The City In The Sky

    Once upon a time in a land high above the clouds was a girl bored out of her mind with her current lifestyle. That’s me. The bored “do nothing but sit and look pretty girl” that everybody “dreams to be”. 

    The royal family from centuries ago brought my ancestors and my friend's ancestors up here on this tiny platform to do nothing but read books and wear 

 itchy clothing. Anyway, I should give you some background info if you're going to be sticking around.

    On a day of The War, King Aaron was fighting, defending his relatives against the people who hated magic who wanted to erase every last trace of people who possessed it. King Aaron couldn’t bear seeing the people he loved parish. So he did the only thing that could guarantee safety for all generations. He took all the magic left from his body and created a place for all kinds of magic. He supplied this city with everything it needed to survive for generations.

    In his panic he could not properly calculate what it would need. So he gave it everything it needed for 8 generations.

    Well here we are generation 56 and we have started a system called resourcing, Where one special person is chosen and each year until their death they have to go down to the surface and retrieve everything we need. And everyone in the town must put the little magic they have saved up for this special day into the resourcing plant, to get the chosen resourcer down to the ground. If the person doesn’t come back within three weeks, the plant will come back itself. And a new resourcer will 

be chosen. 

Alright out of story mode now. Ya know I think this place is all fine and dandy, but I wanna go down there to see everything! See the wondrous  people, the things they have, the things they do! I just wanna see it all! But with my overprotective dad around, that's not going to happen. You see he wasn’t ok with the resourcing process in the first place. But with a little talking with his late father, he was convinced that it was alright. But he demanded to get to work trying to make the way down safer.

way down safer.

     This year it's Archie! What if I convinced him to let me go down this year! That would be awesome! But how would he get me past my dad? Oh! sorry, just daydreaming.

    The water, so clear, glistening in the sunshine. It's beautiful, don't you think so? Oh no! It's almost lunchtime and I forgot to talk to Archie! 

    By the way, Archie is my friend who is an apprentice at the resourcing renovations branch, the thing I was talking about earlier. Here’s a conversation we had. Also, he calls me  Mia.

 “ Hey there, ‘Mia!”

 “Hey, Archie?”

 “Yeah?” 

“I was wondering, since you're going down this year... Can I come with you!?” 

“ ‘Mia, you know your father will get super mad at us.” 

“I know, but I've always wanted to see Down there! And you're my last hope.”

 “ I'll think about it. But while I do wanna go ask your dad if you can join me to lunch in the courtyard?”

 “I would love that!”

    The grass is soft, I see the blades fly away in the wind, I'm not where I'm supposed to be, I'm supposed to try, I'm supposed to have to work for life, I'm not supposed to live here, I belong down there.

    “What ’cha writing ‘Mia?”

He looks at me with his dark brown eyes, his black hair flying everywhere, but somehow not getting in his face, he’s like a prince in a fairytale.

     “ Oh! It's nothing, Anyway, Have you thought about taking me down there?”             “I’m sorry, I just can’t risk either of us getting in trouble, ‘Mia.” 

    “Come on Archie!” 

    “I’m so very sorry and the people would have to put in extra power and we don’t even know if it would still work, and think how mad your dad would be.” 

    “What if I didn’t come back?”  

    “AMELIA! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING YOU COUL-” 

 “We can make each other happy.” 

    “Yes, but I was thinking…… you could come with me and start a new life, see down there, live happier lives!”

     “Well, what if it isn’t amazing?”

     “We’ll have three weeks to figure that out.”

     “Alright, fine, I'll take you down there.”

    “Thank you Archie!”

     “But the question is how do we get you down there?”

     “I could go in the storage compartment.”

     “That's a broader question. How do we get the city supplies?”

     “If you don’t come back within 3 weeks they’ll think you died.”

    “But what about you?”

     “ Oh, my dad doesn’t care where I am as long as I’m alive to keep the royal family bloodline. If he can’t find me he won’t hesitate to replace me.”

     “That's kind of a sad way to look at it.” 

    “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

     “Well better start packing then, going to have to pack a lot to start a new life out of nothing.”

“We won’t be alone, we'll have each other, and everyone else down there.” “We don't know what they’re like.” 

“I assume they are like us, everyone is different” 

“Well, we will see. See you ‘round, Amelia.”

        While Archie is being trained on what he’s not going to do. Life in the castle is especially boring. My dad still ignores me. My stepmother, Sabrina gets mad at me if I don’t ‘take one out of my twenty-four-hour day’ to spend time with her, I made that mistake once, never again. Mister Pinsting is as pushy as ever, he always insists on wearing my nicest dresses for anything, nights out meets with Archie, 

   and even trips to the fountain. I did my best to pack up things mister Pinsting wouldn’t notice we’re gone.

    I've been hanging out with Archie a lot lately trying to devise a plan to get down there, here's what we came up with: 

   1.    I take my suitcase and ask to meet for lunch

    2.     Archie and I will both walk to the plant 

    3.    I secretly get in the storage compartment and wait

    Archie told me to bring food in my suitcase tomorrow. So we can have something 

   to eat while we look for jobs.

     Mrs. Seminal is sewing me a special new dress for the celebration of  Archie leaving.

 I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel bad she made that dress for nothing. Hey, maybe she

 can give it to the new (hopefully female) child they are going to use to replace me. 

What if we don’t have the same body type though. We shall continue to size and fit 

for nothing. I feel so bad.

    Today is the day, I know I have to smuggle food that won't go bad until we get it to eat it. Which will be a challenge and a half. Only because the food comes to me already cooked and ready.

