Shadows of Atlantis: Emergence of the Engi
Chapter 2. Flickering of a Shadow
Chapter 8. Stranger in the Reef
Chapter 10. Bridge Between the Worlds
Shadows of Atlantis
Emergence of The Engi
By Donsha Hatch
Copyright © 2016 by Donsha Hatch. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission from the author.
ISBN (eBook Edition):
978-0-692-65341-8
eBook cover designed by
coversbykaren.com
Shadows of Atlantis is dedicated to Keziah Devorah Moore, also known as “Kezzy” or “Princess Keznah.”
Little sis, you fought one of the toughest bullies known to man and you never gave in.
You inspire me to never give up no matter what the circumstances are and I’m gonna make sure the world knows your beauty and courage.
I’ll never forget how hard you fought sis, I love you more than words can say.
#Kezzy Strong
“Kezzy”
Kezzy.
So Beautiful and so Brave.
The inspiration you give us is more than words can say.
Despite how hard the battle was, you kept fighting each day.
You always smiled and always laughed and never once complained.
I hope one day to measure up to Kezzy as a whole.
Cause you’re the greatest Xenogeek this world will ever know.
Hello Reader, for starters I want to thank you for supporting Shadows of Atlantis and joining me on this literary journey, as this is my first written novel. Ever. My own attention span isn’t too long, so I’ll try not to lull you to sleep with a bunch of over-exaggerated words. Rather, I’ll give you a somewhat brief explanation of how this story came to be.
Growing up I’ve always loved reading books that took me to new worlds and undiscovered places. I think primarily because I’ve always felt like an outcast my whole life, but I also believe that at a very young age I understood that words can be very powerful if you knew how to wield them. Like many people, the realities of life hit me fast and hard and before I knew it I was going through the motions, unhappy and waiting for each day to die and bring life to the next depressingly perpetual day. Then one day, while I was watching one of my favorite sci-fi movies, it hit me.
That's what I should be doing! That’s what I’ve done my whole life when reality was too depressing to ponder. Create stories! Why didn’t I realize this sooner? I don’t know, but whatever, let’s do it now. So I started my energy drink binge and paced my home brainstorming a great but unique idea. I needed something vaguely familiar, but something that also breaks new ground. I thought and thought until I realized that everywhere you turned there were tons of repetitive stories featuring fantasy and magic. I didn’t want to be another one of the many, so what could I do? I needed something that was exotic enough to give that fantastical, new world experience. But as a fan of both fantasy and great science fiction, I needed something that was also plausible to the world of speculative future science.
That’s when I came up with the idea of Undarians, this genetically engineered trans-human species that were augmented by an unknown sentient race, giving many of them elemental abilities. Now I had the idea, but for months I couldn’t find a story. That’s when I read a quote from whom I consider to be one of my greatest teachers, Orson Scott Card. He wrote, “the idea of a story is nothing compared to the importance of knowing how to find a
character
and a
story
to tell
around
that idea.”
So I fell asleep with that on my mind and ended up having a pretty interesting dream. In that dream I was back in the ghetto, in the neighborhood I grew up in. I was hanging with all of my buddies I grew up with and we were all just hanging around the neighborhood having fun. Nothing illegal was going on, we just enjoyed being around each other. It was a great day.
Then these two people came in the neighborhood and started making trouble. Like most families stick up for each other, everyone got together and the usual “bad stuff” was about to happen to the troublemakers. But now as a 25-year-old adult, I’ve experienced how different life can be outside of the ghetto and I no longer think the way I did when I was younger. So right before everything went south, I got in between everyone and separated the two parties. I took the trouble makers aside and found out the root of the problem. I then reasoned with them and helped them to see that it wasn’t worth what was going to happen. They soon relented and everything was ok after that.
I woke up smiling because I was so happy that I’d seen friends of mine that I haven’t in a very long time. But then reality hit me. That wasn’t real, it was only a dream. I didn’t really see my friends. So I sat up on my bed at three o’clock in the morning pondering that sad truth and the reasons why I couldn’t hang out with many of the people I considered to be family. Why? Why couldn’t I? Where are they now? The answer was simple. Many of them were no longer around because of the destructive and divisive traditions many of us grew up learning.
Anyone who's from the ghetto understands what I’m talking about. The reasons I can’t see many of my childhood friends are because either something bad happened to them or they are in jail. That’s the truth and it’s one that’s very hard to accept. Growing up in the ghetto we’re programmed to be a certain way, to do certain “things.” And those “things” end up crippling us in ways we don’t fully understand as young people. I resented that to my core and I couldn’t go back to sleep. But that’s when it hit me. Now I had a great story with powerful moral lessons to tell around my idea, so I immediately got to work.
Now I want to explain what my definition of a Xenogeek is. My whole life I’ve considered myself a pretty big nerd, but I could never really show it because of the environment I grew up in. Throughout the majority of my teens I had to be tough growing up in the ghetto, so showing my nerdy side didn’t seem like a good idea. Because of that I became very perceptive and learned many important things about people. I learned things like being social, knowing how to fit in and how to read and reflect body language at a very young age.
As I got older though, I learned the importance of embracing who I am and not being ashamed of it. As well as the innumerable benefits of being smart and placing a high value on intelligence. Many of my good friends are nerds and we enjoy many of the same things. But I also noticed something intriguing. I noticed that although I was very much like some of them, I was also very different in many ways. I wasn’t “socially awkward.” In fact, I was very good at relating to and connecting with people. I knew what people needed emotionally, even without them saying a word. I wasn’t “unfashionable” and although very intelligent, intellectual things weren’t my main interests. I also enjoyed fashion, having fun and being in social environments. Having played sports most of my life, I also didn’t live up to the stereotype of the scrawny or non-athletic nerd either.
That’s when I realized I needed to create a term for others like me who were very nerdy but also very sociable and fun. So I found the prefix “Xeno,” which is synonymous with the word “different” and created the word Xenogeek. Although I related to and enjoyed being around other nerds and geeks, I was a different kind of geek. This by no means meant that I was better than other nerds or geeks. In fact, without nerds and geeks imagine how boring life today would be. No social media, no Wi-Fi, no smartphones or wearables, no robots, none of the incredible tech we use today. The 21st century wouldn’t be as fun would it?