I looked ahead. There it was. The treasure I had been seeking for months on end. Standing there on the cliff’s edge I felt like a sailor who just stumbled upon the lost city of Atlantis. It had tall curving spires peeking above the sand in a perfect spiral. What would’ve been the middle of the spiral was an empty area with an enormous point above the middle. I could hear and feel the gusts of wind playfully blowing the sand. “Well, get to work,” I told my people, way below me. They pulled out the shovels and layer by layer, The Sunken City was uncovered.
        About halfway through all the sand kind of funnelled down into what looked like a slide. The diggers couldn’t hold on. I lost half my people that day. The other half had formed a human chain with me at the top holding onto the top of the cliff. My hands were slipping. I made a decision. I yelled to the left and everyone swung up and onto the cliff. I fell down, down into the hole below.
        Luckily for me a part of the cliff detached as I fell. I saw a sign labelled DO NOT ENTER, but that wasn’t what gave me the idea. It was a large button labelled PRESS BEFORE ENTERING. I threw the rock at it hard. It just hit it. I sailed down into the hole. I saw the dark entrance below me snap out of place. It was replaced with a rainbow coloured tunnel. I fell down, down, down into the hole.
        I thought about my son and what I had done, the people I had buried just to be with him again. Then I passed out. I dreamt about my son. He was trying to tell me something but I couldn’t hear because of the sand storm. I was swept away and into the jaws of a monster. I woke up breathing heavily. I began to cry. It started out as a sprinkle, but eventually it became an enormous downpour. That was when I realised I wasn’t falling anymore.
        A dark shadow approached me. It came closer and closer until I could just make out their head. It looked just like my son. “You cannot stop what has already been done,” came the voice.
        “Who are you?” I asked confused, for it wasn’t just a face that reminded me of my son. The voice was the same too.
        “All will be explained,” came the voice.
        “What did you mean by ‘you cannot stop what has already been done’?” I asked, even more confused.
        “All will be explained,” they repeated. Then the weirdest thing happened. I had seen them make footprints, but they walked right through a pillar to my right. “I will tell you who I am. I am… your son.”
        “B-b-b-u-t my s-s-s-on is definitely dead,” I struggled to get the words out.
        “I was never dead to you,” he said.
        “Are you saying that you are just a figment of my imagination?”
        “Technically yes, but I come from the tiny part of your brain that knew it was impossible to bring me back. Let’s ignore that,” he said. “See that meat pile over there? That’s zolonent meat.”
        “Oh, do you mean those giraffe dogs?”
        “Yes,” he said.
        “But how did you know that if you are just a figment of my imagination?”
        “I am not just that. You see, long long ago the Imagineers were plentiful.”
        “What are the-”
        “Please don’t interrupt,” he cut me off.|
        “Sorry,” I mused.
        “As I was saying…”

Read Part 2 here