When somebody mentions school, you would think negatively such as, “School is so hard,” or “School is so boring.” That’s not the case for Aria, however. Aria personally enjoys school very much. Her house and Oakfield High School are considered her “safe space.” One of the reasons why she enjoys going to school is because of her friend group. 

There are a total of six people including her in the friend group. Their names are Eve, Harper, Tom, Lucas, and Michael. She loves to hang out with them at school but when they make plans outside of school, Aria always procrastinates and eventually just doesn’t go. All her friends are extroverted, while Aria is the only introverted one. 

Today, in school, they all have math during their second period. During their work time, they all sit together talking. Aria is also saying a few things from time to time but she’s focused on her work. 

Ms. Smith, their math teacher announces to the whole class, “Hey guys I’m going to run to the restroom real quick, I’ll be right back.” 

As she’s walking out, Tom and Michael look next to each other and give a mischievous grin to one another.

Harper gets suspicious and asks, “Guys, why are you smiling at each other like that?”

When Ms. Smith gets out of sight, Tom and Michael run to the teacher’s desk suddenly and when they get to the desk, they rigorously start searching through the stack of papers and shift the papers one by one to another spot on Ms. Smith’s desk. 

“Oh, now I see what’s going on now. Remember that test we took last week, their grades were terrible so they’re trying to change it so that they both don’t get grounded,” Eve says.

“How though? In my opinion that test wasn’t hard at all.” Aria comments.

Lucas says, “Beats me.” 

As Tom and Michael search through the papers, they suddenly stop. That made the other four confused. 

Eve asks, “Guys what happened, did you find the tests.”

Tom responds, “Sadly not, however, we found something else.”

“What is it,” they all asked. They show us what looks like a map.

“A map? What’s so special about that,” Harper asks. 

Tom responds, “Well since you asked, Ms. Smith has a map of Oakfield but something that we found unusual was that there is an X marked in that creepy forest everybody has been talking about.” 

Everybody takes a close look at the map. Please don’t ask me to come, please don’t ask me to come. “We should definitely check it out,” Lucas says. 

Aria was right. Just then everybody looked at Aria with a subtle saddened expression on their faces. 

Michael insists, “Come on Ari, at least come with us one time it’ll be so much fun.”

Aria responds with, “I love you guys but these types of things aren’t a fit for me, sorry.”

They all accepted that Aria wouldn’t want to go anywhere.

Tom quickly gets out his phone and takes a picture of the map. He quickly runs back to Ms. Smith’s desk and puts the map where it originally was and then runs back to his desk as if nothing happened. 

During the 5th period, Aria and Eve have Biology together. They’re doing an easy experiment involving beans. They both are set up by gathering the right amount of each colored bean. They have to collect the set amount of red beans and the set amount of white beans. While Eve is counting the beans, Aria looks like she has seen a ghost for 5 minutes straight.

“Ari, Ari, ARIA,” Eve yells.

Aria gains her consciousness with a quick jolt through her whole body.

“You okay? You’ve been zoned out for a long time now,”

Aria responds, “Oh sorry, just thinking about something.”

Ever since math, Aria has been thinking about the map they all saw earlier. For one, she found it odd why Ms. Smith had that map but she also found it mysterious that there could actually be something in the forest.

Just then, these words slipped out of Aria’s mouth, “Hey Evie, I’ll go with you guys to the forest.”

Eve looked at Aria as if there were 1 million dollars in front of her face, she couldn’t contain her excitement.

Eve whips out her phone and exclaims, “Oh my gosh, Aria, I’m going to need you to say that again for digital evidence could you please repeat what you just said?”

Aria gives a little chuckle and responds with, “ Okay, okay, I will go with you guys to the forest.” 

Eve squeals with so much enthusiasm for 5 minutes straight that Aria thought she was going crazy.

Aria hadn’t checked her phone all day but once she got home from school,  she plops down on her bed as if she hadn’t slept in a long time. She gets out her phone while she’s plopped down and once she turns it on, her mouth drops down to the ground. 

