Mama said the flowers in Seoul were beautiful.

I might have believed her, but then, doesn’t everything look beautiful to someone with terminal cancer? Especially something as frail as a flower from the homeland she’ll never return too.

Still, she insists.

“Sena, the flowers there, you wouldn’t believe it…they are the most beautiful in all the world.” The hand she has clasped around mine is shaky and thin, mostly bones and veins—but Mama’s smile is bright like the sunrise as she leans against the pillows propping her up. “I cannot wait until you see.”

“I know, Mama,” I say. I squeeze her hand. Her bedroom smells the same as always—like warm milk and medicine and a hint of something like lemongrass. In two days, I’ll miss this smell. I smile a little as I squeeze Mama’s hand again. “I’ll bring one back for you.”

It is, of course, only the least I can do, when Mama is letting me go from Maine to Seoul with my Aunt Yoshiko to take the trip that she will never be able to make again.

Mama closes her eyes, an angel trapped in a cocoon of white sheets and oxygen and cancer in her chest. “That’s my girl,” she says.

I lean down to kiss her forehead, and then I quietly leave the room to finish packing.

*   *   *

When I and Aunt Yoshiko board the plane to Seoul, Korea, there is no one to see us off.

I’m alright with that, as the only person I want to see me off is Mama and airports and late-stage cancer don’t get along. But I do think Aunt Yoshiko is a little sad.

It has been hard for her, slowly losing her sister, I can see it in her eyes. But this trip is in honor of Mama and her love for Seoul—her wish for me to see it, its flowers. I will not spend it sad.

Inside the plane, I let Aunt Yoshiko have the window seat. “So you can see the world fall away,” I say, as I settle in beside her.

When the plane lifts off with a roar like a dying lion, I don’t press it to try and look out the window, too. I’ve already seen the world fall away.

I know what it looks like.

I will bring it back a flower from Seoul.  

*   *   *

In all of Mama’s stories, it is Spring in Seoul—a perpetual fairytale of falling pink leaves and bustling markets, and street-side booths selling over-priced food that tastes so much more real than it does in America, because you eat it while smelling all of spicy, vibrant Seoul around you. And the flowers are beautiful there.

When Aunt Yoshiko and I land in Seoul, it is Fall, and I almost feel betrayed that Mama’s Spring-Seoul didn’t materialize straight into this Autumn-cloaked October just for us. But I suppose Autumn does need a turn with earth now and then.

The hotel we check into is clean, but not sterile, though in our room the bedsheets are so white I almost feel like they should smell like warm milk and medicine, with a touch of lemongrass. I take out my phone and snap a picture. Aunt Yoshiko glances at me with raised eyebrows.  

“Mama will want to see,” I say, though I know really she won’t. Mama says that cameras are unnecessary distractions to seeing and remembering things with our eyes, and thus, our souls. But I want pictorial evidence that this trip happened.

So I take one more picture of the room before turning off my phone and sliding it into the back pocket of my jeans. I’ll need it tomorrow, because we’re going to the market.

I’m determined to find food, and flowers.

*   *   *

While Autumn-Seoul is, in some ways, not like Mama’s Spring-Seoul, the market is very much the same as she had said. Overwhelming. Loud. Alive.

I cannot stop breathing it in.

Hawkers cry out from their booths, selling plastics tins of gimbop or freshly-baked hotteok. Scents of cinnamon and meat explode in air, making my mouth water as the cold cement of the street bleeds through the soles of my shoes. It feels like adventure, but it smells like home.

“Sena, I’m going to text your father that we’re doing alright and get some kimchi, do you want any?” Aunt Yoshiko asks, hers fingers already on her phone as she eyes a booth selling dishes of kimchi a few strides down the street.

I nod, but my eyes are already darting in a different direction. Trying to find flowers. “I’ll meet you in fifteen minutes,” I say, striking off deeper into the throng of market-goers.

The sea of shopping and haggling is easy to lose one’s self in if one’s self doesn’t know where they’re going. I am going no place in particular, but I am looking for something, which isn’t nothing. I peer around small clusters of Korean women with small purses hung over their shoulders, squeeze through a pack of loudly jabbering men who are fighting over the price of fried octopus, and “excuse me” my way past a few well-dressed shoppers inspecting various, thin scarves that won’t do anything to protect them against this bitter Autumn. I tug my own scarf—thick, grey—closer around my neck and keep walking. There are no flowers to be seen, I can’t find them.

But there is an old man.

He’s sitting in a booth that’s empty, nothing to sell, nothing to shout. He simply watches the droves of people hustling by with a smile on his face and a cigar stuck in his mouth. He sees me watching, and his smile spreads a little wider, deepening the wrinkles in his face.

“Annyeonghaseyo, young lady,” he says. Hello. 

The English falling on my ears is like sweet rain, and I duck around a portly shopper to walk to the old man’s booth. “Annyeonghaseyo,” I repeat to him, then look at his empty booth, sticking my hands into the pockets of my coat. “Nothing to sell today, sir?”

“Too many things being sold already,” the man says, gesturing with his small, wrinkled hands at the many other booths lining the street like an army of goods. “Not enough people just taking it in.” His cigar wiggles in the corner of his mouth, and he plucks it out as he scrutinizes me with his keen eyes. “You are looking for something in particular?”

I hesitate, wondering how strange my request will sound here in cold, cold Autumn. “Flowers,” I say. “My Mama told me that the flowers in Seoul are more beautiful than anything else.”

“Ah! Your eomma, she is from Seoul?”

“Yes.”

The old man grins—a very genuine smile that makes his whole face look like a portrait of happiness. He leans back in his chair and holds his arms out, gesturing to everything. “Young lady, you are already among Seoul’s flowers! The people, eolin-i, the people—so strong, yet so frail, so quickly gone, so rarely cherished as they should be. Seoul is made of flowers.” His smile is about to crack his wizened face. “Do you see?”

Mama, you sly old lady.

I turn around from the booth and imagine myself as a tiny rock in the midst of a sweeping sea, just taking in the tides. It isn’t hard to imagine, as it is almost true. I lean against the old man’s booth and look out at the bustle of my Mama’s Seoul.

“Do you see?”

“Yes,” I say, “I see.”

My Mama’s Seoul was made of flowers.

Slowly, I pull out my phone and snap a picture—quick, brief—of the people. I found your flowers, Mama. Then I put the phone away, because I want to see this scene with my eyes, and thus, my soul, so that I can bring it all home to her.

Five minutes until I have to find Aunt Yoshiko.

And so, for that five minutes, I lean against the old man’s booth, where he sells nothing but sees everything, and we are both silent as I watch my Mama’s Seoul go by.

Seoul is made of flowers.

They are indeed the most beautiful in the world.   

THE END

My advice for you: if they offer you a choice, don’t choose anything flashy, chose something smart. When I think of flashy powers, I see my former classmate, Jake juggling fireballs, and I still cringe inwardly at his choice. My heart always raced when it seemed that he might set something on fire. Again, I warn you not to choose a power like his, or you might end in deep trouble, just like Jake. When I was as ignorant as you, I was going to choose the power to be able to control the weather. If you think that sounds cool, you’re wrong. Another acquaintance of mine who wanted an ostentatious power, like Jake’s, chose to be able to control the weather as I had always dreamed. I fear that I might have influenced her. She ended up just like Jake; in deep trouble and no way out.

In this crazy world, the smartest people always seem to be gone quicker than others. I thought that it would be great to be smart, an amazing gift that I would die for. I was wrong. This society has turned against them in a crazy game of trickery. At first, when the scientists came back from space with new materials and engineered them into a source of “magic” that was able to give anyone a superpower, we were all impressed. Now that I have learned the bittersweet working of the universe, I realized that they fooled us all. They were only luring us in, like flies to honey.

Some thought it was a trick because they offered it to the top ten highest scoring ninth graders in the biggest school in the capital city. They thought it was just a trick to motivate the students. I’ll tell you now, they also were wrong. At the time, as an oblivious ninth grader, I didn’t understand what was wrong with the offer. In fact, I was determined to get in the top ten students.

But there was a problem: I wasn’t smart. I couldn’t memorize things or even remember them. I’m very slow at learning things. I wasn’t like the guy in my class who could learn anything in the blink of an eye or the girl who had a photographic memory. But as I mentioned earlier, I was determined. Something I learned that year was that hard work pays off more than talent.

I had one trait which helped me succeed: creativity. I created songs to help me learn and drew little comics. I coated my walls in Spanish words. I guess, in the end, it was creativity that saved my life.

I never thought I’d even be close, but surprisingly, I managed to achieve the title of the tenth smartest student in my school. I was qualified to get a superpower, along with Adam, Abigail, Sara, Saffron, Judah, William, Jess, Lila, and Jake. This same list was later on the military’s ‘to exterminate’ list.

My classmates thought that they wanted an amazing power to show their strength. We were so excited and naive when we found we would be the ones getting ‘superpowers’. It was like a dream come true to us.

The day when the scientists came to our school, I still hadn’t decided what power I wanted, and I was stressed out over it. Luckily for me, they called everyone up by who was ranked the smartest. I was dead last.

