The Lost Cities

It was a time when humanity was at a peak of evolution. We have records of our cities before the fall of all nations. Here, these spare words have survived many bitter wars. The memories of heroes, monsters, and villains will be analyzed and the codes of possibility assembled until we really understand how to save Alexander from oblivion.

These our secrets: our holy observations. The legend of a fireball rising from the center of the moon and people’s slow submission to powerful companies under bright arrays of the social conditioning. So that now through electronic records can we decipher all that once had been of the monster which appeared at the center of a star and hollowed out the earth. In separate corners there remained the good children who did not forget the past.

They were the star children, destined for glory in the stars. We’re heading back to the time before pyramids and dinosaurs, to a time of no account — a circle with no center. It was the war by design and championed by a new President who wanted to glorify matter; the popular dissent struck fear with those fighting with a terror they had partly created; the wall would be built and time would tell if the shining city on the hill would outlive oceans that were making their way toward them. Branding the revolution had failed; the radicals were ready to cast aside their smart phones and twitter to end the new world system and keep the fires burning for the dreamers of the future. The one percent humbly stood yet all would soon turn and beg for their salvation before the earth was reborn. When the survivors couldn’t take it anymore, they asked to be saved.

They were put into the remaining fusion centers to be conditioned away from fear.In the new age the global elite could finally rule over the corporations; and as massive rebellion raged in the cities; only the dreamers could see enough to end the oppressive world government. Who would shine a light and write a new code for reality that encompassed all: freedom to create and determine life before the end of us would come. The universal dictatorship was controlled by an evil machine. In their sleep whispered a secret biorhythm which threatened the regeneration. How did it get this horrible on the earth and why were the globalists wasting their lives, the fears of our own undertaking and our own enemies the dissonant slaughter of our consent? A fever to appease faith or discard the revelations was politically directed at the smarter and more fortunate in society. Sadly, they were the ones who lost out the most of the better party to this grand scheme. This planet would end without us. People are the parts that are keeping it this way.

They were analyzing the same phenomena from the delusional thoughts I heard in my head as the song started to repeat itself. In my dream from the ashes of a repetitive end that never came; the revolt was so timeless that we were able to rescue them from a vacuum of ever after’s silent existence. In a topaz sea of stars; a giant truth triumphs wars, a Love That was stronger than she could reach; a black star that was the scar in her visions when it was all in her memory a synapse between formless oceans. The one percent that remained could not resist the manufactured insanity, and yet all would soon turn and call for their salvation as the super-virus that overcame them.

And so the earth was remade. When the survivors couldn’t take it anymore, they begged on their knees to the Elites to be saved. to be brainwashed, conditioned to a false beliefs cure and chipped for a new frontier war. The world police were on their way to the city on the sea. My sister Molly and I needed to flee as far as we could in hopes of getting away from what citizens seemed to want. “What’s your name?” Molly clung to the sinks as the water splashed at her from the faucet. She pulled the navy blouse over her head and could not help but notice her shining eyes in the reflection of the wall, mirrored in a thousand directions. Molly’s reflection stared back at her. “I see you are looking for the key code” the Magician was peering in from a dark corner of the mirror. He was always watching, like an annoying grandfather.

Her insides were turning and her heart beating rapidly because if they knew what she had done, It would all be over. She was standing before the podium, offering herself on a golden platter speaking for everything the world has learned to forget, and it’s why we’re hated in the Future, she thought. Molly she heard from somewhere subliminally. “You can’t destroy it. It isn’t even possible in this reality.” Suddenly, a fragile form trembled where Molly had, moments ago, fallen. The migraines had started again; the beast within ripped at her insides, causing her to pass out. They could not get the enigma; suddenly the jagged became a wave, swirling and made everything colorful, bright and sharp; she thought about the story that kept her up at night as a child. “Molly…” her mother whispered through the glass window from confinement. Now her mind was retreating to an early childhood memory. One where she had only one known relative. She was time traveling again, spontaneously, into the past. “Conceal your power.”

Molly watched as her mother sat down on the padded floor staring off into the white walls where she herself was concealed of the outside world; hidden behind a mirage of infinite mirrors; the scientists led her to the time machine on the other side of reality. Her mother stared straight into her young daughter’s eyes and for the first time looked afraid. What was a dream when it turned into delusion and silence, what was madness but consolation for an unacceptable truth? Sometimes it felt like this place, the entire massive complex had been built up around her to keep her trapped or safe from a terrible secret. She was taken care of by the people inside the giant walls of the institution.

