A Small Spark

Stephen

When Stephen was in the seventh grade, he had this awful teacher. She made it her personal mission to crush their hopes and dreams. Particularly, when she assigned this one project. The students have to write a paper and present it to the entire class about a place they wanted to go and why they wanted to go there. The teacher told them that they could write about anything they wanted to, just as long as it was an actual place in the world.

Julie did an extensive project on Mexico, claiming she wanted to see the coffee shop where her parents had met. She even brought in a slideshow of pictures of the coffee shop. She received the highest grad in the class. Again.

Mason was the biggest slacker in their class. He was always trying to be the class clown. He wrote only a page about Riverside, Iowa, the birthplace of a James Tiberius Kirk. He figured that if he moved there as quickly as possible, he could be in the family line of Kirk, the captain of the USS Enterprise. He had a small obsession Star Trek, an obsession he inherited from his mother. It worked out for him because Miss Robertson, their teacher, was obsessed with Star Trek fan and gave him an “A.”

Stephen, on the other hand, was finally excited about a report they were doing in class. He spent weeks on his presentation. It was going to be amazing. He remembered walking up to the front of the class, hopeful and ready to present his project to everyone. His opening line was, “I want to visit the place my real parents come from. I want to go to Atlantis.”

At first, she thought Stephen was talking about the resort, but it became obvious later on that was not what he was talking about. When he finished, the only people who clapped were Mason and Julie. Miss Robertson gave him the worst grade in the class because she claimed that he did not take the assignment seriously. It killed him.

When Stephen was a freshman in high school, he made it into the newspaper. He was the fastest high school swimmer in the entire state of Colorado. A journalist from the local paper came to his house to interview him. She asked him a lot of questions, most of which never made it into the article. When asked how often she trained to get as good as he was, he responded, “I only attended practices.”

Naturally, she wanted to know. Stephen stupidly said, “It’s just in my blood. My real parents are from the Lost City of Atlantis. Water is just a part of me.”

Stephen was ridiculed for months after that. Everyone thought he was crazy and something. Stephen wanted to prove them wrong. He wanted to show them that all this time he was not lying or seeking attention, or borderline insane.

So, his first thought at seeing Atlantis was: finally.

The City was encased in a large, see-through, dome-like structure. They were still too far off to see anything more than that.

Mason and Julie, like Stephen, raced to the room, ready to see the city through the periscope. Stephen let them look through the periscope before hungrily taking it back, to look at the city himself. It was magnificent.

Behind Stephen, Captain Thomas cleared his throat. He could not believe they actually found it. “We’re looking for a place to enter,” Captain Thomas stated. Stephen could have told him that was going to be a problem. The entrance could not be an opening just anywhere, otherwise the whole city would flood. Of course, there was definitely some sort of opening. Otherwise, Stephen never would have left Atlantis.

Dr. Allen entered the room. Stephen moved away from the periscope to let him have a look. “It’s-there’s-it’s Atlantis.” Shock was written on his face.

Captain Thomas told the crew to steer the submarine so that it would circle the City. By the size of it this was no small task. Stephen glanced at Julie and Mason, they had nothing to say. Dr. Allen took ahold of the periscope again and stared at the City.

Stephen’s eyes met Julie’s. There were tears forming in her eyes. It happened. They were there. They had found the Lost City of Atlantis. They had finally found what they had been waiting for all this time.

As they encircled the City, it became evident that the City laid on the seafloor. As they grew closer, Stephen could vaguely make out a design on the wall of Atlantis. Stephen wondered about the structure and how long ago it was made.

Julie stepped forward again to look through the periscope. “Are those stars?” she said. Stephen frowned and looked for himself. She was right. The design on the dome wall was not really a design at all, it was just stars interlocked with one another. There was a strange line through the center of each of the stars, too.

Mason pushed Stephen out of the way to look for himself. When Mr. Allen took the periscope from them, he frowned. “There’s trees,” he said. “There’s tress. That means-but that’s not possible­–”

He was right, as they passed the City, there was long forest that stretched across the outside rim of the City. They continued to circle. All of his hopes were riding on finding that entrance.

-----

It took them six weeks to circle the entire City of Atlantis. It was massive, much bigger than he had imagined. Were there many people living inside? From their trip around, they could see, pretty clearly, that there was a castle. A very, very large castle. Larger than any other castle he had ever seen, which was not a large accomplishment as he had never seen a real castle before.

