Neon Lights

Neon Lights

Prologue:

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley, however this new world of ours is forever changing. Even if only a little at a time. For with each new day, fresh light spills over the hills and mountain tops creeping through the shadows of the trees. Each ray of light shows hints of impossible colors glittering down over us like wildfire, sprinkling out into sparks of dust. It spreads and flows over all of us, plant and creature alike. Bringing rivers of magic, a drift in the morning breeze and with magic, came mystery. In this new world something was always changing, always different and new. The very air around us is alive with veil light. It lives in the earth itself, the dirt, the grass, every plant and every tree. If it was on the earth, or in the sky around it, even among the moon and the stars above. Everything contained veil light, living or otherwise. But things didn’t used to be this way. Something happened that caused everything to change.

Long ago, back in the time of Stone and Old a great catastrophe, occurred. Changing the dynamic of how the world would operate. And what creatures would come if it. Several thousand years later magic now runs through our world like electricity ran though the one before it. In the past long endless streams of wires twisted together and ran through insulated cables like black veins over the earth. Hovering above the roads and civilizations of mankind. As veins covered the body, pumping life itself, in order to sustain and survive. These cables full of deadly electric power that flowed through each wire like blood through a vein, pumping instead a life blood of sparks and static. Contained and compressed in a black rubber casing enclosing the power of that energy, so that it might be distributed to every corner of the earth. From one end of the planet to the other lighting their way in darkness and bringing a man-made magic to the world. Covering us in a glowing metal-based mapping system of energy that powered our world.

Magic is not the same as it was then. The veil light that flows though the world now is not so different in that way. Although similar, there is a big difference between veil light and electricity. The Veil is not man made. It flows naturally as organic waves of Intangible power and energy closer to that of emotions but feels like static from the elements themselves. And when harnessed, veil energy can also be a blessing or a dangerous often times deadly consequence. The magic of veil light is everywhere and runs through everything from the roots of the trees deep in the soils of the earth to the waves of the oceans. The very breath in your lungs. The veil lives and breathes with a life all its own. It surrounds us with everything we are and everything we do. And just like the electricity that came before it, the veil powers our day to day life. Bouncing from colossal temples like the black towers of the old world, It powers devices and so much more, making living In Arcadia change from surviving to thriving. And like the time before it connects us all to a powerful grid. This one is of magic and lives in our very souls. A network of sparks and color. However, its connections are not physical like the world before. Veil energy is intangible in a way. Until it wasn’t.

Tell me dear reader, what do you think the end of the world will look like? Fire and brimstone of biblical proportions? A colossal wave sent from the ocean to swallow us whole. To drown us for poisoning the earth. Or what about that meteor thing everyone talks about, you know like Dinosaurs but part two? It’s supposed to be inevitable and all that right? A big bang spreading fire and quakes so strong it deconstructs land masses as we know it. Ripples of a colossal force that destroy the world, and resets it to something new. Would humanity survive? Or would Everything cease to exist? Do you see nuclear war fair instead? We never made our peace with each other, we continued to rage war and hatred forever divided and, in the end, we all just killed ourselves by killing each other? Nuclear fire lobed into the sky only to rain back down on all of us. Those that survived the eminent destruction would be plagued by the toxic clouds of the after math. . . wait I’m pretty sure that’s just a different version of the same story. What if the sky broke free? Our ever-rising cloud of toxins and poisons slowly eating away at the stratosphere, layer by layer with mass pollution from modern industry. Oh yes, that’s it. Our success, and developments that led to such levels of comfort and simplicity, eventually destroy us in the end. We poisoned and killed our planet and now the sun is leaking in to scorch us all.

Sound good?

Well tough! Cause absolutely none of that happened. Oh, don’t get me wrong. The world ended in fire and brimstone. Once, or so they say. This was way before the power grid. Before electricity, before paved roads and flushing toilets. People still argue today about what actually happened, this missing story is still what keeps our nation apart. The world was still nasty and hateful, full of infection, and famine, our people divided. The weak were prey for everyone else, tortured by their own living circumstances. Horrid things were happening in the times of Stone and Old. Evil things. Like the electricity of the future hatred covered the land at every corner, and the shorelines beyond. The very air was tainted with blood and our malice toward each other. An Intangible energy that sparked between all of us. Nowhere was safe, and no one could be trusted. Such was the way of life in a primitive world. They say that once enough blood was spilt, the earth split open, far and wide. A ripple ran though the core of our planet cracking it open to the heat of its core and darkness poured out of it.

