"It exists! I swear to you! With towers as tall as we could imagine and creatures more magnificent than any upon this land! There is nothing more beautiful on this whole Earth! I promise you! Those of pure heart, will find it."
Those were the last words of a man named Nicolai Malcovitch. He was a philosopher, a day dreamer, a scientist, and in the opinion of most; a mad man. He had discovered multiple new species of aquatic animals from the darkest depths of the deepest oceans, and other bodies of water. He had created machines to get humans deeper than they had ever been. He was a genius, a figure that should always be remembered in history, and he would have been had he not lost it, as most people believed he did with his last assignment. He was supposed to find a way to get humans into the depths of waters without the use of submarines. He developed an anti-pressure suit using a special material he had created himself. When his first suit was made he wouldn't allow anyone to test it other than himself. He believed that if there should be anyone put in danger with one of his creations, it would be himself. He decided to test his suit in one of the many Lochs of Scotland. Though on his way towards the dock he was supposed to dive off of, he fell through a hole in the ground that lead to an underground cave. There were many caves that covered the island, most of them having been undiscovered and unexplored. Nicolai decided to walk through the cave, knowing that eventually it would empty into a body of water where he could swim back to where he should have been. But then his eyes caught something, a glowing blue light in some of the moss that covered the cave. As he looked closer he noticed more blue lights, slowly leading him through the cave. He followed these little lights until he came to a wall of mossy-seaweed-like substance. It was speckled with these little blue lights, and behind it, he could hear the sound of water. And so he parted through this mossy substance to find open water. There were no other coasts in sight, and he wondered how far he had wandered from his original location.
He stepped off the rocks to find an immediate drop off in the water. He could still see faint glowing lights in the water, and so with his curiosity spiked, he put on his oxygen mask and goggles and he submerged himself. The water was almost pitch black, but that didn't stop him. He swam deeper, following the lights that seemed to keep getting deeper. He didn't know how deep this body of water was, and it was extremely dangerous to be swimming in waters he'd never been in before, but he didn't care. There seemed to be something that had come over him, those blue lights just entranced him. He could not turn away from them, he had to keep following them. He paused when one of the blue lights flickered, and then it opened. It blossomed like a flower, and then it revealed a beautiful blue bug. It kind of resembled a glowing blue shrimp. Nicolai became fascinated, but just as he reached out to touch it, something collided into him. It was a massive black thing, having been hidden within the unusual darkness of the water. It knocked him away and ate up the bug before he could react. He looked around in fear, and was hit a few moments again, but this time it knocked his oxygen mask off his face. With a flurry of bubbles, the mask fell off into the unknown depths of the water. He looked around, and attempted to swim towards the surface of the water. Though, he could not see it. He began to panic. He began to thrash about in the water, feeling as if every second was going to be his last. And then suddenly, something washed over his entire body. The panic melted away along with the tightening in his chest. The feeling of desperation for air faded, and he calmed himself down.
His lips parted, bubbles drifting from them as he paused before taking in a breath. He didn't cough, nor did he drown. He actually inhaled successfully underwater. His eyes widened and he exhaled in shock, bubbles rushing out of his mouth in a flurry. He took in another breath, and began to realize that something magical was happening. He could breathe underwater! He took a few moments to re-focus, and then he resumed swimming downwards, following the mystical blue lights. He swam for a long time, and then his eyes fell upon an amazing sight. It was a tall tower, lit up with yellow lights in all of its many windows. His eyes widened at the sight, and his jaw slacked stupidly in pure shock. He swam closer to the tower until a blue figure merged from one of the windows. He paused in his swimming as the figure approached him. It seemed to be another person. It was a young girl, with skin bluer that the sky above, and eyes of a radiant gold. She resembled a mermaid that was often thought to be simple folklore. She had puffy gills on her neck, and scales covered her blue skin. She was beautiful, she was everything that every scientist had ever dreamt of. She cautiously approached him before reaching out and touching him. He jumped, and she jerked back for a moment. The two were curious about one another. He stayed, lifeless, just staring at her. Then, her deep blue lips parted, and she actually spoke.
"Name?"
