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“Checkmate!”
“But thats your k-”
“CHECKMATE! I know I won. You're just a sore loser.” I told my friend Eleanor. She did win, but she always wins. So I think I should win this time. It's just fair, I mean, she can't always win.
“You are so obnoxious” Eleanor said. Her face tensed up. Anyone could see how annoyed she was.
“Eleanor! Your mom is here!” my mom yelled from across the room.
“Okay! Bye June!”
I walked back to the chess set and put all the pieces away. I sat on the couch and grabbed the remote. I just started watching this show. It's really good. After maybe 4ish episodes, my mom made me come upstairs and go to bed.
“Good morning sleepy head!”
“I don't wanna wake up”
“Good morning grumpy head”
“You're a grumpy head.” I slowly trudged downstairs. I opened the fridge and got some milk. I put the cereal on the table and grabbed my spoon. I heard my moms footsteps going down the stairs.
“June! It's time to get on the bus!”
“Already?! I just woke up!” I slowly got up from the seat. I swung my backpack on my shoulder and got out.
I heard a voice coming from the back of the bus. I was gonna wait to check it out, because the bus had already started moving, but just then my friend Ellanor popped up and plopped down next to me.
“I HATE Zoey!” For all the time I've known Ellanor, she always hated Zoey, and I had no idea why. She was always super mean to Zoey, and I know it's wrong, but Ellamor is my friend. I’m sure she has a good reason to dislike Zoey. so I just said,
“Yeah, I hate her too” the bus doors opened and we got out.
“Alex?”
“Here!”
“June?”
“Here!”
“Zack?”
“Here!”
“Zoey?”
“Here!”
“Ellanor?”
“Here!”
“Open to page 203 in your math books,” my teacher said.
I saw Ellanor and Zoey raise their hands in unison.
“What?”
“Can I go to the bathroom?”
“Me too.”
“So normally the rule is go in pairs, but every time Zoey and Eleanor are alone, one of you gets injured. June, can you go with them?” Of course I said yes. Ellanor is my friend and I don't want her to get hurt.
Nothing. Then screams. I had heard the loudest, blood curdling screams. I rushed in as fast as my body let me. I knew something really bad had happened.
The two screams turned into three as I entered and saw what had happened. Trash from the ground was flying up into a glowing ball. My hair was pulling towards it. I felt my feet sliding. I couldn't stop. Was this death? Was this the end? As I approached the light, I felt fear as I had never before. But then it stopped. It felt like a dream. Was it? As I slowly regained consciousness, I felt pain in my knee. It felt wet. I think it's blood. I felt more blood on my head. I screamed as loud as I could. if my head was bleeding, then that's bad. Really bad. Also I hate blood, which makes it worse.
As I reached up to touch my head, I heard Ellanor scream.
“MY ARM!!!” I sighed in relief. It wasn't my head! Her arm was on me! Wait, she’s bleeding!
“Oh my gosh, are you okay!”
“Nooooo!”
I realized another body was here. “Hey, it's Zoey.”
“I don't care! I'm bleeding!” I ignored her and shook Zoey.
“Hey. hey. Hello? Wake up.” time for desperate measures. AKA, I screamed. That seemed to work.
“What the ####? Where am I?”
“I don’t know. Oh hey what's that?” in the distance we saw a brown deer. the creature squeaked and ran away. I think it knew we saw it. “I'm gonna chase it! Ow!” I immediately fell over. I forgot about my leg and the pain came rushing back like a speeding train.
Zoey took off her jacket and wrapped it around my leg.
“Thank you” she gave a quick thumbs up in response. “It feels a lot better.”
“Hey I don't really like either of you, but I don't want you guys to die. I see some smoke, which means people.”
“Or a forest fire.”
“Ellanor, you're being dramatic. I’m sure It's fine. And anyway what else are we gonna do? Just sit here? Nope.” as I got up I felt more pain in my legs. I know I had to endure it, but I really didn't want to.
Ellanor reluctantly stood up.
“Can you help me walk?” My leg is really sore now.
“Okay.” I grabbed onto Zoeys arm. “Come on, let's go.”
Ellanor twisted her head to face a large rock around 35 feet from us. “Hey, it's the weird deer thing from before!” again it gasped and ran away. This time we were a bit closer and could make out the details. It looked like a centaur, but the top half was fuzzy as well. It looked more like a deer than a horse. That was weird. Anyway, let's go now. It looks like we're close.”
“Wow! This place is like an ancient village!” Again, I heard screams, but they did not belong to any of us. Now a scream that did belong to us appeared. The locals were all strange creatures. Blue skin, horns, tails. We saw more of the deer creatures from before. They were just as terrified as we were.
