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.