At first, it felt like I had tripped… or skipped a step on a long staircase, but as soon as I got to the forest, where I often meet with my cousin and twin brother, the first thing I noticed was the deafening silence.

No birds chirping, no crickets, and no rustling of leaves. I thought nothing of it at first, until I got to the creek. Or at least… where the creek used to be. What I saw when I arrived though, was a dizzying drop of a cliff.

I tried my best to stay calm, thinking that I maybe took a wrong turn on the hiking path, but I definitely didn’t think there’d be a cliff greeting me on my everyday walking route. I didn’t want to turn around either.

I decided to peek over the dropping cliff, only to see endless void. Even at the Grand Canyon you can see the bottom, but this… THIS was just complete darkness. I felt a shiver run down my spine, before I spotted the diving rope. The exact. Same. Rope me, my cousin and brother would swing on when we swam at the creek. I decided then that something was definitely wrong.

I decided to grab the rope to use it to look further over the dropping cliff. Still seeing nothing but black void. I was just about to pull myself back up onto solid ground, but out of absolutely nowhere, a single robin call caused me to flinch and let go.

As I was falling, the first thought I could actually hear myself think through the chaos in my mind was, “where did that robin come from?” The SECOND thought my mind could grasp was “how long will I be falling before I smash into the ground?”

That thought repeatedly crossed my mind as I continued falling.. falling… falling.

At some point, it got harder for me to breath as a bunch of light surrounded me. As soon as I could see again, I saw none other than… Saturn. It’s beautiful rings were almost close enough for me to touch! But at that point, I was too scared, stunned, and confused to try to reach it.

It took some time before I gathered my thoughts… but by then, I could feel the heat of the sun. But it wasn’t deadly hot like you would have thought, but it was like entering your home after a few hours of playing in the snow.

Before I could conclude to anything, everything… went black.

“Hey there mate!” I heard a voice say. I tried to open my eyes but my head hurt. A lot. So I stopped trying to open them and just laid there.

“Hello?” The voice said after a few moments of me not responding, “are you dead?”

I wanted to respond, but I also liked laying there with my eyes closed, which was a first because I’d normally be restless.

Then there was a sigh. The sigh seemed quite familiar to me… then a few split seconds before the voice spoke again, I knew who it was.

“Did you die and forget to tell me!? How dare you forget to tell me!” The voice was none other than my cousin’s.

“Dimini Blake! WAKE UP!”

I groaned, and I knew in my head that Leandra, (that’s my cousin’s name) was smirking.

“Good, you’re alive.” She stated, “where’s Arwen?”

“Who?” I mumbled.

“Your brother? My OTHER cousin?”

“Oh… that guy… yeah, I haven’t seen him.”

“‘That guy?’ Dimini, this is your TWIN BROTHER we’re talking about! What happened?!”

“I was actually going to ask the same thing because… WHERE ON EARTH AM I!?”

“You’re … not ON earth?” Leanora replied.

“I’m not…” I looked out the window as Leanora opened it, and yep, I was not on earth.

“So you fell in too.” Leanora said as she turned to face me again.

I tilted my head as a series of confused and puzzled expressions flashed on my face.

“The wormhole?” Leanora replied, crossing her arms, “I didn’t know either until some.. somebody told me where we were. He did some ‘investigation’ and told me it was a wormhole.”

Something about her casual tone and hesitant avoidance of who told her there was a wormhole made my head spin with confusion. Then I felt a vibration in my back pocket.

“I thought you didn’t bring your phone to the forest…” Leanora said with a skeptical tone as I pulled my phone out of my pocket.

“I didn’t… I left it on the counter at home…” I replied as I opened my phone to the home screen. It was a message from my brother. Arwen had apparently fallen into this said “wormhole” as well, the message said some crazy nonsensical stuff about being in a base on Venus? But that’s the most dangerous planet in the Solar System! It KILLS any and EVERY living thing that goes on it. So maybe there WAS a wormhole… but I was still skeptical and hesitant about trusting Leanora after her casual tone and hesitation.

“Welcome to Venus.” Leanora said as pushed me out the door or whatever ship we were on. I turned around to ask her a question, or to just straight up glare at her for pushing me onto the SCARIEST PLANET IN THE HT UNIVERSE, but she had already closed the door.

“Welcome to Venus.” A calm voice of a man came from behind me. I turned around to see… well… I don’t know what I saw. He was DEFINITELY not a human.

“I am Dave” the thing said.

“Uh… I… Hi Dave.” I stammered.

“This is Venus, I was just about to enter that steak out building. Wanna come?” The ‘Dave’ said as he pointed to strange crator with a sign.

“A steak out… on… Venus?” I asked as the ‘Dave’ starting walking towards the signed crator.

“Is that a surprise to you?”

“YES!”

The ‘Dave’ shook his head with a sigh and continued walking towards the said “Steak Out” and I heard him mumbling something like, “typical human.”

I rolled my eyes before following him.

“Dimini?” I heard Arwen’s voice come from somewhere in the “Steak Out” when I entered with the ‘Dave’.

