Once Upon a City

An origin story

Once Upon a City…(2007 words)

As I stand among the ruins of a once-great city, I can’t help but remember that I and other idealistic, well-intentioned fools like myself helped destroy it. It was a beautiful city filled with botanical delights, magnificent landscapes, exotic animals, and structures fashioned by nature's hand. It was a place where science, magic, and nature collided benevolently. Now it’s an empire of dirt, dust, and weeds.

I’m known by many names, some that set men to scream into the night. Those who claim victory make history, and those who lose are made into boogeymen who scare little boys and girls while they sleep and spread evil throughout the world. Forgive me for sounding forlorn, but being under thousands of feet of rock, dirt, and sand can make you grumpy. My kind's lifespans last for millions of years. I have no intention of spending a near eternity in this dirt pit. I will escape from her prison, and the first thing I’ll do is put my hands around her throat until she coughs blood. This is my story.

 

Among my kind, I’m called Samael. I hail from an ancient race of powerful beings capable of manipulating time and space through advanced science and magic. Many of our kind chose to evolve into pure energy, to seek spiritual union with the cosmos, leaving the material universe behind. However, a group of us refused to shed our physical forms and continued to roam and explore the galaxies. For thousands of years, that is what we did. But Zharhara Shin, our matriarch and my mate, decided that discovery and observing weren’t enough; she believed the galaxies needed overlords to control aspects of their evolution. This approach worked well for a while. We helped and nurtured many civilizations, forming federations, confederations, and dynasties. We conquered with a smile and used our fists only when necessary. 

Our fists came to the forefront when a large federation of a thousand planets rebelled. Zharhara was profoundly shocked. These were advanced races thousands of years ahead of yours. They didn’t want to be shackled, even with a light noose. Many of us thought we could adjust timelines and a few realities with a tweak here and there to stop the revolution before it happened. But Zharhara was enraged; she took this as a personal affront. She commanded us to destroy their timelines, back to their evolutionary beginnings. But before we did that, she instructed us to absorb the essences of their greater minds. I found this repugnant and told her so. She only laughed, kissed me, and said lessons needed to be learned. Soon, the galaxy itself started to revolt. This wasn’t just a thousand planets but a million. We were powerful, but we had our limits. 

Zhahara’s response was brutal. Instead of changing timelines, she started burning planets out of existence. I pleaded with her for us to leave and let them run their worlds. But she ordered us to destroy 10,000 planets as a reminder of our power. I hugged her tight, kissed her passionately, and told her I’d love her forever. I left her looking confused.

A group of like-minded individuals, a third of our kind, decided to cut ties with Zharhara and her acolytes and protect the galaxy against her wrath. Going against her broke my heart, but killing trillions of lives was something I and my acolytes could not do. We were turning the tide, and it looked like Zharhara was facing defeat.  But Zharhara did the unthinkable, she absorbed the total essence of all her acolytes. Her power increased a thousandfold. Rather than fight her and get absorbed, we fled. We left trillions of people and thousands of worlds behind to face Zharhara Shins' wrath. It's better to live another day than be dust forever, or a tiny spec in the space of her mind.

We manipulated space-time, travelled deep into the past, and passed and crisscrossed through hundreds of galaxies, making it difficult for Zharhara to find us. We settled in your galaxy and found our way to your solar system. Your planet, that beautiful blue dot, is where we decided to settle and call home.

……

We arrived when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. They were magnificent, but too large for an ecosystem to sustain itself in the long term.  Eventually, they would get smaller through evolution, but their intelligence would remain low. We needed the mammal to reign supreme and a humanoid species, like us, to evolve. We arranged for a meteor to hit the Earth by changing its course.  The dust cloud did its job within a year, an efficient extinction event. We left behind a primordial soup that would produce life that suited our purposes. We time-shifted time to time to make sure the evolutionary process followed our parameters. All went well except for a few minor problems. Two separate branches of humanoids evolved. We had a choice: save the Neanderthal from extinction or let nature take its course. They were more artistic and spiritual than the homosapien but more docile. A more aggressive species was preferred. We encouraged interbreeding between them, but sadly, let them die out.

We permanently settled into a fixed timeline 45,000 years ago. We gave man fire, taught them better hunting methods, and eventually introduced agriculture. However, our true goal was to interbreed with them. Our population was fewer than 2000 souls. As I stated before, the majority of our race chose ascendance. To thrive, we needed to build up our numbers. The children produced from these unions were far superior intellectually, physically, spiritually, and artistically. Over time, I sired hundreds of children. In a thousand years, a robust population grew. We built six great city-states; all now lost in myth and legend.

Our biggest city-state and the capital of our small empire was Atlantia, commonly known as Atlantis. It was huge, half the size of the Atlantic Ocean. Our other city-states were Xanadu, El Dorado, Shangri-la, Thule, and my home, The City of Z.

