The bells in the peaceful community rang every morning at six o’clock. People woke up, ate their meals, and walked to work like they always did. Trains rushed by at high speeds without engineers. Small computer screens provided the answers to every imaginable question people had.
Everyone in the community believed they lived in the greatest age in human history. No one had any genuine knowledge that the realm had ended many times before.
Deep under the community’s capital, below miles of stone and steel lattice work, there was another community. The hidden city had no name on any map. Its halls were filled with machines, seeds, books, weapons, and records from older civilizations.
The people living there called themselves the Keepers of Civilizations. Every child born among the Keepers learned the truth early in their lives. The Earth resets every 138 years, like clockwork.
They knew the hard-core truth: the dragons always returned.
The people living on the surface were never told anything close to the truth. Instead, they were taught simple stories.
The giant bones of beasts they came upon from the past were called dinosaurs. Their bones were displayed in museums. Scientists were taught that the bones were millions of years old. The same scientists laughed at old tales about dragons breathing fire across the realm, stories spread by pockets of survivors who remembered the forgotten truth.
But the Keepers below knew the bones were the real remains from the last dragon burnings. Many of the huge reptiles were instantly petrified by the intense heat from the friendly fire of other flying fire spreaders.
In the hidden underground city, a giant clock counted down the years. It had been operational for countless centuries. It had seen many new human civilizations come and go cyclically.
The Reset Clock
Two years remained until the next reset in the year 2040.
On the surface, people argued about politics and sports, and marveled at new inventions. Newspapers and media companies praised famous geniuses who had supposedly changed the world by creating new technologies.
One man was celebrated for creating a powerful computer that allegedly could learn on its own.
Another claimed he invented a small pilotless aircraft that could be remotely controlled.
But none of these things were truly new. The Keepers had protected the old technology during every reset. After the fires ended, they slowly returned pieces of the old technology to the new civilization. They chose in advance who would receive credit for the inventions in the new civilization. They pretty much built heroes for the general public to admire.
Each cycle followed the same pattern of destruction, return to the surface, rebuild the infrastructure, and hide the truth about the realm’s past history.
A young Keeper named Tom worked in one of the deepest subterranean archives. One night, he opened a classified vault and found records from twenty cycles earlier. The records showed pictures of living dragons.
Their huge grey bodies climbed from burning caverns beneath the Earth. Their huge wings covered entire towns in dark shadows. Fire poured from their mouths, melting cities realm-wide.
Oceans boiled near the shorelines, and the skies glowed red for months.
Tom stared at the images, trembling. He had always been told the dragons were huge killing machines that awakened like locusts every 138 years without fail.
Tom brought the records to the City Council members. He explained to them that in his opinion, the surface people had a right to know the truth.
The older men and women seated around a granite stone table listened in silence. Finally, the eldest councilman spoke. “You were not supposed to see those files.”
“People deserve to know the truth,” Tom said.
“People cannot handle the truth,” the man answered. “They never have. We leave billions to burn, and we ultimately preserve the species by taking refuge down here.”
Tom looked around the chamber. No one argued against the head councilman’s words of wisdom.
Above them, the world continued its normal life. Children played in parks. Couples planned weddings. Workers designed new machines. The clock beneath the Earth continued counting down.
On the final night before the next cataclysmic reset, the Keepers sealed the bunker gates. Strange sounds echoed from deep within the Earth’s crust. Sirens quietly sounded through the hidden city. The surface people heard nothing. Then the ground split open.
Across deserts, mountains, and oceans, enormous dragons burst from the earth like swarms of insects. Thousands of the beasts rose high into the sky.
Fire was unleashed upon all the Earth’s cities. Entire nations vanished in a single night.
From giant screens inside the bunker, the Keepers watched the world burn once again. Tom stood among them in total silence.
One of the elders placed a hand on his shoulder. “In time,” the elder said, “ with our guidance, they will rebuild everything all over again.”
Tom watched the flames consume the horizon.
“Yet, unfortunately, they will never know the truth about this place called Earth,” he said silently under his breath.
THE END!
Hi everyone,
I’m currently writing a collection of short stories that I will eventually publish in a book; some of those stories I have been sharing on NoFakeNews. If one or two really grab me, I’ll likely develop them into a full-length novella or novel.
I hope I’m not boring readers with all my short fiction, and thanks so much for being patient with me and reading my creative works as well as the nonfiction essays.
John Reizer
Sometimes, trying to get the truth out there feels like…
The Truth Told Through Fiction
Curing Cancer Was a Mistake!
After announcing a ground-breaking cancer cure, five members of the research team are targeted by an assassin hired by Big Pharma.
Click on the images below to watch Target List
“Target List had me on the edge of my seat throughout. Not the least because of its believability!” — GARETH ICKE
– DIRECTOR OF THE DAVID ICKE WEBSITE
“… I believe in the future he could be esteemed as one of the prophets of science fiction. If you’re not familiar with John Reizer’s works, you should be.”
Click on the image below to visit the website!
NoFakeNews 