The people there marched by in blue scrubs. In the distant halls, spiraling into nowhere or somewhere, the maleficent were contained by the wiring of a brilliant and forgotten mathematician. In every cell there appeared to be a scene and development of the houses like the set on a Hollywood Film. Did little Molly know that they were watching everyone from across the hidden glass and mind-scanners. If only she could cross over the spaces to where the electric sparks were which held answers and could free her from enslavement. Molly hid herself from the eyes following her everywhere in the hallways at the transition hub. She buried her attention in a book, and for a moment she was lost to another place before the world as humans knew ended and everything had changed so much at great odds. She was there, in a heavily populated city filled with arching grey skyscrapers kaleidoscopic towers and bridges to anywhere.

She was on a mission to cure the children of the plague that had spread throughout the cities; “Drink and be purified” Pope Gregory announced over telecom from the Roman Church’s steeple, and as the sheep were being prepped for slaughter, the Order had become more than just an obscene deviation, but the pipe dream of the powerful. She could hear the voice speaking to her from somewhere deep within, after her migraines took over and all around her was white obscene oblivion, the Priest was screaming like a searing bolt of electricity each inflection drove her closer to the center of it all. The story of America before the fall. The strong have remained while the walls and ruined dreams left us rising from the chains and screams to a place where we are nothing but images on screens. I live in the Citi, once the core of these ancient crumbling towers. There is no crime and you see no one on the streets begging for help.

Citi thrusts oxygen into the air and as it exhales the mechanical fumes of madness; it exhumes us through its waste reservoirs. Into a surrealist daze, where the decapitated remains of our machinated minds have performed their daily tasks, we are born.In an elephant graveyard with bones made of steel, and from the stench of toxic gas could one smell the rotting corpses of a future’s history spiraling backwards.There was a time once when we had more opportunities to change the world we lived in.

That before the beast had taken over our land and put us to work for it, had we not surrendered our hopes as we had yet trembled before its all-seeing war machine. There was once a time if one when all could make up our own plans and didn’t have to slave away just to live for the prayers we hear on the satellite stations. People didn’t pray to overcome evils. It was a time so chaotic if it continued the cancer would either destroy people or they’d learn to conquer it. Well in a multi-verse both can become true; so how did these star children confront the biggest event of all time: and relive the beginning of the galaxy’s awakening. It was a time when things were still somewhat good on the outside yet as we awakened to higher realms the shadows pushed back. We have records of our cities after the fall of nations. Here, the words that have survived all bitter wars in their meager and fragmentary form. The data will be analyzed and the codes re assembled until we really understand how to save Alex Cain. These our secrets. Our secret holy observations and legends of a fireball rising from the center of the moon and slow submission of powerful companies to planes of social order. So that now through electronic records can we decipher all that once had been of the mysterious Citi which appeared at the center of the star and hollowed out the sky.

The plane took off as Molly looked down at the trees, streets, and city lights through the small window. The skyline shore had disappeared. “Goodbye…” She whispered to the city as it gradually faded from sight. These machines have carried out tasks no mortal could or would want to. They have crippled lost nations, defeated empires, and brought false peace to the world. Men toil behind the machinery, no longer casualties, but accessories. The scientists who create our machines lead our industries. Our industries lead our world. Former president Barron was supposed to hold the torch and lead truth for possibilities instead oppressed the creative youth and fed then candy apples of bigotry. Their chosen went alone, and yet all would soon turn and cry for their salvation as their masters poisoned the oceans as the earth was remade. “The only price truth costs is our happiness, and in exchange for it we pay for perfection,” said the Dreamers.

“Men and women are once again equal in the eyes of the military.” Said the order.The new problem is that earth’s population is on a decline; less women were having children, fewer soldiers were out on the battlefields protecting profit and defending the future gains. That was when one man prescribed a solution to this. “Here is a great way to get involved with the future!” The Seventh Master spat into the microphone the prerecorded announcement making its war over the satellites. 

“Now, this is a Lesson, though some of you have heard it many times before. In the beginning, God created two separate people to live together in the Garden of Eden. It has been a very long time that men have forgotten to share the fruit of our knowledge with our other half. When the evil has died, our bonds will not be broken. United we are one. We are one!”

