What was that? It looked like it was the crack of dawn, peeking out through the horizon, but at the same time it acted like a vortex in the sky, leaking bright, piercing beams of white light. Everything was being dragged toward it, people, houses, trees. Even entire mountains were swept into it like they weighed nothing, shadowing the land for a minute before being sucked into the vortex. Everything. Except her. Emma. Even when the ground beneath her was pulled away like a blanket, there she was. Just standing there, as if the ground was still beneath her, but invisible. 

Emma jolted awake from her confusing dream, sitting up quickly and glancing at the window for comfort. It was dawn. The worst time to wake up for anyone, unless you had some kind of emergency in-the-morning-bathroom-business to attend to. But Emma’s mind wasn’t focused on those. Her dream was repeating over and over, embedding itself into her brain. “Stop it.” She mumbled, trying to make her brain press the “pause” button on the never-ending replay of her dream, but her mind gleefully ignored her orders. Emma’s eyes darted around, and she gasped at what she saw.

The room was…disappearing? All of it was being vacuumed into a bright, spinning vortex, just like the one in her dream. All of the objects, her desk, shelves, bed, were flowing into the vortex like water draining into a narrow pipe. Even Emma was being slowly dragged in, thrashing and kicking helplessly. Surprisingly, there was a cold, darkness behind it, seeping into her bones and crawling up her skin. Suddenly, the darkness seeped into her head, and she spiraled into unconsciousness. 

Emma groggily woke up, trying to pry her eyes fully open, and saw a circular glowing object dancing in front of her. Could this be a hallucination? Curiously, she stretched out her hand towards the light, and gasped when her fingers hit something solid. As soon as she touched it, the object burst into flames, and she screamed. Drawing back her hand, Emma, now fully awake, sat up, and examined it. There was a small burn mark on her finger where she touched the glowing object, but it seemed to be rapidly healing, until she couldn’t see it anymore, leaving a shocked Emma staring in astonishment. Where am I? 

Looking around to assess her surroundings, she realized she was on the floor of a dull-looking room, and the sun globe (Emma thought it looked like one) was hovering above her: when she took a step, it followed, moving in sync. The light from the globe illuminated what looked like a door in front of her, but it didn’t have a doorknob. It was too sturdy to be knocked over, and too thick to make a hole in it, if she ever could. She was trapped. Tears rimmed her eyes. She wanted to get back to her parents, her dog, her room. But all of that had literally disappeared, and she was trapped in some

impossible place with a stupid therapy light floating over her head. 

Wait, the light! Heart pounding, she remembered how it had burst into flames and stung her hand. Maybe it could start a fire and burn down the door. Then what? What if the door was fireproof, and she would accidentally set herself on fire instead? 

“No other choice,” Emma said aloud, relishing the sound of her voice. Pulling the sleeves of her pajama shirt (had she forgotten about them before?) so that they covered her hands, she reached for the globe. Her hands came closer, waiting for the moment where it would burst into flames and probably set herself on fire. Finally, her trembling hands met the sun globe, and, just like before, lit on fire. Emma had anticipated this, but she couldn’t help but yell. The pain in her hands made her cry even harder, but she endured and pressed the orb against the door. The door lit on fire and she dropped the orb and backed away into a corner, nursing her burned hands. The pain had already stopped, and her hands were slowly returning to its regular state.Emma stared at them, amazed. The door crumbled into smoldering ashes, thankfully, the walls were fireproof, only letting the door burn up. The passageway behind the door was a narrow hallway, but after a moment it changed, turning into a twisting, into— “I’m literally going insane,” Emma said, remembering how she read an article about how people going insane experienced maximum hallucinations. She was afraid of stepping out of the room, but she was even more scared of the room, with the stupid orb glowing menacingly in the corner. Almost as if an invisible force pushed her, she stood up and took a hesitant step out of the room. And as soon as her foot left the room, her surroundings dissolved and she fell. But instead of falling into darkness, Emma found herself in a spiral formation of bright colors, swirling around her, enough to make her faint in dizziness. 

Gradually, The colors stopped swirling and assembled themselves into the clear background of her messy bedroom. But hadn’t it fallen into the void? Ignoring the question, Emma’s eyes darted to a darkened object lying on her desk, in the shape of a small box. Careful walking over, she read the description on the box: I don’t have that much time, and since you’ve already experienced a lot of supernatural things already, I’ll make it quick. We are in dire need of your help, and what you saw in your dream might help. If you don’t want to accept, throw this out your window . If you do want to, simply open the package. Thinking about it, Emma never wanted to see anything supernatural again. But did she want to continue living her stupidly boring life? Smiling faintly, she tore open the box.