A Boy named Alan

Image by Zach Bush

They say that any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. What they don't say is that the opposite holds true as well; any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science.
Atlantis was proof of this. A city of towering steel monoliths rebelliously rising from the waves, it stood as a beacon of knowledge. It housed the greatest mages of all the tribes; those who sought to study, to learn, and to teach of that most fundamental force now called magic.
Magic is at the center of things. They knew that then; a few know it now. They know that within every law of physics their is magic; it is not something they question, any more than you question gravity.
The question that usually follows: if it was so great, why did the city sink?
Let me explain something about magic. It's not as though you can just wave a wand, say a few words, and boom! You get what you want. It's more complex than that. It is the manipulation of primal, barely-understood forces; it is the control of the stuff that controls the stuff that makes up reality. It is the manipulation of the very thing that makes science possible. Only through years of study can you even scratch the surface of the possible, and even then it is a force to be used with caution. One wrong word, one wrong pronunciation, one wrong move and the forces you are trying to manipulate spin the wrong way; sometimes resulting in frosting the neighbor's house, other times setting the world on fire.
The sinking of the city was an accident. A horrible accident, brought on by a child with a book he had no business having. A little boy with wide eyes and a smart tongue, who thought he knew more than he actually understood. He casted a spell thought to temporarily freeze time, mispronouncing a single word, and sank an entire city.
How do I know this?
My name is Alan Walker. It was Lee not too long ago, and Jones before that; I cannot honestly say I remember my true family name. The point is simply this: I have been alive, frozen in time, for over 2 million years.