Adam went up first, looking like a batter, who had never batted before, stepping up to plate. A scientist came and introduced himself, with a grand smile, told us how proud of us he was. At the time he reassured me with his soft smile, while I was brainstorming superpower idea. and asked Adam what power he wanted. He turned to face Adam with great flair and asked what he wanted as a superpower. Adam ran his hand nervously through his hair and answered in a small voice that he wanted the power to grow trees quickly. Another scientist began mixing a mixture for ‘plant growth powers’. As he was mixing, Abigail was then called up, and shakily responded with that she wanted weather powers. As more students went up and told the scientists what power they wanted, I grew more and more anxious. I had no idea what I wanted. The last student before me was Jake, probably the most confident one of us all, went up and with a smile, he asked for the power of fireballs.

They called my name, and I stumbled across the floor to the table where the scientists were with no grace whatsoever. The scientist, who I had long forgotten his name, asked me what power I wanted. I made a dumb move, I said the first thing that popped into my head: duplication. As soon, as I had said it, the room went silent. The scientist nodded and told that it was possible, but I could only duplicate myself once. I nodded, too nervous to say anything.

The next day, we were called back to the school. The scientist injected the “magic space potion” into us. If you think this is the part where this story takes a drastic turn, and the “magic” isn’t actually real and it doesn’t work, you’re wrong. This is the part where it works.

Thunder crackled above us, as Abigail raised her hand up, grinning in delight. Adam picks up an old pot of soil, he had brought with him, and a sunflower bloomed out from the dirt, appearing like magic. Jake lit a fireball on the palm of his hand, then after realizing he was now fireproof, tossed it to the other hand.

As for me, I stood face to face with myself. I don’t know if you can, but imagine you were born with only one eye and then you suddenly got a second eye, a new viewpoint that merged together with your old viewpoint. That’s what I now saw. Moving around, at first, was like trying to rub your stomach, and pat your head at the same time. It took skill and practice.

It took me the entire summer to learn how to use my powers. I faced it with the same determination I had faced my schoolwork with that year. When we came back to school, I felt like a champion. The first day, everyone forgot about me having a superpower, and all the attention was focused on the other students who received powers. Jake had learned to juggle and was showing off in the hallways, as I walked along lonely.

But I did have a trick up my sleeve. The first time we had a quiz that year, I showed up to take the quiz, not having studied at all. My duplicate was at home studying for me at that very moment. I didn’t know the answer to number six, my duplicate just studied the topic it was on, and then I figured out the correct answer. I aced the quiz and every single quiz, test, even pop quiz after that. No one even tried to figure out what I was doing.

In my art class, which none of the other kids with powers were in, I was barely listening to the teacher, I was more listening to the tv that my duplicate was watching. I got interrupted by a news flash, which really annoyed me at first. But then, I saw what it was about.

“The Ten Students with Superpowers Have Been Marked as Dangerous.” The news line read. I quickly switched to the news channel, all my attention now focused on this. This was the moment where I realized it was all a trick. They wanted to get rid of all the smart kids. Why? Because they were jealous, I realized later. The scientists were mad because they made the discovery of a lifetime, but they thought that we would make a better discovery than them and they would never go down in the history books.

That’s how every kid with powers managed to get on the military’s ‘to exterminate’ list, including me. They tracked us down, even though we tried our best to hide, they found us anyway. It turns out they were always one step ahead of us. They captured all of us in handcuffs that wouldn’t let us use our powers. We were doomed. We were the mice the cats had caught. We were flies caught in honey.

Have you ever experienced a memory, good or bad, that you can remember with vivid detail? That’s how my memory of that night was. The scientist we met at the school, who was so cheerful, who had seemed like he wanted to help us, standing triumphantly in front of us, grinning like a cat who had caught a mouse. He spoke with such emotion, ignoring Abigail’s sobs, about his great plans, to outsmart all of the smartest, to make himself the greatest. He told us of what he had accomplished, that he made the world what it is today. Then with a smile on his face, he pulled out a metal beaker with a steaming liquid and told us about his newest creation. A new colorless, odorless, undetectable liquid that kills the drinker in less than a minute. He then turned around and smirked at us, and asked how we’d like to be his tester. We started screaming, sobbing, shaking, and trying to get out of there. He didn’t listen and told us we had no choice.

Now, you’re probably waiting for our heroic escape or rescue. But there is none. He instructed some other scientists to give the liquid to Abigail first since she was sobbing the most. I couldn’t see because of my tears, but I heard her choking, and I looked up long enough to see her slump to the floor. This is when I truly realized how evil the scientists were. They would kill teenagers to get what they wanted. It truly was a selfish thing they did. To this day, I still miss my classmates. I wished I could have saved them, but I guess there was nothing I could have done.

It was incredibly lucky, that they forgot about my duplicate. They gave the poison to my duplicate, and that’s how I’m still alive today, to write this message. To warn you, to give you advice, to tell you: if they offer you a choice, don’t choose anything flashy, chose something smart. It might just save your life like it did mine. In retrospect, don’t accept “magic” powers at all.

Why does it matter? The scientists are still out there, chasing me down. They’ve caught me many times, but only my duplicate. They can’t touch me, yet. I send this message out as a warning, not to help them, not to accept their offers, because just like me, you might be fooled. Take careful caution of who you lend your trust to.

New Beginnings

She pulls out her camera, and after 10 seconds I hear a snap. I don’t know what the picture was, but she looks pleased. I smile. She placed the picture on the back of a dumpster and stands. Pushing the dumpster back against the wall, she runs towards the center of town. That was the dangerous part. The part of town where you can die because you weren’t paying enough attention. I hold my breath. A few minutes later, she appears from behind the wall. The sky is dark, her face looks scared. She turns sharply away from me, blocking my sight of her. I shift my position, and her head darts to my direction, then as quick as a fly, she’s gone.

    The space around me is small and humid when I wake up. I open my eyes. All I see is black, and the smell is rancid. Then I remember. Garbage day. I push the garbage bags off of me and run to a pile of gravel nearby. Then I see her. She stands, fearful, pressing herself against the wall. The Collectors marched down the alleyway, arrived at the dumpsters, and took out their guns. With a ray of blue light, the full, rancid smelling trash bags are gone, and only sparkling green bins remain. Clean is a strange sight in a usually dingy place. After a while, when I’m sure the Collectors have come and gone, I hurry back to where my makeshift house used to be, but the blue had swallowed it up. Leaning against the new bin, I feel a tap on my shoulder. Fear fills my head, I spin around and see her. Her eyes staring curiously into mine.  

    “Hello.” she says, “who are you?” I stare at her in shock, not saying anything

“H-hi,” I stutter, “I’m parker…” she smiles and laughs. I hesitantly stand and lean on the bin.

“What’s your name?” I ask

“I'm Mira”

“That's pretty”

“Thanks”

“How old are you?” I ask suddenly, breaking the silence. Startled, she says she’s 15 and asks me the same, and we talk for a while. Then, out of the blue, something in her snaps. It's like she sensed something. Without a word, she runs away and is out of my sight. I get up and try to follow her. I peek around the corner and see her standing at the other end of the wall. She’s too far away for me to hear, but she looks scared. I run. I’m standing close enough to her so I can hear, but she can't see me, I’m completely hidden.

“I don’t have the money! I don’t have any money! Just leave me alone!” she yells with tears in her eyes. A beefy hand reaches out and pulls her into the alleyway. I hear a wailing. I run towards it. There’s a three-year-old boy standing in the middle of the street yelling for someone but I can't make out the words. I look up from the boy and see Mira. I look up from her, and a huge man is staring at me with fire in his eyes.

“What are you doing here?!” He booms. His voice is deeper than any I’ve ever heard before, not that I’ve heard too many deep voices. My father died when I was four, and three years later, my mother got rich from some gambling scheme, moved to France, and was too embarrassed to bring me with her.

“I…” I try to figure out an excuse. I need to say something

“My brother ran off… I was trying to find him!” It’s unbelievable, but part of me can’t bear to leave him there. The man stays silent. He locks eyes with me and raises one eyebrow. I see Mira behind him sawing at a rope with a broken bottle. I try to stall him.

“I’m sorry, I’ll never come back again!” I try as I watch Mira. She breaks through the rope and falls on top of a pile of metal scraps. The man turns around slowly. Mira gets up and starts to limp away. The man runs after her and pulls out a gun. I grab the sobbing boy and run. I hear a gunshot in the distance and know it was her. Heavy footsteps come closer and closer. He’s following me. I can’t do anything about it. I can’t leave the boy, but at the same time, it would be better for me to die than a three-year-old. I set the boy down in a small cardboard box. Holding my fingers up to my lips I hug him.

“I’ll come back,” I tell him “I promise.” And then I run. I run more than I’ve ever run before. The man is following me and he’s fast, I can tell he’s catching up. I dive into a small pile of brush and fee the cold cement on my knees and hands. I poke my head out of the pile and see him standing by the corner staring at the sidewalk. I see a sprig of brown hair and a little hand sticking out of a box. He found the boy. I start to cry. I jump out of my pile and run at him. When I make contact, he stumbles back.

“No! Take anything but him please leave him here!” I scream at him.

