The Happiest Place on Earth

The smell of fish and death surrounds me. I sit in the darkness all alone, well except for the stray cat who is curled up in a ball right beside me. How did I get here? I’m racking my brain trying to remember but all I can see, hear, and feel is blackness. All of a sudden I see a flash of light, so quick I almost thought I imagined it. But no, there it is again a little farther away! I stand up and follow the flashes which lead me through the dark and down a hallway, until I feel some sort of door in front of me. I start to knock on it and kick it with all my strength but before it would even budge, I hear the sound of a key in a lock, and then the door slams open. On the other side, I see the ugliest, nastiest face I’ve ever seen. He smiled at me and showed some of his missing teeth, then threw a huge bag into the room that landed with a thunk. The bag replied with a string of yells and some very mean names. Before I could even get a word out the door slams shut thrusting me back into the darkness. I run over to the bag and help whoever, or whatever out. The flash of light comes back and helps pull the strings of the bag off. To my surprise, a short, humanlike figure emerges.
He looks at me and fixes his little green hat that was falling off. “Why hey there Ms. Casey! I’ve come to save you!” “Hu- hu- how do you know my name? Who are you?” “Uh-oh it looks like our girl has been hit with some of hooks forgetfulness dust, tink would you do the honors?” Hook as in Captain Hook?! Tink as in Tinkerbell?! The little flash of light floats towards me, circles my head and flies away. I stumble back as my memories come back. The villains! Troy, Michael, and Jessica! Oh gosh I gotta get out of here! “I suppose it’s like the ticking crocodile, isn’t it? Time is chasing after all of us.” Okay pause, lets rewind to the beginning when this all started...
I pack my bags in a flurry of excitement. I’m like a tornado, swirling around my room but instead of leaving destruction in my path, I leave order. Yesterday I got a text from my best friend Jessica, well old best friend. We haven’t talked since the summer, she’s been so busy cheerleading and me with soccer, we met new friends and kind of grew apart. But this weekend it’s her birthday! To my surprise, she invited me and our other two best friends, Michael and Troy, to go to Disney World with her for the weekend! My mom calls up the stairs, “Hurry up Casey, we are leaving in ten!”
30 minutes later…
We get to the airport right in the middle of rush hour. It’s 7:30am and it seemed all of the big business men in all of Atlanta were here. My mom parks the car and walks me into the terminal where we see Jess and Michael waiting for the rest of the group. When they see me, smiles light up their faces like they just saw a puppy and an incredibly warm feeling swirls in my stomach. I run over and we do our 4 person high five, just like always. Except wait, there are only 3 of us where is troy? All of a sudden we hear a yell from across the terminal, and see a flurry of people running around. Oh my goodness there is a huge Great Dane running through the terminal and it’s pulling Troy along behind him! Our group doubles over in laughter at the sight and wait for Troy to give his dog back to his mom and come over to us. Once he does and we are all ready, we say goodbye to our parents, except for Jessica’s who are coming with us, and walk through the airport.
2 hours later…
“That plane ride was so smooth I didn’t even wake up once,” says Troy as we walk off the plane. Finally, we made it! We are in Disney. It already feels like the happiest place on earth and we aren’t even there yet. None of us can wipe the excited smiles off of our faces all the way through baggage claim, the train ride, and onto the Disney bus. Once we get to our hotel, the Swan and Dolphin, we check in and unpack in record time. “Please, please, please can we go now mom?” asks Jessica. “Alright but let’s go over some rules first. I need a check in text from one of you once an hour and you aren’t allowed to go anywhere by yourself, I mean it guys. Off you go!” She hands us our weekend passes and we speed walk to Magic Kingdom, which lucky us, is right across the street. Laughing and catching up, we stand in line to get in. I didn’t realize how much I missed them, I thought to myself. The happy cast members smile and wave at everyone with their mickey mouse gloves and we all scan our tickets to get in. “which ride do you guys want to go on first?” Michael asked. “ooh let’s go on Thunder Mountain!” I shouted. That ride has always been my favorite. We walk towards Adventure land in a huge cloud of happiness. “It’s not as busy as normal,” observed Jessica, “we got lucky, no lines for us!” We get to thunder mountain and we stand in shock, staring. “What! It’s closed?!” I shout in surprise. We walk up to one of the nearby casts members and Troy asks, “Good Afternoon sir, could you please tell us why Thunder Mountain is closed?” The cast member replies, “Sorry about that kids. Some weird stuff has been happening lately and we just want to keep all of you safe.” What kind of weird stuff?” we all say at once. The cast member turned a little bit pale and said “don’t worry about it kiddos, just some technical difficulties.” And then he walked away, mumbling to himself. “That was so strange,” I told my friends. The rest of the day was full of fun and laughter, until the last ride of the day, The Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride. We stood in line for an hour and then when we finally got on the ride, an announcement was made about, again, some technical difficulties. The cast members handed out a free Fast Pass for the next day to all of the annoyed people and everyone left. Outside of the ride, the park was practically deserted, and the happy smiley mood had died. I wonder what is going on, I ask myself.

That night, I was twisting and turning in bed trying to fall asleep, when all of a sudden I see some weird flashes of light coming from out the window. I sit up and look around. There it is again!  It’s definitely not fireworks, these flashes are dark green and kind of spooky looking. I wake up my friends and show them the lights. “Let’s go down and see what it is!” says Michael. “No way! Are you kidding?” Jessica asks. “We would get in so much trouble!” Troy pipes in, “Come on Jess, just for a second? It would be fun! What do you think Casey?” Everyone stares at me. “Well, I guess we could go down just to check it out for a minute.” The group quickly got ready, and very sneakily snuck out of the hotel. As we walked outside, the flashes continued. We followed them all the way up to the gates of the Magic Kingdom, where we had to stop. “Guys, we can’t sneak in to Disney World! We will get caught this is crazy, said Jessica. Right as the words left her mouth, a huge crash echoed around us. It sounded like a herd of elephants crashing on symbols and we all covered our ears in surprise. “Ha ha ha at last! All of the magic is gone!” RING RING RING! I open my eyes suddenly. I was back in my room, in my polka-dot pajamas under my green comforter my grandma made me for Christmas. I look at my clock, it’s 6:30, time to wake up for school. The Magic Kingdom, Jess, Michael, and Troy everything was gone it’s just me and my room. That was the strangest dream I have ever had in my entire life, I say to myself. I get ready for school and walk downstairs to find my whole family staring at the TV. The news is on, and a lady reporter is standing right in front of the Magic Kingdom gates, right where I thought I was standing an hour ago. The headline read, “Disney Destroyed: who would do this?” “What is going on?” I ask my family. “Someone blew up Disney, all the magic is gone.” My mom replies. My dad started to talk as well, but I didn’t hear because my eyes closed, and I fell to the floor.