By David Fanelli (Downingtown West High School)

If you are reading this, then you are probably the only one who knows what has happened to me. I will start from the beginning, from where it all happened, and get to where you are now.  It all began when I was on some nature walk with my family in the middle of some forest.  The tour guide was telling us all about the miracles of nature, while I was playing games on my iPod.  As we were walking along, the tour guide led us to some old rusty door.  I glanced up from my game to see what the tour guide was saying.  She said that the people who worked in the forest “discovered” it.  I had my doubts, and I was curious about what was on the other side of the door.  As I was formulating my plan, I was so distracted that I missed part of the guide’s story, and only heard something about not opening the door.  This only furthered my curiosity, so I told my mom I had to go to the bathroom, and I started to walk back to the nature center.  I walked for a minute, and then I turned around to see that the forest had swallowed up everybody, and I would not be seen.  I quickly went back to the door and, with a little trouble, pried it open.  What I saw on the other side completely boggled my mind.  It was like a giant, swirly mass of colors that pulled me in with its enchanting looks.  I didn’t even notice the door swing shut behind me.

As I went further into the depths of this impossible reality, I found it harder to think, as if somebody was poking around in my mind.  The cloudiness then turned into a headache, which gradually got worse.  Then, my headache became torture inside my head.  I heard pained voices screaming into my head, making it feel as if my head would explode.  I screamed, almost as loud as the voices inside my head. I started to run, but no matter how far I thought I had gone, all I heard was the same thing.  The voices inside my head got louder, and I got more frightened.  I then knew that running was futile, and that there was no way out of this torturous place.  I turned around, and to my relief, I saw the same door, that of which I had come in.  I started to run toward it, but invisible hands held me back.  It was if the very people inside my head were trying to keep me here.  I fought against the pull on my mind, and quickly pulled out the pencil and paper that the tour guide had given us so we could take notes.  I knew that if I didn’t get out that door, something had to.  I wrote frantically, all the while trying to get to the door. I jotted down everything that had happened, hoping somebody would find the note if it escaped this place.  As I got closer, the pull on me got stronger.  My pace gradually slowed, until I was blindly stepping into nothing.  I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, to my relief, I saw the door a few inches from my face.  I desperately grabbed the door handle and pulled with all my might.  It opened up about a foot, just enough to let me squeeze through, but the invisible hands would not let me leave.  I felt the handle slipping from my grasp, and as a last ditch effort, I tried to throw the paper out of the door.  I did not do it in time. The door closed, and I was sucked back into the oblivion of pain and misery. 

Over time, the voices in my head faded away, and I lost grasp of what was real and what was not.  I felt like I was going crazy, until I saw something that brought my thoughts back to me.  It was a window into the real world. That was all it was, a tiny square of freedom, like the light at the end of a tunnel.  It was showing the area outside the front of the door that brought me into this place.  I thought I could reach out and almost, for the last time, touch the real world again, but I knew that I would never get out.  Instead, I took the paper out of my pocket and pushed it through the window.  The window closed, trapping me in this weird dimension, where all I had was my thoughts.  However, I knew that there would always be one thought that would be flying around my head, and that was that the paper that I pushed out the window is the one you are reading now.