It was a simple word, one that Nicolai would have normally responded to with ease and no hesitation, but he was in such a state of shock that it took him a few moments to realize what this girl was asking. He let out a nervous stutter, before fumbling out his name.
"N-n-nicolai Malcovitch..."
The girl tilted her head, sounding the name out once, before smiling at him. She seemed friendly enough. And without another word she reached out, taking hold of his goggles. She pulled them off, and looked through them curiously. Nicolai closed his eyes instantly, expecting the burning sting of the water, but after a few moments he gathered the courage to open his eyes. For a few seconds things were blurry and his eyes had an odd tingling sensation, but then things cleared up, and he gasped at the sight. Everything was so much more visible. The water was no where nearly as dark as it had been when he had his goggles on. He could see an entire city behind the massive tower, and all kinds of things within the water. Then he realized something. He wasn't dead. He was far beyond the depths that any human should have been able to swim without an oxygen mask. He looked down to his anti-pressure suit, and then courageously, he unzipped it. He was in his normal swim trunks under the suit, and after shedding it, he took in a breath. He felt the cold water meet with his mostly bare skin, and he got the same tingling feeling that he had felt on his eyes. It was amazing, and then he looked to the mermaid girl. She took his hand within her webbed one, and the two began to swim towards the underwater city. Nicolai spent a whole day in the water, discovering creatures and secrets that no human should have stumbled upon. Finally he resurfaced, and when he returned to his lab, people were in a frenzy. They thought that he had died or had been kidnapped. But when he tried to explain to them what he had found, their celebration ended. They thought at first that he had been drugged, but when no drugs had been found in his system they wondered if perhaps he had simply lost it.
He tried and tried to tell them all, but no one believed him. He returned to the under water city several times, having fallen in love with it. He had noticed that after a few days of being away, he would hear whispers in his ears. These whispers were soft and ever so entrancing, they came in waves and they sounded like water gently flowing through him. He swore that it was that city calling to him. That city was magical. He started writing all his findings down, all of this godly information of magic and the secrets of the world was being recorded for the first time ever. He used special books, advised by the people of the under water city that if those secrets fell into the wrong hands, that the world would come to a chaotic destruction. These books were magical, and would only show what he had written within the confines of the underwater city. He soon became consumed with his work, wanting to record as much knowledge and information on this place as he could. He wrote books upon books, he drew illustrations and maps, he brought countless books down there with him as well. Soon there were whole libraries filled with information that he had either written himself or brought down from the human world. He had even managed to get his hands on some of the government's dirtiest secrets and he copied and stashed them as well. The government was corrupt, and was slowly destroying the beauty of the Earth. He wanted to share that with people. But he knew of the dangers.
He worked for ten years, and then the government heard of his raving "lunatic" speaking of this lost city. They had heard of this city before, and many referred to it as Atlantis, though even Nicolai did not believe that it was the actual Atlantis, and instead that it was something much better. The government started to monitor Nicolai in hopes of finding the whereabouts of this city. They had been searching for it for years. The magic source of the city was something the government wanted. They longed for the power that it was capable of providing them. They could use the creatures for experimentation, and the magic for their own military gain. They would destroy and totally obliterate the city. Nicolai knew this, and so for the longest time he managed to stay untracked, going to the city only when he was sure that he would not be discovered. But everyone slips up. Eventually he was discovered, as was the cave that lead to the opening of the city. Luckily, Nicolai had seen them coming, and had managed to hide away all his information within the safety of the city before being captured. His last words had been heard at a rally, where he declared that the city was real one last time. Then, he simply vanished. No one ever heard from him again. Some people thought he died, others thought he'd totally lost it and had finally been institutionalized. The government had thought that they had control.
