Alban sighed as he opened his eyes. The light of the orange dawn sun stung with unrelenting bitterness. The bustle of the street below encroached like a marching army. He swung his legs over the bed's edge, the various bottles adorning the floor clattered as he went.

He placed his head in his hands. Then pulled them away as he felt the cool flow of blood on his chin. He had a mix of shock and concern flow through his every nerve...

Then realisation hit him like a truck.

Alban sprung to his feet, cradling his aching head as he heard the sudden sound of shouting from the world below. He scrambled over his father's still boxed belongings, shoving the stained and rotten curtain out the way.

People. The street was full of them. They came out of the buildings, they stepped out of their cars, they looked at the sky, some ran, some cradled each other. Others watched their phones, filming something up in the sky.

Glancing at the sky, Alban scrambled over everything once again at full speed. He barged through his father's front door and hurriedly jumped the last steps on the stairs.

He wheezed as he reached the outer world, and looked on in absolute shock.

The slowly growing prism was muted blue through the earth's skies. Clouds might cover it, constructs of man may obscure it. Yet above it all, it materialised without force or effect.

Slowly, in the space above the Earth, the City became unveiled to the light of a new sun.

Above the sky, unbound by the taint of the atmosphere, a wall of fog emanated outwards from the City's heart, its edge ran like fire, but its form was more of water, flowing like an unfaltering wave over the City. The spires immediately outshone any other mortal creation, appearing one after another above the planet's surface. They blotted out the stars, they hid the moon, and hung like a roof of crystal and stone across the waking world.

The spires reached down from the City toward the Earth that birthed it, the many boulevards and causeways cast patterns across its surface akin to artwork as the fog withdrew to reveal more of humanity's masterpiece. For each eye that fell on the City its colour returned. As it was born into our world, it became whole again. The spires shod their patina and brought forth the great fascias and murals that defined them each. It smiled on its new world, whole in form and function once again.

On the remains of the bridge's great span the scorching wave approached them, it was fear inducing. A force of nature rushing their way that claimed the City from its world. The two dreamers were barely at their feet when it hit them to the ground once again. They were all it truly harmed. Pain laid on top of pain, the wave of fire scorched their hair and clothes, debris in its wake lashed their skin like a thousand razors. They were left gasping, burned and bloodied, staring up at the pure orb of the Earth. Their breaths were sharp, yet true. Their reward for their actions was mortal peril.

Gale began to laugh painfully. The pain in his chest was escalating, combined with the agony of every muscle and bone. He saw an arm point to the world above them.

"There's home." Carola choked, tears in her eyes at the tranquil world turning below. Gale patted the stone floor he'd landed on, he watched the mosaics and patterns rewrite themselves.

"Here's mine." He croaked. He glanced back up the bridge's span, its end, the ShardShip, its arches. They were all left behind, to remain as silent vigil to that world for all time. The remains it brought with it drifted upwards slowly, casting themselves into space under the power of an unseen force.

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.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

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.

It's peak slowly tore apart in the folds of an unseen force. Bound for the first time to a will beyond its magnitude, it came undone. The fragments were torn from its pinnacle, slowly descending down into a cloud of debris that consumed it.

Gale strained himself up to standing, he and Carola grasped each other's shoulder, holding themselves up. With stumbling steps, he hurriedly led them off the bridge. Their eyes never left the dissolving tower far far away.

"Your flightboard!" He barked, leaning upon the wall, barely able to stand alone. Carola summoned the discarded board amongst the shattered crystal. She'd hardly remembered where it'd gone. She threw it to the floor, in the vain hope it would still abide to her will. "Get us to the clock tower!"

They both somehow clambered onto that small board, it took their weight well. Carola swept up its crystal and plunged it forward. The force knocked them back, yet their feet held firm. To guide them through the City's towers with the buffeting wind was a mission in itself.

They rushed along the causeways and boulevards all restored upon humanity's potential. People appeared below them of all ethnicities and beliefs. They all had looks of amazement and wonder on their faces as they took in the City around them and the blue orb of Earth hanging precariously above them. They could feel what it was, its emanating truth. Rapidly the City's population climbed. Word had spread, everyone now knew of its presence.

And all the while, unnoticed by many, the spires continued to sunder.

"Please… no." Gale whispered. He begged, more than ever before.

Alban had watched the cloud cover the City. He frowned at the mystery of unknown form and purpose. The man beside him caught his attention, he had been using a camera, capturing this moment for the future rather than living this moment forever. Yet he now seemed terrified. White like a ghost...

Like a dead man walking...

Before he could ask the rumble sounded. He looked back to the heavens at hundreds of flares igniting the sky. They streamed across with reckless abandon, raining destruction upon them.

"Please… No." His plea was as unheard as his fathers, begging destiny itself rather than his fellow man.

Alban followed the closest fireball down behind the houses of the highstreet. The ground shook. The air compressed and ruptured, shattering windows and cracking the concrete. Alban's ears rang as they burst, knocking him back.

As his gaze came back up, he stared into the approaching wave of fire…

He too, a dead man...

They crashed into water.

Having cleared the City to the ocean they ploughed into the suspended globules at full speed. It hit them hard enough to white them out, to knock the air from them and crush and crack their ribs. They fell from one to splash into and slow-fall through another, coming to a comparatively slow yet forceful rest upon the ocean's now bare floor. They crashed down fast and hard. The impact knocked them back to consciousness. They were broken.

Carola dragged herself across the smooth seabed. Blood poured from her head and seeped out across her body. When she came to Gale's side she didn't help him, rather she drove her elbow down hard on his chest, causing the man to coil up and roar with absolute agony. She silenced him with one shout: "What have you done!"

Gale pulled himself barely sitting up. It was the last of all his strength. The world was fading in and out of black. Something had made his clothes heavy, as he moved, they left marks of shining red behind.

He let loose tears of horror and fear as they watched the spires come free of their foundations, they broke and dashed themselves upon one another like sand in the wind. The torrent of rising debris reached up unbound to the Earth's atmosphere, igniting the skies with an endless barrage of fire. Flashes of light illuminated even its darkness, waves of fire spread across the terrain. Smoke choked the skies.

Chunks torn from the causeways started twisting and folding up into each other, being pulled from their places by the truest forces of nature and erupting into a rising shower of desolation. The fragments joined the ascending spires on a relentless march towards the doomed world. The City began to rip. The City had to sunder.

"I am so sorry." Gale wept, watching the spires rise up around them. The crashing of unnature was silenced by the largest cracks yet. They sundered the very bedrock the City rose from. It learched suddenly, the Earth began to grow closer. It had all come to an end. Gale began to wheeze. His vision began to fade. He choked as the air faded from the City. "I was wrong…"

He managed to find the last strength in his voice, sending his final words to the burning world above them.

"I thought that it would save us!" he cried, unheard...

As the City continued to Fall…

-/-