Aurora

Aurora

Albert Eman

04/19/2024

The year is 2528, around what used to be called “Sunset” and of the last remaining land masses around the globe. Bandits are seen on the island of “Sunset” preparing frantically for a battle to come, closing the laser gate, and preparing the rail cannons for imminent attack. Looking into the distance a lonely ship can be seen from afar, one of the bandits noticed and takes a heavy look. As soon as he is about to turn away, fear hits and the bandit is in complete shock, he sees the ship’s name “Aurora”. The bandit runs frantically and yelling for his leader “Captain, it’s the Aurora! We’re screwed!” The bandit leader replies, “Shut up you low life, it’s just one ship, grow a pair!” The bandit leader confidently leads his bandits to the walls of their island fortress made from limestone from the past times of the 2020s before the sea level rose drastically. Seen coming out of the foggy waters, the Aurora appears, a ship made that is described as the “Fastest of All the Seas” made from a carbon fiber material with carbon fiber sails and an anti-gravity machine for the ship to flow above water and move at irregular speeds. At the front of the helm, yelling at the top of his lungs to let his enemies know he has arrived, Captain Dragon Reyes of the Freemist Guild! His crew began to join with him and began yelling and laughing as well. The bandits are unsure how to react with this and genuinely confused, the bandit leader moves the bandits out of his way and yells “Fire all weapons! I want everyone on that ship to be dead!” Captain Dragon, begins to turn on his jump boost boots while his second in command Marc Linx, he says “What are you doing? Wasn’t the plan to wait till we get close and shut down the shield generator?” Dragon begins to chuckle and says with a smirk, “That plan was for everyone else, I just wanted to be the first one to the fun.” He then runs across the ocean going as fast as he can towards the bandit island. The bandits start to fire all their weapons at Dragon, but his body armor can deflect all small projectiles from laser weapons or other advanced weaponry. Dragon begins to fire back with his laser drone he can control through his helmet’s user interface. The crew of the Aurora begin to arrive on the Sunset Island all prepared and ready for battle, but they all just stare in awe at their captain of how powerful he is.

Soon after, the crew capture the last of the bandits and put them on the Aurora’s brig. Dragon and his crew begin to celebrate over the victory of Sunset Island and begin to plan a feast for the coming night. Right after this moment suddenly something appears in front of him, an extremely bright object that seems like it is tearing time and space. Dragon looks in awe but does not move, he then starts to try to get closer to touch this thing. Right when Dragon is about to have an even closer look it disappears into nothing like there was nothing there in the first place. He begins to question what happened and questioning his own reality, walking back to his crew with a confused and shocked expression on his face, Marc asks his Captain “Everything okay? You look like you just saw a ghost.” Dragon replies “Am I awake?”, Marc having a confused look on his face then replies, “What do you mean?” then Dragon says, “I just saw something that I’m not even sure if I actually saw, I saw a huge flash of light, but it was just floating like it just appeared into reality.” He begins to explain exactly what he saw and throughout him telling Marc his face fluctuated with emotions, unsure to how to react, he then asks, “So let me get this straight, you saw a huge light that disappeared when you got close?” The captain sighs and says, “I know it sounds crazy, but it felt so real because it was literally in front of me and then it disappeared like nothing.” Dragon and Marc go to question the bandit’s held captive in the ship if they know anything about what he saw. They arrive at the ships brig and begin to question them. They begin to question one by one, one by one, nothing, but then one older looking individual lurking in the back of the dark cell begins to speak in a raspy voice, “Oh yes, I saw something like that.” Dragon looks at him with his eyes wide open and begins to ask him what he saw and the older bandit replies “There was one day I was out patrolling around the island, nothing different or unusual but then the sky lit up, the sea started to move but not regular waves, it started to get rough suddenly, then the water starts going towards me but that’s what I thought then it started taking up more of the beaches like the ocean wanted to take the island.” Dragon stares at him with a curious expression on his face and begins to describe what he saw, and the older bandit says “Yes! That’s exactly what I saw.” Dragon and Marc begin to walk away with absolute disbelief with what Dragon saw was real, they return to the island to join the rest of the crew. Dragon and Marc decided to not tell the crew about the situation because they did not want to cause a panic or think differently of their captain. They return like nothing happened, joining with their crew to celebrate the victory of taking Sunset Island. The crew is filled with joy and triumph, clumping glasses of alcohol together, dancing, and singing together. Dragon sitting at the helm of the table seen as he’s deep in thought with all the noise and moving all around he can’t help to forget what he witnessed, he begins to question in his mind, what is it and what is it here for?

Dragon awakes the next morning after a night of festivities, he begins to walk around looking at his crew all in a drunken sleep. He finds his second in command, Marc, Dragon approaches him and says, “I think it’s time to pay a visit to the Wiser.” Marc with a stunned face replies “Why on earth would you want to go there? You think that old man is going to tell you anything truthful?” Dragon then replies, “Do you have any other leads to this…what should we call it...an anomaly?” Marc shakes his head then sighs. Dragon walks away and goes to his quarters to get ready for the journey to the Wiser. When everything is set, he takes a step outside and yells out “WAKE UP! We don’t have all day!” His crew wakes up, some of them stand right up and get ready for action, others fall from their beds because of the surprise too. Seeing his crew, he can tell they are all hungover but none the less the adventure must go on whether they like it or not. Dragon begins to present the next adventure for the Freemist Guild, he begins to explain what he saw on Sunset Island in an invigorating and inspirational manner. His crew was a bit confused what he said but then again Dragon’s crew is not the smartest bunch and just follow his orders blindly because they believe in him to the utmost possibility. The crew begin to start up the anti-gravity engine and prepare to open the sails to their next destination, “Dadeland Tip”.

