Part 1: The Great Fall

Bumera sat with her bare long, legs dangling over the edge of the cliff, staring at the ethereal waterfalls that cascaded down from the great Floating Islands of Atlantis. The mist from the falls kissed her skin, the cool droplets almost soothing against the raw tension in her chest. The sight was magnificent, yes—there was nothing quite like the way the water disappeared into the ground, only to rise again through the inexplicable ancient anti-gravity technology, glittering and refracted through the luminescence of the old stone. She always felt the great waterfalls were a symbol of rebirth, of endless cycles. But maybe today she would end the cycle.

Early this morning, Gorgaius, her repulsive, gorilla halfbreed of a boss, had sent Bumera out of the Underworld City to escort a mysterious man to the Masrynai skyport. She had completed the task, but she was determined that it would be the last thing she did for him. Now, standing in the misty sunlight, she wondered if this would be the last thing she would ever see.

But Bumera had long ago stopped finding comfort in beauty. Not when every breath she took felt heavy with the weight of debts she could not pay, of people she could not find, and a life she could not escape.

Her silvery-blond hair fell loosely around her shoulders, swaying in the breeze created by the powerful waterfalls. Her fingers brushed against the jagged stones beneath her, a stark reminder of how tightly she was tethered to this horrible place, this life, and the ghosts of her past. Her part-human, part-tiger genetics felt alien even in her own body. A part-breed, they called her. The feline agility, the sharp reflexes, the heightened senses—her eyes, a striking amber, gleaming with a predatory intensity—her lithe body moving with an effortless grace—these things had made her useful once. But now, they were more a curse than a blessing.

She appeared human at first, but her narrow pupils and intense amber eyes always gave her away. Faint, tiger-like stripes ran across her skin, barely visible but shifting with the light, following the contours of her body in a pattern that gave her an otherworldly, almost wild aura. An attribute that fascinated men, an attribute she tried hard to hide.

The very instincts that had once kept her alive had become a burden. Exploited by those who could afford them to commit criminal acts she wanted no part in, or twisted into a fetish for men who only saw her as an exotic curiosity. What had once been a gift now shackled her, dragging her deeper into a world where her part-breed abilities and body were the prize, and her will barely mattered.

She was a creature of the Underworld, the lowest strata of Atlantis, a sprawling metropolis hidden beneath the floating islands of the Atlantean capital. This was a city like no other—shrouded in perpetual shadow, festering beneath the realm of the rich and powerful. The air was thick with the smells of cheap street food and ambrosia, mingling with the distant hum of electronic music. Neon lights flickered over the damp streets, where self-driving transports glided through puddles, weaving effortlessly between towering highrises. The city buzzed with life, yet it suffocated, wrapping its dark, grimy essence around you like a heavy shroud.

Above all, the shining spires of the upper city remained an unreachable dream. In the depths, survival was a brutal game, and the relentless stream of advertisements, many promoting hollow promises of escape, pulsed through the streets, overwhelming the struggling masses. Billboards flashed with provocative images, selling fantasies in a city where hope was a luxury few could afford.

Bumera had long since lost her way in the maze of neon and decay, wandering through the veins of this fractured world with a purpose she could barely remember. She'd learned early that the Underworld was both a cage and a sanctuary—a place where the forgotten, the damned, and the halfbreeds lived out their days, hidden in plain sight.

This morning, though, the news streams had filled her head with something else. All across the city, the debates in Parliament raged on about the freedom of halfbreeds. She had caught snippets on the feed while wandering through the alleyways, each word of the discussion laced with hypocrisy. What halfbreed is really free in Atlantis? She thought bitterly, hearing the hollow promises of "freedom" and "rights" that the politicians loved to spout. None of us, she thought.

In Atlantis, as in most other continents, it was legal to own halfbreeds. Auction houses and trade markets still thrived, where a halfbreed was valued as little more than a tool—or less. Even those few who managed to escape, clawing their way out of that life, often found themselves ostracized, forced to live in the fringes, hiding in the shadows of cities where humans feared them.

She could see it now, as she thought back on it, the news streams flooding with images of senators in their polished suits, debating something they could never understand. Freedom for the halfbreeds? It was a joke. It was legal to own them, legal to use them, and when they did manage to gain their so-called "freedom," they were hunted, exiled, or pushed into the dark underbelly of places like the Underworld, where they had to survive by scraping a living from its grim economy.

