10-03-2012, 12:50 PM
I'll go first:
The Citadel in the South-West
Smog enveloped the pyramid city, the waste and poison of the generations of the age of fall. The thick, yellow, acrid gas loomed above and below the citadel. Eras have passed and taken into oblivion the memories of the world grounded. It was deemed uninhabitable; to venture downstairs was an impossible task, and to those who attempted, it resulted in a sluggish death – fumes invaded the body through every orifice, and the acidic vapour washes away layers and layers dissolving the sin of hereditary.
The lifted city was a self-sustaining, enclosed community. The existence of similar habitats was unknown, all knowledge stored in the skulls of those decaying below. Even the existence of below was known only to the higher-ups. The 100,000 citizens of South-West Citadel lived short lives of knowing enough to sustain.
378 floors, 100 derelict. Who was to even know the enigma of what lies below? To the citizens, there were 278 floors: 35 administrative, 180 residential, 63 business. This is a floating city. The citadel walls were the edges of the universe, science professors taught them that. South-West Citadel has always existed; this is what life is, taught the historians.
Whilst the residents of floors 1-180 flitted lazily from apartment to humid apartment through grey cement corridors, the higher-ups worked to retain a fragile equilibrium. They maintained faith, science, and history. Their children were receivers of the curse of tenure; they were trained with machines invented by nothing and nobody.
In the hospital floor, there were women, all in lines and beds, their bellies bulging and their bosoms heavy with their burdens.
And suddenly… in the flash of an infant girl’s jet black eyes reprised all of nature’s intentions, refreshed with the rainwater of the past. Born to a higher-up woman, filed as AOZ096752, the girl was born, trained, and worked. The citadel treasured her; she was an excellent worker, fluent in the dialects of the machines, and swift-minded. Yet in her nights, within noiseless walls, and humid cement containers, she dreamt…
“Don’t you want to know what is below?”
“If you look and see maybe it will be…
“A paradise, for you, for them,
“Don’t you want to know?”
Her black eyes widened, shocked at the suggestion. She had learnt about below, it was meant to have burnt in the great fires, a millennium ago. It is derelict; this world floats to provide its citizens with comfort and safety. There is an underworld below and an empty space above. That is the universe. The proletariats think that there is nothing but our 278 floors; they’d be overwhelmed by anything more than that, they had been conditioned to keep up population and community and that their purpose, that is their task and nothing more.
The instinct which had skipped countless generations stood up and said “What if…”
“What if it has changed now? What if I have been lied to? What if those who had lied to me know nothing? I want to know. I want to know what is below.”
The putrid smell of smog vanished from her room. She was the harbinger of the past, of the pastoral hope, immigrants and emigrants, and infants yet to earn their soul.
And to the altar of ancient hands, and as if to spite this capsule at the top of the pyramid, she ran out of her apartment, into a night distinguishable from the day only by a greying of the particles dancing in the metallic air. And on a balcony, smothered with rust and yellow ash descended from heaven, she stared downwards, into the below.
“I want to know.”
One foot, one half of Earth reborn… the sun sunk downwards and the moon dissolved…
She fell from the top of the citadel, and soared downwards, sideways, upwards.
The smog grew darker and lighter at the same time. The terrible smell of decay and burn flew past her face, blinded by the venomous particles in the air.
Tumble and tumble down the floors, people wailing and looking out to view their treasure, falling into a casket made of nothingness below.
She looked downwards, even through the obscuring gases, past the derelict floors, made with an unknown material that looked brown and fibrous. Falling through the deepening layers of poison, she closed her eyes, and refused to look towards the ground she saw in dreams.
The base of the pyramid never came. The smog did not lighten, the below did not escape the fog’s embrace.
And she never knew.
The Citadel in the South-West
Smog enveloped the pyramid city, the waste and poison of the generations of the age of fall. The thick, yellow, acrid gas loomed above and below the citadel. Eras have passed and taken into oblivion the memories of the world grounded. It was deemed uninhabitable; to venture downstairs was an impossible task, and to those who attempted, it resulted in a sluggish death – fumes invaded the body through every orifice, and the acidic vapour washes away layers and layers dissolving the sin of hereditary.
The lifted city was a self-sustaining, enclosed community. The existence of similar habitats was unknown, all knowledge stored in the skulls of those decaying below. Even the existence of below was known only to the higher-ups. The 100,000 citizens of South-West Citadel lived short lives of knowing enough to sustain.
378 floors, 100 derelict. Who was to even know the enigma of what lies below? To the citizens, there were 278 floors: 35 administrative, 180 residential, 63 business. This is a floating city. The citadel walls were the edges of the universe, science professors taught them that. South-West Citadel has always existed; this is what life is, taught the historians.
Whilst the residents of floors 1-180 flitted lazily from apartment to humid apartment through grey cement corridors, the higher-ups worked to retain a fragile equilibrium. They maintained faith, science, and history. Their children were receivers of the curse of tenure; they were trained with machines invented by nothing and nobody.
In the hospital floor, there were women, all in lines and beds, their bellies bulging and their bosoms heavy with their burdens.
And suddenly… in the flash of an infant girl’s jet black eyes reprised all of nature’s intentions, refreshed with the rainwater of the past. Born to a higher-up woman, filed as AOZ096752, the girl was born, trained, and worked. The citadel treasured her; she was an excellent worker, fluent in the dialects of the machines, and swift-minded. Yet in her nights, within noiseless walls, and humid cement containers, she dreamt…
“Don’t you want to know what is below?”
“If you look and see maybe it will be…
“A paradise, for you, for them,
“Don’t you want to know?”
Her black eyes widened, shocked at the suggestion. She had learnt about below, it was meant to have burnt in the great fires, a millennium ago. It is derelict; this world floats to provide its citizens with comfort and safety. There is an underworld below and an empty space above. That is the universe. The proletariats think that there is nothing but our 278 floors; they’d be overwhelmed by anything more than that, they had been conditioned to keep up population and community and that their purpose, that is their task and nothing more.
The instinct which had skipped countless generations stood up and said “What if…”
“What if it has changed now? What if I have been lied to? What if those who had lied to me know nothing? I want to know. I want to know what is below.”
The putrid smell of smog vanished from her room. She was the harbinger of the past, of the pastoral hope, immigrants and emigrants, and infants yet to earn their soul.
And to the altar of ancient hands, and as if to spite this capsule at the top of the pyramid, she ran out of her apartment, into a night distinguishable from the day only by a greying of the particles dancing in the metallic air. And on a balcony, smothered with rust and yellow ash descended from heaven, she stared downwards, into the below.
“I want to know.”
One foot, one half of Earth reborn… the sun sunk downwards and the moon dissolved…
She fell from the top of the citadel, and soared downwards, sideways, upwards.
The smog grew darker and lighter at the same time. The terrible smell of decay and burn flew past her face, blinded by the venomous particles in the air.
Tumble and tumble down the floors, people wailing and looking out to view their treasure, falling into a casket made of nothingness below.
She looked downwards, even through the obscuring gases, past the derelict floors, made with an unknown material that looked brown and fibrous. Falling through the deepening layers of poison, she closed her eyes, and refused to look towards the ground she saw in dreams.
The base of the pyramid never came. The smog did not lighten, the below did not escape the fog’s embrace.
And she never knew.
![[-]](https://gayspeak.com/images/duende_v3_local/collapse.png)
