Door to Camelot
    I didn't really like myself, much worse I hated myself. All my life I wanted to be a magician, which explains why my room is full of 'magical' stuff I use to perform. I don't want to brag or anything, but I have to admit. I am very good with magic. I used to be proud of myself, but with this ability, it turned me into a victim of bullying. Everyone in high school called me a 'weirdo', 'geek', 'nerd'. I was alone. Yes, I do indulge the fact that I am weird, but it was sad to think that I was alone. The loneliness ended up making me sad for myself.

'Door to Camelot'
    One night I was on the verge of tears, preparing to end my life. It was 2:57am in the morning and I was at the kitchen, alone. I was about to grab for a knife until something caught my eye. A red-leathered book on the table that I have never seen before. I thought to myself, I guess I could spare a little time to read for the last time before I end my life. Why not? So this is how the story begins.
       
   I was born different. Not the 'good' different, but the other way around. I had some extreme sorcery power in me, and I couldn't see it, nor feel it. I didn't even knew I had them until I reached the age of 5 or 6. But my mother knew about it. I don't know how she knew it though. She shut me out of the world since I was a baby. She would not let me interact with the people outside. Worse, she never let me go out of the house, not unless it's an emergency. But that never happened.

   All my life was just closed windows and doors upon me. I never knew what was like to be out there. But at least I knew about them. I could see everything from my room. The sun, the open blue sky with soft puffy clouds dancing around. In front of my house there is a beach and a mall. And I see them; people. Humans. Even though I never interact with anybody in my whole life except to my mother, I know how to differ each and everyone's characters, personalities. It was all obvious to me. That is how I labelled myself as the 'bad different' type. My mother noticed it, but she couldn't do anything to help me, other than trying to cheer me up. But all I ever wanted was to scream.

  My name is Dorothy. I am 16 years old now. My power? I control things with my mind. I can make my own breakfast without even touching it. I can also write and draw without holding a pencil. This is practically the reason why my mom would not let me out of the house in the first place. Because who wouldn't be shocked to see a floating pencil moving about under the control of my mind? Who wouldn't think it's insane? When I was 12, I begged my mother to please let me out. I told her that she could trust me in my powers. I told her I could control them. I have spent 12 years of my life learning to control them, and I thought I was ready. So my mother let me go. But it didn't make me last long. My powers, they did not just obey my orders. Sometimes, they will do whatever they want, like they have a mind of its own. It happened at the coffee shop. I was eating, and then I turned to look to an old man, wearing a green big hat. And out of a sudden, the hat started to float on mid air. I was shocked. Not only just that, the coffee jug at the counter started to float too, and within 5 seconds, it smashed on the ground, broken to pieces. I panicked, and ran away back to home. I told my mother about this and she told me that I was never to come out of the house, ever again. I cried. Being outside was the best thing that had ever happened in my whole life. I was actually really close to real human beings. I was.

  But there is one thing I am happy with my life. This 'one thing' seems unbelievable and simply magical at the same time, but that's what makes me love it. This 'one thing' is very precious to me and only me, Dorothy Sew know about, not even my mother knew about it, which is a good thing. Every night after my mother goes out of my room, after hugging and kissing me goodnight, I tiptoed my way out of bed and climb into my closet. At the back of the surface of the closet, there's a small square door at the bottom corner of the board. Nobody ever noticed about it, until I discovered it when I was 6 years old.

  I was adventurous, eager to know what was behind that door, that secretive odd door. So without hesitating, I went in. At first it was dark, really dark. But the place seems to be wide and open. I let my fingers run around the walls of the room. Lucky enough, I found a switch. I turned it on and the room lights up, well I thought it was a room at first. But it wasn't. There were no walls covering it. The place was huge, and tropical. There were trees and flowers everywhere. If you walk further, you will see a lake that will lead you to the beach. And if you go up north, you'll see huge mountains, like the real ones you see on TV. You can smell the breathtaking scent of the meadows far beneath South. The breeze was peaceful, and calming. It was like heaven. Too bad that this place seems to never sleep. You'll never see night time here, hence you will never see the moon, nor the stars, although they may look beautiful in this world. But no, it's all daytime here. I was lucky to find this sort of place. But I wasn't alone. I knew that there were creatures lurking in the woods, hiding by the river, taking shelter by the mountains. I knew I had other companions too.

