Chapter 1
I open my eyes and look around to see that I am lying on the desert floor with no one around. The sun is beating down on me and I squint as the sun glares into my eyes. This is in my mind out of the ordinary as well, this doesn’t happen every day. Not even every month. This happens today and only today. How did I get here? Well, let me tell you about it.
I woke up at my usual time of 7:00 AM to my alarm clock going crazy. I get up and get dressed but I have a gut feeling that today is going to be different than every other day this week. I can’t quite pinpoint what all I know is that today is different. It wasn’t my birthday and it wasn’t an anniversary of any kind so I figured well we’ll see what happens.
I go downstairs to get my breakfast which is of course a bowl of cereal and a glass of juice which I wish that I could drink all day every day. It is so good. I sit down and I start telling my dad that I am having another gut feeling. He understands yet at the same time is so confused he is trying not to show it.
I leave for school at 7:45 and on the bus ride there my best friend says to me that I am not on the right bus. I asked if we were going to the school and she said no but insisted on not telling me where we were going or how I was gonna get off this mysterious bus and find my way home. This was odd enough and I was thinking that my gut feeling would go away now that something bad did happen. Well sad to say it didn’t not at this point at least.
If this wasn’t weird enough to make matters worse everyone but my best friend forgot who I was and started acting like animals. No literally. The bully whose name was Jack grew horns and started bleating like a goat. Ok ok, this might seem like a stretch but I am telling you that this is what happened. So how did I get into the desert? I am getting to that part but first I want to tell you where I began and how long it took me to get to this said desert.
I live in San Francisco with my four brothers and my parents. I started this day at 7:00 AM on January 3 and I am still lying in the desert and it is like night on the few days after. To be honest I don’t know where I am and I don’t know what day it is. Oh no! I hope I get out of here soon!
I finally come to my senses and I realize that I am hot and drenched in sweat. I am tired too. Which is odd because I feel like I have been sleeping for an eternity. I get up and start wandering around looking for any sign of life. After about 3 hours of no success, I lay back down next to a rock. This is when I realized that I shouldn’t have laid down because I looked down and saw what I had just laid next to and on. Next to me was a black poisonous scorpion and under me was a cactus.
I don’t think there is a worse situation to be in right now. I don’t know what day it is, where I am, I am dying of heat stroke, and I just got myself into a really bad situation. I don’t know what else to do so I start yelling. Like yelling is going to help me but hey it’s worth a shot. I understand now that I am just making myself even more tired and that I really shouldn’t be yelling at the scorpion but it’s a little too late for that. I have already embarrassed myself too much at this point and I am just thankful no one was around for that one.
So here I am sitting on a cactus in the middle of nowhere next to a deadly scorpion alone. I am so scared that I can hardly breathe and on top of that, I am alone in a desert. I look around and see that there is a lake and not just a mirage but a lake. There are boats and plenty of animals surrounding it and I quickly look around and I am not in the desert anymore. I am in Montana and I am sitting next to Flathead Lake. Ok, that’s confusing. How did I get here? I was just in the middle of what I would say is the Sahara desert.
I am still drenched in sweat so I figured that if I jumped into the lake I would cool off. So I start running towards the lake when all of a sudden the lake disappears and I am on top of one of the tallest mountains I have ever seen. Now granted I am from San Francisco but I still have been on mountains. This is scary because I don’t know what mountain. I am assuming I am still in Montana but going from California to Africa to Montana all in one day it’s hard to say where I have landed.
I see someone standing on the other side of this mountain and they are just staring at me. I called out to him and he didn't respond. He is like a statue. He doesn’t move a muscle. This kind of freaks me out but it's another person so I decide to walk towards him only to find that he has horns and is on fire. Not just any fire but he is producing the fire. It’s too late to run. He grabs my arms and drags me down the mountain and into the forest.
Screaming isn’t gonna help and he is clearly not human so no amount of fighting back can get him to let go. It’s dark and I look back and there is no mountain anymore. Just trees and darkness. He pulls me to the middle of the forest and I catch a glimpse of a cabin that is clearly abandoned.
He opens the door and tosses me into the cabin and I finally get out of shock. He locks the door and leaves and I look around. Next to me is a tiger. Oh wait… It’s alive! It starts to move as it finally notices that I am there. It can’t be more than 10 feet away from me and growling at me. I freak out and start screaming wishing I was with the scary fire man with horns.
The first thing that came to mind was to try to be friends with it because there was no chance I was getting help from the person who put me in here. I look around for something to give it to eat and something to distract it. I see a bone that looks like a cow femur and I see a ball and string. My instincts kick in and I give it the bone. It gladly takes it from me and lays down and chews on it for a while. I take this opportunity to pet it and it gently purrs as I stroke its nose. It continues to lay there as I pet it, careful to make no sudden movements and spook it. I start to calmly talk to it as if it can understand me but I know that it can’t. I tell him that we have to work together to get out of this cabin and to fight the creepy fire man with horns.
It purrs in agreement and I slowly get up still being careful with my movements. I make my way to the door and I gesture to the tiger to knock down the door but it doesn’t quite understand so I have to demonstrate what I need it to do. It understands and quickly knocks down the door and we leave.
The first part is done. This was the easy part of this adventure. We know that there is a creepy supernatural creature out here. We don’t know where and we don’t know if there are more so we are aware of our surroundings and are alert with every step we take. We find a bush and I lay down with the tiger and we hide until we hear branches creaking around us. I carefully look up and there are hundreds and thousands of little fiery creatures. The weird part is that what they are touching never starts on fire. Not even the trees.
One of the creatures fell to the ground and landed next to the tiger and I. We looked closer and saw that it was not something supernatural but human. They were little babies. Like the little plastic ones you can buy on Amazon in the thousand pack. This adds even more confusion as I am confused as to why they aren’t melting. The tiger gives me the same confused look that I was feeling.
The little creature stops the flames and I pick it up. It points in the direction of some trees that are covered in the fiery creatures. I look over and back at my hand that was holding the creature and the creature has vanished. I look at the tiger who is wandering around the bushes growling and pawing the ground. I look at what he is pawing at and I see that the tiger has found a hole in the ground. Not just any hole though. A hole that goes into oblivion all the way to oblivion believe it or not! I looked down the hole and saw what I believe to be the galaxy. I see each individual planet as if I am standing a foot away from them. They each look much bigger than imagined. I learned about the planets in Science class but the teacher never said that it was that easy to access them.
I come back to my senses and realize that I am standing over a hole that could potentially make me fall off the Earth so I step back. Still holding the creature I look back and see the tiger covered with little fiery creatures. I run up to it and try to get the little creatures off its back but they’re not moving. I try to pull one off but it is stuck almost as if it is 800lbs.
The tiger looks as if it is in no pain so I stop worrying about it. I suddenly remember that there is a large creepy strong fiery guy in this forest and we still need to be aware of our surroundings. I gesture towards the tiger to follow me and we walk towards the forest’s edge. About 50 yards away I spot the man. He is holding hostage a kid in a wheelchair.
