1.4 Creative Writing “The Dreaming City”

The Dreaming City. The place that is said to hold great mystery. Most people on the reef are afraid of the things that it may contain, unfortunately for you, you are not most people. Standing at the archway that leads to the center of the city, looking at the white, purple and gold colour pallet of the giant tower that the archway leads to. You begin to question if there is even any danger at all. Eagerly approaching the towering front doors, stepping under the archway, you reach to push the doors open, but just as your hand touches them, they open on their own, you begin to wonder about what you had just set in motion. Upon slowly walking through the doorway, the doors shut behind you with a loud slam, you turn around and try open the doors in an effort to back out of the tower, to no avail, your only option is to push deeper into the city. Wandering through the main hall you notice banners of the houses of the fallen that inhabit the reef: Judgment, Devils, Wolves and the Banished with their own distinct sigils and colouring: purples and greens for the house of judgment, red and black for the devils, blues and whites for the wolves, and blacks for the banished. Upon inspection, you notice that the banners are in perfect condition as if someone had hung them just as you arrived. With many questions in your mind, pressing further into the city in order to find answers appears to be your only option. You begin to look at the dark purple walls and the white columns with golden embossing that tells the story of how the Fallen and humans united to fight the darkness and it fills you with a sense of wonder and mystery.

After what seemed like hours of aimless wandering, you stumble across an area called “The Blind Well” and it looks starkly different to the other areas in the city, instead of purples, whites, and golds, this place is coloured in blacks, greys and light blues that seem to fade into bright whites. You carefully walk down the stairs that lead the well, once you reach the bottom you feel an attraction to something in the centre, an attraction that you cannot fight as if something has taken control of you, forcing you closer to it. As you come closer and closer to it you feel your arm extending to reach for the item, as the tips of your fingers touch the object a flash of bright light temporarily blinds you, upon regaining your vision you notice that something’s different, you look down at your hands and to your horror, you, had been corrupted with the same energy that had taken the Blind Well. Panicking, you begin to start to think about a way to revert back to how things were before you entered the Blind Well, after thinking for a moment you decide the only logical option is to exit the city, but how? You walk back the way that you came in hope that the doors have opened. As you walk down the same halls that filled you with wonder as you entered this place, everything has changed, the walls have become a deep black colour, all of the house banners have been ripped and torn and the sigils have changed into a symbol that strikes fear into the hearts of anyone who lays their eyes on it, the symbol of Oryx, the Taken King. The columns have been smashed and had become the same black as the walls and the bottom of the columns slowly fade to white. The embossing on the columns had changed to the faces of those who had been taken before you. The doors that you had entered through are now in sight, and there appears to be a thin white light in the crack between the two doors, as you approach, the strip of light fades to nothing, your only exit had been blocked, you were to be trapped in the city for eternity. You had been taken, and the dream had become a nightmare.