Just as we were about to get out, an old lady with a cane waddled towards us. She was only the size of my lower leg.
“Oh you silly cats. Are you lost?” what? I'm not a cat! With surprising strength, especially for someone that small, she picked all three of us up and put us in a basket! Everyone was too surprised to do anything, so we just kinda went along with it.
We arrived at what we assumed was her home. She dropped us on the ground like we were a ball.
“Wow…” many cats, dogs, bunnies, birds, and many other pets ran around.
“Oh you three must be hungry.” She pinched our cheek like an over affectionate grandma. As she went into the kitchen to grab us some food, Zoey said, “So what do you think we should do now?” We thought for a second before Ellanor said,
“Maybe we can just leave when she's not looking?” Zoey thought about it for a second before replying.
“It could work. We need more details though. What will we do when we get out? We can’t just magically go back home!”
“Wait, June you're allergic to cats!” I forgot about that! I felt my nose twitching, my eyes tearing up. I sneezed. Then again, and again.
Eleanor and Zoey looked really worried. “Oh no there's cat hair all over you! Get away cat!”
Before we could talk again, the old lady came back. Wait no, that's not her! This person was even smaller.
“Hello! My name is Marcy! Did my grandma take you? Sorry her eyesight isn't the best. She does this all the time. Hey, your nose looks red. Are you allergic? I have some medicine in the bathroom if you need it.”
She said it all very fast. Not inhumanly fast, but rather quick.
My nose really hurt so I said yes to the medicine, but after Marcy left, Ellanor said,
“Are you sure? You saw the houses. They look like they're from 500 B.C.E. who knows what they think is medicine! They probably eat, like, frog eyeballs or something!”
“I'm sure it's fine. Also," I paused to sneeze. “Why do they have normal animals?” We all thought about it for a second, before the little old lady came back with food.
One of the cats jumped on and tried to pry the food away from her.
“Oh my mittens! This food isn't for you! This is for your new sister!”
If I wasn't so allergic I would have found it very cute. Speaking of my allergies, my nose felt like it was on fire, a sneeze begging to come out like an active volcano.
“Grandma! You do this too much! They aren't animals! You really need to get your prescription updated. I'm surprised no one stopped you from taking them this time! We already have more animals then we know what to do with, we can’t take care of three more people!” To my surprise, but also excitement, the girl from before came back! She was carrying what I assumed to be medicine, which my nose was incredibly thankful for.
“Oh my! I’m sorry dear, I had no idea! I am so sorry about this. Please, have some treats as an apology.” We were still a bit shaken, but we took the candy and quickly walked out.
“Hey wait!”
“Huh?”
“You forgot the medicine!” Even though I was away from the cats, I still had an incredibly stuffy nose.
“Thank you so much!” I grabbed the container and was about to swallow it, but then I looked at it. It looked like stuff we had at home. And if it was, it would taste absolutely disgusting.
“Do you have any water to swallow?”
“You don’t like medicine?” What…? How does she like it? Eleanor and Zoey looked like they were thinking something similar, judging by the astounded and disgusted faces that gazed directly in Marcy’s eyes.
“Oh wait! I never got your names!”
We were hesitant to reply after this FREAK said she liked medicine, but quietly we said our names.
“June.”
“Zoey.” Elleanor said nothing, so I said her name for her.
“She's Elleanor.”
Marcy suddenly gained a look of amazement in her eyes. “Are you guys humans? I've heard of stuff from other realms leaking into this one, and apparently you three are the first humans to actually come here! This is crazy! Wow, I can't believe I'm one of the first people to see a human! this is amazing!”
Zoey told her, “Yeah we are humans. Do you know a way to help us get back?”
Marcy asked, “Well how did you get here?” We recalled the story to her. “Well if you came through a portal, you could probably go the other way.”
“It's a very simple plan, but logically it should work. How will we find a portal though?”
“Well there would be a strong energy from the portal. I mean, it’s bending dimensions, it's bound to be an extremely strong energy force. If we make something that can detect the exact energy that the portal produces, we should be able to track it down.”
“Can we make that?” I was also wondering if that was actually something we could do.
“Of course! We will need help though. I know someone who knows a lot about this stuff. He lives up the mountain. It's gonna take a bit to get there though. It's 3 miles. I would ask my grandma to drive, but like you saw, she can't really see well.”
I am really tired now. We had been walking for almost half an hour.
“Are we there yet?” Eleanor seemed to think the same.
“Actually we're almost there! Just over the mountain.”
