The Fallen City

|Chapter II: Heart Beat

Night would never fall in the City's perpetual dawn, yet it didn't stop the man from feeling a darkness fall upon the city. Each shadow seemed that much more black. Each boulevard seemed that much more empty.

His footfalls landed with a clunk akin to metal on stone, the only sound that echoed back at him, like the City didn't want him to feel alone. Everything echoed, his feet, his armour, his heart. The torments of his mind sounded ever louder...

With each footfall the city restored itself, emanating out from his steps, leaving footprints of purity and restoration in the decayed world, akin to a shining light in a world of darkness. Colour returning to a muted sea. The man had been walking for a while, he could have flown, yet for reasons even he couldn't define he had refused it. He walked in the great city, in the ruined City.

Years now he had just walked its streets, flown its spires, explored its depths. He tried his best to watch the falling spires, it was less like the shock of chaotic destruction and more like watching a friend die in front of him. He knew too well what that was like. It set his heart beating faster in anger and rage, directed at everyone else. It was a fire fuelled by grief, breathing his sorrow, and lit by his bitterness. The world he once knew had been left to rot, yet under his caretaking he could only watch it, and hope that one day life would return to the City.

The man stopped as the shroud of thoughts, each one of the coming cataclysms clouded his mind to the point where he couldn't see anything but ash. His hands raised to his dirty face, the metal gauntlets cold against his skin, he whispered to himself in a gravely tone.

"Get your head together Gale." He muttered firmly. He pressed on his temples expelling the images from his mind. He looked around once more, while the surroundings looked the same, a trained eye could tell that each spire would have once been unique. Now the only true distinction was the collapsed and broken ruins scattered across the causeways that men once walked. A forgotten past, only by those that abandoned it. Gale prayed once again that he could see the city in its prime once more, yet every dream was this desolate land. He held no power alone to repair the city.

It took a moment to feel he wasn't actually alone. He felt a heartbeat in his city beside his own. At first he thought it was nothing more than the City's own will pressing on his mind. He was right, but it wasn't singing secrets of ages past or telling songs of peace and tranquility.

It was an instruction.

He looked up, amongst the varying spires a lone clock tower rose high into the sky, its numerous faces were placed intermittently on its surface, all of them long having stopped, all of them decayed. It took him moments to realise why now of all times he felt that heart beat slowly.

He couldn't tell who they were, they hung there, that's all he knew, and that was enough to fill him with excitement. The figure hung in the sky, clearly a denizen of the city, they wore the same plated flight suit that he did, its glow a brilliant and vibrant green, each plate coloured like dark marble, albeit from this distance, Gale couldn't make out more than basic distinctions.

"Hello there!" He shouted, his voice echoed loudly. The figure's head snapped around. On sight they took a guarded stance. Backing away in the air as if he were a monster. Gale jumped into the air, however before he could approach she was gone. Pulling a board from her waist and riding it like a skateboard upon the sky further into the city.

Gale could only smile, someone else in the city of dreams, someone who believed. He felt at ease knowing it, even as his body began to feel distant and the familiar press of his bed against his back. His last moments that night were to land and with his eyes closed, for the first time in years, he peacefully drifted off into the world awaiting for him.