The Last City in the Sky

The City of Aster plunged eleven meters before the warning bell could deafen the air. Arka Veyr was lying flat on his back over the steel grating when the engine room floor suddenly tilted steeply. A wrench slipped from his grip, the sharp clanging of metal merging with the screams of two technicians nearby. Arka’s body dragged across the slick deck, stopping hard only when his back slammed against a row of high-pressure steam pipes. He wasted no breath screaming. Screaming never stopped gravity. "Shut down the eastern flow! Now!" he barked, sweeping his gaze across the room. A technician below the stairs stared at him stammering, his face as pale as a wet sheet. "I–if we shut it down, core pressure—" "Core pressure drops! That's far better than this room melting and exploding!" The technician bolted in a panic toward the main valve. Arka rose, straightening his trembling knees, then pressed his palms against the metal floor. An alien vibration shot sharply from the cold iron straight through his bones. The Gravity Heart was locked three levels beneath them, buried behind a forged steel door inlaid with carvings whose age far exceeded the City of Aster itself. Normally, that giant drum hummed smoothly like the steady breath of a sleeping mountain. Now, its roar resembled the echo of a hunting beast’s growl. The glowing crystal lights flickered out in succession, plunging the corridor into a red emergency dimness. Beyond the thick-layered inspection window, the expanse of white clouds tore wide open. From between the gaps, the true face of Aster was revealed naked from an unusual angle: giant plates stacked with cylindrical towers, suspension bridges, and tiers of terraced fields now leaning dangerously. The city was being pulled down toward the dead continent below—a toxic world humans had forgotten for three centuries. "Arka!" Nara Sol broke through the doorway wearing a work armor stained with soot. One hand gripped the handle of a seal-breaking hammer. Her black hair was tied tightly at the nape. There was no room for panic on her face, only lines of cold calculation. "How long?" she asked briefly. "If the backup system holds, two hours," Arka answered quickly. "And if not?" "Don't waste energy on questions that won't save lives." Nara let out a short puff of breath. "Still as sharp-tongued as ever. That means your brain hasn't shifted." The two rushed down the spiral staircase. The deeper they stepped, the seething heat rushed out to strike their chests. The walls of the engine room were packed with a network of old copper pipes blanketed in strange carvings never taught in modern engineering academies—a repeating symbol of a circle split by a straight c***k right down the middle. Arka’s steps halted in front of the main console. His gaze locked onto a single point. "Three primary locking bolts are gone," he stated. Nara stepped closer, her eyes narrowing as she stared at the vacant gap. "Council sabotage?" "No." "Are you sure?" "If forced out, the threads would wear down. These bolts weren't pulled out, Nara," Arka swept the edge of the hole with his index finger. "The metal melted from the inside." The tip of his finger felt a strange sensation. The edge of the hole was not hot but freezing cold—an odd contrast to the room’s skin-roasting air. Behind the panel, something vibrated softly. Once. Twice. The third pulse struck hard, sparking a burst of fire from the row of indicator lights. The steel door to the core room suddenly creaked loudly, then slid open on its own. From the gaping darkness, pitch-black fog crept out like fine tendrils. Nara gripped her hammer tighter. "That is definitely not copper vapor." "No." Arka pulled two filter masks from his belt, put one on, and tossed the remaining one onto Nara's chest. "If this smoke is poison, our lungs will be destroyed in seconds," Nara muttered behind her mask. "And if this isn't poison, it means there's a far more horrifying problem inside." They plunged through the black fog. The Gravity Heart floated in the center of the dome hall, shining like a trapped sun. Giant copper rings rotated erratically around the gray crystal at its center. Widening black cracks crept across the crystal's surface, moving slowly like thirsty, pulsating blood vessels. At the base of the structure, thick glass conduits stretched in all directions. The conduits that should have been flowing with the city's blue energy-sustaining luminescent fluid now looked opaque, filled with a thick dark-red liquid. Arka stepped closer to the ancient calculation monitor. His eyes widened as he stared at the rows of rune numbers continuously recalculated automatically. Registered Soul Count: 184,203 Remaining Life Force: 31% Arka read line after line repeatedly, making sure his vision wasn't tricked by the vapor. "This... makes no sense," he whispered. Nara stood matching his position, her eyes tracing the same screen. "What are you reading?" "This heart... it has never consumed oil or crystal stone." Arka pointed to the secondary panel showing the energy depletion rate. "It is consuming its own population." Before Nara could even digest those words, a violent tremor struck again. The engine room foundation shook so violently that the steel gratings rattled. From within the depths of the splitting gray crystal, a sound arose. It was not the grinding of gears or the roar of worn-out machinery. The sound was so heavy, echoing from a great distance yet feeling as though it were whispering right behind their skulls. R-e-t-u-r-n... m-y... b-r-e-a-t-h... Arka froze, staring at the crystal fracture now radiating a murderous aura. For the first time in his life wrestling within the engine room, Arka Veyr felt the grip of pure fear. Not because the City of Aster was about to crash down onto the dead continent below, but because he had just realized one thing: something beneath the lower continent had just awakened and realized their existence.