“Now I invite our female sisters to come taste of the fruit and rejoice in salvation.”

Meridia was the only place where people like us were left alone. My mother told me that life before the wars was much different, and that it was too hard to explain to a young fourteen-year-old girl. I remember how I would sit in my bedroom and stare out into the rolling waves. I felt a sort of dependency there. This is one of the dreams I had as a little girl. I am standing on the edge of a high mountain ledge, overlooking a vast blue ocean. A warm breeze tousles my hair, and suddenly a voice rises within me. It is as if the voice is singing in whispers, “Goddess of destiny…come back to the stars and shine.” In this unwanted realm of constant flooding and ghetto technology, I was free.

Yet, there was always something innately calling to me. I would rebel — it was a faith buried deep down to who I was, calling me to my destiny. The story I am about to tell you is one of searching for meaning in the past and the future of our chaotic impossible universe. This is the story of how I came to find out what my freedom really means to me. It is a story that outcasts and dreamers and revolutionaries remember. It begins on a beautiful day on the Sea-City island of Meridia. Mara had prepared a feast for the three of us children. We were just getting ready to sit down to eat when suddenly Molly pointed toward the window. She pointed a small finger to where the water pull was. “The water is bubbling!” Molly said then asked innocently, “Why is it doing that, Momma?” Before our mother could answer, we saw a dark metal machine rise up out of the small gap in the platform. There was printing on the machine that read: peacekeepers Through the machine’s window we saw men in dark suits with flashing armbands and helmets. I remember these unfamiliar men as they piled out and barged onto the platform toward the house. They smashed through the glass door and threw stuff on the floor. Then they took Bobby away.

Then they turned to Mara and started interrogating her about a card that was to be pledged to, the growing economy, and about her failure to participate in the war effort. They looked at her as though she were crazy, that she had no right to have children. They threatened to take us all if she would not comply. I remember there was a cry and suddenly it was all chaos around me. My sister was screaming as cups were being shattered across the floor. I couldn’t see anyone anymore. The room was consumed in gas. I remember a sudden black fog before I passed out. My brother was gone when I regained consciousness.

It was in the after-math of all these wars that plans of order came to the forefront. The New Foundation was there to protect the people; to enslave them to armies of machines. It was nearly four years after my brother was taken from Meridia, when Mara told us my sister and I needed to go to the continent of what was once known as America. “How much further do we have to go to get to the nearest gas station?” Molly asked. “We have six miles to go.” “When are we going to ever see mommy again?” Molly had asked between sobs. “Soon,” I would say, “As soon as we can get out of this place.”I knew inside, and she knew deep down, that there was barely a chance of ever seeing Mara again. No one caught us from the time we left till we made it to the gas station and then I was caught. 

“Why, a girl so young away from home? Work for me for a few days, and I’ll forget this ever happened…” I had to go along and I felt sick. I secretly hoped Molly would wait for me. But every time I kept trying to go out he wouldn’t let me leave. I mixed and poured chemicals and substances into the water. I began operating their new highly technological machines.

My mind felt empty all the sudden. I had to get out. The fear of losing my senses had woke me up. I hadn’t known how long I had been there but I knew I had to get out. I was about to try to find out how to get into one when a car full of teenagers spotted me. They told me to get in the car. I figured that maybe I should, if only to find my sister. So I climbed into the back seat. I got really happy and soon we were laughing and talking together. We were all high, I guess. I fell asleep for a good while and when we stopped again I was awake and feeling nauseous again. I was truly better, they told me, and sure enough I could remember everything. “It’s the laughter,” they said. “It’s good for the soul.” I had never heard of a soul before. Mara never talked about souls. “What is a soul?” I asked. “Oh. It’s the reason you’re here. Nothing can stop you because of it.” The driver, Hal, said this with such uncanny certainty. “You mean like the ocean?” I asked him. “The ocean, well, kind of like the ocean…I guess.” Hal got quiet then and I didn’t feel like asking any more questions. I had had enough of the candy after that, and when I had a drink of that special water, my sister was all that came into the forefront. “Where is my sister? Does my sister also have a soul? Maybe she escaped. Could she have been caught? Where is my sister?” After awhile, I got up my courage to ask if they could help me find her. “Please. Will you help me find her?”