The Other World

By Ava and Zinnia 

“Ellie, time for breakfast,” Alica, my nanny, shouts from the kitchen. I head downstairs and into the dining room. 

“No Dad?” I ask. He never comes out of his office because he’s always working. I don’t even know what he's doing. My mom died in a car crash when I was 5, so it's just me, my dad, and my nanny.

“No, he’s still working,” she says. I sit down at the dining table, and Alica brings over my food. My plate is always filled with delicious food that Oliver, the chef, cooks. Today I had pancakes and hashbrowns with a small bowl of fruit on the side.

After I finish eating, I head to my room. It’s summer break, so I don’t have school. I’m going into the 2nd grade. I was supposed to hang out with my friends today but Amelia got sick. Amelia and I always joke that we are long lost sisters because we both have brown hair and blue eyes. She's my best friend. For her birthday we both got our ears pierced. It was scary.

When I open the door to my room, planning to just lay on my bed and call Amelia. Then I notice a bright shimmering coming from my closet, which is strange considering I don't have a light or window in there. I open the closet to find the shimmering coming from a small spot on my floor. I walk towards it, crouching down. I touch it. It feels like millions of tiny needles. I quickly move my finger. The light is so bright, I have to squint to look at it. It starts to get bigger, and it swallows all the clothes and toys in my room. Where are they going? I move back slowly and cautiously, afraid of what the light could be.

Eventually, the light stops growing. I look at it. It’s less bright now. I approach it cautiously and lean over it, trying to figure out what it is. I wonder if it goes somewhere and what it is. It must go somewhere or be coming from somewhere, right? If I squint, I can almost see the other side of it. I hover both of my hands over it, being careful not to fall in or touch it again. The light gets brighter again. Suddenly, I feel myself getting pulled towards it, a light tugging nothing too strong, like it’s a vacuum. It starts to pull more things into it and I almost fall in but I grab the wall. My grip starts to slip and I start to fall in. I try to grab the floor or anything but I can't get a good grip. 

As I fall in, I start to get a little light-headed. All I can see is something that looks like pink and bluish clouds. Where am I? Am I still on Earth? I fall through the clouds and I land on a soft patch of grass with a thump. When I have recovered from my fall, I take in my surroundings, noticing the furry animals that have gathered around. They look sort of like the animals on earth but some are blue or green or a different color. There are small trees and shrubs. There are also houses, which must be where the animals live; They look like the ones on Earth but scaled down. Three of the animals are talking to each other, or at least that is what it looks like. They must be the leaders. One of the animals approaches me, and I start to back away from it. It seems nice, but it could be dangerous. I don’t even know where I am or if I can trust them.

“Who are you?” I say although I doubt it can understand me. It looks at me, confused, but then it places something in front of me. I examine it. It’s a necklace. I think it wants me to put on the necklace. I pick it up, and the bunny-like thing just looks at me. I put it on, but I don’t feel any different. I guess it’s just a necklace. Suddenly, the bunny starts to talk, and I can understand it.

“Hello, human,” the bunny says. “My name is George.” What on earth is happening? Is this real? It can't be, can it? No, I must be dreaming or something. A bunny did not just talk to me, and I did not understand it. This is too confusing. “I know you must be in shock, I was the first time I met one of you. That was many years ago. What is your name?”

“Ellie.”

“You have a beautiful name.”

“How can I understand you?”

“I thought that would be obvious; it's the necklace you're wearing.”

“I get that part, sort of, but why can't I just put on a necklace and understand animals on earth?”

"Well, I suppose it is because this is Xan, the other world, as you humans call it.” I still don’t understand this world, but I don't want to leave. Everything at my house is so dull, but this place is so colorful. I can see beautiful green grass expanding in every direction. The trees are so many different colors and sizes. This place smells like one of the candles my grandma gave me. “You should come to our town. we can show you around.”

“No, sorry, I should probably get going,” I say sadly. This world is so cute, but I should probably get home, so Dad doesn't worry, but honestly, he probably won't notice for a while. Maybe I could stay for a little.”

“Please stay; let us show you around.”

“Alright, fine, I'll stay, but just for a little,” I say and everyone celebrates.

  The first thing I see as I walk over the hill is a bunch of houses all around the size of a small car, which makes sense because they are animals. I start walking toward one of the houses when I hear a voice behind me.

“You must be wondering why you were brought here.” I turn around and see one of the three leaders from earlier walking toward me. “There is a monster in this world, and he has been destroying everything in an attempt to find the portal to your world. We need your help.”

“How do we stop him?”

“Well… We don't know how to stop him; he can't talk, and we don't want to hurt him because he's our friend. Barry came to our world a year or two ago, and ever since he has been a part of our family. He used to be a kind creature, but a few days ago, when stuff fell from the sky, just like today, he started acting weird. We were going to bring Him some food, and he attacked us. We think that he is possessed, but we don’t know why or how he got like this.” 