I walk into the kitchen, the clock says 2:30. I don’t go in here often. There's unprepared chicken in the freezer, a fruit bowl on the counter,  and a wine glass tower prepared for the big day. I grab some of the less ripe fruit, the canned food and some of the bread. I know some of these foods will go bad eventually, but we can eat it in rations until we can find jobs to pay for food. 

(if it works like that down there.)

    Today is the day, the day I sneak in, I have my suitcase filled with clothing I actually

 like. And the rations I took. (I took more than I said I did.)  Archie and I walk in the 

resourcing renovations building, and honestly, It looks like a whole different world 

in there, like we went from modern to rusty steampunk by taking a step forward, the 

smell of gasoline and dust fills the air. We walk to Archie’s desk spot, with a half of 

a page full of nothing but dumb little steryeo tipical senteces. He most likely won't

have one of the more liked speeches that all the resourcers do right before they leave.

  He wasn’t the writing type. Anyway we walk over to his desk and I wave goodbye as 

his mentor storms over, enraged that he hasn’t finished his speech yet. While 

everybody is focused on him I Then sneak into the resourcing room.

    There it is, on its big shiny new wheels. It has rusty edges that are so desperately 

wanting to pull apart, it's shaped like a tool box overflowing with gears and

and wrenches.   I walk around the machine, looking for the compartment. Found it! I silently crack it open, and hop inside. It’s cramped in here. I have to lay on my side, it’s quite uncomfortable actually, then again it's not made to carry a human inside of it. I back up as far as I can, careful not to touch the collector. My light copper hair is flying everywhere, it’s really staticy in here. And now we wait. 

    I have been here forever. It feels like it’s been centuries since I last heard the sound of somebody’s voice. And oh did I not want to hear this. “ Oh no! The princess isn’t here for the party!” No! I didn’t realize how everybody else would react if I was gone, I only thought of what dad would think! No no no! This is not how it was supposed to happen!

    I lay there with my legs against my chest holding my breath, only breathing a little at a time to reduce sound. Just go without her, just go without her! And finally I hear another voice, this more frightening than the last. “ I guess it’s postponed ‘till we find her.” I thought my dad didn’t care if I was there or not. Then I hear the other guy reply “geez, I didn’t know the new queen cared so much about her.” Why would Sabrina care? She only wants me to spend time with her to make her look good.  

     Their conversation slowly drifts off to other things but the last thing they said 

about 

the delay is, “Maybe if we can’t find her we’ll just have to start without her.”  Oh yes, 

yes please do. Maybe if I stick it out here until morning they’ll just go on without me. 

Yes I know some people come only to see me, but they won't want to see me when 

they have the replacement that hopefully actually likes it here. 

    Well at least Archie gets a little more time to write his speech now. I wish I could help him, but “it's his own job, and he needs to learn if he is going to communicate with other people from down there.”

    I'm so glad I brought my pen and notebook with me, because this is going to be a while. There is only so much light that shines in through the cracks  and crevases. I’m really fed up with trying to write in this dim light.

     I turn around and stare at the collector, it used to work so much better a decade ago, but now that magic has really faded, it's hard to collect enough magic to start it up. Since we aren’t allowed to use our magic because it might mean we won’t have enough to get the thing down there. I haven’t discovered my power yet, dad tells me it has something to do with one of the four elements we learn about in school but I can’t help but wonder how it works. Maybe I can figure it out while I'm down there.

    I'm getting tired…

    I wake up to the sound of turning wheels and the light of the new day shining through the cracks of the compartment. I hear loud whispers and chattering. I fully wake up soon after my father starts speaking.

    “Today is a dreadful day, this is the first time in 14 years that we have spent this holiday without the princess. We are very devastated by this, but this event can not wait any longer….  Archie, please, speak your words of wisdom, as our new profound resourcer!” The crowd claps and cheers as I hear Archie step up to what I would assume is the stage. He taps the microphone, and starts just spitting out 

 word vomit, nothing important to the crowd, but they still clap just to be polite. 

    “And  now for the real start of the show, The Resourcer!”

    As my dad finishes the sentence we start rolling over onto the stage. Suddenly I feel a wave of nervousness wash over me. I just want to  jump out and yell “surprise!” like it was all just a joke, but how was I supposed to explain the full day hold up? No I have to get those thoughts out of my head, we aren't going back now.

    And now the compartment check I put my suitcase in the far corner. wait! My pen is still sitting in veiw! What if it makes him look deeper!?

 No no no please don’t notice it, please don't notice it.  

    “ Oh hey, there's  a random pen in here, maybe it fell out of the box last year, and that's why we were short on pens.”

    THAT'S IT???!!! Just “oh that's weird.” NOT EVEN A SECOND THOUGHT????!!!!!! Actually I don’t know what I was looking for. It’s Eric for crying out loud. Eric is the laziest person I know. But that still seemed way too close.    

    And now we continue to move, all the way to the edge. We wait a second for Archie to get on.

     And now here that nervousness is again, what if they don’t have enough power to start it up? Get out of my head! I put my arms as close to the collector as possible and let the magic drain out of me, glittery golden streams fill the confined space as the machine starts to rumble. There is a second where I feel no more power coming out of me. I lay there for a second with my magic in the collector. It's not moving, I need to try harder.  Harder. HARDER!    

    Archie and I are pushed down the magic creating a cloud for us to sit on.

My body feels weak, I think I used too much energy. 

     I lay there like I just ran around the whole Island 8 times without stopping. I lay there restless. My eyes shut by themselves, and before I knew it, I had fallen into a dream.