Her fingers instinctively brushed the small, worn ring hidden beneath her sleeve—the one that belonged to her mother, the one she always carried with her. It was a reminder of a life lost—or perhaps one that had never truly been hers. She had learned long ago that survival in the Underworld came at a cost, and the price of freedom here was paid in darker currencies.

Hope? She mused, That's the luxury of the powerful, the ones who get to live above the wreckage. Not us. Not halfbreeds, or their bastard part-breeds. But despite the bitter taste the thought left in her mouth, a darker, more determined thought surfaced—Maybe that's about to change.

As the spray of water hit her face, Bumera snapped back to the present, the cold mist pulling her from the edge of memory. She'd come close, as always, to ending it all—standing at the cliff, the weight of the world pressing down. Her mind drifted to her mother, whose fading dark memory had kept her alive.

Her mother had always told her that her birth had been an accident. An accident born from one too many ambrosia shots in a dark corner of some club in District 56. Bumera never learned the name of her feline halfbreed father, the man who had given her the tiger genetics that coursed through her veins. He had been little more than a whisper in her mother's past, a fleeting encounter that had left only traces in her DNA. But her mother—so human, so coldly detached—had never wanted her. "You nearly killed me in the womb," she would say to Bumera, her voice dripping with resentment. "And I nearly died giving birth to you."

Her mother was gone now, vanished like smoke in the wind when Bumera was barely seventeen. Since that night, Bumera had not stopped searching for her, but each passing day, it felt as though she was chasing a shadow that would never reveal its true form. It had been five years of searching, five years of dead ends and unanswered questions, and the weight of it all was beginning to press down on her like a second skin.

Her latest misstep had brought her to Gorgaius.

Gorgaius, a man whose reputation was as cold and sharp as the blades he wielded. A halfbreed himself, he carried the blood of a gorilla—a lineage that granted him immense strength, a powerful build, and an animalistic ferocity that made him both feared and respected. He was more than a businessman—he was a collector, a master of debts and deals that twisted people into his grip. And Bumera had become his prized possession, the collateral for a debt she could never repay. She had made the mistake of borrowing from him—just to keep afloat after her last failed lead in her search for her mother. It was a decision she regretted every day, as Gorgaius had a way of making sure that when you owed him, you never truly escaped. She did not have much left now. No more credits. No more favors. Just a broken body and a mind that was slowly but surely beginning to fracture.

She remembered the first time she met Gorgaius, his dark eyes locking onto hers with the same cold, calculating gaze a gorilla might fixate on something it planned to dominate. There was interest, but it quickly shifted to amusement when he saw her desperation. The moment she entered his dimly lit office, filled with strange objects, she felt the weight of his presence, like a predator watching its prey.

Gorgaius saw potential, but only in those he could control. His smirk was too sharp, too jagged, and his demeanor too polished. He was a gorilla who knew his own strength but wielded it with conniving menace. He was the kind of man who could silence a room with the weight of his presence, ruin lives with a single glance. His power wasn't loud or brash—it was like the quiet, relentless force of a gorilla's grip, slowly tightening until there was no escape.

And now, Gorgaius owned her—body, mind, and soul.

Bumera closed her eyes, feeling the wind whip through her silvery hair, the smell of saltwater and passing transports in the air. She had nowhere else to go. No one to turn to. The money was gone. The promises had been broken. The hope had bled out of her veins, leaving only bitter resignation in its wake.

In that moment, Bumera might have jumped, if not for the strange thing she saw. Two young boys fell through the water, their descent much slower than the current, and moments later, they were climbing out of the moat as if nothing had happened.

Her eyes widened. The younger of the two boys was carrying the other, limp and unconscious in his arms. The boy with green eyes, olive skin, and auburn hair moved with an almost otherworldly fluidity, as if skating across the water, gliding effortlessly onto the rocky edge. The unconscious boy had darker skin and black hair. Bumera had never heard of anyone surviving the great falls, let alone climbing out of them. Yet here they were—one with startling strength, the other cradled in his arms with surprising ease.

She stared, dumbfounded. "Hey!" She called out, her voice sharp with disbelief. "Hey!"

The boy with the green eyes met her gaze, hesitated for a moment, then—without warning—he jumped. It was the highest leap Bumera had ever seen, a defiance of gravity itself. She barely had time to process it before he landed effortlessly beside her on the cliff's ledge, as if the jump had been nothing more than a casual step.

"How'd you do that?" She asked, her voice awestruck yet laced with something darker.