The City of Z was the jewel of the Empire. I named it Z for Zharhara; even though I betrayed her, I still loved her, and this city was my homage to her. The city was located in the Amazon, and we transformed it into a botanical haven. Hundreds of varieties of plants and flowers filled the city's courtyards and parks, the air smelled of lilacs and roses. We left many of the massive trees intact, using them as camouflage. We utilized the ecosystem to its fullest potential and didn’t disturb the natural habitat. The buildings were made of stone and crystal. They were beautiful to behold. We built universities, museums, concert halls�"everything a city needed to continue to grow and thrive. It was a paradise.

 

Our city-states were advanced in the sciences, arts, artificial intelligence, and applied magic. We had limited space travel. We rarely traveled outside our solar system because we didn’t want to attract any attention. For 36,000 years, we flourished and were guardians of the native human population. We had many satellite city-states where we helped govern and offered limited technological assistance. Great civilizations arose. Mesopotamia, the Aztecs, Mayans, and many other cultures, too numerous to mention, thrived under our tutelage.  

That all changed in 9000 BCE. Zharhara Shinn found us. It was that damn space travel that did us in.

……

The apocalyptic nightmare wrought by the revenge-crazed Zharhara will forever be etched in my mind. I relive those days over and over. All the good we’ve done, all the beauty we created, humanity’s great cities and civilizations snuffed out in mere days. Our empire of interconnected city-states turned to ash, dirt, and dust.

Without warning, a wave of destruction erupted throughout the world. Great floods, fires, plagues, and earthquakes destroyed all the great human cities we helped build. Plagues and earthquakes decimated the populations. Civilizations fell in a matter of weeks. A godly figure with a beard and robes surrounded by men and women with wings appeared in the sky and proclaimed,

“I am the lord thy God, and you have displeased me. You’ve worshipped false gods and fornicated with demons. My wrath is upon you, and those who survive will bow down on their knees before me. You will worship me and me alone.”

We all knew that was Zharhara weaving an illusion. We all knew we were next. The first city-state destroyed was Atlantia. We all saw the destruction through our tele-screens. Lightning and fire rained down on the nation, buildings crumbled, and people screamed and died from lightning blasts and fire tornadoes. The great city sank into the ocean, but by the grace of mercy, some of the space fleet escaped.  I hope they survived, found a new home in the stars, and keep our memory alive.

One by one, each city-state was destroyed as it had been in the last. Their screams haunt me to this day. The City of Z was the last to be destroyed. I saw my friends and family perish or disappear before my eyes. My Crystal City shattered into pieces, our gardens, birds, bees, bugs, trees, animals, and all the other beautiful things were burned to ash. The city sank into the ground as I fell into a stupor.

When I came to, the first thing I saw was Zharhara. She held me in her arms, humming an old lullaby we sang to our children when they were young. It felt good to feel her skin next to mine. I loved her with all my heart while hating her as well. I wanted to rip her eyes out, but I also wanted her to hold me forever.  She was a monster as well as the love of my life. I felt ashamed that I could still love her after what she’d done.

“No need to feel ashamed, my love, I feel the same way as you,” said Zharhara.

“Don’t look so surprised, I can read your thoughts. I, too, want to rip your eyes out; you betrayed me, but I understood your betrayal and was going to forgive you and leave with you. But you ran and left me alone. That was the biggest betrayal of all.  Instead of 10,000 worlds, I made it 50,000.  Those deaths are on your hands as well as mine. Those I absorbed are happy in a dream weave I created for each of them, which I also did for the apostates, you call friends and family. But I will not do that to you. I will leave you imprisoned here for 15,000 years unless you bend your knee to me. I will block you from ascendance, it’s my payment for your betrayal. Once your imprisonment is over, it will be up to you to either be with me or go it alone.”

“I can’t be with you now, nor will I bend to your will. I know you know that. I love you and hate what you have done. I’d rather rule in these ruins alone than be your puppet on a string. I need to atone for my sin of abandoning you and running away, leaving trillions to die. I tried to make up for that by being a guide to humanity and making a home that one day we would share. Maybe after 15,000 years we can forgive each other.”

Zharhara smiled and said,

“I will visit you from time to time and let you see the events of the world. I will rule these humans with a harsh hand, and I’ll make you the scapegoat. You will be my devil. By the way, I let those ships escape, the galaxies need some repopulation. There’s not too much left out there.” Zharhara kissed me and disappeared.

……

I’ll soon be freed from this empire of lost dreams. I’ve decided I’m not going to choke her until she coughs up blood. I’ll kiss her instead. Zharhara waits for me. Don’t judge me, soulmates don’t just fall out of trees, and besides, love always trumps hate.

  

 

Author's Note

let it rip