She sees at least 100 texts and missed calls if not more than that from the group chat with her friends. She sees that they are still on call so she joins it. 

Immediately after she joins, all her friends go quiet for one second, and the next thing she knows, she hears Harper say, “Oh my gosh guys Aria is a new person now I feel like a proud mother.”

“You know I’m older than you, right,” Aria exclaims.

“Still Ari, we’re all so glad that you’re coming with us somewhere for once, now we can be a whole group,” Michael comments.

Tom announces, “Alright guys, we all should leave our houses in 10 minutes and reach the place in 20.”

“Hold on a second Tom, I just got home and I’m exhausted, it’s only 5 o’clock right now so how about we meet up around 7?” Eve asks.

Lucas asks everybody, “Who thinks we should meet at 7?”

Everybody raises their hands except Tom. Tom’s face immediately grimaced.

“Seriously guys, we could have more time to explore the forest,” Tom says. 

Harper pleads to Tom, “Tom, my eyes feel as heavy as a car right now, I beg you, can we please do this at 7?”

“Yeah dude, unlike you who has so much energy all the time, we all need a nap that way we can function when we go there,” Michael agrees with a yawn.

Tom gives a long and heavy sigh, and eventually mumbles, “Fine.”

  _____

Everybody in the friend group knows how to drive, however, they all know that Eve is the best driver. So whenever they go somewhere together, they all depend on her. Plus, Eve owns an SUV which means they’ll all fit effortlessly into it. She picks up everybody and starts driving over to the forest. As they reach their destination, Lucas and Michael continuously rant about how it’s so exciting for Aria to go somewhere with them finally.

“Eve, could you play some music, I don’t know how much longer I can bear them ranting,” Aria yells through the ranting.

She replies, “Don’t worry we’ll be there in a couple of minutes, you’ll be fine.

“Noooo, I won’t,” Aria whines.

The ranting went on for another 5 minutes, with constant reminders of how Aria was finally there and music blasting of a genre that Aria personally doesn’t like, rap. She felt some discomfort and stiffness as she sat there listening to conversations overlapping each other. She looks out the window and sees lines of trees passing by every second with street lights lighting down on them every second. One second there would be light, one second there would be no light. Eve turns to a parking lot, stops, and then puts the car on park. 

“Finally, I couldn’t handle that ranting for another minute,” Harper comments as they all step out of the car.

Lucas slightly slaps Harper in the head as he walks out.

“OW THAT HURT,” Harper shouts as she hits him back harder on his arm.

“Harp, I didn’t even hit you that hard, stop being dramatic,” Lucas exclaims.

As they’re walking into the forest, Tom reaches into his right pocket and suddenly he looks up with a loud gulp. He’s aggressively reaching his hand into his left pocket, but nothing, then both his jacket pockets, also nothing. He then realizes, “Guys, don’t get mad, but I might’ve accidentally left my phone at home and it has the picture of the map in it.”

Michael then reassures him, “Don’t worry, you already sent that picture to me but next time don’t do something stupid like that.”

Tom suddenly hugs Michael as if he was a little kid.

“You’re a lifesaver.”

“Don’t mention it, also get off of me please.”

Tom forgot that he was hugging him and awkwardly kept walking again. Michael pulls out his phone and opens up the photo of the map.

“Alright guys, rather up,” Michael announces.

They all huddle together like a pack of penguins to look at the map. Aria is the last one to join that huddle. She felt a quick shiver and she could feel her arm hairs sticking up. She knew something wasn’t right about this place.

“Hey Ari, come look at this,” Eve tells Aria pointing to the phone.

She quickly joins the huddle and sees what they’re trying to put together.

Lucas points at the phone, “Okay guys, right now we’re over here and we have to get here,” he points to the X marked in the middle of a circle of trees.

“That’s easy, we just have to go in a straight line going down,” Tom states.