I facepalmed so hard I wouldn't be surprised if my hand went into my head. “I am not climbing a mountain.” Ellanor looked like she would actually facepalm inside her face.
Marcy looked frustrated. “You will if you wanna get home.”
We finally got there. Atop the mountain, we saw a large tower made of bricks. The roof had a texture of straw, but I could see metal underneath the upper layer. It looked rather new, but upon a closer look, I noticed scratches covering most of the bricks. Marcy walked in front of us and knocked on the door.
“Hello?” As the door slid open, we heard screams in the distance. Marcy seemed unfazed by this however, and promptly headed inside.
“Wait! Marcy, I heard screams! Don't go in there!” Ellanor screamed at Marcy. The three of us were too scared to go inside, before Zoey mustered up the courage to venture inside. Me and Eleanor were too scared to go in. Who knows what could happen?
A few minutes later they both returned. Along with a walking printer. The printer in question was screaming at the top of its lungs. Does it have lungs? Well I guess we found the source of the screams.
“This is Pan. They're a printer. Watch this! Hey Pan, how do we make a tracker to locate a portal leading to earth?” “Pan” started making a noise that sounded like a printer printing things. Which made sense, considering you know, he is one. I saw a paper siding out of him.
“What, is it going to have the answer written on it?” Zoey seemed doubtful, her sarcasm evidently showing that, but it was a screaming printer, and this was a magical fantasy world, so I wasn't questioning much.
“He prints wisdom.” Marcy grabbed the paper and read it aloud. “Atop the mountain, atop the tree, atop a nest, find a bee. One wing two wing, no more no less, now onto the very last step. Where oranges grow but now no more, you’ll find like no other. Now a flying orange, to lead to ruin, but then home.” my eyes went to the small tree. A few feet from the house. “Hey, that's a tree atop a mountain!” I ran over to it. It was a small climb, then I saw the bird nest. I looked in and saw a bee. “Guys I found it!” Thankfully it was dead. I don’t want to pry the wings off a live one. I hopped down and showed the wings to Marcy. “Now we can go look for that orange.”
As we walked across the field, we saw a few small trees. Many purple oranges were scattered across the ground. A large sign that had been ruined with age stretched across the sky. It was hard to make out the letters, but it looked like it said, “Sadie’s Orange farm.”
’s “Here we are. My grandma used to take me here a lot when I was younger, but it went out of business a few years ago, and now it’s kinda messed up. The lady who runs it is very nice. It really sucks that it no longer runs, I love their oranges!” Marcy looked very nostalgic.
“So the poem said that we need to find an orange like no other. Where would that be?” I pondered on that for a second, but Eleanor beat me to it.
“Is that it?” Amongst the sea of purple, a single speck of orange glowed like it was calling us to it. Marcy ran into the orange glow. As she picked it up, it was almost as if it was saying exactly what to do. As if it possessed all the wisdom in the world. Marcy placed the orange in my hand.
“So now I place the wings on?” She nodded knowingly. I placed them on but they just fell off.
“Here. It’s my hair band.” I put them all together, and the already glowing orange glowed with a blinding light. I felt it fly out of my hands. As the light died down, I saw it fluttering with its small wings. It filled me with a new hope. It began to fly away.
“hey come back! We need you to get home!” I was worried we might lose it. Marcy set my fears to rest though.
“We need to follow it to the portal, remember? Come on, let's go!” We all began to follow the orange.
We almost lost the orange over a hill, but then we heard a huge roar from over the hill, so we began to hurry.
“WHAT IS THAT!?!?!” We joined each other in a chorus of screams.
Marcy looked more scared then all of us combined. “No no no no no no no no! This can’t happen! It’s too early!”
I asked in befuddlement, but still scared out of my mind, “What?”
Marcy turned her head to me, looking like death was upon us, “every 100 years, half of the population turns into a terrifying, bloodthirsty, mindless monster. No one knows how or why it happened. All we know is that it happens.”
“Wait, the monster is trying to eat the orange!”
Eleanor was right, the monster was attacking the orange!
“No!” I rushed in on impulse, and kicked the beast in the leg. This did nothing but agitate the monster. Its massive head loomed closer. I felt the drool drip down onto the cold earth below my feet. My heart beat so fast I felt it would burst. I told myself to go, but my feet seemed glued to the ground
“the orange!” I looked to the side of the creature, and sure enough, the orange was fluttering away. My feet now were longing to dash away. So I took off and gave chase. Eleanor and Zoey followed shortly. We saw a portal. It was the same as the one we came from, but this time, we were overjoyed.
Again, I felt gravity distort. The grass stood straight up, and my feet slid towards it. But this time I let it happen. Then, on the other side, all I saw was darkness. This wasn't home.