They sent down three agents into the city, but what happened was disastrous. Two of the agents didn't make it out alive. Their bodies were thrown to the surface by an unknown force, as if the body of water itself had rejected them. Two of them were dead, the life had literally been sucked from their bodies. And the third had been returned battered, broken, and totally insane. He only babbled insanities that couldn't be understood by anyone. The government quickly understood that they were messing with a force that they could not invade alone. They tried machines, cameras, anything to get some sort of glance at the world. But with every broken machine or failed attempt, they began to get more and more desperate, and more reckless. Eventually, after spending thousands upon thousands of dollars, they started to get greedy. They were wasting money! And so, they devised a plan. They had been monitoring Nicolai long enough to know that he really believed that people with pure hearts only, could get into the city. And so they started watching orphanages, looking for teenagers who had no families with pure hearts. After all, what better place to find those pure of heart other than orphanages? They found six teenagers suitable for the mission. Three boys, and three girls of course. Most of them all already had some sort of strong connection to nature, people, or things that set them apart from normal people. There was a deeper caring within all of them, the features they had were things that most people in the world didn't have. They cared, they loved, they dreamed, they hoped, and they believed in something greater than machines and destruction. The government promised them all different things. It could be an education, freedom from the foster homes, money, anything. They lied to the teenagers, doing whatever they could to get the teens to agree to this secret mission.
The teens were informed that they were to simply learn about a different habitat. When asked why them, the government explained that they had simply been picking people at random. The teens were then all taken to the cave. They were dropped off in the same place that Nicolai had fallen through and were told to simply follow the little blue lights. The government knew not to interfere, and so they backed off, leaving the teens. They would be monitoring them though. The teens listened, following the blue lights until they reached the moss wall, and then the shore. They figured it out soon enough, though they didn't really understand what they were supposed to do. They got into the water after stripping down into bathing suits or whatever, and then they dove down, following the blue lights further and further. They noticed right away that they didn't run out of breath, and since they weren't in suits like Nicolai, they had been exposed to the magic much quicker. They too developed the ability to breathe in the water, along with seeing clearly. After overcoming the shock, the teens went into the city that now seemed to be abandoned. There were no mer-people to greet them like the girl who had greeted Nicolai. They were fearful, scared of all the machines and things that the humans had been sending down. They had been informed of the government's intent to use their magic, to destroy their home, and so they hid away. The teens entered the very same tower that Nicolai had first spotted. It had been the tower that he stashed most of his things. They entered through one of the windows, and stumbled upon libraries of books, pictures, readings, all kinds of information. They went through some of it, before continuing to explore. The teens were fascinated, absolutely mesmerized by the place. Never in their wildest dreams would they have imagined a place like that existed.
After a few hours they returned to the cave as they had been ordered to do, and they set up a camp within the cave with supplies provided for them. The teens talked, and formed bonds rather quickly. They were all orphans, they had a lot in common, especially their newfound love for this world. They shared stories and songs, they quickly became connected. The next day they returned to the underwater world. They stayed in the cave for two weeks total, and soon they were spending almost all of their time in the water cities. They discovered cute little creatures and also encountered some of the more dangerous ones. They figured things out and soon the underwater world became their home. They too suffered from the whispering effect that the underwater city had on them. The longer they stayed away, the more persistent the light whispers were within the backs of their minds. They loved the world, they cared for each other, they were happy. Finally they had a place that they felt they belonged to. Some of the mer-people had even emerged and welcomed them. They learned so much from Nicolai's writings. They began to wonder where he had gone. When they returned to the government facility designated for the mission, they all asked questions. Their questions went unanswered and soon the teens became suspicious. It didn't take long for one of them to over hear one agent talking about harnessing the power from the city for military purposes. The teen told the others, and they were all horrified in similar ways. They became disgusted, and they felt used. They began to worry for their beloved city. They wanted to return.
When released, they all met up and planned to go back to the underwater world despite the fact that they had all taken an oath not to do so. They made it as far as the moss wall before being discovered. They tried to enter the water, but after one was injured while trying to swim downwards, they surrendered not wanting anyone else harmed. The teens were again returned to the facility, about ten miles away from the cave entrance. They were all questioned as to why they had returned, and they all gave the same answer. They declared that what was going on was wrong, that they had been used, and that they refused for the government to take over the underwater city that they loved. They declared that they would no longer help, and that they would not allow for the government to continue. And so, all of them were locked up and mostly separated, though the facility was small, and the teens managed to keep communication between each other. They would not stand for what the government was planning. They would escape, they would return to the under water world that they'd decided to call Atlantis, and they would learn all they could to help protect the city beneath the water. The magic there was more powerful than anything a human could create, and these six teens knew they could use it for good. They were exactly what the city needed. They were pure of heart, they were young, and they were strong. They've been locked up for a week. The whispers are unbearable. They will make their move tonight...