The castle stretched far and wide. Stephen wondered what it was like inside. Other than this, all they could see was the forest and mountains. And the water, of course. There was a lot of water. River and lakes. One town looked like it was surrounded by a kind of river, more like a moat.

At the end of six weeks, Stephen found Julie and Mason sitting at a table in the far end of the control room. Sally was there, too, playing with her dolls. Stephen sighed and walked over to them.

Julie was drawing on a piece of paper. “What are you drawing?” Stephen asked her. Her chocolate eyes met his.

“I’ve been making a map,” she replied. Stephen looked at the drawing. The map was pretty close to the real thing. The mountains were the southernmost landmark they had seen. The forest stretched from the mountains to the castle on the west most side of Atlantis. The castle was north. It was just a skeleton, but it would do the job.

Captain Thomas strode over to them. “I’m afraid there’s nowhere to enter.” Stephen shook his head. It simply did not make sense.

“I have an idea,” Mason interjected. They all looked back at him, kind of surprised. His ideas were not of the greatest sort. He was doodling on a random piece of paper. Stephen assumed the picture was supposed to be a tree. “That castle is elevated from the rest of Atlantis, right?” Stephen frowned. Right Mason, he thought to himself bitterly, we all had seen that too. “There’s the moat around the castle, maybe we could go under the city, and then up to the surface.”

They were all stunned and impressed.

Julie drew a moat around the castle.

The thing was, the submarine was designed to endure more than the average water pressure compared to other submarines. It was built that way because of expedition. But to dive deeper into the water, it could destroy the submarine. And since this was their mission, not the crew’s, only Julie, Mason, and Stephen were going to Atlantis. They could not force the captain to Atlantis, especially with a daughter.

The submarine had been designed with this small pod thing. It held the limit of three people. Originally, it had been intended for the scientists on their expedition. But Dr. Allen mentioned that Stephen, Mason, and Julie would benefit from it more than anyone else. The scientists gave it up for them. The only problem was that with the water pressure, they were not sure what would happen. And, if there was no opening there, the pod would probably explode and they would die.

So, really this was life or death.

But it was the only option they had. And it was worth it. So, Julie, Mason, and Stephen were ordered to wear the precautionary suits. These suits, too, were made for a higher pressure than normal diving suits. They were blue and black and tightened to the skin of the person wearing it. They came with an oxygen tank, the most important item, really.

They filed into the pod at the back of the submarine.

They took with them all of their possessions. All of their clothes, phones, all of the items Julie had bought in Greece, everything. They packed it into the little pod, stuffing all of it inside. They were leaving the Poseidon. There was something better waiting for them.

The pod was dark blue on the outside and the majority of it was covered in a clear structure so that they could see out. This made Stephen nervous. They were going to see everything while they watched themselves die.

The crew gathered around Mason, Julie, and Stephen as they were about to leave. Sally ran up to Julie and hugged her. They had bonded over the last few weeks. Ms. Hutchinson shoved her hand out to them before walking back to her room. He was not sure the woman ever cared for them.

Alexander Wintergreen gave a long monologue about how what they were doing was stupid and that they probably were going to die. And that they probably deserved to if they were going to do something so stupid. Yes, Stephen was going to miss him.

Dr. Allen stared at them. “I want to come with you, children,” he told them. Before they had the chance to respond, he continued. “I know I cannot. Perhaps one day I will see it for myself.”

“Thank you, Dr. Allen,” said Stephen.

“Take care of yourself, Stephen. Protect them, protect all of it.”

“I’ll do what I can.” Stephen looked back at the entire crew. “Thank you all. I know this was not your mission.”

“Good luck,” Lilith said to them. Mason winked at her, causing Lilith to smile and blush.

“Don’t die,” advised the captain. Yeah, he had grown to like them.

With that, they all turned and entered the small pod.

Mason was their captain, so Julie and Stephen took the seats beside him. That was the terrifying part. It was all on Mason, there was nothing they could do. Slowly, he felt the pod detach from the submarine and dive lower into the water. There was tenseness that had filled the pod in the face of their coming death.

For a second, Stephen thought about Rosie. He had promised he would come back to her. They could not die here, not when they were so close.

The pressure of the water on the pod was palpable. Stephen’s ears started popping and, by the way Julie was pulling on her ear, he assumed she could feel it too. Mason, on the other hand, started sneezing. And not just one sneeze, either. He was sneezing uncontrollably. This only caused Stephen to worry more about Mason’s steering.