Stories describe a great black pit, to which out flowed demons, and monsters. Blood suckers and demented ravenous beasts. Winged things that took to the sky and tore after us all. Colossal creatures from every nightmare ever told or invented, and some we were never even creative enough to imagine. And as you might suspect, each and every creature that crawled out from that hell pit preyed on humanity as a food source. Once unleashed they absolutely tore us to pieces. For unlike us they didn’t see a difference between race or color amongst humanity, they didn’t pick us off based on religious believes or sexual practices, we all bled red. And blood is what they craved. For we all taste the same in the end. And soon we were hunted to the brink of extinction.

I know that sounds grim. Darker than you were probably hoping for. But do not fret dear reader. Humanity was not completely lost. At least not yet at least. For that was only the first time the world ended. Or second if you count the Dinosaurs. It took several hundred years for humanity to crawl back from that. Humanity endured and continued slowly our numbers began to replenish, but not without a great cost to our society. In the end the demons needed us more than they had planned for. In a painfully slow way, we eventually became their undoing.

It didn’t take long for the hunters to become the hunted. Humanity was forever changing and forever adapting. We might be the weaker species, but we have always learned well. As the sky’s began to change, letting in more and more sunlight each day, with the creatures lost to their own blood lust, greed, and gluttony we began to push back. And Humanity rose from the ashes that was once their demise. Hundreds of years after the dragons and demons were first set free. We began again and created a world close to what you know and love now. But in our world. . .the demons and monsters are no myths. They are the truth of our past.

In time we created a world much like you see in your world today. Humanity was prosperous, and majorly happy, healthy and wealthy. For the most part anyway. Any creatures that had survived the dark ages of Stone and Old, were completely whipped out in the crusades against paganism and the hundreds of thousands of witch hunts and trials that followed suit. After a few hundred years humanity had more or less completely whipped out the beasts that had once plagued our past. And once electricity was established it created a simplicity to human life that allowed us to prosper and rise above every other species on the planet. Where once troubled with a daily fight for survival Humans got more and more comfortable each day. Finally, we achieved a pleasant demon and magic free world. Much like the one you know today. And we reigned that way for over two thousand years. Nothing in the world before the collapse ran without electricity, or power of some kind. It was hard to believe something so powerful, and deadly could be harnessed, controlled and manipulated in such a simple way. But with the convinces of life, we no longer needed to band together to survive. We had no more common enemies except with each other. And so, like the pests we are, we went back to our old ways, festering disease, famine, racism, sexual abuse, and a never-ending hunt for power. It wasn’t long before that hunt destroyed us and became our undoing like the beasts before us.

We never stopped hurting and hunting each other. And a lust for power led to our own disaster. If only we could have accepted our weaknesses and learned to work together. At least the beasts that came for us were organized, moved as a group. But that’s a different story. We were divided. Greed and hunger for power, world domination and control drove one group of particularly nasty humans into coercing the world to something that should have never happened. But once an act is in motion, the motion continues until acted on by an outside force. There was no one to stop this one from happening. And our world was deconstructed and reconstructed, Again.

So, In many ways you were right! Much of what you thought would or could happen to cause the apocalypse came true! There was a nuclear like blast, covering a radius larger than any comet strike would have affected. It caused massive destruction of the ozone layer and rebuilt it into something we have never known. It happened just like many other familiar and exhausted theories would suggest. But this time, the mushroom cloud itself was not made of fire or nuclear energy. But of raw veil light. There were no red flames or smoke, but a strange shade of green pulsating with spikes and static of black lightning. Once contained in a body of unknown origin, now set free over the entire world. Like the splitting of an atom It didn’t blow things down or send colossal waves to drown us. Not directly but something similar happened. The blast was so strong it screwed with the poles of the earth, flipping them. The weather became forever chaotic. And the earth moved closer to the moon. Now that! Sent a colossal wave. The continents of the world shifted, and some sank.

Magic can be a fickle thing. In places, plants burst into the sky, old trees and ferns. Ancient life once lost to a land before our time. Now revived in the light of the veil mixing and twisting it with what was already there. We call this moment in time ‘the Collapse.’ A time when at the height of society and comfort a magic blast of cosmic proportions completely reshaped our world in a matter of seconds. The changing of the land didn’t happen over time, it happened as wave after wave of magic burst free from its original broken source. This exact moment only lasted two or 3 minutes. Most did not survive. Humans and creatures alike. Cities were overtaken in seconds. Covered with foliage and erosion in ways that often left the ground itself in a different shape. The earth’s surface was as if it were just plowed on a rainy day by a giant in one fowl swoop. The busting of pipes was instant, no matter the size. Buildings toppled left and right. A frozen tundra swept through what was once the hottest lands, now forever swirling and storming in permanent chaos. Tornados of ice and wind ripped and tore at the deserts of the world, no matter the season. This drastic reaction to nature created unbelievable and unlivable places, as did the flooding, the fires, and the earthquakes that soon followed.

