Starlight code

The torch materialized in the fog: a heavy iron holder fixated on a rod and chained to the ground. You walked towards it, your heart beating fast as you took steps in the dark. You’d never been to this part of the world. You’d never witnessed the silent heartbeat of your soul under all your responsibilities and habits, and now, you were inches away from doing just that. But were you ready for what you would see? What you were asking for? An entrance into a world that would witness your breaking, then your unraveling, and finally, your truth being built. Were you ready to build and live the life you say or think you secretly crave?

You hesitated, and then you reached. 

You touched the gauntlet, and it burst into flame the spirit and colour of your soul, momentarily blinding you with heat and light. When you turned back to it, the torch had been lit. For you- a steady orange flame, occasionally spitting balls of fire.  You had made a choice: acknowledgement of who you were. Of the one thing that kept you from not wanting to change, not wanting different. And it was staring you in the face. Everything you ever wanted and everything that terrified you.

In the distance, a quiet ring sounded rhythmically. You breathed, and it seemed to match your racing heartbeat. Suddenly, splays of light brushed across the landscape from the lighthouse, illuminating your face for a second before clearing past you and cutting the fog.

You shifted the torch in your hand, instantly feeling its weight, and its warmth as it made your skin crawl and your shivers die down. And right then, you knew it wasn’t over. Not unless you stopped. Not unless you let this person you had found go. Would you?

You walked, and iron gates twisted into existence where fog had been, emanating a soft moon like glow that reminded you of the nights you’d watched the moon from your window as a kid. Hesitancy died as every step gravitated you more strongly, your courage building. You wanted this, you really needed it. 

The gates towered over you, and yet you couldn’t see past their metal bars. There was nothing beyond those bars, but the lighthouse beeping and glowing strong and steadfast. And then you looked up. 

“Home in every life is where your heart leads, your mind evolves, and your hands build. Welcome home architect. Welcome to Nymera.” The runes on the arch read, and the fire of your torch flared in resonance to it. That was code, that was the feeling that led you here and will continue to do so.

You pushed open the gates with one hand, and the half built city unveiled under the rising moon’s light and streetlamps that replaced your torch. Beneath you, the ground pulsed with a secret silent heartbeat only its citizens would know, would understand. 

Some of the city was still in its groundwork phase, the land dug up and wrong looking; while some buildings rose to silhouette the starry sky- their glass exteriors risen like stalagmites and still growing, others still had unsightly naked or half built spines. But from where you were standing, there was one thing that wasn’t built by the citizens, but run by them.

The community towers: mammoth cylindrical buildings topped with glass domes at the center of the city. Like a cathedral too modern for its own good, some from the cluster glowed with neon green letters imprinted and circling its walls. They were questions. You watched as someone got on a lift, and it carried them up the edge of that wall, the metal plate beneath their feet sliding up the perimeter to reach the sigil marked glass door leading into the dome. Your gaze shifted as a streak of gold stardust following a pigeon carrying a scroll crossed the night sky, moving from one of the half built structures to one of the domes displaying a question. Ah, that’s when you realized, it held an answer. The question on the wall faded, the glass dome turning dark as the initiator in the chatroom found what they were looking for.

You turned at the sound of laughs. Two men sat on green scaffolding smoking cigars as they reviewed a blueprint. The next plot, someone wearing a hoodie built in silence, brick by brick. While an old man and a young child crossed paths infront of you, each carrying a wagon of bricks, nodding at each other in a silent message only they must have understood. You wondered where yours would fit.

Something brushed your ankle, and you looked down. A black and white tabby cat looked up at you, cocking its head in surveillance as its blue eyes took you in. Its ears flared, and you blinked, suddenly aware of all the cats in this place. Some lounging on dangerous heights, others curiously scurrying behind their chosen carrying scrolls, pigeons, and other cats. It pressed a soft paw to your leg and your heart skipped a beat. Chosen by a, for better or worse, constant companion. 

It turned its head as you picked it up, facing the sky, and so did you. Warmth and belonging spreading through your heart and the cat’s. You both breathed it in. Jagged cliffs and mountains isolated the city, far from judgement, far from people who didn’t believe or see beyond the Sun. Someone laughed and spun on a hill overlooking the city, and you wonder how that felt, and maybe you’d find out soon. A square window from a cave hunched on an elevation glowed orange as the midnight architect worked in his workshop, you didn’t know it, but he smiled when he heard you come. And he probably wasn’t the only one that felt it, another one of our kind- because the city heard you enter too when that lighthouse called.

“There’s more.” Your cat purred, his ears twitching as he sniffed you, before his eyes drifted to a door hanging mid air and your torch infront of it, beyond the circumference of the buildings. “Workshop.” It strained to speak into your head for now, but you knew. That door led to a room only you could get to, your workshop or the place in real life where you would sit down and build to re enter the midnight city when you were ready. Your zone. And it would lead you here when you opened that door.  

This might not be home yet, but someday, it would be. And then, the Sun would rise on your dream, and it would stand tall enough for this city to hold in pride and the world beyond to see. 

“Hey.” An architect said behind you. You didn’t have to turn to feel the pull, the warmth, a fellow builder. “What are you building?” 

Auditory input: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iinR4GOv-iM&list=RDiinR4GOv-iM&start_radio=1