“Get off.” He says harshly “GET OFF” I pull myself off of him. He pushes me to the ground and pulls out his gun. My hearing gets fuzzy, and I can barely hear a thing. The pull of a trigger sounds like no more than a soft-spoken word, but I watch blood seep out from the corner of the box. I turn and crawl away falling asleep in the same pile of brush I had just been in.

I walk through the center of town, paying close attention to my whereabouts. It had been a year since the boy had been killed, but I still felt like it was my fault. I knew there was nothing I could do I didn’t even know his name, but it was like I was fully responsible for him. I hadn’t even barely known Mira, but I could tell he was her brother. He looked exactly like her. As I reached the edge of the downtown crowds. I walked over to where Mira used to live. I pulled the dumpster away from the wall. Hundreds of pictures were stuck onto the back of it. Pictures of everything from the sunrise behind a skyscraper to her brother’s smiling face. I tugged at the picture and it came off. his face shone up at me from the Polaroid. I felt better. The picture was like him telling me “it’s okay, you did what you could”. I took her camera and started walking again. I looked at the shops around me. I’d never been to this part of town before, but I could tell by the way the metal looked new that to anyone walking by, I was an outcast. I crossed the street, trying to escape the people walking with their children. I see a small fruit stand and notice the rumble in my stomach. I haven’t eaten in days, and the last time I ate it was just bread and a bit of an apple. I look at the shops lining the street, and the people going in and out of them. I see the children running around with one another. This part of town is like a whole new world to me. I’ve never been here before, I don’t know the area like I used to. I look down the street at a small restaurant called “the New Age Pancakery”. Picking up my pace, I run down the street, and into the doors of the little shop. All eyes are on me as the cashier greets me.

    “Welcome to the Pancakery!” she says warmly, “Anywhere you’d like” My eyes dart from place to place, taking in space. People in the restaurant all seem to be one of three things; scared, judgemental, or pitiful. I hate it here. I feel so out of place. Everything is so clean, almost sparkling and then there’s me. My clothes are ratty, my hair is a mess, and I smell like I haven’t showered in months (which, to be fair, is true). I walk up to the register and gather my confidence.

    “Hello,” I mumble “Do you know… a place to stay around here” I read the cashier’s name tag, her name is Melanie, and she looks at me funny.

“Sorry, hon” she answers with pity in her voice. I turn and walk out of the restaurant, back onto the street.

I slump onto the sidewalk right by the window and lean my head onto the wall. I look at the Polaroid of the boy, flipping it over and over in my hands. I notice something on the back. Small writing in chalky black. Trying to decipher the word, I think of the trouble Mira went through just to write it, and how much she must have loved him. I picture her in my mind, putting together the pieces of her complexion. Her eyes, her nose, her mouth all fall into place followed by her hair and her gorgeous, somehow radiant skin. My body fills with warmth as I picture her. I never knew her, but I missed her so much. She was how I filled my days, watching her, wondering what she thought. I snap out of my fantasy with a jolt. In front of me, I see Melanie waving her hand in front of my face.

“Oh good,” She smirks “You’re up. I got a job if you want it.” I jump off the sidewalk and onto my feet.
    “Thank you! Thank you so much.” I shout.

“There’s an inn down the street. You can work for me and i'll pay your rent along with a little money for food.” She leads me to a small stand-alone building on the corner. Pushing me in the door, she shouts at the manager

“This is that kid I told you about. Get him some clothes and a room.” She rushes out the door as fast as a pancake flips. The manager grabs my arm and drags me up the stairs. When we reach a room, he shoves a key in my hand.

“Here’s your room. You clean it, there are some clothes on the bed you can have.”

“Thank you” I try to say, but he’s gone. I shove the key into the lock and turn it. The door unlocks with ease. I push it open and look around. It’s a small room, but bigger than anything I've ever had. I walk slowly to the bathroom running my hand across the bed as I go. Without thinking, I take off my clothes and jump into the shower. The warm water runs over me, and I try to remember the last time I felt like this.

By the time I’m done, the floor of the shower is coated in dirt. I wrap myself in a soft towel and put the provided clothes on. Looking in the mirror, I feel different. I don’t feel like myself. I’m to clean, my skin is to pale, not dark from dirt stains as I remembered, my hair was longer than I thought, and I was taller. I the door opens and standing in the door frame is the manager with a plate of steaming food. I take it sit down on my bed, and my new life begins.     