The boy looked around nonchalantly, his face impassive. "Do what?" He asked, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Bumera noticed the bruises and burns scattered across the younger boy's body. His clothes were torn and soaked, clinging to his frame, and he looked hauntingly thin, as if he hadn't been fed properly in days.

He set his friend down on the ground and began pushing on his chest, murmuring something under his breath and then added: "Wake up, Mazi!"

"No, don't do that!" Bumera exclaimed, rushing forward. "You'll kill him!" She knelt beside them, hands hovering for a moment before pressing firmly on the boy's chest. Her movements were quick and steady, feeling his shallow pulse beneath her palms. When he didn't respond, she tilted his head back, opening his airway, and leaned in to give a series of quick breaths.

The boy came through, gasping for air. The one with the green eyes and auburn hair sighed in relief. "Mazi, you're okay!" The younger boy said, relief apparent on his face.

Mazi coughed violently, water splattering from his mouth as he struggled to breathe. "Esa, I can't believe we made it," he muttered, looking back at the thundering falls behind them. His eyes widened as he caught his breath. "I've never seen the great waterfalls before."

"Never?" Esa asked, glancing at him with a raised brow.

"Never. Not even when they brought me in from Kemp." Mazi's voice was low, still hoarse from the water in his lungs.

"Kemp?" Bumera blurted, shocked. The words didn't make sense—Kemp was an ocean away, far beyond the reaches of the Underworld. She stared at Mazi, a dark skinned boy from Kemp, no older than twelve or thirteen, who had fallen from the sky and survived the impossible.

She wondered if they both came from the floating islands, home to the Atlantean royals and nobles—the so-called sky gods—somehow surviving the fall. The thought seemed impossible as she looked upward, past the edge of the falls, where the islands hovered, high and unreachable.

"Who are you both?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "Are you from up there?" She asked, pointing up at the floating islands.

The boys exchanged a tense glance. They hesitated, Bumera knew there something they weren't saying. Finally, Esa shifted uncomfortably, his eyes darting to the ground. Mazi, still catching his breath, avoided her gaze altogether.

Bumera wondered if they could be her ticket out from Gorgaius' hold. "Do you need a place to stay?" She asked, her eyes flicking nervously to the ground, her mind already racing. If they had jumped from a place that most would kill to reach, then maybe, just maybe, they could help her in ways she hadn't dared to hope.

"We do need a place," Esa replied, his voice almost innocent, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"It's your lucky day," Bumera said, offering a crooked smile. Sweet, but edged with danger, her words dripped with playful malice. "I was on my way into the Underworld City. My transport has room for both of you. Want to come with me? I know a guy who can give you a place to stay."

Mazi shook his head, his expression hardening. "We aren't stupid." He stood up, still coughing up water, his voice carrying a quiet edge, tinged with wariness. "What's it going to cost us? We don't have credits."

Bumera's smile faded. "Oh, that's too bad," she said. "I can't work with you." She thought for a moment. "Well, the guy I work for won't work with you, if you don't have credits."

"The Khoraz may still be looking for—" Esa began, but Mazi's sharp look and dismissive head shake cut him short.

Bumera's ears twitched. Khoraz. The name rang familiar, but it eluded her, like a scent just out of reach.

Esa caught Mazi's cue. Without another word, they leaned toward each other, murmuring quietly, their voices so low that even Bumera, standing just a few feet away, couldn't catch a word. Then out of no where, Esa recited:

"Ava guide us in shadows and light,
Through the darkness, bring us to sight.
In her name, we choose to trust,
For in her we find our faith, our must."

"Did you just recite the Gab Nori?" Bumera asked in awe.

"I did," Esa said, his fingers brushing his pocket. He gave it a reassuring pat, as if confirming the truth of his words.

The Gab Nori wasn't just any text—it was a sacred A.I. tablet, a relic of ancient technology. Only six inches tall and four inches wide, its surface displayed an ever growing religious script. Verses were revealed as time passed, some as old as the creation of Atlantis, and some as new as last year.

Bumera's surprise was immediate, her eyebrows lifting in disbelief. "You've read the Gab Nori?" Reading the sacred text was a rare privilege, reserved for the few. Only one hundred and eight copies existed across Atlantis, and access to them was a luxury almost unheard of. The Gab Nori was typically housed in the grandest temples on the continent, its teachings available only under strict supervision, shrouded in rituals and reverence, timed with the lunar calendar. The common people never touched it. They only heard sermons of its wisdom, spoken by priestesses and priests.

