*This flash fanfiction takes place in a mashup of the worlds of Keeper of the Lost Cities (spoilers for book 6!!) and World of Walker (a series of Alan Walker’s music videos) and is based on his song Faded. Note that I don’t own the worlds, concepts, or song lyrics!*

Atlantis. Under the sea. I look back at the hologram one more time, the ocean breeze drifting over the sharp rocks, selkies barking in the distance. I catch the faintest whiff of their stench. At least they’re real. But I can barely see their outline through the mist, far away. Faded.

I turn back to the map, the toes of my simple black boots barely touching the waves. The ocean stretches out before me, gray with glints of blue that match the crystal I hold up to the light. I watch the beams of light refract through the facets, run the calculations one more time, then hold up the vial of quintessence radiating Candesia’s weak light. I’m letting go, a deeper dive. A blinding flash, and then I fade away, into a leap that feels like a million years.

Where are you now?

I re-form in a bubble far from anything I know. Dark and endless above me, the sea is silent as I try to muster my drained energy. But I’m breathing. I’m alive. I push myself up with one hand, noticing how pale it is. Ugh, I’m faded. Otherwise, I seem to be in one piece thanks to my nexus — though I wish for the millionth time that it had a different name.

I pull my enervated body upright in the bubble, then snap my fingers. An orb of light appears in my hand. It’s weak, but I can see the edges of the glimmering dome shielding me from the depths of the ocean, and a stone trapdoor below me marked with a rune. As I stare at it, a word emerges in my mind: Nightfall.

When my lodestar rises. I unlatch the door and enter the tunnel under my faded light. Even if it might not be real, some part of me feels more alive.

The tunnel is long, smooth-tiled, and empty, other than the occasional crystal casting an eerie blue glow. Balefire. A forgotten memory is where they came from, and where I’m going. Where I hope I’m going.

My mind is swirling, and I cringe at the translucent glimmer in my fingertips. The leap must have taken more out of me than I thought, literally and figuratively. I keep walking, one hand on the wall for balance, but I can’t feel if I’m going the right way. I listen to my footsteps, the thin tap-tap-tap that seems both louder and quieter than it should be through my dizziness. I should have stolen some fade fuel, but I was too desperate, and who knows what limbium would do to my brain? Already it’s stirring inside of me, the echo.

As far as I know, this doesn’t usually happen to Flashers, but what would I know, raised among humans? The shadows are growing inside, equal and opposite to the light in my hand, whispering echoes of doubts. What am I doing here? Am I in the wrong place? Is Atlantis really the original Lost City of Walkers? How could a single half-human with stolen technology find what has been lost for thousands of years?

My direction has drifted away, my inner compass spinning like my mind, like the tentacles of shadows. I let the orb of light fade back into me and keep walking in darkness. Where are you now?

In the dark, I can see a point of light, no more than the first wave at Inktide Beach, no more than dawn’s first ray hitting a leaping crystal, no more than the spark of electricity in my battered drone. I desperately hold on to it. Not a city or a path, not necessarily anything more than a dream, but that’s enough. The faded light reaching me from the end of the tunnel still sets my heart on fire.

I place my hand on the rune at the end of the tunnel. The swirls turn through my mind until they form a name. Vespera. Like evening — like Nightfall, the heart of Atlantis.

I try to believe that my star is rising.

Blurred through swirling layers of exhaustion and the water above me, I can see the outline of a city against the blackness of the ocean, lanterns and balefire sparkling like stars. I raise my hand to send out my drone, my heart rising with it before a shadow splashes me into darkness, illuminating the white eye and red triangle on the wall.

“Welcome, Walker #323330,” an automated voice greets me. “You have reached the Nightfall facility.”

I hold up Candesia’s bottle of faint peach light, and blurry outlines of cages emerge from the dark.

I release the drone. Its energy has been fading, but it opens up, spotlight illuminating the dark room, shooting between the bars before they close. For a moment, it flies perfectly, in sync with my hand movements, before it stutters and transmits, Swan song. Then it crashes into the glowing symbol, and they both go dark.

I’m left with a handwritten notebook in the Enlightened Language belonging to Walker #5.5, first dated three thousand years ago. Atlantis is a lie.

Where are you now?

Was it all in a fantasy?

Where are you now?

Were you only imaginary?

It has never been so far, and I’m left with the dark corridors and the elves’ betrayal. My light seems swallowed in the endless tunnels, leaving me emptier than before, except for the shadows. The monster’s running wild inside of me, shredding our long-held hope of unity.

In the hologram, the human’s hooded statue was full of hope behind its facemask. And the elf’s scepter held our betrayer’s signature.

I’ve learned the truth, but I’m alone and lost. And faded.

The shadows part, and a figure steps through. He lifts the veils of darkness, leaving us in the bleak gray room. Behind him, a dome far above us holds back the ocean from the streets of a city. I step forward, and I can see the silver spires rising gracefully above the canals. Something vibrates in my pocket, and I pull out my modified Imparter. It’s picking up signals from elves walking the streets, ignoring the treachery beneath their feet.

Send help, I type, gathering energy in my fingertips, hoping my light will be enough to shield me.

“I’m sorry, Fade.” The figure lowers his hood, and I meet his familiar dark blue eyes.

Spectre was the shadow to my light. The Shade to my Flasher. The elf to my half-human.

Then I joined the Walkers, and he disappeared.

Now, together, we step out of the broken fountain into the city of my dreams. The silver spires and river streets are more elegant than I’d imagined, the sparkles more glamorous than the scanned images could show, but they’re nothing but an illusion in front of their betrayal. It had been here this whole time since the tidal wave and Walker #88888’s scanned hologram, yet it had never really been.

“The lost city of Walkers promised unity. But it was never real, was it?” It seems hopeless, even before I see the Red Nexus symbol on my hacked Imparter, which has been flashing since Spectre arrived, and a group of black-cloaked figures with white eyes on their arms leap into the plaza.

And my Imparter chimes with Walker #256630’s message: I’m on my way.

He’s gone to the darkside, and I’ve gone to mine.

The Black Swan will fight them, but what will that make us? With every battle, Atlantis splinters further.

“I’m afraid our aim is out of sight.”

“Then wanna see us, alight?”

We turn to each other, and our powers flow outward, shadow and light, vortex and shield. I can faintly hear the groups meeting each other, history playing out with us only phantoms in the center, invisible in our illusion, as the shadow and light merge and a new world unfolds around us, another dream. The real Atlantis, a vision of unity. The voices fade out, as if pausing to find the way.

This is only imaginary.

But it could lead us back, this illusion, the city of dreams. Together, we can create a different world.

Atlantis.