“Okay, so what do you want me to do? I can’t stop a monster; I'm just a kid.”

“Yes, but you are bigger than us, and we believe that he is from your world. Shall we head to the cave then?”

“So that's the cave?” I ask, pointing over to a big cave in the hills.

“Yes,” one of the animals said in a scared voice. "Here, take this shield,” she says, handing me a beautiful bronze shield with intricate carvings.

“Wish me luck,” I say as I walk towards the cave, my hands shaking a little. Why did I agree to this? It's too late now.

I enter the cave slowly. I can barely see anything, but small glowing mushrooms are illuminating the cave like stars. I see the monster sleeping. I watch Barry as I walk closer, but I don't have a plan. I have no idea what to do. I see his purple skin and furry belly. As I get closer, he shifts his position, and I freeze. I take a deep breath looking at his big eyes waiting to see if they open, then I walk closer. He shifts again, rolling over and his eyelids start to open. Oh no. We meet eyes and he growls. I start backing up, and he stomps towards me taking big long steps. Now that he’s standing up, I can see that he’s two times the height of an average human.

I start running away from the caves. I don’t know if I can outrun him though. He starts running faster and approaches me. I run behind a rock, and scrape my arm. My heart starts being faster, and I can hear his long legs lunging towards me. I crouch down, trying to hide behind a rock. I look down, trying to be quiet, hoping that he can’t hear me. Okay. He’s probably gone now, right? I mean I can’t hear him. Maybe it’s okay. I turn around a few seconds later to see him standing above me. He looks almost ten feet tall from what I can tell. I start to back away from him.

“Ok, umm, nice monster, right? You are- used to be a nice monster,” This is terrifying. “You can be a nice monster again? Come on, tap out of that hypnosis, remember, nice, kind, friendly monster. Remember when you umm… became friends with the animals and they brought you food. Remember coming to this world, All the colors and trees,” I say, panicked. He slows down like he is thinking about what I just said. Maybe it's working. “Remember, what was his name, oh yeah, George. All the houses and the pink clouds.”

He stops and we meet eyes. I'm scared. His eyes are plain black with no color, or at least they were, now they are starting to fade into green. His eyes looked kind and friendly. I think it worked. He looks so relaxed and confused. Maybe he's not that scary after all. “Hello my name is Ellie. How did this happen?” He points at me, then raises his arms and stomps his feet. “Me?” He shakes his head. “A different human?” He nods his head. “A bad human?” He nods his head. “Oh, ok. Do you know who?” That was a stupid question, of course not. How would he know? ”Do you want to go find the others? there outside.” He nods his head, and we walk toward the town. As we walk away from the field, all the animals cheer for me and hug Barry. Barry has a big smile on his face like a child with cake.

“Thank you so much, Ellie,” George Says hugging Barry. “How did you save him?”

“I just talked to him about this world and the memories he made.”

“That is amazing, but we should get back to town and get you home.”

  We walk through all the houses, watching everyone go home except me and George. We walked to the center of town.

“Ok, you wait here and I’ll go grab the thing to get you home,” George says.

“Ok, but what is ‘the thing?’”

“It's a crown-like thing that you put on your head; you just think about where you want to go and then you will be there.”

“That's cool,” I say, as he runs off into a house that's more on the bigger side. I wait for a little while until I see him running back.

“I got it!” he says with the crown on his back. I grab it and put it on. “Good! Now think about where you want to go and you will be there. Good luck and goodbye!”

“Bye, George,” I say as I float into the air and through the sky. 

I land on my bedroom floor with a thump. The portal is gone, and surprisingly, everything is back in my room, so I go over to my bed and lie down. I can't stop thinking about how Barry got hypnotized. And what was all that stuff that fell through the portal before me and my stuff? I'll sleep on it.

I think I know who it is.

“Knock, knock, Dad,” I say, standing outside his office. I think Dad did it. I don't know why he would have done it. The other world is so nice. But it makes sense, I mean he’s a scientist. He creates monsters and finds other worlds.

“What is it? I'm very busy…” He trails off and looks at the crown on my head, and he seems surprised. I knew he went to the other world. Otherwise, he wouldn't have reacted like that to seeing me wearing the crown thing. “What's that on your head?”

“That's not important. Dad, you need to be honest; did you hypnotize that monster to try to destroy the other world?”

“I- yeah,” he says, looking down.

“Why?”

“I found a portal in my office, I had no idea what it was. I was afraid, and I didn't know what that world was, I didn't know what it could do to this world. I thought it was dangerous. I thought that it might have had the power to destroy our world. So I tried to destroy it.”

“The other world won't destroy ours, and the animals there are actually really nice.”

“If you say so, I promise not to destroy the other world,” he says and then hugs me. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Dad.”