A World of Another Kind

Chapter 1 A Strange Land

By Aubrey and Kaylee

     It was a warm spring day. Aubrey and I sat outside, spending time with our pet rabbits, and we chatted merrily. After I put my rabbit on the patio sofa next to Aubrey's rabbit, suddenly, something strange caught my eye as I was heading toward the swing. I knelt down and picked up a tiny, strange object from the grass, and it appeared to be glassy, transparent, and shaped exactly like a kidney bean. I narrowed my eyes, feeling very captivated yet confused, and tried to make out what this odd sort of bean was. Could this be valuable? I thought to myself. It must have come from the neighbor's yard somehow. I held the tiny object up to the sunlight, studying its unique appearance with admiration, and to my surprise, it sparkled and created a rainbow against the fence. "Aubrey, come look what I found in the grass!" I called.

     Aubrey quickly came to my side with much curiosity. "I've never seen that before," she remarked, studying it with awe. "I wonder what it could possibly be. It feels sort of like glass but not exactly, but it seems to me like a glass bean."

     I shrugged then glanced back down at the grass just in case if there were more of these strange beans. Then all of a sudden, something bizarre happened. "Ouch! What the heck!" I exclaimed with surprise. The bean had suddenly grown extremely hot in my fingers, so I quickly threw it.

     "What is it?" Aubrey asked, staring at my alarmed expression. But as she was about to say something else, most unexpectedly and unconceivably, a vast, swirling vortex in that instant appeared in the grass, and we were nearly knocked off our feet since its force created abnormally powerful wind. I felt as if I was going crazy or as if I was just dreaming, so I convinced myself I was. I frantically pinched myself to try and wake myself up, but that did nothing. It was no dream; it was real. I glanced at Aubrey and saw paleness suffuse her face. Her eyes stretched wide with fear "What's going on!" she hollered above the commotion.

     "I don't know!" I hollered back with terror. "But I think it might be that bean! This happened right after it burned me!"

     "What?" she hollered back. The vortex grew larger and larger and so did the wild noise, and this made it harder to hear one another. It was as if a tornado was demolishing the place. The swing set violently shook, the trees swayed wildly, leaves blew all over the place, and the grass wavered. I felt like I could not move from being paralyzed with fear, except just stare at that supernatural vortex. It made me feel dazed, but I snapped out of my trance once I heard Aubrey exclaim on the top of her lungs, "Kaylee, watch out!"

     A branch, in that moment, crashed down, and we sprang forward to evade it. But the strong force of the vortex which made me think of a black hole immediately pulled us into it, and the mouth of the vortex then closed.

     I awoke with my head throbbing terribly, and to my great surprise, we were not in our backyard; we were somewhere else. Pinching myself again did not wake me up because this was no dream. It was reality, and I realized that the vortex had taken us here. I frantically trembled like a leaf, and my heart pounded harshly in my chest. I quickly turned around to find Aubrey, and my heart raced even more since she was still unconscious. I shook her in an attempt to wake her up, and to my great relief, she opened her eyes. After about a minute of recovery, she sat up but still appeared to be dazed. "Where... where are we?" she murmured, looking discombobulated which made me guess that she had a harsh blow on her head.

     "It looks like the vortex took us here," I responded with an anxious swallow.

     After Aubrey was fully recovered, she sprang to her feet. "It's all real!" she exclaimed with great shock. "I can't believe it... we must be going crazy!"