Atlantis Lost: The Vanishing Paradise

by Lauren A. Johnson

once the woman disappeared from everyone’s sight and into another dimension. “When Lo and I arrived we sent the ship back on autopilot to get Tobias. He’s on another planet not far from here; he should have been here by now. Hopefully Lo can guide herself back to him and then back here. We don’t have much time, Viren will be here soon.”

  “Who?” Tina asked as she sat herself up on the floor.

  “She’s an agent of the Bi’lal, she’s been following us,” Nicklar explained as he offered his hand to Tina to her feet.

  After everyone gathered themselves, Nicklar looked at Tina, grabbed her arm and ran outside, he still wanted to climb down the outside of the parking lot and cut through the wooded area. Instead the two of them were met with three creatures dressed in black in the parking lot, Tina gulped, “Aliens." she said frightfully.

  “Viren,” Nicklar said the name as if it were a curse under his breath.

  "No, my dear, you are the aliens," Viren, a white skinned woman with slicked back hair said to her , she looked just like the first alien she met all of those years ago, only her eyes were like a human’s not black and vacant. "Nicklar, you tricked us, you made us think that you were going to Lazon, how very naughty of you. By the way, do you like the new form I’ve shifted into?”

  Nicklar stood silent and gave no answer; he didn’t have time to explain to Tina that Viren is a part of a secret alien organization known as the Bi’lal. He had even less time to explain that she was one of the few who can shapeshift.

  “You’re no fun. Finding you wasn’t even a challenge. I must say, you outer-dimensional agents are truly the worst; you can't even hide your own properly. It was very easy for us to find her."

  "What difference does one potential agent make to any one of you?" Nicklar said as he held the gun to his side, Tina could hear a switch flip and a charge initiate.

  "We all know that she's more than just a potential agent, isn't that right, Adair?" The woman smirked. “Our offer to join us still stands.”

  A creature ran in between the space that separated Nicklar and Tina from the three creatures, at first glance, it looked to be a raccoon, but upon closer inspection the raccoon was a large squirrel with the fur of a raccoon and three tails. Nicklar wasn’t shocked to see it, because this kind of deformity is a perfect example of what happens when a dimensional drift starts.

  The creature scared Tina so much she screamed which gave Nicklar the perfect opportunity to fire his weapon three times hitting each target perfectly. Tina watched as each creature turned into a pile of silver goo. Nicklar pulled her along ducking in between the parked cars, Tina turned back in just enough time to see that the murky, thin silver liquid was reforming itself. Tina looked back to Nicklar to realize that the drop from the parking area was further than they both thought.

  "Do you know of anywhere safe?" Nicklar asked her.

  "My job...there's a security system." Tina stuttered.

  “Could we cut through here to get to it?” Nicklar turned back to see how quickly the aliens were recuperating.

  “Umm, yeah but we can’t get down there…” but before Tina could finish Nicklar cut her off.

  "Good enough." He grabbed her arm tightly and jumped over the cliff.

  The two were in free fall, Tina was sure the two of them would die, but gravity defied its own rules, and the two were falling as if it were in slow motion tumbling perfectly to the ground without harming themselves.

  “Huh, I wasn’t expecting that,” Nicklar said as the two walked through the wooded area.

  "What...what just..." Tina couldn't form the words; Nicklar still held her hand tightly as the two walked to the phone company. Paradise was a small town, so walking to Tina’s job from the Go Mart was just ten minutes.

  Everyone was bustling inside, in an environment where temps come and go with the change of the seasons so no one bothered to question Nicklar’s presence during the chaos. The short lived, blackout caused a mild panic and the phones were ringing off the hook. No one was thinking of proper procedures or due process. One of Tina's coworkers walked up to her in a hurry, "I'm glad you're here, it's been crazy. None of the phones are working."

  "This company sucks, the phones never work." Tina shook her head, Nicklar left her side and she wished that she could go with him, but had to continue her conversation with her co-worker in the call center, “Ali, I’m sure everything will be okay.” She tried her best to lie even though she was trembling inside.

  Suddenly a man appeared in the room, with Lo standing beside him, all of the employees flew into a panic, everyone ran for the doors, it wasn’t every day that a man and a woman simply teleported from nowhere.

