Travelogue: Draft

Ostwyn

As you're traveling across the expanse of rocky terrain, you set your eyes upon the City of Lights, an expanse of screens and electricity surrounded by a canvas of bright stars and galaxies. Your sights begin to be illuminated from the sheer light produced from Ostwyn, the light bouncing from one metallic building to another until it reaches your eyes. From the distance, the outskirts appear to be broken, illuminated by few lights but as the eye wonders further into the cities depths the city is illuminated by new bright screens and the buildings appear more sharp and updated. The cities towers almost within the reach of clouds, almost grasping their magnificent tops.

As you enter Ostwyn’s city walls -formed from jagged black metal protruding from the ground- you walk among its erratic inhabitants, venturing out into their city. The outskirts, evidently worn with cables hanging broken, producing the odd spark above the streets of its inhabitants and old billboards with bland and torn advertisements, abandoned in favour of flat screens of the same size, which produce extravagant moving images. Few street lamps litter the area, emitting orbs of light, yet they do not compare to that of the light produced by the screens smothered across the cities great expanse. A smatter of small shops and bars line the streets, leading further into the city, each lit with their own unique sign to attract the passer-bys.

As you delve deeper, the city of Ostwyn begins to form and change into different levels as it becomes more populated, platforms formed from dark shiny metal -which glistens in the  bright sunlight and reflects the cities artificial lights of the night- holds small shops and homes belonging to its inhabitants. Walking further into the cities depths, up and down its platforms, you begin to hear the sounds of metal scrapping across metal, the cranking of moving platforms and the thousands of footsteps thumping on the metal and the rock below at the cities ground level from its traveling tourists and inhabitants. The overwhelming sound of vehicle engines starting and moving around the city streets floods into your ears as you explore the streets further inside of the denser part of the city. You wander down the cities streets passing brightly lit tunnels, platform stairs, elevating platforms and shady alleys. Your eyes begin to wonder over the cities walls, eyes settling on worn and peeling posters smothering every inch giving the streets an artistic and vintage feel, but there’s no mistaking the feeling of it being forgotten increasing with each day of wear within the city, despite the character it freely gives the city.

Despite the mass amounts of metal within the city, few trees line few streets on the ground floor, forgotten like the cities abandoned billboards but yet they still flourish with bright green leaves and flowers, looking fresher than their previous blooms. Running alongside the few visible trees amongst the ground level, small canals of clear water run across the city from outside the walls, supplying a generous amount of water to the city, freely nourishing the cities trees along the way.

Along the walk into the cities centre, you notice how the city changes in its appearance, from the worn outskirts to the more updated areas within the denser areas of the city. Your eyes taking in more and more as you are engulfed into the denseness of the city, your eyes being filled with richness in the form of technology and new constructions. Glowing casino’s and brightly lit bars shine at you, full to the brim with tourists and inhabitants, entering full of dreams, although those who leave, leave with dark empty eyes, lost as they wander away into the dark and dreary outskirts. Theatres glow brightly with their screens advertising their productions, attracting all classes to their high-rise doors and extravagant displays inside.

As you reach the cities centre, you become surrounded by its gigantic screens displaying an array of advertisements, its bright screens illuminating the cities centre and its inhabitants as they travel from place to place whilst immersed in themselves, not paying attention to their magnificent surroundings. You stand on one of the many platforms in the cities centre glancing upwards, your neck craning to barely see the tops of the cities tall towers, almost being immersed in the clouds, almost being engulfed. One tower stands out more than the rest -different from the generic rectangular towers- formed from columns of curving metal, twisting and turning around each other, growing closer together as they reach their furthest point towards the heavens. You study the top of the towers, seeing the moonlight faintly glowing on the tops of the buildings, its glow slowly fading into artificial light produced by the cities lights as your eyes wander downwards.

Inhabitants who do not favour the cities nature can be found just outside the cities walls, laying in the dark on mounds of rocks in the greener areas beyond the wall staring up into the natural light emitted from the vast canvas of smattered stars and galaxies from its vivid blue sky, no lights hindering its beauty. The irony of the Ostwyn being nicknamed the city of lights, its bright lights creating light pollution, spoiling the city of lights which belongs within space for the cities inhabitants.

There is no mistaking that Ostwyn is a long standing city, slowly crumbling at the outskirts from the neglect of not being ‘upgraded’ but not to be mistaken as a city which is soon to die like a star slowly dying out as each seconds passes.