“Welp, let’s get going then,” Lucas replies.

Lucas and Eve turn on the flashlights on their phones since it started to get dark outside. Aria does the same too. As they’re all walking into the forest, Aria could feel her heart thumping loud and fast in her chest. Harper and Eve were walking alongside Aria and they could hear it.

“Ari you okay? Your heart is beating fast,” Harper questions.

“Yeah, I’m fine, just kind of scared you know,” Aria utters.

Eve replies, “You’ll be fine, you have us. Think of it this way, in all those space books you read, some of them include some type of adventure, so just imagine that you’re in one of those.” 

Aria closes her eyes and imagines the book she reads, a particular one she likes. This dystopian book talks about a girl whose name is Lily. She goes on many adventures, mostly going to space. Lily always has to be aware of her surroundings knowing that something bad could happen to her at any moment. Right now, Aria hears the wind gushing through the tree, leaves making a crunchy sound as they all step on them, the wet dirt making an odd squishy sound as they walk, and hears Eve and Harper talk about some topic which didn’t matter to her. Aria opens her eyes and takes a deep breath.

“Okay, I feel better, thanks Eve,” Aria tells her.

“No problem Ari,” Eve replies.

However, she didn’t feel completely better. She keeps sensing something wrong about the forest the moment they arrive there. She feels a little safe knowing that Eve and Harper are with her while Aria is walking in between them along with Lucas, Michael, and Tom walking in front of them.

Lucas looks up from his phone, turns around to look at the girls, and tells them, “Guys, we’re almost there, let’s slow down a little and point your flashlights to the ground.”

Eve and Aria point their phones down on the ground to get a clear view of what they’re trying to find, even though they don’t know what they’re looking for, they only know the location of an X on a map. Soon after, Michael, Tom, and Harper also turn on their flashlights. They all form a line from left to right to get a much clearer view of the ground.

“Guys I think I see something up ahead,” Tom reports as he leans forward squinting his eyes. 

“Yeah, I think I see an X marked on the ground,” Harper agrees.

Eve excitedly adds, “Oh my gosh guys, what if we found some type of treasure, that would be so cool.”

“Yeah, that would be,” Aria responds tentatively.

They all start coming to a stop as they start seeing the X marked on the ground clearer and clearer. They form a circle around the X and just stay standing there.

“Okay, now that we’re here, what do we do,” Aria questions as she’s looking down at the X.

“I think we should dig it up,” Tom advises.

“Ewwww, I’m not going to touch the dirt, it’s wet and disgusting,” Harper dramatically comments.

“Well what’s the point of coming here if we’re not going to find out what this is,” Lucas replies.

“You guys are such germaphobes, live a little,” Tom says as he squats down.

He starts digging up the dirt by cupping both hands with dirt on them, and placing it next to where the hole is going to be made. As he keeps digging, everybody is attentively looking to see if they can see any type of treasure.

Michael standing there impatiently waiting asks, “Did you find anything yet?”

Tom replies, “Wouldn’t I have said something if I did Michael?”

Michael looks out in the distance for a second, looks back down, and then comments, “Oh, right, keep going then.”

About 10 seconds later, Tom picks up another batch of dirt from the marked X, but he keeps it separate from the pile of dirt that he’s been forming. He then picks up one more batch of dirt and then he puts that batch into the pile he was originally forming. He picks up the one batch that he kept separated and starts wiping the excess dirt off of whatever is in it.

Harper tilts her head down to see what Tom is doing and once she figures out what he’s doing, she gives a huge gasp and then excitedly yells, “GUYS, HE FOUND SOMETHING, LOOK LOOK!”

Tom continues to wipe his hands back and forth which causes the dirt to get thrown left and right. Aria feels uneasy thinking about what they will find.

As he gets to the base of the item under the dirt, Lucas demands, “What is it, we’re impatient over here?”

“It’s… a rock?”

Everybody looks at him with one eyebrow raised. 