The rain pounded against the window pane, waiting to be let in. The shutters were banging on the side of the old, large house that stood on the end of the street. The wind was howling with rage that seemed to be endless, and the trees were quaking in fear. Felicity Baldwin was laying in bed, worn down covers tucked to her ears. She was only six years old but she knew the monsters were coming. She could feel it in the thickness of the air. Lightning cracked like a whip and she ducked deeper into the covers once more.
She turned her bedside lamp on, sure to make certain that the shadows were gone. Her hair was wild and in a halo all around her, her eyes wild with fright. She didn't know, and neither did her parents, that the doors would open that following night.
The house was first owned by a grumbly old man with a weathered, tan face, and skin that was so wrinkly that it seemed to make folds over his face. He was hunched over with white, thin hair. His eyes were wise with age, and he knew what would happen to the next owners of the house. Which was exactly why he had to sell it before he would get devoured and left as bones in the rickety walls. He was just passing on the legacy.
The couple, with a young daughter, were very pleasant. They were looking for a place to settle, away from city life. This house, with its white chipped paint and an overgrown, yellowing lawn, seemed perfect.
Felicity jumped out of the bed and dashed over to the door that held her parents. She would knock on the door and tell them that she had felt the monsters watching her, had felt their angry, vengeful spirits trying to grab ahold of her.
She wrenched open the door and jumped onto their soft, welcome bed. They startled, eyes heavy with sleep.
"The monsters, Mommy. They tried to grab me!" There was genuine fear in the child's voice, but Amanda guessed the shadows were getting Felicity spooked. She tapped her groggy husband on the shoulder to wake him more.
He patted the space in between them and winked, too tired to argue or testify.
"I think the monster can hold off until tomorrow. What do you say, Licity?"
Perhaps Felicity had known the moment they set foot in the house; had known that something was wrong, that something was making her imagination go wild.
***
The doors on the unused wing of the house started to scratch and moan as if coming to life. Each individual lock that was placed on the door all the way at the end of the hallway clinked and dropped to the floor, echoing off the walls.
Heavy, labored breathing sounded from all around, gathering in tone and speed as the door handle turned. The clocks froze at their time mounted on the walls.
The door opened on its own accord, bringing forth one dirty, shriveled hand. The fingernails were torn and bitten from trying to escape, and left bloodied tracks down the door as it moved.
It took a look around, a smile stretching on the planes of its ruined face. It knew the victim, knew who was going to stay. It wanted someone to tell its secret to, and that someone lived in the house this very moment.
As soon as the sun was high in the sky it receded into the depths of the door, of the room, and stayed there, watching, waiting.
Felicity was afraid to step into her room, thinking that the monster would get her if she stepped in to grab something. She knew what she saw the first night in the house, knew that there was no faking this.
It came from her closet, like some kind apparition, pale and disjointed. Its mouth was crooked and hanging uselessly to the side, and there were thick, long scratches down the side stretching from its right eye down to the slack jaw.
Its dress was torn and ragged, and it wore no shoes. Felicity wondered if its feet were cold padding on that hard, uncarpeted floor.
It smiled, cruel and evil. The broken face turned into a grimace of a smile, so wide that it tipped near its ears. Felicity noticed the little necklace on its collarbone, the only thing that was still shining like it was brand new.
She watched as it disappeared, its cackling like the sound of dead leaves crunching underneath boots.
Felicity gathered both of her parents' hands in her own. She was comforted by the rough, large hand of her father and the soft, small one of her mother. This was her safety.
They headed in together, hand in hand, to search around the room. They checked under the bed, finding some meager dust bunnies. The closet and the toy chest were no different. Felicity thought it was ridiculous that they were checking in the toy chest; how could someone that thing's size twist and turn around all of the toys and still fit in there?
Felicity felt cold dread in the pit of her stomach. Behind them was the thing she saw at night, one dirty, bloodied finger to its lips. The eyes, cold and dead, almost dark, endless pits, were telling her not utter one word.
Felicity pretended that nothing was wrong, but her parents saw something in her eyes, something like fear.
She was tucked under the covers once more, hot in her fleece pajamas. She could hear the groan of the floorboards across the hall and was none too eager to get out of the safety of her room to check it out.
Something was coming in through the crack of her door. The carpet underneath became dark and matted down. The ooze started to coat the carpet and then leak onto the floor. She hesitatingly threw back the covers, chilled. Her arms were prickled with goose flesh.
Her feet squished under the flooring, now coated in red. It smelled oddly like the rust off of the old iron bars of the playground Felicity played at.
She was gagging at the smell that invaded her nostrils, trying to keep the bile from rising in her throat. Fear was making her shake from head to toe. Her hair, messy and ruffled from what little sleep she had, tickled her nose. Her bottom lip trembled the slightest bit as she reached for the handle to the door that led into the hallway.
She had trouble opening the door. Something was blocking it. She pushed harder, trying to get out.
A hard, thick thump sounded from the wall beside her.
Felicity opened the door to her mother, laying next to her motionless father, dead at her feet. She screamed bloody murder, trying to bring the door back so that she wouldn't see any of it. Tears were falling down her cheeks in rivulets.
"Licity, you need to run. Run far away and call the police."
Felicity knew that she wanted to be by her, dead or otherwise. She stayed, rooted in place.
Rotting, stinking breath was next to Felicity's neck, hot and vile.
Felicity's eyes, wide and scared, filled to the brim with tears.
"They’re mine now." It smiled at her with broken, jagged teeth.
She found herself screaming as what could’ve been a little girl, kicked her father’s corpse to the side.
The pitiful scream that emitted itself from her mother was the last thing Felicity remembered that night. She watched as it took her mother’s neck in its hands and then snapped her neck. Felicity watched the lights in her mother's eyes go out, saw the permanent scream of horror imprinted on her mother's face.
It took a blade to her neck, meaning to slit her throat. It got a deep cut, just missing the girl's jugular, when she kicked it square in the face. It was so stunned that Felicity had enough time to run.
She had enough time to run out of that house, crying the whole way. The neighbors found her lying with a hand held to her neck, whimpering. When the paramedics came she was in hysterics, screaming that they couldn't leave her parents in there, not with the monster that came to kill her still in there.
The police arrived soon after the little girl was taken to the hospital and went to the house. One officer died on the scene, the spirit having snapped his neck clean.
They found the parents soon after in a pool of their own blood, the wife holding onto the husband for dear life. They ruled it a homicide, although years later, their case turned cold and was never solved. Felicity, scared and alone, was sent to foster homes year after year, never really knowing what had happened to her parents.
***
She tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, not watching where she was going down the hallway. It was crowded and filled with sweaty, pubescent teens.
She kept her eyes down to the ground, noticing the various types of shoes that lined the linoleum flooring.
When she bumped into the guy it wasn't like she noticed right away. No, Felicity watched in slow motion as her books made a waterfall of paper around the two of them, cascading as Felicity stared wide-eyed at the tall, brooding boy in front of her.
She heard snickering behind her, heard the various names that she had been called since she had started school. Ghost Girl seemed to be the favorite lately since the date of her parents' death was drawing near.
"I'm so sorry," she gasped, regretting how nervous she sounded.
"No problem," he answered casually, but there was a tone of annoyance hiding in his voice.
He stooped down to collect her books for her just as she went down at the same time. Their heads collided with each other, sending them sprawling to the ground.
"Just sit there for a minute," he huffed, and Felicity had to take a moment to calm herself down. She was sure her cheeks were painted a bright red.
He rubbed at the mark that was beginning on his forehead and gathered the books and papers that littered the hallway. His mask of cool was back on, and an easy smirk lighted his face.
"Watch where you're going next time, all right?"
She nodded her head sheepishly and picked her eyes up. His smile was playful, but the eyes were something else. He had the most vivid, most mesmerizing green eyes. They were cold, calculating.
He brushed her shoulder as he passed, just barely touching. He wore a faded brown leather jacket with a dark band t-shirt.
Felicity had stopped in the library yet again to find anything she could on the ghost that had killed her parents. She knew from the death counts she had found from old newspaper clippings and articles leading up to her parents' death when she was six that the thing was ancient.
She went to the back, searching through the stacks to find anything good, anything at all that could help her. Anything at all that could help her get revenge on the thing that had ruined her life.
She didn't notice that one of her laces were untied, long enough for her to trip over. She stumbled, falling to the floor.
Right in front of her, smacking the lips right off of Sandy Baker, was the boy with green eyes. They paused long enough to stare at Felicity with mild irritation.
Felicity got up and walked away, glancing back at the strange boy. He seemed to be everywhere she was.
She kept going through the aisles, ignoring the one that the boy and Sandy were in.She couldn't find anything that could save her from a life of not knowing, a life of giving in to the force that had killed her parents. She could still remember the cold, dead eyes that seemed to stare back at her without actually being there. She shivered in the library, finding chills in the warmth of the building.
The newspapers were the only thing that could provide any sort of information leading up to the most recent killings in her old household. Many couples with young children had faced the same fate, which piqued the interest in the police department for many years.
She carried the stack with slippery, nervous palms. Her mind kept going back to the boy, and she wondered what he was doing here. She’d never seen him before.
She focused her mind on what was in front of her, keeping her eyes ahead. She rubbed at the scar at the base of her throat. If that thing would've been any closer she would've died with her parents.
She needed help, but she couldn't tell anyone without them thinking that she was crazy, that she was out of her mind. Ghosts were out of the spectrum of teenagers.
A page slipped to the floor, making Felicity wonder if she was overthinking this. She knew what she had to do, and had looked through all of this information hundreds of times.
Maybe she was too scared to do anything. Maybe she didn't want to see the memory that she had so long ago.
The paper that had dropped was suddenly slapped onto the table. The boy with the green eyes snapped his attention to her face, or more accurately, the scar. His eyes traced the line with too much focus. Her face started to get hot.
"Sandy?" She chuckled.
He flapped the collar of his faded jacket and cleared his throat.
"I think I can help you with that," he mumbled.
Felicity never thought, that of all people, the green eyed boy would help her. Maybe it was a joke.
She bit down on her lip and stared past him, trying to see if anyone was hiding in the stacks of books. He held out his hand.
"Dustin, although people don't usually call me by that. They call me by my last name." He nodded, with his face oddly detached.
"Felicity. People don't usually call me that. Ghost Girl is what I'm referred as." His face turned a light shade of pink.
"Right." He shuffled, fiddling with his fingers. He then placed both hands on either side of the table. He leaned his face down, so close to her own. She could smell the faint trace of aftershave on his skin.
"Believe it or not, I hunt these kinds of things." He leaned back, pursing his lips. She didn't know whether to take it seriously or not.
"And you're here to help me?"
"Let's chase Casper back to the hole he crawled out of."

7/4/78

Today I arrived at the cabin. It was a long drive from Boston. I ate some of the food that I had brought for dinner and set up my work papers in the office  and wrote for a while. I went to bed at about 11 PM.

7/5/78

When I woke today at about 6:30, I made a breakfast of eggs and toast. After finishing my meal, I decided to go on a walk and explore the area around the cabin. I walked for about two hours, discovering the local flora and fauna. It was very beautiful in this area and I found it very refreshing to get out of the office for once. After returning from my walk, I went to the office and continued my work for the rest of the day, occasionally taking breaks to go outside and get fresh air.

7/6/78

I awoke this morning early at about 4:00 to a horrible shriek. I immediately jumped out of bed and ran outside to find a young lady lying on the ground in front of the cabin. When I asked here she was alright she turned her head and stared at me, but didn’t respond. I immediately ran back into the house to the landline to call the police. It took them an hour to get to the cabin, and in the meantime I got the girl to come inside and sit in the living room. When the police arrived, they took the girl to the nearest hospital.

7/10/78

The past few days I have been hearing strange noises in the night and every time I turn on my light to see what is going on, the noise suddenly stops. I have decided to ignore them and wait for them to end. The hospital the girl was taken to gave me a call and told me that she was in a stable condition, but had suffered many injuries. They told me that she had marks on her wrists and it appeared that she had been tied with rope. This frightened me, but I decided it was probably okay.   

7/17/78

The sound has not stopped nor gotten quieter. Last night, after trying to fall asleep for two hours, I decided to go outside and look. I grabbed a flashlight and stepped outside to investigate. When I walked out the door, I heard a loud crashing noise coming from the cellar. I walked over to the door and tried to listen to what was inside. It sounded like a young girl crying for help. “Hello?” I asked. As soon as I said that, the crying stopped. I tried to open the door, but it was locked. I decided to go to sleep and call to police in the morning.

7/20/78

I woke this morning at around 7:00 and did my work until around 11:00. At 11, I decided to go for a walk. I walked into the woods and tried to find where the noise was coming from. After about 20 minutes of walking, I discovered a small cabin. It looked like it had been abandoned. The door was open and the wood was rotten. I opened the door and walked in. Inside, there was an old wood-burning stove on the back wall and a small rotten-wood table and chairs, other than that, the cabin was pretty empty. I left the cabin and walked home and continued my work until 10:00.

7/22/78

After waking up today, I found that I was running out of food and other supplies, so I made a trip down to next town, about an hour away, to go to the grocery store and get more food. I made it back to the cabin at about 11:00, and ate a big lunch. After finishing my meal, I went for a short walk down the road. When I reached the abandoned cabin, I continued on for about a half an hour, then turned around. When I returned home, I continued my writing and went to bed at about 11:00.

7/25/78

The noise has continued to bother me. It is a high pitched bang that is impossible to ignore. I have had to plug my ears with cotton balls in the absence of earplugs. I must find out what is causing this noise soon, or I may go crazy.

7/28/78

The past few days I have been searching the area for clues and I think I may have found something. I noticed the sound was coming from the north side of the house, where my bedroom is. Last night, I walked up through the woods and noticed a strange object on the ground. It appeared to be a speaker of some sort, and had a blinking light on it. I placed it back on the ground and continued onwards. About 20 minutes later, I came across a small shack. I peered into one of the windows, and saw a tall man cooking a stove. I walked over to the door and knocked on it. The man came to the door. He was wearing a buttoned shirt and nice pants.