Slowly, the pod levelled out and they slid under the city, exactly where Mason had indicated. Julie and Stephen immediately looked up to see the city directly above them. They were literally under the city.

Suddenly, a pipe burst above them. Stephen quickly unbuckled himself and tried to hold off the leak. Julie handed him a cloth and some duct tape. Great. Their lives were now in the hands of duct tape.

They were definitely going to die before they ever made it to Atlantis.

And, as if things were not bad enough, their heads began to feel as though they would explode. Julie, for instance, placed both of her hands on her head as though that would help. Tears were pouring out of her eyes. Mason, himself, groaned through the pain.

Once they had patched up the leak, another one sprouted on the opposite wall. Stephen raced over to it and did the same. His duct tape and cloth was not going to last long. They had to get to Atlantis.

“My head,” Stephen heard Julie groan. Suddenly, she lose her footing and fell to the ground. She huddled against her chair on the floor. Stephen glanced at Mason.. He was starting to look weak as well. Stephen returned to the leak, thinking that all was all he could do at the moment.

Just as another leak appeared, Mason jerked the pod. “Mason,” Stephen said. Sweat was starting to drip off of him. “You alright, man?”

“Yeah, man, I’m good,” he replied, pushing through the pain. It was obvious he was not good, but he left him to fix another leak. Stephen looked up. The surface seemed thousands of miles away.

“Mason,” he tried again, “can we go any faster?”

“I’ll try,” he replied. Stephen felt the pod shutter before moving slightly faster than it had been. The pressure on the pod, though, began to disappear. Finally, the pod squeezed through and began to pull up. Stephen felt the effects immediately. The pressure was gone now and the pod reached a surface.

It happened.

They had made it to the Lost City of Atlantis. Excitement coursed through him. Stephen helped Julie up as Mason turned off the engine. He was a little wobbly, but he would be fine. They all looked at each other.

“We did it,” Stephen said, his voice taking on a tone of awe. “We made it!” Julie raced over to him and embraced him. Mason shrugged and joined the embrace. “Let’s go see it.”

They entered the top deck. The sun was beaming down on the metal, the brightness of it causing Mason, Julie, and Stephen to wince. They stopped for a moment, letting their eyes adjust to the light. Then, they jumped down to the ground and looked around. They had done it. They had made it to Atlantis.

When Julie reached the ground, she bent down, examining the soil, a frown appearing on her face. “What?” Stephen inquired.

“Feel it,” she told Stephen and Mason. When Stephen felt the soil for himself, he only had one thought: it was fake. The grass, the soil, all of it was fake. Stephen glanced up at the sun, it was beaming, but he could not feel the usual warmth of its rays like he could on the Surface. It was all fake.

He supposed he should not have been terribly surprised. The whole city was underwater, there was no chance these people had the actual sun. But still, he was slightly disappointed. He had not expected this. He had expected it to be better.

“Stephen,” Mason called to him. Stephen glanced to where his friend was pointing. And that was when he saw them.

Surround Mason, Julie, and Stephen were the pale faces of the palace guards. Each of them were holding guns, pointed directly at them. One man walked out to them. He was a short, plump man that reminded Stephen distinctly of Uncle Vernon from Harry Potter. He wore a purple robe and had a crown laid comfortably on his head.

“Serchaine,” the man said to them.

Of course, Stephen, Julie, and Mason were unable to discern what the man had said. They glanced at one another, bewildered.

The man yelled to a man and woman standing with him. They were clearly twins, they looked to similar for anything else to be the answer. They stepped forward and tapped on something that looked like a tablet. The man looked back at them and continued, “Welcome to Atlantis. I am King Ahab. And you are trespassing.”

Stephen tried to say they were there to look for his parents, that they were here to see the magnificent city. But he never had the chance. They were arrested and brought to a prison.

The twins alone stayed behind while the other guards and the king left. They stared at Stephen as though Mason and Julie were not standing there with him. “We’ve been waiting for you,” they said to him.

“What are you talking about?” Mason wanted to know. They glanced at him as if seeing him for the first time.

The woman looked at her twin and said, “He looks just like Amaris.” The other nodded, as though this were surprising news.

“Who are you?” Stephen inquired.

“I’m Kane,” said the man. “This is Shane.”

Shane stepped forward and pushed her hand through the bars of the prison. “Welcome to Atlantis.”