Atlantis City A young man groaned as he leaned against a pole beneath a clock in the middle of a bustling city square. "She’s late," he said.While looking for the girl he was waiting for, the man kept an eye on the crowds that were going by.He had fair skin, looked about seventeen or eighteen years old, and even though it was midsummer, he was wearing a plain white t-shirt and a black leather jacket.A brown belt with a silver buckle supported his blue jeans, and brown boots with no lace covered his feet.His head was covered in spiky black hair, and a pair of sunglasses covered his eyes.Drake was his name, despite its oddity.Atlantis City, a floating city built on the ocean floor about 100 miles off the coast of the south-eastern United States, was the square in which Drake was standing.The ruins that are believed to be the real Atlantis were discovered about a decade ago on the ocean floor beneath the current city, so this location was chosen.The Atlantis City Construction Project

Alice exhaled.I already told you;Until I left, my father was all over me.I ended up running out the door on him because he wouldn't give me a single minute to myself.When he gets home this evening, he won't be happy with me.Drake made a comment, "He sounds more and more like a stick in the mud every time you talk about your father."Is he unfamiliar with the idea of having fun?They had arrived at a sky rail station at this point and entered it.Atlantis City was only a few square miles in size, so someone came up with the idea of connecting the entire city with sky rails—basically sky trolleys—that would let people quickly get to the main area where they wanted to go and walk the rest of the way.The idea that was put forth was adopted unanimously due to the fact that there were few roads for cars and the sky rails occupied very little ground space.Since Atlantis City only had sixteen stations, there were stations all over the city and trolleys that led to other stations at each statio

6:02 pm"Well now, I feel that went better compared to we might have envisioned," Drake remarked.Alice agreed, "Yeah."We probably wouldn't finish in second place in the competition.Drake and Alice were seated at the same outdoor cafe where they first met in section B of Atlantis City in the late afternoon.A small silver trophy was on the table between them.There was an engraved "2nd" surrounded by a laurel on the surface of a large clear crystal set in it.All of the other performances had finished a few hours earlier, and the judges were tallying the audience's votes while all of the performers went to a waiting room.They started calling for a few performers to return to the stage over the intercom system about an additional hour later.When Drake and Alice got the call, they didn't know a thing about what was going on until they got to the stage and saw the trophies on a table there.After the award ceremony, one of the judges, dressed in a full white suit and shaded glasses, approa

Why is the ground trembling so much?The sarge screamed,Give me an answer, please!Sarge: "A-Atlantis City must be falling apart!"A man from his men yelled."The bombing must have destroyed the supports!"Another yelled, "We'll end up going swimming if we don't leave right away!"Bless it!"Sarge bleated.He turned away from Drake, who was having trouble standing up.Get out of here before this building collapses!The men then started to run away."W-wait, you scumbags!"Drake yelled and extended a hand as he stood up once more.Where the f--- do you think you are?Drake lost his balance and fell into the ladder shaft as a result of a subsequent violent shaking.He closed his eyes and waited for the moment when he would fall to the ground and splatter, "Damn, I guess this is really it."I'm sorry, Alice, that I was unable to safeguard you.I hope that when I get there, you will forgive me.Following a couple of additional seconds, Drake opened his eyes once more.I ought to have reached the bott

This dragon was also red in color, but it was more of a blood-red than crimson. Its head greatly resembled that of the Chinese dragons, and two long red whiskers grew from its snout like a mustache. A mane of black hair extended from behind the pair of horns protruding from its forehead, and a pair of spectacles rested on the top of his snout. It also had a short, black beard. Like Drake, its eyes were also an unusual combination of colors; instead of white, its sclerae were a shade of red darker than its skin, and its pupils were bright green. The skin covering the dragon’s body was taut from the muscular form it possessed. There was a cross-shaped scar right where the heart should be located. Its underbelly and the skin between its wing spines were a dull shade of pink, and small black fins sprouted from the back of his neck down to the tip of its tail. As Drake continued to watch it, the wings on the dragon began to shift and squirm. After a moment, they began to retract into the d