Plutonian Shores: Part 2 The City

The golden lights never ceased to shine. The grayness of a cloudy sky muted them, but still, they shone in all their glory and splendor.

Cyrus watched as people walked sullenly about their business under vibrant lights. The loud music obnoxiously blared from all angles. The colorful advertisements continuously flooded his vision. The smell of thick cigar smoke and cheap perfume almost made him gag as he walked by a group of people who seemed to pay no mind to one another.

He could see them and sense them clearly, but they passed through him like phantasmagoric specters lost in their oblivion.

The ones who brushed past him did not seem to notice his presence, and it struck Cyrus that he had no idea if they could sense him or not. So he wandered, trying to make some sense of the peculiar situation before him. It felt as though he pushed through thoughtlessly like those around him.

The lights would not disperse the gloom, leaving him dizzy. Cyrus felt a certain sense of empathy for those who suffered in this city - emptied by the lights around them as they cowered into submission.

Cyrus turned left at a cantina. He could feel that it was not the first time he had turned there. It wasn't difficult to discern, as many places remained too familiar to him, just as this one.

He entered the building he had turned away from before. He sat down at the bar adorned with glittering bottles of alcohol and rows of colorful cocktails lined up neatly behind the counter. So many people went in and out of the establishment. They all seemed angry and drank enough alcohol to intoxicate an elephant.

Cyrus sat down and watched the barmaid prepare a flaming drink. He raised his hand to wave her over, but she did not notice him, so he just sat there awkwardly watching her mix an ordinary cocktail knowing that she could not see or hear what he was doing.

The man next to him at the bar seemed delighted by this drink. The bartender placed it in front of him on the counter and walked away without saying anything. The man picked up the glass with long fingerless gloves and took a sip from it, exhaling heavily immediately after. He made no effort to hide his satisfaction as he slammed the glass onto the counter with great pleasure before ordering a new one. But, unfortunately, everyone else around him looked angry at him.

Cyrus walked out of the bar. He found himself on a crowded street filled with yellow-orange lights and loud music. Some people milled about in groups while others wandered like he was doing.

He could see that lights flooded this place as well from all directions, though they were less noticeable than those inside the building by the bar. It looked as though there were some areas devoid of light entirely, as if the golden radiance had been pushed back into corners or alleyways. After taking his eyes away from the fluorescent lights, Cyrus noticed what he thought were alleys when it was only one-way streets.

He sighed exhaustively as he continued walking on the sidewalk with everyone else until finally reaching an intersection.

"Make way for the man!" shouted one man in a hurry while pushing through from behind him at the street corner. "Excuse me! Please move aside!"

Waves of people walked past him at every angle, blocking his sight like water flowing around a boulder in a river bed - they only parted when another wave approached from behind. He tried standing still but soon grew more lost and disoriented than before as he watched their movements around him. He walked through the ghostly crowd until he found himself at the edge, where there was a gap before another parallel group of people.

A crowd watched as a man was pushed along in a cage surrounded by a large procession. Cyrus tried to move closer but felt a force hold him back. He turned to look for the source, but it was everywhere. Then, a loud cry and the sound of a gunshot abruptly cut through his ears. Cyrus panicked and was swarmed as the crowd scattered.

All the people began to vanish. He saw a lone gunman with a revolver in hand. He had aimed at the man in the cage. The ones who had imprisoned him were nowhere to be found. The gunman fired one last shot at the prisoner piercing his skull. As the smoke cleared on the barrel, the gunman began to turn to smoke until his face was the only thing that could be seen. He had the most enormous grin that Cyrus had ever seen.

When he was finally gone, the only person left was the prisoner. He stared at the man who was sitting upon a growing pool of blood. The man lifted his head with an apparent hole still in his cranium. "It has been a while since someone has come to visit me."

Cyrus was visibly disgusted as the man spoke, and he turned his head away. The prisoner looked at himself. His tattered rags were drenched in red. "Ah, I beg your pardon. I'm not very decent at the moment."

He suddenly dispersed into a torrent of bright colors until he looked like a prince in his royal attire. His body was now unscathed and void of even the marring of scars. He opened his eyes and found that both of them had turned an electric blue, reminiscent of the ocean.

Cyrus Kong could not hide the amazement in his gaze. The man was beautiful with a face almost feminine in appearance. Before, his hair was shaggy and dirtied, but now it was like silken gold strands that fell below his waist. "Can you tell me what this place is?"

The other man looked upon Cyrus Kong with his bright eyes, and a sad smile found its way onto his face. "This is a place from my memories. My final hours, to be exact."

"What do you mean?"

"This is my death, replayed back to me over and over." The man, now a godlike figure of incomparable beauty like the king of this place, explained. "In my life, I had made a mistake beyond redemption. And it was here that I realized my folly. It is why I am beyond salvation."

"I don't understand," responded Cyrus as he felt the crowd's gaze now on him even though they had all disappeared. "Who are you?"

He looked around at the gilded city and the golden sky above them. Then, he turned again to face him with those star-touched eyes that blazed with divine light. "You must need wisdom if you have chosen to find me."

"I am," he responded quickly. "But, who are you? Have we met before?"

The face of this man was so familiar to him but still unknown in its familiarity. There was a trace of sadness when the blue-haired man smiled at him again and then disappeared into thin air with the city washing away. He awoke with eyes blinking rapidly and breathing heavily. It took every ounce of strength for Cyrus Kong not to fall back asleep again just as suddenly as his consciousness returned to him - where had that been?

In his hands was a golden key accented with finely etched black texts in a language he could not recognize and a flashlight that illuminated the land well. He was in a desert that stretched on for miles. He could see mountains of varying sizes around him, but they were all dwarfed by the gargantuan one at the center that reached up into the sky beyond what his eyes could reach. And it was towards this mountain that he now journeyed. It had been a long time since he first saw it, but still the same as ever - jagged and foreboding. After all this time, he was still unsure if he would find what he needed in its shadows.

Then, after some hours of walking up the slope, his eyes found their target. An intricate-looking gate formed out of deadwood that melded together to create an ornate design from antiquity itself. The gates were heavily chained with wide iron links that ran like veins through the entirety of them. Cyrus Kong took out his key and inserted it into a lock to realize it was just one of many. The golden lock opened, but there were a dozen others of different colors that his key could not fit.

It was made painfully aware to Cyrus Kong that his key alone would not open this one gate. He needed help, but he did not know from where or whom. Off in the distance was a forest with trees reaching into the sky like red hands running upward and gripping vibrant green clumps. He walked towards it as the stars began to fade, but the dawn did not come as there was no sun to speak of.