanity its gift. A reward for its return.

One last marvel.

The remaining decay rapidly withdrew, spires regrew like plants and entire districts rose from the nothingness, tearing through into the mortal world to join the cliffs that marked their original end. They connected with deafening crashes and thunderous shaking, brought forth from another world to become a part of the greater whole.

The people of earth watched on, with bated breath. They awaited the mysterious object's intent. Many found themselves suddenly awake on its causeways. Now its crowning moment had come, the City's restoration turned to refinement. With new believers it formed many thousands of miles of new districts, towers grew like shoots from a seed, rising to touch a sky no longer existing above it.

"You did it Dad..." He whispered, standing a silent watch over the now complete City of Dreams.

He found the sight beautiful. The young man envied those in orbit, seeing the spectacle clear and free of Earth's whisper. Its magnificence was in the air of beauty and power that emanated from it, cast and formed by the dreams of its current and former inhabitants.

Yet it had brought so much sorrow, so much pain it was hard to look at, even if it drew their gaze like a rabbit in headlights. That sight might've been beautiful, yet it had taken so much away. In giving life his dream, his father had taken it from what should've mattered... "What did it do that I didn't?"

And now it was there to gloat until the end of them all...

It took minutes for peace to fall on the two worlds. The City hung present and true over its creators. The hum of the towers sounded out into the great darkness, to those that walked it, it sung songs of hope. To those that looked up, its reflections shone down on the earth with radiant rays of flickering light. Gale and Carola clasped each other's hand, holding it high in triumph. Their mission was over.

They had done it.

Then that bell rang...

Gale's heart immediately stopped. Horror and terror stained his face. It rang throughout the City, it echoed off every spire and broke into every room. No matter how far. It rang across the Ocean, it sounded over the Cityscape, It echoed over the highest and most distant crystal mountains.

"No!" He barked. "No Don't! We saved you!"

It rang down to the Earth itself.

"Gale!" Carola shouted, pointing to a distant spire. The tallest of its many neighbours.