Return to Atlantis

Chapter 2 - Enemies from the Heavens

25000 years ago...

The little girl's eyes fluttered open from her deep slumber. Something had stirred her awake --- a strange warmth resonating inside of her, summoning her.

The child of 2 years left her bed and in small tapping steps walked bare-footed in her long white robe across glistening marble-like floors to the large open terrace of her chamber where she could see the dark horizon waiting to burst into a dawn of light that would soon disperse the darkness around her. She stood in the middle of the terrace, overlooking as usual the dazzling splendor of the great city that welcomed her with a touch of the breeze fresh from the seas, her pure white hair swaying daintily with it. Reflected in her cyan blue eyes is a myriad of towering white marble fortresses that make up the city, blazing with inlays of gold, silver and other precious stones. Powerful winglies, which are large flying featherless pointy-snouted mammals with wings and magic, flew to and fro around the city, across and over towers. On their backs, their pilots sat in command of their movements.

She is in fact standing on one of the high balconies of the Royal Fortress; the lone structure that stood in the inner core of the perfect concentric circles of land that make up the whole of Atlantis, towering the picturesque garden beauty of Atlantis that appeared so minute from her sky-high perspective. The great bridges that linked the rings of lands across the circles of water were further enhanced by brilliant gardens, groves of flowering trees, and innumerable sparkling fountains. From where she stood, she can even trace with her fingers the flow of the great canal where ships could sail right up to the water-circles and pass from one to another by tunnels dug through the land-circles.

This is the proud great nation of Atlantis.

All these and the rising sun on the horizon is something she beholds everyday of her life.

But today, the usual ruminations barely enter her thoughts as omen hanged strangely in the air.

From where she stood, she saw catastrophe approaching from the heavens--- Atlantis' first look at the adversaries that came from nowhere but the skies. None of these things made sense to her young mind. For now, she only understood fear.

They assembled above the skies of Atlantis: battleships, perhaps, a thousand, mostly manned by men positioned visibly on its back in a transparent cocoon. Their heavy and ominuous presence against the sunlight casted a bleak shadow across the whole of Atlantis. She has never seen such things before. She couldn't make out what they are but they are certainly not like their Winglies.

They are the non-living versions of their winglies: flying machines made of metal and stone with wings that cannot flap. But the child could not know that. She has never known machine technology before. Physics does not sustain Atlantis. Magic does. Magic supplemented all over the city by the Royal White Crystal.

The unfamiliar battleships loomed above Earth, pending doom on Atlantis.

Atlantis is a known peaceful and powerful kingdom in the planet. The great walls of the land were impregnable. It is a nation victorious in its every conquest; beheld by other nations. But Atlantis is also an enigma - almost an otherworld to the inhabitants of the planet. Its gates are closed to the outside world and the outside world look upon it with fascination, reverence and fear.

But today on this early morn before the sun could rise, as Princess Eleejah of Atlantis stepped out of her balcony, that prestige and glory is about to end...

Every Atlantii is baffled and bewildered by the invaders. They seemed to possess power that can compete with Atlantis. Is it possible? Could another kingdom as powerful as Atlantis exists somewhere in this planet? But then maybe they are not of Earth but of the stars? How then could they defeat something that is not of Earth?