Those were the last words of a man named Nicolai Malcovitch. He was a philosopher, a day dreamer, a scientist, and in the opinion of most; a mad man. He had discovered multiple new species of aquatic animals from the darkest depths of the deepest oceans, and other bodies of water. He had created machines to get humans deeper than they had ever been. He was a genius, a figure that should always be remembered in history, and he would have been had he not lost it, as most people believed he did with his last assignment. He was supposed to find a way to get humans into the depths of waters without the use of submarines. He developed an anti-pressure suit using a special material he had created himself. When his first suit was made he wouldn't allow anyone to test it other than himself. He believed that if there should be anyone put in danger with one of his creations, it would be himself. He decided to test his suit in one of the many Lochs of Scotland. Though on his way towards the dock he was supposed to dive off of, he fell through a hole in the ground that lead to an underground cave. There were many caves that covered the island, most of them having been undiscovered and unexplored. Nicolai decided to walk through the cave, knowing that eventually it would empty into a body of water where he could swim back to where he should have been. But then his eyes caught something, a glowing blue light in some of the moss that covered the cave. As he looked closer he noticed more blue lights, slowly leading him through the cave. He followed these little lights until he came to a wall of mossy-seaweed-like substance. It was speckled with these little blue lights, and behind it, he could hear the sound of water. And so he parted through this mossy substance to find open water. There were no other coasts in sight, and he wondered how far he had wandered from his original location.
He stepped off the rocks to find an immediate drop off in the water. He could still see faint glowing lights in the water, and so with his curiosity spiked, he put on his oxygen mask and goggles and he submerged himself. The water was almost pitch black, but that didn't stop him. He swam deeper, following the lights that seemed to keep getting deeper. He didn't know how deep this body of water was, and it was extremely dangerous to be swimming in waters he'd never been in before, but he didn't care. There seemed to be something that had come over him, those blue lights just entranced him. He could not turn away from them, he had to keep following them. He paused when one of the blue lights flickered, and then it opened. It blossomed like a flower, and then it revealed a beautiful blue bug. It kind of resembled a glowing blue shrimp. Nicolai became fascinated, but just as he reached out to touch it, something collided into him. It was a massive black thing, having been hidden within the unusual darkness of the water. It knocked him away and ate up the bug before he could react. He looked around in fear, and was hit a few moments again, but this time it knocked his oxygen mask off his face. With a flurry of bubbles, the mask fell off into the unknown depths of the water. He looked around, and attempted to swim towards the surface of the water. Though, he could not see it. He began to panic. He began to thrash about in the water, feeling as if every second was going to be his last. And then suddenly, something washed over his entire body. The panic melted away along with the tightening in his chest. The feeling of desperation for air faded, and he calmed himself down.
His lips parted, bubbles drifting from them as he paused before taking in a breath. He didn't cough, nor did he drown. He actually inhaled successfully underwater. His eyes widened and he exhaled in shock, bubbles rushing out of his mouth in a flurry. He took in another breath, and began to realize that something magical was happening. He could breathe underwater! He took a few moments to re-focus, and then he resumed swimming downwards, following the mystical blue lights. He swam for a long time, and then his eyes fell upon an amazing sight. It was a tall tower, lit up with yellow lights in all of its many windows. His eyes widened at the sight, and his jaw slacked stupidly in pure shock. He swam closer to the tower until a blue figure merged from one of the windows. He paused in his swimming as the figure approached him. It seemed to be another person. It was a young girl, with skin bluer that the sky above, and eyes of a radiant gold. She resembled a mermaid that was often thought to be simple folklore. She had puffy gills on her neck, and scales covered her blue skin. She was beautiful, she was everything that every scientist had ever dreamt of. She cautiously approached him before reaching out and touching him. He jumped, and she jerked back for a moment. The two were curious about one another. He stayed, lifeless, just staring at her. Then, her deep blue lips parted, and she actually spoke.
"Name?"
It was a simple word, one that Nicolai would have normally responded to with ease and no hesitation, but he was in such a state of shock that it took him a few moments to realize what this girl was asking. He let out a nervous stutter, before fumbling out his name.