  The first living weird creature I had stumbled upon to was a dwarf. He was half as tall as me, and I was 6 by the time. I was walking in the woods, looking at the trees, figuring out which berries are safe to eat and which ones were poisoned. Suddenly I heard noises in the bushes. I looked behind me to see the bushes were shaking. I was terrified, but at the same time I wanted to know what made the rattling noises behind those bushes. It took me a while, but I decided to go look in the end. I went closer and closer to the bushes, and ducked to grab a stick. I pointed the stick to the bushes and poked it. "Ouch!" a small squeaky voice was heard behind those bushes. It sounded harmless to me, so I took a look. To my surprise, it was a dwarf, and I poked the stick right into his eyeballs. Luckily, they weren't hurt too bad. "Oh, I'm so so sorry, I thought you were some sort of monster of something. I'm sorry," I pled. "Nah kid, it's alright. I'm okay. I, I, I'm invincible! Wait, OUCH!" answered the little dwarf. I laughed. I ended up being friends with him. His name is Ralf. I asked him if there were any creatures like him in this world. He replied by saying, "There are many 'beings' in this world, I tell you. I'm a dwarf, and believe me, all the dwarfs are nice, don't worry. And then there are mermaids at the waterfall. Just the waterfall. I don't know why though. And there are witches, some are good and some are bad. Don't worry, the bad ones are at the other side of the valley, they won't reach us without any purposes. The good ones live at the mountains. They are nice and they can help you whenever you are in trouble or hurt. And then…." "Then what, Ralf?" I asked in suspense. The little being sighed a bit. "The dark shadows. They are also at the other side of the valley with the evil witches. They are evil, pure evil. 10 years ago they came to this land and claimed this land as theirs and almost killed half of the valley. Thank god they decided to not disturb us anymore. For sure we would never disturb them."

  Ralf started talking about the magical tales of the valley, and started explaining about their colony. He also mentioned a lot about witches and mermaids. It was a great night. And then a question popped up into my mind, and I asked him straight away, "What is this place called, by the way? The whole place, including the evil valley." Ralf smiled. "Camelot." "Cool." We talked and talked, and then I realised that I have been gone for hours. I looked at my watch, and to my surprised that it has stopped the whole time I was at Camelot. "D--- it!" I shouted and started to panicked. I was afraid my mom will blow out if she knows that I'm gone. I told Ralf about this and he said, "Don't worry Dorothy. When you entered this place, the real world that you were from stops. Frozen in time. Let's say if you came into Camelot at 11PM. No matter how long you stayed here, when you go out, it will still be 11PM. So do not fear, you can stay as long as you want." I sighed of relief. I wanted to stay, but I was tired, and sleepy. And I wanted to go back to bed. I hugged Ralf goodbye and promised him to be back here the next night to show me the whole Camelot. I went out of the world, crawled through the door and got out of the closet. The first thing I did to check what time it was. It was 11PM. What Ralf said was true. Time here did stop when I entered Camelot. I was excited, too excited I slept.

  The next day I woke up, as usual. My mom served me scrambled eggs for breakfast and we talked and watch TV the whole day. I wanted to tell my mom about Camelot. I wanted to tell her about how unbelievably amazing Camelot is. I wanted to bring her there. But before I could, I got a feeling that she would think that I'm being crazy or it's all just an imagination and she would most likely blame my powers for that. That's my mom. She would almost always blame my powers if I ever said something magical or imaginary or to her, stupid. I still don't get why she doesn't like that though. I saw lots of TV shows about kids being exposed to imagination and how it is good for kids. But to her, imagination should not be the topic I should be touching on about. Other than that, she never talked about my father. She told me I do not have any father to begin with. But as a child, I'm smart enough to think that no human being can be given birth without a biological father and mother. I always thought of my dad, thinking what does he look like, why did he ran away, or what happened. My mother told me to snap out of it, told me that my father never existed. But I could not. I do not know what had happened, but I know that I once had one, somewhere. I know he's there. I just know.