Esa nodded, an unexpected pride in his voice. "I read it all the time. I have one."

Mazi shot him a look, shaking his head in disapproval.

Bumera's eyes widened. "You do?" The words hit her like a sudden storm, leaving her stunned.

As the shock wore off, she began to piece it together. This child—this boy who had survived the impossible fall, who had the air of someone with knowledge far beyond his years—possessed a copy of the Gab Nori. A treasure meant for the elite. A relic that should be tucked away in the hands of the highborn, the wealthy, the sky gods. The pieces clicked in her mind with alarming clarity.

This wasn't just any child. Esa exuded an aura she recognized, one that spoke of privilege, of power—something more than human. That jump, wasn't just a jump, it was the gift! A rare ability, one that was passed down through noble bloodlines. He moved like someone who could bend the world around him with a single thought, someone capable of manipulating objects without a single touch, shifting the very fabric of reality. A gift that separated the sky gods from the rest of humankind.

Could it be? Was he truly one of them? A sky god among the people? The idea sent a shiver down her spine, and her mind raced with the implications. If he was, he could hold the key to everything she had been searching for.

"On second thought, I'm feeling generous today," she said with a sly smile, her eyes gleaming with an unreadable light. "You don't need to pay me." She gestured toward the distant southern tunnel, where the air was thick with mist rising from the roaring falls. "I'll gladly take you into the Underworld." Her voice was calm, but there was an edge to it, a knowing kind of confidence.

"You can trust me, you know," she added, glancing at Esa and then nodding toward Mazi. "I did just save your friend's life." The sound of water thundered behind her, the roar of the falls shaking the air.

Esa's intense green eyes met Bumera's. "Alright, we are going to choose to trust you."

The weight of his innocence hung in the air, heavy and almost palpable.

"It's not cheap to go in and out of the city, you know," Bumera continued, her voice laced with amusement. Her gaze drifted toward the distant tunnel, a flicker of something darker crossing her face. "Not with the new tolls, anyway. The Nori family have hiked up the prices on everything... it's been different. We all pay one way or another, even if it's not in credits." She sighed, deeply.

The Nori family, led by the ambitious Nori Queen and her politically influential Prince Consort, ruled Atlantis with a tight grip on power. Their reign, focused on modernization, deepened the wealth gap as the royal family profited from toll hikes, taxes, and fees, placing a heavy burden on the lower classes. Those in the Underworld and the fringes of society, including halfbreeds and part-breeds, were the most oppressed, relegated to the lowest strata of society. While advancing Atlantis' infrastructure, the Nori family's rule also fueled inequality and exploitation, with many paying the price for the Queen's vision of a more prosperous—but deeply divided—Atlantis.

Esa and Mazi's attention shifted, and they finally noticed the southern tunnel into the Underworld City behind Bumera. A steady line of transports rumbled in and out of view along the rugged path leading into the dark city. Sleek self-driving vehicles, their engines humming with a low, mechanical growl, passed like clockwork, each one bearing the weight of people, cargo, and secrets. The line stretched far down the road, winding through the valley before vanishing into the darkness beyond.

Noticing Mazi's hesitation and before he could protest, Bumera spoke up. "You'll find plenty of space down in the city," she added, pointing to the tunnel.

"The Underworld?" Mazi asked, his voice sharp with suspicion, as if remembering something.

"No, I don't think we want to go there," Mazi continued, still hacking up water. "Can you take us anywhere else?" His clothes clung to his frame, damp and heavy with the weight of their ordeal. His eyes darted toward the southern tunnel but lingered uneasily.

"There isn't a town or place to eat for hundreds of miles," Bumera said, her gaze lingering on the empty horizon. "Well, one small sky port, nothing you really want to see."

The boys hesitated, their eyes flicking between the dark tunnel and Bumera. After a long, silent pause, Esa finally nodded.

Mazi spoke, his reluctance apparent. "Alright, we'll go with you."

She led them into her transport, grateful she hadn't jumped from the cliff today. The metallic hum of the vehicle's engine filled the air as it powered to life, its sleek frame gliding smoothly over the rocky terrain. She programmed the route with a steady hand, the motion almost automatic, but her mind was elsewhere, already racing through a thousand possibilities.

A slow, knowing smile curved Bumera's lips as she set the course for Gorgaius' place. The boy's Gab Nori is probably worth a fortune, she thought, a cold gleam flashing in her eyes. I might be free soon after all.