"N-n-nicolai Malcovitch..."
The girl tilted her head, sounding the name out once, before smiling at him. She seemed friendly enough. And without another word she reached out, taking hold of his goggles. She pulled them off, and looked through them curiously. Nicolai closed his eyes instantly, expecting the burning sting of the water, but after a few moments he gathered the courage to open his eyes. For a few seconds things were blurry and his eyes had an odd tingling sensation, but then things cleared up, and he gasped at the sight. Everything was so much more visible. The water was no where nearly as dark as it had been when he had his goggles on. He could see an entire city behind the massive tower, and all kinds of things within the water. Then he realized something. He wasn't dead. He was far beyond the depths that any human should have been able to swim without an oxygen mask. He looked down to his anti-pressure suit, and then courageously, he unzipped it. He was in his normal swim trunks under the suit, and after shedding it, he took in a breath. He felt the cold water meet with his mostly bare skin, and he got the same tingling feeling that he had felt on his eyes. It was amazing, and then he looked to the mermaid girl. She took his hand within her webbed one, and the two began to swim towards the underwater city. Nicolai spent a whole day in the water, discovering creatures and secrets that no human should have stumbled upon. Finally he resurfaced, and when he returned to his lab, people were in a frenzy. They thought that he had died or had been kidnapped. But when he tried to explain to them what he had found, their celebration ended. They thought at first that he had been drugged, but when no drugs had been found in his system they wondered if perhaps he had simply lost it.
He tried and tried to tell them all, but no one believed him. He returned to the under water city several times, having fallen in love with it. He had noticed that after a few days of being away, he would hear whispers in his ears. These whispers were soft and ever so entrancing, they came in waves and they sounded like water gently flowing through him. He swore that it was that city calling to him. That city was magical. He started writing all his findings down, all of this godly information of magic and the secrets of the world was being recorded for the first time ever. He used special books, advised by the people of the under water city that if those secrets fell into the wrong hands, that the world would come to a chaotic destruction. These books were magical, and would only show what he had written within the confines of the underwater city. He soon became consumed with his work, wanting to record as much knowledge and information on this place as he could. He wrote books upon books, he drew illustrations and maps, he brought countless books down there with him as well. Soon there were whole libraries filled with information that he had either written himself or brought down from the human world. He had even managed to get his hands on some of the government's dirtiest secrets and he copied and stashed them as well. The government was corrupt, and was slowly destroying the beauty of the Earth. He wanted to share that with people. But he knew of the dangers.
He worked for ten years, and then the government heard of his raving "lunatic" speaking of this lost city. They had heard of this city before, and many referred to it as Atlantis, though even Nicolai did not believe that it was the actual Atlantis, and instead that it was something much better. The government started to monitor Nicolai in hopes of finding the whereabouts of this city. They had been searching for it for years. The magic source of the city was something the government wanted. They longed for the power that it was capable of providing them. They could use the creatures for experimentation, and the magic for their own military gain. They would destroy and totally obliterate the city. Nicolai knew this, and so for the longest time he managed to stay untracked, going to the city only when he was sure that he would not be discovered. But everyone slips up. Eventually he was discovered, as was the cave that lead to the opening of the city. Luckily, Nicolai had seen them coming, and had managed to hide away all his information within the safety of the city before being captured. His last words had been heard at a rally, where he declared that the city was real one last time. Then, he simply vanished. No one ever heard from him again. Some people thought he died, others thought he'd totally lost it and had finally been institutionalized. The government had thought that they had control.
They sent down three agents into the city, but what happened was disastrous. Two of the agents didn't make it out alive. Their bodies were thrown to the surface by an unknown force, as if the body of water itself had rejected them. Two of them were dead, the life had literally been sucked from their bodies. And the third had been returned battered, broken, and totally insane. He only babbled insanities that couldn't be understood by anyone. The government quickly understood that they were messing with a force that they could not invade alone. They tried machines, cameras, anything to get some sort of glance at the world. But with every broken machine or failed attempt, they began to get more and more desperate, and more reckless. Eventually, after spending thousands upon thousands of dollars, they started to get greedy. They were wasting money! And so, they devised a plan. They had been monitoring Nicolai long enough to know that he really believed that people with pure hearts only, could get into the city. And so they started watching orphanages, looking for teenagers who had no families with pure hearts. After all, what better place to find those pure of heart other than orphanages? They found six teenagers suitable for the mission. Three boys, and three girls of course. Most of them all already had some sort of strong connection to nature, people, or things that set them apart from normal people. There was a deeper caring within all of them, the features they had were things that most people in the world didn't have. They cared, they loved, they dreamed, they hoped, and they believed in something greater than machines and destruction. The government promised them all different things. It could be an education, freedom from the foster homes, money, anything. They lied to the teenagers, doing whatever they could to get the teens to agree to this secret mission.