“Huh, let me see that,” Eve exclaims as she snatches the rock right out of Tom’s hand.

Eve examines the rock in all directions and rubs it with her finger aggressively hoping to find something like specks of gold coming out of it. However, she just ended up with extra dirt on her hands and nails.

“UGH THIS IS JUST A PLAIN-OLD ROCK, WE CAME ALL THIS WAY FOR NOTHING,” Eve screams out of anger with her jaw tense.

Everybody looks at her, fearing for their lives since it looks like some monster is about to come out of her. Aria, however, is relieved to see that rock knowing that nothing dangerous was found. Eve then gets into a position like she’s just about to throw a baseball. As she gets ready to throw the rock, the moment she’s about to throw it, something extraordinary happens. On the center of the rock, a beam of rainbow light shoots out navigating towards something much more extraordinary. NO NO THIS CAN’T BE, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING!? While Aria is in shock, the rest of the group stares in awe.

“Are you guys seeing what I’m seeing right now,” Tom questions.

“Yeah, I think so,” Harper replies.

Aria immediately turns around, turns her flashlight back on, and then makes a run for it. Lucas notices her right away and then starts running towards her.

“ARI WAIT COME BACK,” he yells as he’s catching up to her.

“NO I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE,” Aria yells back.

Aria sensed all along that the forest had some strange feeling to it, that’s because a portal appeared in it. Lucas catches up to Aria and grabs her by the waist therefore she can’t run off.

“Let go of me Lucas, we don't know what’s on the other side of that portal,” Aria mutters as she tries to grasp herself off.

“Please Aria, it’ll be so worth it, trust me.”

“Oh yeah, how do you know?”

“I just do, now come on please.”

“Ugh fine.”

Aria turns around and slowly walks back to the group while they’re still staring in awe. Lucas is walking right behind her to make sure she doesn’t suddenly run away again. 

Once they reach back to the group Aria walks over to the girls while Lucas walks over to the guys. They all walk towards the portal while admiring it while Aria still wants to run away. Once they reach the front of it, they all form a line going left to right.

“You guys ready to do this,” Harper excitedly asks everybody.

“Absolutely not, but I’ll go anyway just for you guys,” Aria tells the group.

“Alright guys hold each other’s hand and on the count of three we’ll step in,” Tom announces.

They all chant, “1, 2, 3.”

Aria holds Eve and Harper’s hands extra tight and also keeps her eyes tightly shut. They all take 1 step in. There’s a bright light as they walk in which could easily blind somebody.

________

Aria slowly opens her eyes and gains consciousness to soon realize she’s lying on the ground that glows with a bright light. She quickly gets up and looks for the rest of her friends. As she looks around, she still sees all of them passed out. Man, they don’t have a care in the world about where they are and what’s going on, maybe I shouldn’t stress about this. Aria decides to look around and see where she is. She walks towards a path which is just in front of her. It has such an astonishing view. When walking, she sees a sky resembling many galaxies, trees, and flowers that glow with stars on them, her smile flickered across her face like a hologram.

“Oh shoot, I have to wake up my friends,” Aria mutters with a hit of realization.

She runs back to where she woke up and shook everybody up individually.

“Oh my gosh, where were we,” Eve asks.

“Look up at the sky and you’ll see,” Aria replies.

While they’re sitting, they all tilt their heads up to see what she’s talking about.

They look to see that same view Aria saw earlier.

“Wow, it’s beautiful,” Harper claims.

“I wanna show you guys something, stand up,” Aria says excitedly.

They all stand up and follow Aria to where she just was.

“Guys I haven’t seen Aria this excited in a while, it’s a good thing we brought her along,” Michael whispers.

They all nod their heads in agreement knowing that she seems happy doing these things for once.

“Hey, what’s that fancy door up ahead,” Lucas questions.

Everybody looks ahead to see what he’s talking about. They all see a grand door with mosaics decorated all over it. 