“Ellanor! Zoey!” I saw their unconscious bodies floating in the abyss. Then I heard a chuckle.
“Pffh! You’re funny. They're in the mindscape. Living out their worst fear over and over and over. It's pretty fun to be the reason someone cries, isn't it?” I stared directly into their eyes. Eye that had no mercy or kindness. Eyes that treat lives as a toy to be played with.
“No! That's not fun!” I screamed. But I may as well have been yelling into a wall.
“Wow, buzzkill much? Actually, how about you go there?” they gestured at Ellanors head. Before I was able to say anything, I felt like I was being sucked into her head.
“Do you wanna hear my singing?” I saw Elleanor, but she was younger. We were in our old kindergarten classroom, Eleanor started to sing a song I used to make her listen to when we were younger. It wasn’t the best, but it was pretty good for their age.
“Yucky!” Zoey said, sticking her tongue out. Eleanor looked defeated and began to cry. I heard more sniffing coming from my left. It was Eleanor as I knew her. 12 years old. I ran to comfort her and hugged her as tight as I could. We watched the memory change. Now we were on the playground.
“Oh I remember this! This is when we became friends!” Eleanor looked less happy than me, and I would soon find out why.
little Eleanor went up to some boys. “Hello! Wanna be friends?”
The boys looked like she just asked them to wear a dirty pair of underwear on their heads.
“Ew, no. We’re only friends with cool people.” They walked over to the swings and little Eleanor ran to the big tree that was to the side of the park and started sobbing. Then little me showed up!
“Hey are you okay?
“No!” Eleanor said through her tears.
“Crybaby!” Wait, I never said that!
“Hey wait, you never said that!”
“I think the person who put us here is changing the memory.” Suddenly, the one I was talking about appeared!
“You caught me.” Now instead of being in a field, we were transported to the empty space from before I ventured into her mind. “Just making it a bit worse, you know.” I started to take in the void, and I noticed that there were several glowing orbs. They were the portals that traveled between dimensions. But these ones didn't pull me towards it like the other ones.
“Hey, wake up!” Eleanor kicked Zoey.
“Hey! Why would you kick her?” I started to really think about what Eleanor had done to Zoey in the past, and it started to wear on me how awful it all really was. Zoey had been badly injured in the past because of us, and I never even said anything. And for what? All because Eleanor was my friend? Zoey had been extremely nice to me, especially considering what a jerk I had been. She never deserved any of this. “I always let you bully Zoey because you were my only friend. I assumed that you had a reason. But Zoey has been with us on this journey, and she has been nothing but nice to us.” I needed an answer. If I was going to spend my life being a bully, I at least want a reason. It doesn't even need to be a good one, I just need closure.
“The memory. The one you saw? The first one is why I hate her. I know it's a dumb reason, but it took me a really long time to build up the confidence to show her, and when she said “yucky”, it made me feel the worst i’d ever felt in my life.” a tear emerged from her eye. It slowly fell down her face, and she wiped it away, but I could already see another one forming.
“Boring! I don’t have time for back stories." The guy from before looked like a bored child.
“What's your name?” it probably wasn't the best time to be asking, but i really needed to know.
“I don’t have one. If you really want, you can call me, huh, let me think of a name. Maybe Kleo? Yeah that sounds cool.”
“Okay “Kleo”, what's your deal, and why are you turning everyone into monsters?” for the first time Eleanor said something to him.
“Oh me? I'm just a simple chaos demon. Just love me some suffering. And the monsters? People can’t bring themselves to hurt them, sense they are their family and friends turned into horrific monsters, and to kill one would be killing their loved one as well. And when the monsters turn back to themself, they regain empathy and feel regret for all the people they killed! It's the perfect thing! They all feel so much pain and guilt! And don’t worry! I don’t have anything against this dimension, I do stuff like this in plenty of dimensions.”
“You are awful.” I glared at them, fuming. How was someone capable of doing this? Just then I heard a familiar squeak. It was the deer girl from earlier.
“Please come back! The monster is attacking Marcy! Please help!” oh no! We had forgotten about Marcy!
“Is she okay?”
“She is for now, but the monsters are very strong. I don’t know how long she can last.”
“Okay let's go.” I gave one last glance at Kleo. a warning symbol that meant, “don’t make it worse.”
We went back through the portal to their realm, but then I thought about Zoey.
“Hey, we need Zoey!” I stepped inside the portal, and Kleo smiled and said, “yeah, i wouldn't want to get mauled by some monster.”