Dragon and his crew begin to arrive to Dadeland Tip, at first glance they begin to see concrete structures coming out of the water, the fog begins to lift, then they see it. The last remaining structure from the popular “Dadeland Mall” before the water rose to what it is in present time. Dragon begins to tell his crew to prepare the shift for take-off, his crew excitedly engage the anti-gravity machine to raise the ship. The ship starts to float ever closer to the top of the structure, reaching the top, Dragon and his crew are startled at what they see. Huge amounts of green and abandoned vehicles from 300 years ago covered in moss and other plant life. Seeping behind all the green there is a building with a dome like roof with active smoke coming out of the chimney. Dragon tells his crew to land the ship and informs them to stay on the ship as he does not want to be seen as a threat by the Wiser. He then jumps off the ship with his jump boots, he begins to walk and looks at his surroundings as if it doesn’t make sense why “cars” are there and the vast amount of plant life. He reaches the building and knocks on the door, an opening in the ceiling above him is opened, suddenly a sentry begins to point at him. Dragon says, “I mean no harm, I’m here to just talk.” A voice begins to speak “No visitors allowed. Leave or perish.” Dragon the tells him why he is there, and he mentioned the word “flashing light and things happening that don’t make sense.” The sentry goes back int the opening of the ceiling then closes. Dragon sighs with relief, he begins to hear footsteps getting closer to the door and then the door begins to creak open. A small man begins to peak his head out of the side of the doorway and says, “flashing lights did you say?” and Dragon replies with “yes, I want to know what it is or where it comes from.” The Wiser lets him enter the building, as soon as he enters, he is greeted with a vast library that has been built within the concrete structure the Wiser’s home resides on. Dragon with a shocked expression starts to stutter his words “This is amazing, how did you do all this old man? The Wiser replies “you don’t need to worry about that, but I’ve been collecting information all my life and I have put it at all here, all the knowledge left I found of the old world and present world….and don’t call me old man I’m only 105.” Dragon then keeps looking around and then asks the Wiser about what he saw, the Wiser says in a nonchalant manner “Oh yes, I’ve read about the rumors of this flashing light that moves water.” Dragon asks him to tell him everything he knows about it but then the Wiser asks him “Why are you so invested in this flashing light?” Dragon replies “I felt like it was about to call for my name, I couldn’t hear anything but just the presence itself felt like it was speaking to me and trying to tell me something.” The Wiser looks at him with a startled face and tells Dragon to follow him.

They begin to walk down a long-spiraled staircase centered in the middle of the structure surrounded by the library walls. Dragon sees that the whole building is a pillar like structure within the structure of the remainders of Dadeland mall. They reach the bottom of the staircase, dark and gloomy, the Wiser approaches a vault-like door with many locks and a laser shield. He then opens the vault door to a small room with only one bookshelf. The Wiser then tells Dragon “I keep these books in here because the information they contain, I don’t think humanity in its current state needs to know this.” The Wiser approaches the bookshelf and begins to look at each book’s bindings, he then stops and pulls out a single book from the shelf. He opens a book and begins to read a journal dated June 22, 2025. The Wiser begins to read the journal “Today is June 22, 2025, more and more people are starting to move inland towards the Midwest or even Canada. Last night while in my house getting ready for bed, I begin to see the outside starts to light up as if its day. I look outside and I see a white flashing light above the ocean and the water is moving erratically towards my house. It’s like the flashing light was controlling the water or something, it sounds crazy, but it felt too real for a dream.” The Wiser finishes reading and says, “This is the only piece of evidence I have ever found about this, and it still puzzles me to this day but here you are telling me the same thing, it’s got to be real now.” Dragon, speechless to what he heard and begins to analyze the note. Dragon then says “Well, I guess let me know when you’ve figured it out.” The Wiser reacts with an annoyed expression and places the book back onto the shelf.
The two begin to walk back up the stairs both thinking on what this could be or where it comes from. They reach the top and the Wiser begins to lead Dragon to the way out. Before Dragon left the Wiser told him something that left him pondering “If you want to know what the main cause of all this water and no land, it’s us. Humans destroyed this planet by not caring, we brought our own downfall.” The Wiser shuts the door and Dragon begins to walk away towards his ship. He boards the Aurora and the first to greet him is Marc, he then asks how it went and Dragon told him all the details. Marc says, “Maybe that person really was dreaming, you got this off of a note from over 300 years ago!” Dragon then walks away not pleased that Marc thinks the whole situation is a waste of time and a hoax. He tells his crew to prepare to leave and return to Sunset Island to investigate again. The crew set sails and activate the anti-gravity machine to set their course back to Sunset Island.

The moon rises and lights up the sky with the glittering stars all around, the whole crew sleeping in their quarters while Dragon, at the ships bow he looks out to the sea for answers. Suddenly, a flash of light even brighter than the one he saw first, the anomaly appears in a larger form. Dragon stunned, at first, he has a sense of fear but then he stands his ground and says to it “What are you?” The anomaly suddenly speaks “I am all around you and everything that has life, but I am nothing like you. All I have ever done is protect this world.” Then Dragon, tries to speak back but it was already too late, the anomaly disappeared once again. Dragon is left wondering what the meaning of what it said and then it hit him and he says to himself “Maybe that old man was right after all.”