The World-City

Frankie’s stomach felt like needles again. Turns out running a mile after getting shot just a few days ago was not a good idea.

“How much- further-“

“I can see it! I can see it! Don’t just look at the ground!”

“I can’t… move my neck…”

Katie wrapped her panicked arms around her sister’s chest.

Pulling her upwards from behind and turning her head upward to meet the gleaming sun, she aimed her so that she could have a better view. After shutting her eyes in reflexive defense, she opened them once again to see the landmass, now seemingly backlit in front of the eclipsed sun Katie had angled her to avoid.

“Holy…”

After miles and miles of parking lot and a massive stretching line that put all others in existence to shame, the veritable Tower of Babel rocketed upwards in its mighty form, a grand and imposing mound of sheer entertainment value, gradually and effortlessly ramping up into a ground level multiple stories off the ground only possible due to its immense size, so great that it could easily incorporate every park they’d been to thus far ten or twelve times over. It was impossible to make out its many zones and subthemes from here, but what you could see were the web-like silhouettes of multiple titanic rides matching the scale of main attractions that would otherwise be used to sell tourists on entire parks. Your one-of-a-kind Gigawhales, your Missile Mans. This one had tens of dozens of them. The place was so Earth-definingly massive that it’s current population alone might have rivalled some lesser-populated areas of the globe.

Stopping in both their tracks, Katie handed a shivering Frankie her ice pack. For her, it was a good day to be a parkgoer. For Frankie… this was yet another nightmare come to reality.

“Tell me when it stops hurting. I can’t hold myself back much longer.”

She handed the ice back to her partner.

“Don’t bother.” She said, taking out her phone to access the park pass. “I’ve taken worse than this. You wanna go? Let’s go.”

In excruciating pain, Frankie sprinted behind her sister, watching the immense park in the distance grow greater and greater In size.

After what felt like an extra hour of hell, she was on the verge of passing out- and looking up, she could no longer even perceive the godly city. She didn’t realize that she was technically already standing on it. Looking down behind her, she saw the cars in the lot were many feet below where she stood. She didn’t even notice she’d been running uphill, despite the aching flames on her skin.

She pulled the pack back out of their bags, and sat down with it pressed to her belly. Already at the back of the line, people were staring, but she was so exhausted she didn’t even have the energy to care.

“Frankie.” Her big sis spoke, stepping away. “Line’s moving. Come on, let’s go.”

Blushing, she stood and pushed her shirt back down. She didn’t know the line would carry so fast.

“They’re so efficient here. Even with this many people in front of us, we should be inside in minutes.”

She looked over Katie’s shoulder.

Past over a hundred guests just like them, she could still make it out- the large, glowing entrance to another world.