“Hello,” I said, sticking my hand out to greet him.

“Hello,” he said, “what are doing around here?” he asked.

“I visit here every July. I have a cabin about 25 minutes through the woods.”

We talked for a while, and then I walked home and went to bed.

7/30/78

Oh my god. I’m going to die. He is almost on to me. I need to write quickly. He chased me through the woods and shot at me twice, both times missing. I was packing my stuff and he came to my house and chased me outside with a gun in his hand.

I can see him. I have climbed a tree and he is just below me, but he has not seen me yet.

I think he has seen me. These will probably be my last words.

-Arthur Johnson

7/30/1978

On a bright spring day, just after the sun had reached its peak, a girl made her way to the castle. A dark cloak pulled tightly around her, she entered the gates. The guards nodded at the cloaked figure, giving her permission to enter the castle. The huge doors opened and she stepped inside. It wasn’t the first time she had been in the castle, in fact, she was a frequent visitor, but its beauty still amazed her. With its looming columns and colorful drapes illuminated by crystal chandeliers, it almost seemed magical. Figures caught her eye, and faint bickering grew louder as a group of three began to head downstairs to see her.

“Is this how royalty is supposed to act?” Celia teased as they approached her. A tall, slender boy with ebony hair grinned at her sheepishly.

“Probably not,” he admitted. Kai Lynx, a.k.a. the most beautiful boy she had ever seen, and the only other person who could teach her to control her magic. Magic was strictly forbidden in the kingdom, despite him being the prince. He had sworn to her,

“As soon as I’m king, magic will be legal. Then we won’t have to run.”

For all of her life, the constant fear of being found out by the royal court weighed down on her. Kai didn’t have a say in their decisions yet, not until his coronation.

“Well, I guess it’s good that you aren’t king yet.” His sister, Kayla bumped her shoulder with his. Her dark hair matched her older brother’s. “The kingdom would be in chaos.”

Celia grinned. These were the only people who accepted her for her magic, besides her father. She almost felt guilty for spending so much time at the castle and leaving him alone, but he insisted that it was for the best.

“I guess you two should start your lesson.” Ah, yes. The youngest sibling of the trio. The sassy, sarcastic, dirty-blonde-haired Princess Miriam. She was thirteen, and at the small height -compared to the rest of them- of 5’3”, she was a force to be reckoned with. She practically forced everyone to call her ‘Mi,’ which quickly led to confusion. Not to mention her many devious schemes to get Kai and Celia together. “You wouldn’t want to waste time,” she added. “Besides, it’s good for you guys to spend some quality time together.”

Kai shot her a glare as she smiled innocently back at him. The pair were either thick as thieves or each other’s ‘worst enemy.’

“She’s right,” Kayla sighed. “I’ll take her away so she can’t bother you.” Kai nodded his thanks, and led Celia out a side door to the castle gardens.

The pair hiked down to their usual place, each pulling the hood of their cloaks over them. A single tree marked the meeting spot. She had actually begun to feel sympathy for it. With the number of times it had been crumpled to ash and regrown, she couldn’t help it.

Kai pushed the hood of his cloak back so she could see his eyes, and she did the same. Pushing a few stray locks of her fiery orange hair back into the cloak, she asked,

“What will we be doing today?”

He hesitated, biting his lip before responding. “You know what I said about leaving the harmful spells for later?”

“Yeah,” she answered, a knot of worry forming inside her. He hadn’t spoken a word on the walk here, and even now his emerald eyes seemed to be in a different world. “What about it?”

There was something he wasn’t telling her, and she could see it in the way he fiddled with his wand, turning it back and forth. “They’re looking for you. The Court has started to put posters up. They’re asking for your arrest. And,” he paused again, as if debating to tell her. “They don’t care if you’re dead or alive. But they want you. They’ve already set up a daily search patrol for you around the castle.”

She stared at the ground, anger boiling up inside her. It wasn’t right! They didn’t even know her, yet they wanted to punish her. It wasn’t her fault that she had been born with magic! She forced a calm expression onto her face. “Okay,” she breathed, trying to calm her nerves. “Okay.”

“Let’s not concentrate on that,” Kai suggested, and she nodded in agreement. “But I still want to teach you the harming spells.”

She doubted it would be good to try to hurt the people that were hunting her, but she trusted his judgement. Pulling out her own wand and gesturing toward the scraggly tree, she asked, “Shall we begin?”

“We shall.”

Okay, I’ve got this. After many tries -and fails-, she had finally gotten the hang of the Splicing spell. The spell was meant to cut your opponent, and fend them off. She aimed her thin wand at the tree -which was already covered with gashes of varying size- and concentrated. She felt someone gently adjust her hand, and looked to see Kai fixing her movements from over her shoulder. He looked up and met her eyes. His hood had fallen away, revealing soft black locks.

“Sorry,” he murmured, moving her fingers to hold the wand a certain way.

“It’s okay,” she breathed, internally frowning at the way her heart fluttered inside her.

“This should help, though. Now try it,” he instructed, leaning away. And she did, the words to the spell barely a whisper. A bright light flashed out the tip of her wand and struck the tree. The force blasted her backward. She hit the ground a few meters back, dust blowing onto her. This ‘crisis’ wasn’t too bad, until there was a voice from behind her.

“Well, it seems as if we’ve found the witch.”

She looked up to see a middle-aged man with a gray uniform standing a little ways away from where she had landed. She started to scramble to her feet, fear filling her, but the man barked an order.

“Stay down! Or else we’ll have to cause your pretty little face to have a few marks.” She noticed a sword swinging at his side. “And you,” he turned to Kai, who was already standing. “Stay where you are. I saw you helping the witch, and you’re not out of the woods yet.”

Kai’s eyes narrowed, glancing between Celia and the man. She knew what he was thinking.

Don’t, she mouthed to him. If he attacked the man it would only cause more problems. She felt a sharp tug on her wrist, and yelped as she was roughly dragged to her feet. The cloak was pulled off her shoulders, and she shook her hair behind her shoulders.

“You’re coming with me to Court, young lady.” And he dragged her through the courtyard. She dug her heels into the ground, trying to stop him, but he was much bigger and stronger than she was.

“Please don’t,” she begged. “I won’t hurt anyone-”

“Then why were you practicing ‘harming spells’ on that tree?” he challenged, a triumphant look in his eye. She looked back to see if Kai was following, but two more men were bringing him along -although at a much slower pace, due to his attempts to twist out of their grip. It almost made her smile.

“We will have order!” a judge shouted. His black robes reminded her of those at a funeral. The entire room had an aura of bad. Columns, much like the ones in the castle, went from floor to ceiling, but they were much shorter, making the room seem smaller. There seemed to be too many benches crammed into the room, and they were all filled with curious spectators. Why did there have to be so many people? Kayla and Mi had come, along with an older woman  whom Celia knew to be the siblings’ mother. They had looked confused at first, and unwilling to be there, but understanding soon dawned in their eyes.

She sat at the front, chained to a table. Kai, although unchained, sat next to her. His hair was slightly disheveled from earlier, and he looked paler than normal, which was a feat, considering how pale he actually was.

Everyone quieted as the judge called for attention once again.

“As you know, the witch has been found. Unless there are any opposing arguments, she will be executed at dawn.”

She felt sick.

“I will now ask for any people who disagree with this judgement to stand.”

The trio of siblings stood, along with their mother.

“Do you have an argument?” the judge quirked an eyebrow at them.

“Yes,” Mi immediately spoke up. “I think it’s unfair to murder people-” The crowd broke out in shouts at the word ‘murder.’ “QUIET,” she shouted, and the crowd’s talk grew to soft murmurs. “As I was saying, I believe it isn’t right to kill people who haven’t done anything to offend you.”

“She has broken a severe law set by the king.”

“A king who is now DEAD.”

It was as if the crowd was waiting for that specific moment to burst out in shouts once again. Disorder filled the room, people standing up and moving around the room. Many of them were trying to get the judge’s attention. She made out a few words they were saying.

Impure.

Cursed.

Doom to us all.

She turned to Kai desperately, and she was the only one who noticed: he still had his wand. She didn’t even hear him say the Unlock spell, when the latch on her chains clicked open. She wriggled out of them as discreetly as possible. Kai held out his hand to her, and she took it. They skirted the edges of the room, toward the back doors. Kayla and Mi caught them.

“The Eastern Kingdom,” Kayla breathed. “We can go there.”

The Eastern Kingdom hadn’t outlawed magic, and they were their (the Western Kingdom’s) allies. Sneaking out the back door, they reached the streets. They didn’t care if they were seen.

They ran.

Through the town.

Past many confused villagers.

They didn’t look behind them, not until they reached the outskirts of the town.

Then they stopped.

And everything seemed to slow down.

They didn’t talk for a few minutes, trying to catch their heaving breaths. Once they had mostly returned to normal, they went a few more meters into the darkening forest. No one spoke, until-

“Does anyone know which way East is?”

