New Atlantis

Prologue

Circa 4501

I walk these ruins always wondering what went wrong so long ago. So many advancements lay in different piles of scrap metal that have long been abandoned and reclaimed by the fauna and flora in the now empty city. Continually being degraded and rusted by the water flow and the high level of salt in the stale air contributing to the rot on the metal from many millennia that the city had flourished.

I began to collect the freshly grown lichen on one of the more complete buildings that remain as I absent-mindedly ran my fingers through my hair. I come here day after day to these ruins to gather and forage what little can actually grow on the buildings not half submerged in the water. The ruins were here long before I was born. Often more times than not, thoughts continue through my mind trying to piece together the past between the buildings and how heavy the damage was throughout whatever event had destroyed the city.

The box that was found in the middle of the city remains cold, dead, and dormant. I stay away due to the eerie whistling of the sea winds that circle within the confines of the water shield that we have used to keep the crushing water away from the buildings and wherever we end up camping for that day or week in order to scavenge what we can in order to survive.

The box is the only reminder of the cataclysm that destroyed the city long before my birth and the birth of my parents. The stories that I have heard often late at night, the opening of the mysterious box is what led to the events of destruction.

 What was inside of that foreboding box that scares even most of the adults that travel with us? Today, as most days, I walk and scavenge alone as most of the others are still asleep. I decided to wake early as today is the final day we rest in this spot before moving on to the next series of buildings. Although I travel alone, there is an eerie feeling that I am being watched and that I am not alone in this section. I keep stopping the collection due to the feeling I am being watched within one of the closest buildings.

As I climb the side of the building for the fresher lichen higher up on the windowsills, an odd echo of breath carries on the wind reaching the spot where I am then suddenly ceasing, and the silence overtakes me once more.

Judging from the flowers that are on the moss and lichen, this is one of the fresher buildings where the water has not reached. Many places in the shield have begun to fall higher up allowing the water into the dry areas we have cleared out signaling it’s time to move on to the next area of the dead city. 

As I climb down the side of the building to head back to the camp to wake everyone, the shadows of the whales and sharks that thrive in the city begin to appear more and more making it obvious they wait to attack the very minute the shield fails and snatch any of us up as their next meal.

There remains toys as well as spoiled food in the buildings, skeletons of the past eras before the destruction. Yet another reminder of the chaos and failure of the ancients to protect the greatest thriving city in the history of the world. These ruins have become known as the lost city of Atlantis and according to the ancient texts already recovered, this once great city is close to making its re-emergence above the ancient sea that claimed it so many millennia ago. 

As I started to head back to our camp, I caught sight of what looked like scrolls. The building I was climbing down seemed far too destroyed to be of any significance but being that I am here, I will gather what I can to read later once our camp has fully moved to a new location. Perhaps, if these scrolls survived all this time in the deep water unaffected from the salt and the fauna, they are worth researching and perhaps will shed light on the fate of whatever happened to the city. Moreso, perhaps shed light on how the city ran and the people that witnessed both the fruitality and the ruin of the once great city most now call Atlantis.

Elsewhere on the surface

The sandy shoreline seemed to fade and expand all at once. It was difficult to for me to follow its path, despite the fact that it ran in a relatively straight line. The beeping on my geo-location monitor mixed with the sound of the waves did not seem to help either. This tiny handheld device had been preset with the coordinates that I had whittled away decades of my life and research to acquire. It all led down to this. The machina’s beeping was its way of telling me the direction in which it wanted to go. The path that would lead me to my final destination. However, it didn’t seem to know which path I needed to take. If I followed the code of the beeps as they spoke their mechanical language, I would be walking around in a circle and headed nowhere.

Most people would believe I was heading nowhere but I strongly disagreed. I had travelled to the mysterious land in search of the lost city of Atlantis. The legendary city that had sunk under the sea many millennia ago. The tales of the city had become sagas, stories, and fairytales passed down through the generations. Then they turned into conspiracy theories and subjects of debates. The city’s existence dividing the opinions of the world. As time passed, belief in the ancient city faded and became lost; until I was the only person who still believed in its truth.

The geo-location grew more insistent with its beeping becoming more frantic. I looked down to the screen to find that the radar was circling frantically around a big blip. The blip seemed to grow larger the longer I watched it. I realized that the blip was the ocean by my side. The ocean that I needed to go into in order to find what I was searching for.