FeathersOfFlame

The computer wouldn't boot up fast enough. She sat there, drumming her fingers on the keyboard, impatiently, incessantly, desperately. Then the LCD screen lit up, asking for her password, and it was like she could breathe again. Her fingers flew, calling up a document, punching in words faster than the  sluggish old machine could register. Write, she told herself, Just write. Write yourself a palace. Write yourself some mile-high walls and pour boiling oil over anyone who tries to break them down.

Down here is Atlantis, it's always cold. Not freezing, but the sweaty rock walls of our city-beneath-the-sea always hold a certain clammy chill. Down here in Atlantis, it never rains. The solid rock above our heads sweats and sparkles and threatens, but there's never so much as a single drop that falls. Down here in Atlantis, we never see the sun. The ones who were born down here have never looked on it, and the ones who were born up there, above the rocks and sea, have been beneath for too long to remember. Atlantis is the city of survivors, built 15 miles beneath the ocean floor that was once New Orleans. When the world above turned to w

        Deryn pushed back her short, brown hair. She tapped her foot impatiently. The MagLev was five minutes late, and she was starting to get worried. Modeled after the Japanese “Shinkunsen”, the Atlantis MagLev wasn’t the fastest, a mere 200 mph, but it still ran to the second. Deryn checked her watch. Six minutes late. She turned away from the edge of the platform, shouldering her way up the line of people bustling to work. She poked her head out into the track area, and was relieved to see the glare of headlights. The familiar whirr of the MagLev hummed in her ears as the sleek silver train pulled up at the platform.

You bear the weight of your world crumbling down Yet lift up the souls that you find on the ground You find the light when darkness invades And color the blackness a thousand shades You keep your head held up high Mend broken hearts and help them fly You remember that the world will keep turning So you get off the ground and keep on moving I think I know what keeps you standing Why, despite the hardship, you keep fighting I think your eyes can find any light Even here, in this long, dark night So get up there girl, keep on moving Stay on your feet and keep on fighting But if it gets too hard to bear the weight of it all Just give in and le

Emerald stepped outside, inhaling the fresh autumn air. "Another dismal day," Rain sighed, surveying the overcast sky as she stepped out after her. "Not necessarily," Emerald replied, as her eyes sought out the one slice of blue in a sea of grey.