                I’ll never forget. That day feels as though it were yesterday, yet in reality eleven years have passed. But still…I remember, I remember it all. The way mom beat Johnny against the doorpost, his two year old heart-wrenching screams. The police sirens. The flashing lights. Mom’s grimace as she turned and scowled at us while the police led her hand-cuffed to the patrol car. That was the last time I saw her.

                In a blur of events, I found myself in foster care.  In court, my mother, who was a drunkard and a drug addict, claimed she no longer wanted me and my brother. My heart trembled when I found out that she had willingly signed over her parental rights. Big tears welled up in my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. I was confused. I was hurt. I didn’t understand.  I remember thinking, “Maybe she is a bad mom, but she’s still my mom. How could she desert me like this?” I remember crying myself to sleep for weeks and weeks. In my first foster home, I was hard to manage. Having just lost my mom and having never known my dad, my seven year old heart bled with abandonment, resentment, and bitterness. In school, I continually fell further and further behind and took to bullying other kids. At home, I was cold, nasty, and destructive. Originally, my foster family tried to be understanding, but I guess I was just too much. After a few months, my foster family decided they couldn’t deal with all my “junk” anymore and asked for me to be removed from their home. Sadly, they had fallen in love with my lovable, smiley, big-blue-eyed brother and began the steps towards adopting him. I masked my feelings behind a tough act, pretending not to care, but the truth was I did care. Deep inside, I was hurting terribly. I remember the last time I saw Johnny.  The day was dreary. Rain poured down from the sky, trying to outdo the flood of wounds and pain in my heart. As I stumbled toward the car with the caseworker, determined not to look back, Johnny dashed out of the house, down the white steps, and across the black-top driveway to me. He dug his arms into my legs and clung to me with all of his might. “Don’t leave me!” He pleadingly cried. Looking back, I wish I would have whispered, “Okay. I’ll stay with you.” But I didn’t. Instead I detached his little arms and stared down into his sad, round eyes. The sorrow in his rain drenched face nearly melted some of the ice that had begun to form on my heart but at that moment I heard the screen door screech open. I knew Mrs. Lorry was watching us. In that instant, all the resentment and antipathy came rushing back. Obdurately, I squared my shoulders and angrily pointed at the woman standing on the porch. “You either come with me or you stay here with her.”I nearly spit the last word out.  Johnny followed my finger with his eyes. He then grabbed my hand and tried to pull me towards the house. “No!” I screamed. “They don’t want me here. Don’t you understand? They’re not my parents and they’re not yours either!” The screen door closed with a bang. Startled, Johnny dropped my hand. He glanced towards the house and then back at me. His forehead crinkled into lines and his eyes dropped to the ground. “Fine,” I said defiantly. “Abandon me, just like mom and dad.” I darted to the caseworker’s car and clumsily climbed in. As we turned out of the long driveway, I caught a glimpse of Johnny in the car’s side mirror. He stood there soaked and helpless. I now wish I would have jumped out of the car and returned to him, but I didn’t.

                By the time I turned eleven I had bounced in and out of three foster homes and was living in my fourth. Because I had crossed state lines and since Johnny’s adoption had been a closed adoption, I had completely lost all contact with my little brother. School continued to be a struggle. I remember the loneliness of the first day of middle school. Sitting alone at lunch, I purposely stared through anyone who approached me. I didn’t try to make friends. “What’s the point?” I remember thinking. “I probably won’t be here next year.” Don’t get me wrong, I feverishly longed for friends but I was scared to open my heart, or be vulnerable, and then get hurt again, so instead I locked up and built a protective wall around myself.

                Over the course of the next two years I bounced through more foster homes and when I reached thirteen, my caseworker shook her head and mournfully said, “We’ve run out of options.” She dropped me off at a group home for hard to place foster children. It was a dreary, dismal place which held a gloomy, forlorn air. I remember the disheartening welcome I received from one of the kids who lived there. With a cruel nod he mocked, “Happy dooms-day. Once you land in this place you’ll never have a real family. This is the system’s last resort. It’s where all the “problem kids” go.” Outwardly, I coldly shook off his words as if they didn’t bother me, but deep down they fiercely gripped me. Stifling my tears that night, I buried my head in the strange, new pillow. “Oh!” I cried inwardly. “Why? Why? Why?” The hopelessness of my situation closed in and the tears I believed had dried up long ago continued to flow. At that moment, I had just one wish. I wished someone would hug me…yet I knew the boy was right. This was the last resort for “hard to place kids”. I knew I would never really be loved. Upon reflection, l think I could almost feel the pounding of hammers in my heart as my wall of protection continued to isolate me. My miserable feelings swirled round and round inside of me and out of sheer emotional exhaustion I fell asleep.

                By fifteen, any last, clinging hopes of ever being blessed with real friends or a real family had entirely vanished. My wall of emotional protection had grown to such an extent that I fatally doubted anyone would ever be able to break through. Continually, I became more and more torpid, irresponsible, detached, and despondent. I was my caretaker’s least favorite and I almost delighted in being so. I viewed my life as an utter wreak so I seriously didn’t care what I did. I now see giving up was stupid and cowardly. I should have pressed on, or something, but I didn’t.

                Like most other older foster kids, my eighteenth birthday was a huge event. Because my caretaker was so relived to finally have me out from under the roof, or so I thought, a party was thrown in my honor. To spite everyone, I didn’t show up. Fearing an awkward goodbye the next morning, I snuck out into the darkness the night of my birthday. I remember my final look back at that bleak house. Memories came rushing back in heavy torrents. Missed birthdays, disappointments, failures in high school, my non-existent diploma…the weightiness of it all nearly made me stumble. But what I remember the most is the knowing that I could never return to that house or any I had ever known.

                It’s now been six months since my eighteenth birthday. I live on the dangerous downtown streets, which are infested with rats, germs, criminals, and gangs. Everything is dark and dirty. The whirling, churning recollections that have haunted me these past few months have confused me and yet I’ve emerged with a fervent passion to turn my life around. But it’s all over now. I’m sick. I’m dying. I know it. I just wish that sometime during those hard, harsh years I would’ve let someone through my wall or that someone would have helped me tear it down, but now it’s too late.

         It all started one day in my 5th-grade class. My teacher gave us a writing assignment as she always does every week. When she assigned an assignment, she always gave us an organizer to help us develop ideas on what to write. To be honest, I never enjoyed those writing assignments.

        One day in January of last year, however, something was different from all the other writing papers that I had done so far. Strangely enough, I was kind of looking forward to the writing project since the topic of the essay was refreshing and interesting to me. For the essay, my teacher told us to write about what we wanted to be when we get older. I was so excited because I already knew the answer to that question. Still now, my future goal is the same: I want to serve the State of Kansas as a senator.

         As always, the writing assignment came with an organizer that had many questions. One of those asked who my role model was, but I did not know how to answer that question. Surprisingly, my teacher noticed that I was struggling with that question. She suggested that I contact the office of state senator Tom Hawk and learn about what it was like to be a senator. I sent him an email with a few questions about what a senator does in office, how many years you could be in office, and how the Senate was formed. A week later, his office replied to my mom and asked if I wanted to page for Senator Tom Hawk. Of course, my answer was YES! I was so excited to go because I have never been to the capitol building before. I knew this was going to be the best experience in my life.

        A week later I arrived at the capitol building in Topeka and worked as Mr. Hawk’s page. It was a great learning experience. I had opportunities to go around the building and do errands for the other senators as well as observe what senators do for the State of Kansas. I really enjoyed going inside the courtroom and listening to what I would hopefully be doing in the next 20-25 years from now. From that day forward, I felt motivated to work as hard as I can until I achieve my dream.

        In about 25-30 years from now, I see myself at the capitol building in Topeka, Kansas. Many people dream about being someone great or doing something big at some point in their lives, but only a handful of them achieve their dream. I can just imagine how hard it will be to become an elected senator and how many failures I would experience before getting there. Luckily, I have learned a lot about disappointment through basketball.

        For the past three months (December – February), my basketball team (the Monarchs) practiced every Saturday and we had games every Sunday. Every game and every practice we improved our technique and communication, and so I thought we could win a majority of our games. It turns out that we were not good enough and we ended the season without winning a single game. Despite these losses, my coach and my team worked very hard and shocked our parents (as well as ourselves) at the final game by scoring 14 points. We still didn’t win that last game, but it was improvement! “Do not be afraid of greatness some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon em’” from William Shakespeare. Many great people like Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. went through things unimaginable, but they did not let those things bring them down and quit. I have already signed up for a basketball clinic to be prepared for the next season.

        I am imagining a beautiful future for Kansas, a place that is much more innovative and interesting than now. My family has traveled to many parts of the state for my older siblings’ extra-curricular activities. I am always thinking about how big Kansas is and how poor many small towns look like. Recently I did a research project with my classmates about a “future city” and learned how small and large cities across the globe are inventing their future through innovative technologies and ideas. Likewise, I would like to experiment with new technologies and ideas for Kansas’ future. We added many things to our “future city” like a hyper loop, air traffic, and mega towers. I think in the future of Kansas there will be these things and much more.