It is important that you know there is a part of magic that is twisted. Emotional and reactive. It’s hard to control and has a mind of its own. Without a vessel the rapidly spreading veil light latched onto anything around it. And somethings, simply should not mix. The weapons of the old world, the nightmares the government kept hidden from us reacted to the veil light unexpectedly. This was the second ingredient of the cataclysmic event that gave birth to my world. Most weapons of chemical or compound make ruptured at the exact moment it contacted with veil light. The energies just don’t mix. So up in flames they went. Others Imploded, caving in on themselves. The nukes ruptured where they lay. No matter their location or container. Some were protected well, hidden enough underground that the reaction was contained. Some did not burst into flames, but other forms of magic. Though perhaps survivable, none of it was good. They still caused immense damage and Gave a life to new creatures we could of never Imagined. In places the destruction crated new craters that ran as deep as the mountains ran tall. Most have filled with water playing hosts to new oceans. The toxic clouds it would have created mixed into the veil before it could even manifest. Creating a new level of curse and famine, the likes of which the world had never seen. And to make matters worse veil light and electricity clashed the most of all. The same emotional like tension between magic and electricity caused sparks to fly from every tower and every wire on the grid line. For one moment the world shined its brightest. Amplified by magic our world went up Like a Fire work a finale on a colossal scale that shall never be outdone. Flames, explosions, clouds of color and electric shockwaves rippled over our planet and in the next moment the world went dark.

With the change in the sky and the veil light rebuilt the ozone layer with vale energy added to its molecules. Even the beasts of darkens could now walk among us in broad daylight. Only for a short while but enough to survive no matter the exposure. We barely survived. And only 1% of the surviving population was even human. The only ones that made it out unscaved were the creatures of night. Once thought extinct and banished to legend were now forced from their hiding places to walk among us once more.

As the fires burnt down, and the magic settled an entirely new world spiraled out of the ashes. New plants no living creature has ever seen before, stood as if they had been there all along. They brought with them a beauty that is hard to describe. The creatures that survived however were all twisted up and meshed together in despicable ways. The magic in the veil caused a massive fusion of matter just as much as it tore matter apart. It also put matter back together into something new. There was some beauty that came of it, but most of it was horror.

Magic twisted both dead and living alike, combing them with the veil and the creatures of night. Elements from the underworld creeped into ours. Creatures that survived came out twisted. Deformed. Every animal was different from the one that stood next to it. And it changed the humans too. Some of us gained abilities, others were blasted though and burst as brightly as the power grid. Popping and snapping on the inside. Dead but still alive. The veil magic rose them up again as Husks of their former human selves. Sparking skeletons of elemental power burning with veil misfortune. Wraiths and other demons burst from what was once human. The transformations left a Shrilling sonic wave of screams echoing in the darkness. Demonic sounds muffled with the beauty of the impossible that the veil brings to us all. It was chaos. Nothing was the same ever again.

What you call the aurora borealis is twenty-four seven now, and with brighter colors in different shades than it ever had before. And no longer contained in one region. It has something to do with Veil energy and elements found in the sky and space around it. Not only can you see it at night with human eyes, the veil light glows off the plants, the water, and they very sky created a magic sight even for those who cannot see. And just like before you could this new glow from space. If we ever manage to go back up there again. I would give anything to see how this new world looks, glowing under these neon lights. But this time we would see veins of color where they were once roads of sparkling gold. It is now a swirling and reflection smoke like sheen of color and spectral light, mixing like an oil slick.

Unlike us the creatures of the night did not struggle after the collapse. They flourished. Humanity created this mess, and we were incapable of dealing with the aftermath. But to our benefit the night dwellers need us in order for them to survive too. They were not the same as they were before. When they went into hiding after decades of witch hunts they had learned to adapt. And after the modernization before the world fell. They were more like us than ever before… Just… better. The creatures of the night could use the veil in ways that we as humans never could. They were always a part of it, they lived with it before. They took to protecting us. Working together to create a new world.

But much like then, a power runs through the earth now. Veins of ever-changing lights run though each grain of soil, every rock, the vary air sparked with life and color from the veil. It lives and flows deep in the roots of every tree and plant. The night sky is forever alive with light no matter how grim each day. We call this light and the invisible power that flows around it like a spectral river. The Veil and its light lives in all of us. The dirt, the animals, and now just like electricity in the time before- veil light brings a glow back to the city of Arcadia. Reclaimed and rebuilt now two thousand years after the

We live in the lap of luxury again. But we are not all… mankind. Not anymore. But why own a dragon, or even ride one,

When you can be one.