The teens were informed that they were to simply learn about a different habitat. When asked why them, the government explained that they had simply been picking people at random. The teens were then all taken to the cave. They were dropped off in the same place that Nicolai had fallen through and were told to simply follow the little blue lights. The government knew not to interfere, and so they backed off, leaving the teens. They would be monitoring them though. The teens listened, following the blue lights until they reached the moss wall, and then the shore. They figured it out soon enough, though they didn't really understand what they were supposed to do. They got into the water after stripping down into bathing suits or whatever, and then they dove down, following the blue lights further and further. They noticed right away that they didn't run out of breath, and since they weren't in suits like Nicolai, they had been exposed to the magic much quicker. They too developed the ability to breathe in the water, along with seeing clearly. After overcoming the shock, the teens went into the city that now seemed to be abandoned. There were no mer-people to greet them like the girl who had greeted Nicolai. They were fearful, scared of all the machines and things that the humans had been sending down. They had been informed of the government's intent to use their magic, to destroy their home, and so they hid away. The teens entered the very same tower that Nicolai had first spotted. It had been the tower that he stashed most of his things. They entered through one of the windows, and stumbled upon libraries of books, pictures, readings, all kinds of information. They went through some of it, before continuing to explore. The teens were fascinated, absolutely mesmerized by the place. Never in their wildest dreams would they have imagined a place like that existed.
After a few hours they returned to the cave as they had been ordered to do, and they set up a camp within the cave with supplies provided for them. The teens talked, and formed bonds rather quickly. They were all orphans, they had a lot in common, especially their newfound love for this world. They shared stories and songs, they quickly became connected. The next day they returned to the underwater world. They stayed in the cave for two weeks total, and soon they were spending almost all of their time in the water cities. They discovered cute little creatures and also encountered some of the more dangerous ones. They figured things out and soon the underwater world became their home. They too suffered from the whispering effect that the underwater city had on them. The longer they stayed away, the more persistent the light whispers were within the backs of their minds. They loved the world, they cared for each other, they were happy. Finally they had a place that they felt they belonged to. Some of the mer-people had even emerged and welcomed them. They learned so much from Nicolai's writings. They began to wonder where he had gone. When they returned to the government facility designated for the mission, they all asked questions. Their questions went unanswered and soon the teens became suspicious. It didn't take long for one of them to over hear one agent talking about harnessing the power from the city for military purposes. The teen told the others, and they were all horrified in similar ways. They became disgusted, and they felt used. They began to worry for their beloved city. They wanted to return.
When released, they all met up and planned to go back to the underwater world despite the fact that they had all taken an oath not to do so. They made it as far as the moss wall before being discovered. They tried to enter the water, but after one was injured while trying to swim downwards, they surrendered not wanting anyone else harmed. The teens were again returned to the facility, about ten miles away from the cave entrance. They were all questioned as to why they had returned, and they all gave the same answer. They declared that what was going on was wrong, that they had been used, and that they refused for the government to take over the underwater city that they loved. They declared that they would no longer help, and that they would not allow for the government to continue. And so, all of them were locked up and mostly separated, though the facility was small, and the teens managed to keep communication between each other. They would not stand for what the government was planning. They would escape, they would return to the under water world that they'd decided to call Atlantis, and they would learn all they could to help protect the city beneath the water. The magic there was more powerful than anything a human could create, and these six teens knew they could use it for good. They were exactly what the city needed. They were pure of heart, they were young, and they were strong. They've been locked up for a week. The whispers are unbearable. They will make their move tonight...
