Beyond The Unknowns

Hanging gardens of Babylon

While looking at Fey's teary face he questions about her condition. Unable to form up any word she keeps gazing at him intently. Fey's act only confuses him further.
No matter how many times he question her about her condition she speaks none. Her silence makes it harder for him to comprehend the situation. Unable to find anything from her, he rolls his eyes away from her.
As he looks around he finds the place around him totally wrecked as if something catastrophic took place. The sight ahead confuses him even further leaving him totally dumbfounded. The looks of confusion in his face gradually changes into the looks of terror.
Unaware about the catastrophic events which took place there his body trembles while looking at the remnants of the battlefield. As he continues to observe the surrounding, he locates Herman standing at a certain distance away from them observing him with his eyes wide open as if he had seen a ghost. His gaze confuses him even further.
'Why are they looking at me like this? Did something happen here which I'm unaware of?'
Horrified by the wrecked surrounding infront of him and startled by his friends expression, random thoughts fill in his mind.
Just then, the ground starts to shake violently. All of them starts to panic as they try to hold their ground. Fey and Herman who have experienced a catastrophic event just a moment ago shouts in unison.
"Now what?"
Several cracks starts appearing right after the earthquake. With the appearance of the cracks in the ground all of them tries to flee the premises. Fey flies above the ground to avoid the cracks. Herman uses his magic to levitate as well. Zan who've yet to master his magic falls behind.
All he could do at the moment was to try to outrun the cracks. And thus, he desperately tries to run away from the cracks. Tumbling all along the way he keeps on running.
The cracks keep up with him and follows him all the way. He runs while avoiding the cracks but at one point he loses his focus. At that moment he fails to notice the huge rock ahead of him and thus he trips on the rock and falls down.
However luck seems to be on his side, as the earthquake stops right when he falls down. Miraculously he avoids getting sucked in the cracks formed in the ground.
Barely escaping his death, he releases a deep sigh of relief.
'Thank god it stopped. Luck seems to be on my side. Had this cracks got even an inch closer I'd have fallen into it and met my death.'
He mumbles as he rejoices while barely escaping his imminent death.
He then quickly gets up and backs down from the cracks. He tries to get as far as he could while he still had the time. After reaching a safe distance he stops and intently glares Herman and Fey.
"Both of you could fly and yet didn't even bother to carry me?"
He yells at them grumpily.
Just some moments ago both Herman and Fey had seen him levitate in the air. Thus they had the idea that Zan could levitate in the air as well and didn't bother carrying him. But upon hearing him yell, they're left dumbfounded.
Hearing him yell constantly they both start to get annoyed and argues with him. And as they indulge in their argument creepy sound echoes from within the cracks.
"Wait.. wait.. wait.. Did you hear that?"
Zan exclaims with doubt.
"Hear what?"
Fey replies.
"No wait. I hear something as well."
Herman interrupts.
All three of them stops their argument as the noisy screams gets louder and louder. The screams start to get so louder that they could no longer ignore it. And thus they follow the source of the noise. The source of noise leads them towards the cracks.
As they get closer to the cracks the horrible screams starts to get more intense.
[Save me! Save me! Save me!]
The screams from within the cracks keep on repeating the same words. As if it's on the verge of it's death, it keeps on begging for it's life.
Curious about what's inside the cracks that's making such horrible screams, Zan walks closer to the cracks. He looks down the crack but sees nothing. Pitch black darkness surrounds the whole crack. Not even a ray of light could be seen inside the crack.
Herman tries to illuminate the place with his fireball. But not even the lights of fire could light up the cracks.
Upon inspecting the crack Zan starts to wonder about the depth of the crack.
'How deep the crack has to be, which could not be lit up even with fires.'
Zan mumbles while looking at the crack.
Suddenly the scream starts to get more intense. The intensity of the scream multiplies by hundredfold within blink of an eye.
The scream starts to intensify so much that it feels like the cracks of hell had just opened up and about any moment the souls from hell would escape upon the ground above.
Their curiosity soon turns into fear.
Their fear turns into reality and something really starts to surface up from within the cracks. Something starts to move towards the surface.
Zan instinctively senses danger and thus yells at everyone to back down from the cracks.
His instinct turns out to be true, as unusual creatures starts to rise up to the surface from within the cracks. Creatures with appearance which they have never seen before surface towards the ground.
The creatures had their whole body soaked in blood. With reddish appearance and face like a bat the sight of the creature from within the cracks was simply horrifying to look at.
Herman quickly casts magic on Zan which allows Zan to levitate in the air. From above the surface floating in the sky they continue observing the creatures.
Just within some moment more than hundreds of the reddish creature storms the surface. The creature starts to move towards somewhere while ignoring the floating trio.
Curious about their movement all three of them continue to stalk on them from above.
The creature move in group as if they're searching for something.
After a while all of the creature stop at a desolated place infront of a giant structure what seemed to be like a gate. The gate was decorated by the carvings of several ancient text and symbols. Each text and symbols symbolising something which they couldn't comprehend.
One by one the creatures started to move towards the gate. Bashing it's head in the immovable gate one after another they started to commit suicide. With every death of the creature a symbol would lit in the gate.
The sight of the creature committing suicide left them bewildered.
And with the death of the final creature all the texts and symbols carved in the gate lit wholly. After that the gate finally opened up.
"What? What's that? A gate in the middle of nowhere? And what weird way of opening the gate? Shall we check it out?"
Zan exclaims with confusion.
At first, both Herman and Fey hesitates to enter the gate. But Zan would think otherwise.
He desperately wanted to explore inside the gate. And after seeing such weird rituals of opening the gate he couldn't be stopped no matter what. His eyes glowed with curiosity.
And thus while looking at Zan's face both of them decided to give up on persuading Zan.
Zan quickly headed towards the gate and both Herman and Fey followed him from behind. The gate which didn't seem much bigger upon observing from the above was much more bigger than what they had expected as they reached closer to it.
Upon reaching closer to the gate, the size of the gate marvelled them.
"Woah! The gates are way too bigger than what I had envisioned it to be."
Zan exclaims in astonishment.
While looking at the ancient carvings of the gate and carnage of the monsters which sacrificed itself to open the gates, they walk closer to the gate.
Herman who hesitated to enter the gate at first couldn't help but marvel at the sigh of the ancient carvings of the gate. What delighted him the most was not the gate but the texts and scripture carved in the gates.
Upon reaching at it's forefront, Zan pushes the large gate. Without needing much energy the gate opens up swiftly with one push of Zan.
As the gate opens the sight inside the gate leaves them baffled. What awaited them was a mighty megastructure of the myth.
It was non other than the 'hanging gardens of the babylon.
With the shape of a pyramid, made up of mud bricks it stood infront of them radiating majestic aura. Trees, shrubs, vines and all kinds of plant covered it's top, bottom and every part of it. No matter from where you look at it you'd find it covered in all kinds of flora and fauna.
With fountains and statues made up of gold it was divided into 3 chambers. And in all three of the chambers you'd find the rarest and finest of the flora and fauna that can be found within the observable world.