The Prophecy of Atlantis

Julian

   It had been a long and emotional day getting settled into The Illusion Reach. Mark and the others here seemed nice enough, but being thrown into this new, scary world had taken a toll on me. I knew there was something important Anna wanted to ask me. She'd always been an open book to me. I could see all the emotions flicker across her face, see the guilt in her eyes. I couldn't convince her that she had no control over what happened to me. How could she? All she'd known was that I'd disappeared. She'd probably thought I was dead. Her father's involvement in my abduction had shocked us both. It felt like we were drowning, unable to reach the surface before we died from lack of oxygen.

   The next morning I awoke to Anna sitting in the chair next to my bed. Her hair was frazzled and her eyes were red from crying. She must've been up all night. Whatever it was she wanted to ask me was torturing her from the inside out. We had time before we began training with Mark, and I knew the time for her questions had come. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and made a gesture as if to say, Go on.

"Which world mystery was it that you were reading about before you were abducted?" Anna whispered, reaching for my hand. "Please. It's important."

    If I'd thought I was terrified before, it was nothing compared to the fear I felt now as I took in Anna's gaze. There was a spark of madness in her. Anna had always been so stable. I knew I wasn't prepared for whatever it was she had to tell me. It was going to break us both even more than before, and I wasn't sure that we were ever going to come back from it.

"Atlantis," I finally told her.

"I was worried about that." She begins to pace the floor frantically. After a few minutes she still hasn't said anything more and won't stand still. It drives me so crazy that I have to grab her hands in mine and force her to look at me. "Why? Why were you worried about that one? You have to talk to me, Anna." I want to shake her, but I hold back.

"Atlantis is the highest kept secret in our world. Before Atlantis sank, there was a prophecy about it. It warned them it was going to sink and there was nothing they could do about it. The people tried to leave, but there was a barrier keeping them in forged by the Gods. The Gods were punishing them for losing their way from the Utopian society where they were turning to immoral pursuits. So the Atlanteans were forced to come up with a plan, and quickly, before the Gods could figure out what they were up to. Just hours before Atlantis sank, they injected a serum in every man, woman and child to ensure they'd survive.

The serum the Atlanteans had created made them immortal. The citizens of Atlantis are still there. And anyone that gets too close can find that out and try to attempt to create the serum themselves. Many people would kill for immortality.

You see, Julian... the historians have been trying to create that serum for years. They want to be immortal and they'll do anything to make sure no one steals that opportunity from them. They kidnapped you because they think that's what you're after: to create the serum and gain immortality."

***

"You have everything you need for the serum, sir?" A young man asked his superior, wringing his hands together, a nervous habit he'd never been able to break.

"Yes. Get our people ready so we can inject this serum in every man, woman and child. Tell them it's the only way they'll survive the sinking of our city. It will make them immortal until the girl from the prophecy comes. This girl will be born from a Librarian mother and an Historian father. She will come to restore Atlantis and cure their immortality, which will allow them to live the remainder of their lives after Atlantis is rebuilt."

"And when should I tell them she will come for us?"

  The boss sighed and shook his head. "Not for a very long time, son."

"How long?" He demanded, a tone he'd never dared used before to his boss. But this wasn't under normal circumstances. This was their lives they were talking about!

   He didn't respond for several minutes. It felt like eons had passed before he answered the question.

"Not for more than two thousand years," he responded quietly.

     All color drains from the young man's face. He's left speechless. He knew there was nothing they could do but wait. The serum was their only hope of survival from what the God's had planned: to kill them all as punishment for losing their way from the Utopian society. He bowed and left to prepare himself and the rest of the citizens to get their injections.

   The old man went to sleep that night without getting his injection. He didn't want this chance at immortality, to have to wait thousands of years for the hero to show up. He had lived a full life and knew it was his time to go. He took some medicine to knock himself out for the night so he wouldn't wake up when the city began to sink. And it was there in his bed that he died when Atlantis came crashing down around them.

  It was too late the young boy realized his boss had never included himself when talking about getting the injections. He'd only talked about the other citizens. If only he'd caught on to that, he could've saved him. Not being able to save him in time was his biggest regret.