        I would like Kansas to be a fun place for families and tourists. For vacation, my family often goes to Colorado and I think I know why: there are not many interesting places to visit in Kansas. I am dreaming of many new attractions. My dad loves hiking and I would like to see beautiful hiking trails all over Kansas and many interesting things to do along the trails. One of the ideas that I had in mind was a petting zoo. All animals that don’t have a home would come here and live happily ever after. To get in the petting zoo, you wouldn’t have to pay to enter but we would accept donations. If one of our visitors would like one of our precious animals, it would be very simple.

         One day I would like to invite a 5th-grade girl from Amanda Arnold Elementary School to be my page and to give her an opportunity to learn what senators do at the capitol building in Topeka. I want to make the future something that everyone can look forward to. I don’t want the future to be the same as now, but I want it to be better than ever. We all can live in a better community but that will never happen if can’t make the right decisions at the right time. I want to make everyone proud of where they live now. We want to change Kansas and our community for the better to create a happier future for everyone.

In a small cube, no longer than twenty-five meters each side, there is a civilization. It doesn’t care what goes on outside their cube: they’ve never thought about what’s outside. They believe this is all there is, only their cube, nothing more, nothing less. And why shan’t they? This has all they need, and all they think they will need; there’s no need to make more technology. They know where everything is, what with the size of their world. In the high corner of the box, there sits an object. The people don’t care what it is. To them, it just is. It hasn’t caused them harm yet, and they believe that it can’t, and never will. The thing moves in a strange, seemingly random pattern. It makes noises, but they have no immediate pattern. As with all civilizations, this people has a language, but it isn’t like any other language. They have no words for “up,” “down,” “left,” “right,” “forward,” or “backward.” They know the positions of things by the walls; they say not “to the right wall,” but “to wall(r).” Although they have no word for wall, because with all their neighbors in such a close distance, and so little territory, they have never thought to protect their stuff with walls. The walls have their own, individual, unique name. They have no word for “civilization:” There’s none other than themselves, and why bother creating a word for multiple of something, if there is only one? They can’t think of other groups, because the thought has never crossed their mind, and can’t ever cross their minds, because there’s nothing that would ever prompt them to. They have no word for “light.” Light is omnipresent in their world, from sources invisible to them, yet bright enough and spread enough to light up their world. There’s no need to say light; they don’t think about how it affects the world. This civilization is doomed to this fate indefinitely; they cannot think outside the box. They are trapped not by the walls, but by themselves, their own minds, their own thoughts (or lack thereof.) They weren’t put here for a reason; in fact, they weren’t even put here. This is a unique civilization, evolving in this cube. There is nothing to them but this cube; this is it. This isn’t anything special: it’s just life. All reason, all importance, anything that is real is only in here. There is nothing else. They don’t need anything more. There are three ways they can free themselves: They run out of space for something, such as bodies or food or corpses. One of the slight mutations that inevitably occurs during reproduction creates a child who is able to think outside the box; he spreads his word, and the civilization escapes. An accident occurs, knocking the wall ever so slightly apart. They can ask the thing in the corner to help. But none of these options would work. Each one has their own problems. Problem number one: They can’t run out of space. The math doesn’t work like that. Their reproduction rate prevents any form of severe overpopulation. They have their population ups and downs, but it all settles out in the end. And if there’s never overpopulation, then there can never be too much food. For the last one, the corpses of the dead decompose quick enough that there’s never going to be too many corpses in the ground, especially with the first two. Problem number two: Mutations are nonexistent. Everyone is too related to each other. This means that they can’t mutate into a philosopher who frees them. Problem number three: The walls are too thick. It would take an explosion to break down the walls, and they’re too stupid to develop gunpowder, let alone blow something up. They don’t experiment; they think everything's been discovered. There’s no use in experimenting, because nothing interesting will happen, so you may as well not do it. Problem number four: Narrators cannot interfere with the flow of a story. When that happens, it completely screws the story over. A narrator interfering with the story will make the characters question who they are, and the concept of free will. This easily transforms any good piece of fiction into a philosophy book, and no one likes reading a philosophy book. Furthermore, as has been stated before, they are too stupid to get that idea. The only way that they could get that idea is if he dropped the piece of paper that he just finished. Which he did. This story is really poorly constructed. Albeit there really don’t seem to be enough accidents in stories. So it could be proposed that this is following a great storyline, except that now the narrator is just complimenting himself. He’s also referring to himself in the third person. He’s even acknowledging it. Oh well. At least the creatures in the box can’t read english. So it seems that this is the end of the story. Except you know this isn’t over. Not in the slightest. No no no. If we look back at the creatures, that paper the narrator (who is still referring to himself in the third person) dropped jump-started a chain of philosophy that ultimately led to the escape of the civilization. One of the first conversations of this era went something like this: “Did this sheet?” “Thing.” “But move only it.” “It do more?” This conversation led to the spread of this news. So they thought “Maybe is more not than think.” So they came up with words such as “light,” “civilization,” “crops,” etcetera. (Translated in their language, of course.) But they didn’t just come up with new nouns, oh no. Heck, their language got a lot more complex. They had verbs, adjectives, adverb...really all parts of speech (although interestingly, there are no articles whatsoever.) Because they hadn’t thought to have each sound of each word represented, the writing system that they came up with for this language was a logography. Well, maybe that’s not the correct word. Instead, each symbol changes based on somethings that vary in the word, such as personage in verbs, or adjective of a noun. Similarly, similar things have similar symbols. It would be pointless to transcribe the sounds of the language into the Latin alphabet, because, having evolved separately from us, they hadn’t developed a “mouth” in the traditional sense. Therefore, their sounds that they had come up with would be, if not impossible, at least requiring at least two people or a surgery. The paper drop also caused the people of the box to think outside the box—literally. A completely different person saw the paper drop and thought “Not occur zero! More not?” So they chose to experiment. What happens when you mix these three powders? Ooo, big red thing! What if I mix it different? Bigger red thing! What if I really mi OW OW OW. If you hadn’t realized yet, this person had discovered gunpowder. Others saw what they did, and decide to try it for themselves. Before too long, everyone was exploding. To sum it up nicely, they busted out of the cube. And there wasn’t anything. They were on a desolate world. There was nothing around them. All that was around them was sand. There were no trees, no vegetation. There was nobody who could help them. They were stranded on this desolate land. There was a reason that cube had been created. It was to preserve the life of this world they were on. But, slowly, all in that box died. And eventually, new life forms evolved in the cube. They shouldn’t have left their cube. It was their only hope, their oasis. The world around them had died, and frankly, it was dangerous just to be outside, because of the way the world had died. They were alone in this world. Or were they?

"I can't believe it, I just can't!", cried Lea, the tips of her ears turning deep crimson, never a good sign. "From the moment I met you, Jay, I have not lived a single day when you didn't get us in trouble!"

But her friend was too absorbed by his iPhone to worry about their current situation.

"Relax...", he said, eyes still glued to the screen. "We'll find them in no time."

The girl, fed up, snatched the phone from his hands.

"What do you need WiFi for anyway?" Her eyebrows immediately lifted. "I've been waiting here just so you could get yourself some shoes?! You said this couldn't wait!"

"I meant it! They just went on sale, I couldn't miss this chance. Anyway, I ended up picking the black ones, do you think..."

"When will this get to your tiny brain?! I don't care about your stupid shoes! All I want is to find our class ASAP."

Jay was about to say that there was no reason to worry, but reconsidered after a few seconds of staring at the humongous crowds in the hall of the Cupertino Institute of Technology. He realized that finding even the 6'3" tall Martin may prove difficult.

Hoping to prevent another one of Lea's panic attacks, Jay pretended to glimpse their teacher in the crowds and yanked his friend around a corner and through an arbitrary door, not noticing the “staff only” sign. They found themselves in a large, dim lit, dusty room full of sophisticated-looking machinery and computers. Scattered around the floor were boxes of tangled cables, misplaced tools and pieces of scientific equipment.

"I don't know who you saw down here, but it definitely wasn't Mrs. Connolly," Lea remarked. "Let's get out of here."

But Jay wasn't listening. He was standing motionless, eyes fixed on a curious structure before him. A steel frame, not much bigger than a door, placed on a slightly raised platform with a ramp leading up to either side. To an ordinary mind, it was simply an unfinished project abandoned by a scientist, who didn’t get past the framework. But Jay had read more sci-fi comic books  than he could count and it immediately got his brain running. Could it really be, at least a prototype of …

"Hello?"

Jay snapped out of his trance.

"Do you see this?!" He exclaimed pulling out his phone again, "Absolutely spectacular! I have to get a picture!"

"I find nothing spectacular in a rusty old door frame. And we really should be going."

Jay, however, had other ideas. He leaped over a barrier surrounding the invention and in a matter of seconds was on the nearest ramp.

Lea felt the urge to yell at him to come back but a sudden feeling that something terrible was about to happen to her best friend spurred her to jump onto the platform herself to stop him from moving any closer to the mysterious device.

But as she stepped in front of the machine her panic was overtaken by a completely different sensation - curiosity.  All of a sudden, the thing she wanted most in the world was to know what the unfinished invention so heartlessly abandoned in a dusty storage room was intended for. And so, when Jay moved closer to the frame, she did not object, but followed. Together they stepped through the door.

A sudden chill permeated their bodies, sending shivers down their spines. Blue sparks of electricity flew from the frame, crackling softly. Jay's head throbbed and he felt as if someone were cutting his brains open. Lea felt a slight shock to her ankle, immediately bringing her back to her senses.

