Esther

Chapter 1

A witch was running after me hurling different powers aimed at me. I ran and ran. When I was a bit far away from her, I stopped, turned around, and started aiming at her with my powers and bow and arrow too. And then my friend, a prince stood by my side and we fought the witch. She was finally defeated after a while. He hugged me then ran to the castle calling out to me. "Esther! Esther! Wake up!"

"What?" I asked sitting up. "Oh come on, Esther. Don't tell me you've forgotten that today's mall day."My best friend Ashley was sitting on my bed and looking at me as she said that. "Oh, right. Mall day." I said sleepily as I rolled my eyes. "

"Oh, come on. You promised that you'd come." She pleaded. "All right, all right. Let me get changed." I said.

I went into my walk in closet and into my bathroom. I took a shower then changed into a shirt and jeans. It's still 9:00 am on a Saturday. And I have to go the mall. Oh, well. Ashley's been bugging me about it for weeks.

"Come on, Esther!" She yelled. "Hey, I can hear you, okay?" I said covering my ears and giving her a smile. "Whatever." She got up and walked down the stairs. I got my sling bag which had my book, phone, comb, and wallet, and I headed downstairs.

"Good morning, Esther." My aunt said as I entered the kitchen. "Morning." I said sitting down in a chair. Ashley was sitting in the living room looking through a magazine. Aunt Ruth served breakfast, sat down and we ate.

Once I was done, I brushed my teeth and Ashley and I went into the garage and got into my car.

When we reached the mall, Ashley was bubbling with excitement.

"Come on, come on, come on!" She squealed. "Whoa. It's like it's your first time at the mall." I said laughing.

"Well, it's my third time going with you. Besides, I like helping you look for clothes, shoes and stuff." She said hooking her arm around mine. You see, I'm not a shopping kind of girl.

We entered the Sugarloaf Mills and started going to her favorite shops. She bought stuff, a lot of stuff, as usual. My friend loves to buy new clothes. And is so into fashion, that she collects many different magazines. She dragged me to a salon and ordered me to sit down.

"Why? I'm fine with my hair." I said. My hair was dark brown with its length, really long. Like, 3-5 inches past my shoulder. "Your hair is nice. But I think we should add a few things." She said. She blindfolded me and started whispering to the lady.

For the next few minutes, I had no idea what happened.

When the lady was done, she took off my blindfold and I looked into the mirror. The girl in the mirror had dark brown layered hair, still pretty long, at least not shorter than the shoulder. I had some blond streaks too. My hair was a bit wavy before and now it was really wavy. Maybe even a bit curly.

"Wow." I said. "Wow is right. Now. Time for a mani and pedi." Ashley said. Ashley sat down on a chair beside me. By the time the woman was done, our nails were colorful. I had a purple design with fuchsia flowers painted on top. Ashley's was mint with peach flowers.

Ashley looked beautiful with her straight blond hair edged with brown. We thanked the lady, paid, then went to the food court. After eating our food from Taco Bell, we went to Guess for more shopping.

Once we were done shopping, we headed home.

"Why don't we go swimming? Maybe around four o' clock when it's not too hot?" Ashley asked me. "Sure." I said. I love swimming. I love doing many things actually. Reading, writing, singing, drawing, and swimming. I loved going to the beach especially since I felt so free. I felt like I could do a lot of swimming, singing, drawing and such there without anyone bothering me.

"Earth to Esther. Earth to Esther!" Ashley shouted in my ear. I had been staring into space again. We were still in my garage. "Come on." I said snapping out of what I was thinking. We went upstairs with our new clothes and started arranging them.

We're girls, okay? Organizing things just happens to be in our blood. Ashley and I can't stand untidy stuff.

We watched a 2 hour long movie, and when four o' clock came, we changed into our bathing suits. Our bathing suits were those shirt and short types. The more comfortable kinds. "Hey Aunt Ruth? We're going swimming, okay? Bye." I shouted not sure whether Aunt Ruth heard me or not since she was out in the garden.

We ran out of the house, crossed the street, then went to the swimming pool area. We put our towels on the deck chairs and dived in. We swam laps and splashed each other with water. We laughed and played around for a while. And then something strange happened.

The water started to bubble.

"Hey, Ashley, you didn't let out a bomb did you?" I asked. "Of course I didn't fart! Besides, it wouldn't make that many bubbles." She said crossing her arms and glaring at me. I laughed. But then the pool started forming a tornado. It started from the center of the pool.

"Good thing no one else is here. Or else maybe they'd wanna drain the whole pool." Ashley muttered. We stared as it got bigger. It was like a mini tornado in the middle of a pool. Well, actually that's what it was.

And then, it started sucking up water. And since we were in the water, we got sucked up too. We spun around and around until we were flung away.

A few minutes later, Ashley and I sat up. We looked around us. "Where are we?" I asked. Ashley shrugged getting up. I got up too. We were in a forest which had trees with thick trunks and lots of plants.

"And so we're whisked away to another world. They could've at least given us some clothes and shoes." Ashley said. I had to agree with her. We were still in our swim wear and we were barefoot.

"Who goes there?" A voice called out. "It's Esther and Ashley. Could you tell us where we are?" I asked. Two ladies came out from behind a tree. Both had bows with an arrow loaded in each, aimed at us.

The one who spoke was tall, with rich black hair. She wore a red dress with ruffles and gold lining. The other had light brown hair with a green dress and blue lining. Their dresses looked like they were from Medieval times.

"I am Isis." The lady who talked to us earlier said. "And I am Jenia." The other girl said. "Welcome to Cordial. Follow us. You can stay in our mansion for a while." Isis said.

"Wait. Isis? As in the same name as an egyptian god?" Ashley asked. Isis laughed. "Well, we have the same name, yes. But I am definitely not a god." She laughed again. We followed them through the forest until they stopped.

"Why are we stopping?" Ashley asked. "We're here." Jenia said. We looked. If you looked closely, you could see a mansion painted with trees, and vines and leaves growing on the walls. Isis motioned for us to follow her inside.

Once we were inside, we sat down on a couch. "While Jenia prepares snacks, I'd like to introduce ourselves and more about our country. I'll also try to answer your questions." Isis said sitting across from us.