The 13 Secret Cities (Omnibus) by Torres Cesar

Author:Torres, Cesar [Torres, Cesar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Solar Six Books
Published: 2014-10-28T07:00:00+00:00

I moved through the gate and beyond.

Before I reached Mictlán, I glimpsed three cities. Ever since I saw those shocking cities, my life has never been the same.

It was a short journey, but as I soared through a white expanse, I caught glimpses through my peripheral vision. Though I could not see José María next to me nor feel his hand in mine, his presence moved alongside me. It was like seeing scenery roll by from a train, except that each image floated near me in a flurry of music, building up in my ears, then fading fast.

The first city was not much more than an image of flat lines that rose like a wall before me, and each of the lines went on forever, like a fence that ascended into infinity. The music in my ears informed me that the lines were only a protective structure, like a wall. The lines did not look solid but thin and ethereal, like gas. Beneath the lines lay the city, gnarled and rusty, like a junk heap. For a second, I caught a glimpse of an animal’s face staring at me from one of the towers in that city.

And then that city was gone.

I soared faster now, but I didn’t move forward. Instead, I twisted sideways, as if I might be expanding like a balloon. As I lost all sense of my body, I saw it: in the distance, a new city lay suspended in the air. The city was completely deserted but decked out in the most lavish gold architecture I had ever seen in my life. The metropolis was shaped like a nautilus shell, and it hung in space like a miniature planet.

It was deserted.

I felt the loneliness inside its steeples and its towers, and I felt very afraid.

And then that city disappeared, too.

The whiteness shrank, and I shrank with it. Soon, I was tiny, microscopic, and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted four pairs of eyes watching me. They belonged to a creature that looked hundreds of feet long, snakelike and watery. The animal’s eight eyes emitted a cymbal sound, and then the animal crawled up a structure built like a spider web. I understood then that the web structure was a city, too, and that other eight-eyed creatures lived there. Hiding inside the tiny houses, I spotted little human figures with tiny pinpoints of light as eyes. They were watching me. I knew this, because I caught them staring at me from the corners. Soon, millions of eyes were looking at me. Both the animals and the humanoids took me in, analyzed me, sought me… They blinked in unison, and they spoke to me. Come join us, they said to me.

The sounds died, and then the web structure blew apart, as if made of dust. I had no body and no face, and yet I hung in this fast-moving white place.

And then, the white space of the gate spat me out into Mictlán.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.