"What are we doing?” she gasped. “We could have gotten electrocuted!"

"Yeah, let's get out of here," Jay replied, mustering only a faint whisper.

                                            *  *  *

“Ms. Helen Connolly please report to the box office, two students are waiting for you.”

The loud announcement sent echoes through the building.

"Don't worry guys, you will be reunited with the rest of your class in no time." assured the young security officer, smiling brightly.

Soon enough they saw Mrs. Connolly storming in their direction, face as red as a tomato and drops of sweat on her forehead. Her eyes were daggers piercing through the kids' bodies. Teeth clenched, she murmured a few choice words about never knowing such irresponsible children and gestured to follow her.

The rest of the class was sitting around a huge model of an atom, subject to the tour guide's futile attempt at explaining the photoelectric effect.

"Here are our Hansel and Gretel." exclaimed the lecturer. "Come have a seat next to Gavin."

They both stared at him with puzzled faces.

"Who's Gavin?" Jay blurted out and a few classmates giggled.

"This is really not the time for joking," snapped Mrs. Connolly.

Fortunately for them, there were only two seats left-next to the tall Martin. Lea and Jay took their spots, exchanging nervous looks.

A few minutes into the lecture, almost all the students were nodding off. Daydreaming about his recent internet purchase, Jay found himself staring at one of his classmates - a skinny Asian girl with round glasses dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans. She didn't look any different than the rest of the class, yet something didn’t seem right. Then it hit him: he'd never seen her before!

Why would some random kid be on our class field trip?

Jay poked his friend in the shoulder, "Hey Lea, who’s that sitting next to Vanessa?”

"I-I don’t know, " she hesitated. "Must be new, I guess."

But her mind would not rest until she found the right answer.

When the lecture finally came to an end, they immediately took action and approached the mysterious girl.

"Hey I don't think we’ve met, are you new to our class?"

"Nice one, Jay," the girl chuckled in response. "We've only been in the same class for like.. 3 years?"

                                     *  *  *

"We're extremely exhausted, that's all. That would explain the memory loss." Lea concluded.

"But this is not just memory loss, it it? For all we know, Martin's name is now Gavin, Adrian is not in our class and instead there's some new girl, Shannon. It can't be a coincidence that we have the same wrong memories."

"What's your explanation, then?"

"There's only one. When we walked through the teleporter..."

"The what?!"

"Well, you know, the big frame."

"That was a teleporter?!" Lea grabbed her head in disbelief. "Well, even if it was one, it obviously didn't work. We ended up in the same place."

"But did we? I think it actually did work and that we got transported to..." he took a deep breath, "...a parallel universe."

It took almost half an hour to explain what he meant. And another hour to convince her of this possibility. But to Jay, the conclusion was plain as day. He had read about it in multiple magazines and websites. Every choice you make, every second of your life, the universe, or rather the “multiverse”,  splits into multiple parallel universes, each one based on a different choice. As the books called it, “differing only by a single quantum event”. It only made sense that the Door (this was the first word he thought of when he saw the teleporter) was a portal to an alternate reality.

"So what do we do?" She finally asked.

"Well, there's only one way to reverse this."

                                    *  *  *

"I can't believe we're doing this again." Lea sighed, looking through the metal frame, paralyzed at the thought of walking through the Door.

"Don't worry. If this doesn't kill us, Connolly will take care of it for sure."

"Thanks for the pep talk, Jay."

They counted off and stepped forward.

Immediately, their bodies turned to ice. Their internal organs felt as if they were being squished an elephant. But they pushed on, miraculously mustering the energy to take one more step. And just as suddenly as it appeared, the pain was gone and the kids stumbled to the other side of the ramp.

The second they stepped outside, they knew they didn't make it home.

The hallway was crammed with people, dressed a bit unusually, but all alike: bell-bottomed jeans, bomber jackets and funny, conical hats. All around were shops and fast food restaurants Lea and Jay had never heard of. On one end stood a huge screen displaying ads for some new electronics, and in front a retailer was demonstrating the functions of something that resembled a round tablet. The place was extremely loud, with salespeople calling to attract clients, who had to shout to be heard over the advertisements playing from the loudspeakers.

As the kids tried to internalize what they had just observed, a group of students form their class passed by. Spotting Lea and Jay, they exchanged looks of surprise.

"There you guys are! You better report to Connolly, you're in so much trouble."

"Watch out though, she turns absolutely monstrous if someone interrupts her shopping." warned Shannon.

"And where did you guys get these funny clothes?"

Nearly every person they asked for help seemed too preoccupied with shopping to pay them any attention. A young woman offered to walk the kids to the information desk, but received dirty looks from her friends, who insisted they have more important issues at the moment.  After an hour of fruitless searching for their teacher amongst the shoppers, the kids returned to the dusty room.

“We’re hopeless.” Lea declared, plopping down on the cold, metal ramp.  “We’re stuck in some alternate reality, and the only person we thought was looking for us is most likely more concerned with the best deal on new kitchen supplies.”

Jay put his arm around her shoulder, trying to find the right words to console his friend, when she stood up and said:

“We need to get out of here, I can’t stand these people, behaving like a bunch of morons. They turned the Institute into a shopping mall!”

Jay reminded her there was a high chance they would end up even farther away from home.”

“Wherever we go, it can’t be any worse than this.”

                                      *  *  *

Expecting a rough landing, they stretched out their arms to protect their heads from hitting the floor, but were surprised to find their hands deep in a pile of mud. Looking up, they saw a sea of bright-green leaves, ruffling softly in the breeze. The noble redwood giants shaded the rest of the forest, keeping a gentle eye over the smaller plants and creatures below.

A few minutes passed before Lea came to the realization that they must have landed in a universe, in which the Institute had never been built. Her deep thoughts were interrupted by a chill-sending screech of a sharp instrument on metal. She turned around to see Jay working gingerly with his pocket knife on a small engraving on the Door. As if he had felt her eyes on him, he answered her unstated question.

“I’m leaving a message.”

“For whom?”

“Ourselves. Our alternate selves, “ he said, finally taking his eyes off his work. “If I’m correct, every time we step through the door, another pair of us from the universe we travel to, comes here. But the Door doesn’t move. It’s a portal, so it has to be part of each of the universes. This led me to the idea that if we write something on here, parallel universes can see it.”

“So you’re hoping that our alternate selves figured out how to get back?”

“Actually, I think I figured it out myself.” he smiled proudly. “all we have to do is jump through the Door at the same time as the alternates that are currently in our home universe, and we’ll be teleported back to the Cupertino we know.”

Lea came closer to the Door, inspecting her friend’s work. Across one side of the fame, in lopsided handwriting, he had inscribed the words: THIS IS J AND L. SWITCH PLACES.

The only problem was that they needed to notify the correct alternates. After pondering in silence for what seemed like ages, Lea jumped up in jubilation.

“Jay, what was the delivery time for you shoes order?”

“Next day, why?”

                                       *  *  *

In about an hour, their masterpiece was finished. The message on the Door now said:

THIS IS J AND L. SWITCH PLACES IF YOU SEE PACKAGE OF BLACK JORDANS AT J HOUSE. CROSS MAY 15 5:00 PM.

And so there was nothing more to be done, the rest of the plan was left to their alternates. They collapsed on the ground, gazing blankly into the wilderness. The red and purple colors of the sky reminded them that night was nearing, and they were alone, deep in the woods, with no food or shelter.

“Well, you’re lucky I was once a Girl Scout” Lea remarked.

                                         *  *  *

This is it then, thought Jay. In a couple seconds we will be home. Or a million universes away...

Lea ran through the plan in her head again. All alternates see our message. Those that find black Jordans at Jay’s house are from our universe because that was the last choice we made before jumping through the door and the last separation of universes. They jump through at the same time as us and we switch places.

She let out a loud sigh. The time was nearing. Five. Four. Three. Jay took her hand, smiling reassuringly. Two. They took a running start, hearts pounding, threatening to burst forth from their chests. One. Eyes closed, they jumped through the door.

The agony they felt as they crossed the frame was indescribable. A thousand needles pierced their bodies. Raging fire scorched their skin. Blue sparks shot out of the frame, dancing in the air, flying in all directions. Repeated shocks burned lightning-shaped scars across their flesh, and the heart was spitting out blood into the veins so fast it was on the verge of rupturing.

Before they had time to cry out, the pain ceased and the kids broke through to the other side of the Door. They fell to the ground in the dingy maintenance room, unconscious.

                                     *  *  *

After a tiring day at school, where Lea had constantly been asking Martin what his name was and if he knew a girl named Shannon, Jay was finally sitting at the dinner table. Never in his life was he so happy to taste his mother’s spinach and mashed potatoes, and in the heat of the moment completely forgot about his new shoes, until his dad mentioned a package that had arrived for him. Immediately after dinner, he darted into his bedroom to try them on. He ripped the sealing tape off the box and flipped the lid open.

At that instant his world came crashing down. The twinkle of excitement left his eyes, his gaze became expressionless, vacant. He felt his heart sink so low, he already knew he’d never dig it out.

The shoes were red.