“Arwen?” I replied, looking around for where his voice came from.

“Dimini!” Arwen called again. That time it sounded like he was behind me, so I turned around.

“Dimini!”

I spotted him.

“Dimini… is Leanora with you? She was supposed to pick you up at the knock out on Saturn.” Arwen said when he reached me.

“Is Leanora with me because she was supposed to do huh, what with the me what, why, where? When?”

“Was Leanora the one who picked you up?”

“I wasn’t aware I GOT picked up! I thought this whole thing was just a strange nightmare!”

Arwen looked at the ‘Dave’ before looking back at me and pushing me into a small nook, “Do you know who Dave is?”

“You mean the strange fellow who I walked in with?” I replied, crossing my arms.

“Don’t trust him.”

“What… why?”

“Because. Just don’t.”

I narrowed my eyes before looking over at the ‘Dave’ then back at Arwen, “what exactly IS he?” I asked, gesturing towards Dave.

“He’s a Davian.” Arwen replied, shooting a glare towards David.

“How unique.” I murmured.

LEANORA:

“Captain?” I said as I walked towards Alex’s cabin, “she’s been dropped at Venus. What now?”

Alex turned around to face me, scratching his beard thoughtfully, “did you close the portal?” He asked, his eyes narrowed.

Meanwhile MY eyes widened, “I thought I had forgotten something…” I squeaked.

“Just perfect! You ruined the whole plan, girl! Now we’ll never be able to get into their consciousness!” Alex shouted at me, “now they can escape!”

“I’m sorry!” I replied, crossing my arms and looking out the window.

“Go back home and make sure they don’t wake up.”

I nodded, “yes sir.”

I came up through the cliff that replaced the Creek before taking off towards my cousins’ house, knocking on the door. About a minute later, my aunt answered the door, “oh, Leanora…” she said, “sorry, the twins are still asleep, were you waiting for them?”

I shook my head, “sorry, no… can I still see them, though?”

My aunt shrugged, “I was just about to wake them up anyways, so go ahead.”

I smiled sweetly as I walked in, but as soon as I started making my way up the stairs, it turned menacing.

ARWEN:

“Is there a way to get back?” Dimini asked in horror after I explained to her what’s happening.

“Well.. the only way to get back is if our physical selves wake up.” I replied.

“And how does that happen?”

“This far in… someone has to wake us up.”

“But who is there at home that’ll wake us up on a regular basis?”

I thought for a moment, and I could tell with Dimini’s expression, she was thinking as well. Then at the exact same time, we thought up an answer.

“Mum.”

“But… it must be almost twelve P.M. at home. .. she should have woken us up by now…” Dimini said in a worried tone after a few hours of just talking to some creature Davions.

“I don’t know…” I replied, “maybe someone distracted her?”

“That would HAVE to be it… she doesn’t regularly let us sleep in…”

LEANORA:

“Okay… okay… okay…” I said to myself after entering my cousins’ room, “whatever you do, do NOT wake them up, and most importantly, don’t let Aunt Linda come in to wake them up either…”

I sat there for a few hours. Almost twelve P.M. I knew my Aunt would be coming in soon to see what’s up, why haven’t we left for the forest yet, so the next best thing would be playing “the hungry, hungry niece.” So I went downstairs to ask Aunt Linda about a snack.

Problem; she insisted on coming back upstairs with me… and I couldn’t argue… my mum happened to be there. And being in trouble with my mum is unbelievably worse than being in trouble with Captain Alex.

No matter how hard I tried to politely protest against her following, Aunt Linda insisted it was time for the twins to wake up, and there was nothing I could do about it… then again, what use does Alex have controlling their consciousness for “the study of creature: human”? So… I did the smart thing and gave up.

DIMINI:

I was pacing back and forth, answering every question Arwen asked me. Like, lwhat do you mean by ‘Leanora was acting suspicious?’”

“She refused to maintain eye contact, which she ALWAYS maintains eye contact… and she refused to directly answer my questions about what happened.” I replied as I paused pacing to face my brother.

“That is definitely unlike Leanora…” he murmured, looking up at the ceiling in thought, “but, why do you think she’d be the one keeping mum from waking us?”

I sighed, “I don’t know.”

Arwen also sighed before suggesting we just accept our fate of living unconsciously in outer space for what would feel like years, but would only be minutes at least.

We decided to eat, but just before the waitress, another creature: Davion, brought us our food, there was a strange rushing feeling, and before we knew it, we were rushing past the planets I passed when I fell into the cliff’s void, and we shot up into the air, the wind pushing us through the forest…

Stillness… Silence…

Then we both shot up in bed, panting.

We saw our mum and… Leanora.

Though, instead of looking defeated like MY mind imagined Leanora would be, she looked relieved.

“I’m so sorry…” she mouthed.

Then our mother left the room and Leanora walked over to us, “I’m sorry, you would have been home sooner if I didn’t trust Alex.”

“It’s okay.” Arwen replied.

I nodded, “yeah. We’re back. We’re okay now.”

‘Okay, THE END!’