“That's not why I'm here, idiot.” I grabbed Zoey's feet, and pulled her with me. This blank area had low gravity, so it was surprisingly easy. I dragged her to the portal and we went back down to the ground. The weight of her body came back to me, along with the gravity.
“Ouch! Huh? Where are we?”
“We're back in the town with the portal. We need to defeat the monster. Remember, the monsters are just people who have transformed, do not kill them, I repeat, do NOT kill them. Understood?” she nodded in agreement.
“Okay, let's go.”
“I'm here! Is everyone okay?” Marcy looked out of breath, but otherwise she was completely fine. “Come with us!”
Panting, she just says “okay.” She ran as fast as she could. The monster was shortly behind us, but when we went into the portal, the beast blinked, and then walked away. Apparently it thought we had vanished.
I turned to face Kleo, but Marcy did too. And the eye Kleo was gazing at, were ones filled to the brim with anger and sadness. Marcy was livid.
“I hate you with every ounce of my being. You are a despicable, awful, rotten piece of trash.” I could feel the anger resonating within her very soul. Then she did something that surprised everyone. She ran up to them, and she placed her small hands around his neck. Then before anyone knew what to do, we heard a crack. It came from their neck. She had managed to defeat a god with her bare hands. My eyes widened in fear and amazement. Was it really over?
“How-” Zoey and Eleanor also gasped in amazement.
“They aren't a god. They're human, like you guys. Here, this fell out of their pocket.” She handed me a diary, presumably written by Kleo. It appeared that they stapled many books together, making a massive abomination. I began to read it out loud.
Entry number 1.
There was a weird portal that moved me to some fantasy dimension. I've started a journal to keep track of things.
Entry number 6.
One of the locals let me stay at their house for a bit. They were nice.
Entry number 12.
I found a second portal. I entered, believing that it was a ticket back home. Instead I found an empty void space. It was filled with more portals.
Entry number 14.
This “void” space is nice. I may stay here.
Entry number 20.
I got bored and went into a portal. I found a little talking squirrel! It gave me a peanut to eat.
Entry number 25.
My memory is starting to get worse, was there something in the nut?
Entry number 132.
I have forgotten my name. I can’t remember anything now
Entry number 300.
This is the last page in my book. Might need to find a new one and attach it
Entry number 549.
I went into the portals again. I found a book with a gem attached to it. The book has instructions on how to use the gem. Apparently it lets you make anything a reality!
Entry number 672.
I killed someone today. I did it in self defense, but it felt good. I feel very bad about it.
Entry number 698.
I attempted murder today. It was a success. I felt awful, but it felt so good
Entry number 703.
I think the void stops me from aging.
Entry number 709.
I've discovered something called “the dreamscape.” it allows you to enter the mind of the victim, allowing you to see all of their biggest fears and secrets. It even allows you to enter your own mind!
Entry number 863.
I tried to use the gem, and to my shock, it worked! I can’t wait to use it!
Entry number 931.
I have unleashed a curse on a dimension.
Entry number 220081.
Three people came who looked like me! I wonder if they come from my dimension! I wish I remembered what I am.
I started to cry. they were evil, but they used to be a normal kid like us! But there were still so many questions! What was in that nut? Will we find the portal home? I expressed my thoughts by saying, “how will we get home?”
Ellanor looked confused, and said, “what do you mean? There's all the portals here.” her eyes widened as she realized what the vast scale of the void held for us.
Marcy wanted to help, so she said, “well it can’t hurt to try and see what some of them have.” she stuck her head inside, and said, “hey you guys have orange oranges right?
I was confused, but Zoey said yes first. “Well this one has that. Maybe this is your dimension.” Zoey walked up and put her head inside. And her gasp made me hopeful.
“Yes!” She got out and hugged me.
“Is it home?” my eyes widened, and my tears started to fade at the thought of going home. Her response was simply a nod, but it was the most meaningful thing I've ever heard.
“Wait!” Marcy interrupted this moment, but she looked like what she would say would solve all problems. “I'm going to go somewhere, please don’t go home yet. It’ll be like 20 minutes, okay?” we nodded and she hurried out.
“I'm back! Also, the monsters are back to being themselves. Just thought you should know.” Marcy was back, but this time she held pan in her arms. The printer from before. “Remember how he prints wisdom? Well there's something we need to know.” she took a deep breath, and said, “will we meet again?” once again a paper slides out.
“Many years later, the portal opens. Two people live.”
“What does that mean?” Zoey and Me were glad Ellanor said it, because we were all thinking it.
“I think it means that we will meet again, and this world and yours can work together.” I was so glad we would see each other again, I didn't notice the hand pulling me in for a hug.
“I’ll miss you until then.”