“Let’s go inside, I bet there’s something more fancy in there,” Eve speaks.

The group, at a snail’s pace, walks towards the grand door as they keep admiring the unreal view they have witnessed.

When they reach the front of the door, they all huddle together by the door knob. The group stacks one of their hands onto the knob.

“Alright guys, just like we did before, on three we’ll turn the knob,” Lucas announces.

They all eagerly speak, “1, 2, 3!”

Once they turn the door knob right, the door knob suddenly disappears as it glows.

“Does every item glow in here,” Tom questions.

The door slowly starts to open, with a loud creak. Wow, they still creak in other dimensions.

When they all saw what was on the other side of the door, regret starts to hit everyone. What they saw was a 15 ft tall standing creature, with an olive green skin tone, teeth sharp like knives, drool that could fill up a whole bathtub, and eyes with a neon glow, those eyes showed much anger behind them as if somebody had interrupted their years of sleep.

“ARGHHHHHHHHH,” the monster shouts.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” the whole group shouts back out of fear.

Aria knew from the start that she could’ve stayed home from this, she had the right to leave but they wouldn’t let her because of doing “adventures”. Safety is more important than that. But right now she has something more dangerous to worry about.

“RUN EVERYBODY,” Eve yells.

They quickly turn around and start running for their lives. Everybody except Aria was able to run faster. She focused more on the academic aspects of life rather than the athletic aspects of life. As she runs, the monster starts walking on the path they’re running on and breaks parts of the path as it takes steps on it. Aria didn’t reach the area she woke up at on time and felt an aggressive shake underneath her. The monster catches up to her in time and grabs her by the feet. The monster picks Aria up with one hand and keeps a tight grip on her. 

“HELPPPP,” Aria screams.

Everybody else who ran away turns back and sees Aria about to get killed by that monster.

“ARI, NO,” Eve yells as she stops running.

Eve then contemplates for a second and then runs towards the monster unexpectedly.

“EVE COME BACK YOU’RE GONNA GET KILLED TOO,” they all shout.

The monster reaches down again to pick up Eve with its other hand. The grip that the monster had on Aria loosened up. She had to act, now. She climbs up on the monster’s finger, running on its right arm up to its shoulder. She wanted the monster to look at her so that way she can accomplish what she’s about to do next. Once she gets up to the monster’s shoulder, the monster turns its head to look in Aria’s direction.

While Aria was doing that, the whole time, Eve was screaming, “AHHHHHHHH LET GO OF ME YOU UGLY MONSTER!”

Suddenly everybody there hears a loud, “SLASH!”

Everybody looks in the direction where the sound came from and sees blood gushing out of the monster’s eye and Aria holding a pocket knife. She’s breathing heavily with some of the monster’s blood splashes on her face. 

The monster starts to fall backward and let go of Eve’s grip. Eve screeches as she starts to fall and keeps her eyes tightly shut. Luckily she lands on the monster’s stomach, saving her from breaking any bone. Aria also manages to land on the monster’s stomach.

“GUYS QUICKLY PUSH THE MONSTER INTO SPACE,” Aria declares

The path that the monster broke leads into a deep, deep space, which you could never get out of.

They all line up in front of the monster’s feet and start pushing it towards the space with all their might. After 5 minutes, they managed to push the monster into space, being lost forever. 

“QUICKLY, HOW DO WE GET OUT OF THIS PLACE I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORE,” Tom questions.

Aria thinks deeply of a way to get back. Then, a light bulb clicks above her head.

“Who has the rock we found before,” Aria demands.

They all look at each other shaking their heads.

“Ari, none of us have it, it might be on the ground,” Harper replies.

They all observe the ground and Aria finds it almost right away.

She goes into that same throwing position that Eve did when opening the portal and in that second, the portal appears in front of them. They all don’t say anything and just run into the portal immediately. 

_______

The first one to wake up is Aria just like before. Wow, they need me in their lives.

Aria's face shows a little grin just thinking about that.