“Oh God, what is that!?” Sarah exclaimed as she looked up. She had fallen asleep while lying in a grassy meadow, and it was a clear, starry night. All of the sudden, a large black cloud passed in front of the waning moon, demolishing all light, save that of the stars. Upon closer inspection, Sarah realized that the cloud was not a cloud, but a strange sleek black spaceship.

Lying in the meadow, Sarah was perfectly content to watch the strange spaceship fly by, until she realized that it had started to land. As she saw the ship come down, Sarah rolled out of the way as fast as she could. With a strange grace and uncanny speed, the spaceship touched down where Sarah had been lying just seconds before.

Seeing that there was no possible way she could sneak off, she bolted towards the edge of the forest, away from the space ship. She had almost made it to the shelter of the forest when, as if made of air, one of the strange, beautiful people from the spaceship bounded in front of her, grabbed her, and half dragged, half carried her in the direction of the spaceship. f

“Let me go!” Sarah shrieked at her captor. The strange person didn’t respond, only continued dragging her towards the ship. Sarah continued to yell, bite, and kick, but none of it had any effect on the person. After about three minutes, although it felt like much longer to Sarah, they reached the door of the spaceship.

There were maybe 12 of the strange, beautiful people inside the one-roomed spaceship, all with the extreme speed, strength, and grace she had found in her captor. There was a fairly even number of men and women, and all had the beautiful, knowing, grey-green eyes, brown hair, and perfect noses, all except one, who had hair the color of starlight. With a start, Sarah realized that she shared their grey-green eyes, straight brown hair, and small, perfect noses.

She was shaken out of her reverie when one of the women, the one with the starlight hair, addressed her, saying, “Welcome, Aranel. There is no cause for alarm. We have been looking for you for quite some time.”

The woman had a musical, singsong voice, and Sarah started to feel at ease around them. After a moment, though, she saw them all watching her, and her fear of the strange people returned. Sarah took a second to gather her thoughts, then started yelling, “Let me go! What do you want? What would you want from a helpless 13-year-old girl? Let me go!”

The strange woman replied, “Aranel, calm yourself. Do you not remember us?”

Sarah shook her head, muttered a quiet ‘no,’ and stopped yelling. She thought that as long as the strange people neglected to close the door, she may have a chance to escape. But that could wait. She wanted to hear what the lady had to say first.

The woman continued, her hair shining in the light of the spaceship, as if it were actually made of starlight, by saying, “We are from your home, Laranen. We have been looking for you for the past 12 years, ever since you were taken to visit the planet Earth, and did not return. And now, after many fruitless years of searching, we have found you.”

Sarah was not comforted by the woman’s words, nor was she sure they were at all true, but she did not want to leave just yet. She felt drawn in by the woman’s words, and they set off a series of questions in her head. Aware of the powerful aura the woman gave off, Sarah simply asked, “May I speak?”

“Yes,” the woman replied.

Directing her questions toward the woman, Sarah asked, “Who are you? Where, what is this Laranen? Why do you keep calling me Aranel?”

Then, the door closed, with the grace and quietness Sarah was unaccustomed to, when the woman said, “I shall answer your questions when we arrive, Aranel. Right now, we are about to embark on a long journey, and you must sleep.” With that, the woman pointed at Sarah, muttered a word, and Sarah fell instantly into a long, deep slumber.

When Sarah awoke, she was lying on a rough surface, in a strange room. It was dark in the room, and, from what Sarah could tell, empty, except for her and the cot she was laying on. Sarah felt incredibly calm. Her head was not a nest of thoughts, as it usually was, but rather extremely clear and empty, with far less going on than usual. After lying down for about ten minutes, contemplating this, the strange, beautiful woman with the starlight hair walked in.

The woman said, “I shall answer your questions now. My name is Tallawa, and we are now on our homeland, Laranen. Laranen is a planet much like Earth, though we do not have constant wars or pollution. We live as one with nature, so we do not have to bring harm to any living thing. I call you Aranel because that is your name.”


Sarah sat in wonder, unable to digest the information all at once. When she had exited her stupor, she asked, “May I see it? Laranen, I mean.”

Tallawa agreed and then took her outside, where all the beautiful wonders of Laranen lay. It was a world of strange, beautiful people and strange, beautiful buildings. The buildings blended with nature to such a degree that you could not tell if it was a building, or just a tree. The buildings looked as if they were carved into the trees, and as Tallawa showed Sarah around, each tree-building grew more magnificent than the rest. Then Tallawa stopped Sarah in front of the most magnificent tree-building yet.

“Why did we stop, Tallawa?” Sarah asked.

“We stopped because we have reached your Princess Suite, Aranel. We have kept it in top condition since the day you left.”

“Princess Suite?”Sarah inquired.

“Yes, Princess Suite,” Tallawa said. “Did I not tell you? You are the long-lost princess of Laranen, Aranel.

Sarah dropped to her knees in surprise, and her jaw fell wide open. She was in awe, in disbelief. She could not fathom how it was that she had once been a princess among these beautiful, albeit strange, people. “I must be dreaming,” she muttered to herself over and over. It all seemed too good to be true. As she stood up, though, everything started to disappear. One by one, everything vanished, until only Tallawa stood before her.

“You are Laranen’s princess,” Tallawa said. “We will find you. Remember all this, Aranel, and we will find you.”

Then everything disappeared, and Tallawa’s beautiful, starlight hair was the last thing Sarah saw.

Sarah woke up in the same grassy meadow she had been taken in, or was it all a dream? Tallawa’s last words kept replaying in her mind, and Sarah wondered. She never knew if it was all a dream or not, but still she wondered. She would visit the field often, always wondering if they would come, if she would ever see Tallawa or Laranen again. She would always wonder, knowing there was nothing she could do but wait, and perhaps someday, her mystery would be solved.