The main asphalt ran long and swift through the island before surrendering itself to the lake, racing straight over the cold black waters as though human engineering had looked at nature, laughed in its face and decided depth was a suggestion meant for poorer civilizations:
From there the road branched outward into a web of smaller roads, elegant tentacles reaching into the lake and connecting the ten floating buildings spread across the water like a private constellation anchored to the earth by money, arrogance and structural calculations so obscene they had probably caused three engineers to age spiritually during the design phase.
Beneath them Hell's Paradise Lake stretched dark and fathomless, its surface breathing cold silver under the night sky, and yet the buildings did not bow to it; it did not sink into its suctioning depth nor did it even seem to acknowledge its right to swallow them.