  “Everyone settle down,” the man Tina had never seen before commanded.

  “Who are you?” Tina’s boss demanded.

  “I’m the one who’s going to get us out of this, only if you do what I say.” He stated before looking over to Nicklar, “I told you to wait for me.”

  “You’re Tobias?” Tina asked the man only nodded as a response.

  “You’re aliens,” an employee stated.

  “Actually, you’re the aliens, we were here first.” Lo responded with a smirk.

  “We need for you to tell us everything that’s been going on in the past couple of years, things that you don’t think are important – are. Anything strange or unusual…anything at all,” Tobias asked.

  The questioning did not proceed as planned, panic was replaced with a calm fear, and a flurry of questions followed, “What do you mean you were here first?” one employee asked.

  “How did you do that?” another shouted.

  “What are you?” One woman asked the fear in her voice was apparent.

  Tina smirked, “You teleport into a room and expect for people just to answer your questions…” she shook her head.

  Tobias sighed and shook his head, “We don’t have time for that,” he said as he gritted his teeth.

  Lo sighed, “Fine, quick rundown? We’re Atlanteans, a war broke out and we were forced to leave the planet, the war is still going on, the way that the war is being fought has changed, the more planets the other side can convert the more power they gain. There are devices that are supposed to stabilize dimensional drifts, but someone has hacked the system and is causing the devices to no longer work. One of our worst offenders Adair, is here on your planet, we need her help to reconfigure the devices.”

  Tina shook her head, “A dimensional drift?”

  “Like you don’t know,” Lo shook her head at Tina, “A dimensional drift is when one dimension combines with another,” she said as she slammed her hands together, “It’s easier to harness energy from one dimension than it is from a whole bunch of them, we were here to stabilize this dimension, but judging from the hybrids we saw on our way here it looks like we were too late. Our mission is to now to recover the children of Atlantis, we gathered everyone on our roster except one.” Lo looked at Tina.

  “Wait…what? I’m not…” she scoffed.

  “You are – sort of.” Tobias stated firmly, “Now, that we’ve answered your questions, you’ll answer ours unless you all want to die, the strange occurrences…what were they?”

  Everyone looked around one another and shook their heads; the guys from the Internet department spoke up, “Why don’t you go straight to the president?” one of the men asked.

  “He’s being monitored, this is Paradise, Texas, your whole town blacked out for a whole five minutes and the rest of the world didn’t notice. The blackout happens at the starting point, the first place the drift will begin. We have to go to the point of origin, which is right here.” Nicklar explained.

  A loud banging on the door startled everyone, Tina looked out the window and the creatures that were with Viren had reformed and were beating down the steel doors. “Now we have even less time…I can only teleport with one person at a time.”

  “I saw the Jersey Devil the other day,�
� one employee shouted.

  “In Texas?” another shouted back.

  “Well, he can fly ya know.”

  “That makes no sense, the Jersey Devil lives in Jersey!” another co-worker screamed back.

  “Maybe it was a vampire.” One of them speculated.

  “Vampires aren’t real!”

  “Neither are aliens, teleportation, or the lost city of Atlantis.” The first person who said they saw the Jersey Devil answered. Throughout the chaos one voice spoke out among the shouting. The same guy from the Internet department sighed, “There’s been a lot of hackings lately, all over the system, -the calls have been insane.”

  “Hackings? From where?” Tobias asked.

  “I don’t know from where, but I know what they’re hacking into…a satellite called Yikar, it’s been dormant, up until a half hour ago.” The man explained.

  “Tony, why didn’t you say anything to anyone ?!” his supervisor shouted.

  “And say what? A disappearing and reappearing satellite has been hacked into by little ol’ Ms. Byron ? She barely knows how to use her e-mail; I knew she wasn’t hacking into a satellite whose existence can’t be confirmed. Yeah, that’ll go over real big.” Tony waved his arms in defeat and sat down.

  The banging on the door continued, one of the employees who was perched in the window shouted, “The door is starting to give.”

  “That’s it – Lo.” Tobias called to her, “We’re out of time, even if we were able to get into the system ourselves, we