   That night I pretended I was really tired so that my mom would not have to read bedtime stories to me. So she just hugged and kissed me goodnight, turned off the lights and left. I was too eager to see Camelot again. Like the night before, I climbed up the closet, went through the small door, turned on the lights and voila! Camelot is all mine. I walked around the valley and was on a look-out for Ralf. Surprisingly, I found him at the same bushes from the night before. "Why do you like to hang at this bush so much, Ralf?" I asked, curiously. Ralf laughed. "This is my home, my territory. Anyways, hi Dorothy! I was waiting for you! Let's go! I'll take you around the valley and show you all of my friends. You don't mind, right?" "Not at all. I'm quite excited actually." True. I was. "Alright then."

   The night went out pretty well. We went to the waterfalls first, to check out the mermaids. As I expected, the mermaids were all beautiful and gorgeous, all of them. There were about probably 30 mermaids in the water, so I could not remember half of their names' yet, but I'll try. Besides, I was sure I was to come here every night. They were all so nice, each and one of them. They thought me how to make a seaweed headband. I know, it sounded gross at first, but they made them anyways. It turned out not too gross anymore and instead, it was cool. After that I visited the witches. Not trying to lie, but I was pretty scared at first. I heard a lot of stories about witches and their scary magical powers, scarier than mine. "Don't worry Dorothy. They won't bite. I promise you that." Ralf said with a smile. The smile was really sincere, and I started to trust him on this. I smiled back. It was great to have someone you can trust. "Here we are!" said Ralf, as soon as we reached the peak of the mountain. For sure I could not see anything. "Err, Ralf? What exactly am I supposed to see right now?" I asked. "Look up." I did, and I saw them. "Witches." I whispered to myself, dazzled. It was too good to be true. Again, as I was expecting, they were riding on broomsticks, only it wasn't actually broomsticks. They were made of pine, which looks pretty cool. Ralf whistled to them, and all the witches at the same time looked at him. They landed on the ground and I was shocked that they were very tall. They were as tall as a lamp post, without a doubt. Nonetheless, they were really nice, as expected. There was this one child-witch which is about the same age and height as me. Her name is Samantha, and we became best friends since then. She taught me how to fly her stick, though it is quite impossible for me to ride on it. We talked and have fun together. I thought to myself, "Is this what friendship feels like? It's perfect!" Everything was perfect. Camelot was my world.

   Recently, I have not been to Camelot for a while. My mom figured out that I need home-tutoring with her sister. It was really exhausting to learn all this educational stuff. She told me that teenagers my age learn the same thing too. To the teenagers all over the world, I feel your pain now. All those tutoring made me tired and exhausted, too exhausted that I slept early every night, without thinking of visiting Camelot. I wondered if my friends didn't mind. It took me a couple of weeks to get used with it and I finally had the energy to visit Camelot. But it was too late.

   I climbed out my bed, got into the closet as usual and turn on the lights, expecting that the forest will be green and beautiful, the water of the waterfall rushing down like speeding cars. But it was not. The forest actually, died. The water in the waterfall turned green. The mountains didn't look the same anymore. The air smelt pungent. Everything changed, and it was not good at all. I looked around and started to find my friends, but everyone seemed to had disappeared. I whistled and called out their names. "Ralf?! Samantha?! Lola?! Brooke?! Anybody?!" But all I heard was nothing. I was walking for hours,  hoping to hear a sound of a friend, a little glimpse of their smiles. But it all seemed useless. I stopped at the beach to think. And think. And think for a solution to search for them, to fix everything up. I was terrified that all this was all my fault, only I did not understand why. Then I figured it out.

   Samantha had once told me about the evilness at the other side of the valley when one day they will proclaim this land theirs. And there is a prophecy stated that one of the days, the evil will tend to ruin the valley, kidnap everybody living on it and burned it. Only a true 'wizard' can save it. I never thought that the prophecy was true. After all, all my life I thought prophecies were fake and they were never true, but this is it. It happened, only they haven't burn the valley down yet, so it is possible to save it. All of a sudden, a thought ran into my head. "Could it be? Could it be the wizard in the prophecy was, me? Is that why I had magic powers? Is that why I discovered this land? It has to be me!" Only, I was scared. I am 16 years old and I still have not fully learned to control my powers yet. I was about to give up until I thought of my friends. They must have been waiting for me. Waiting for me to set them free, waiting for Camelot to be free from evilness, waiting for me to fix everything up. "I'm the one who has powers, so I will take this land back! I will!" I vowed. I took a boat and sailed across the ocean to the other side of Camelot.

   I swore that I was chilling with fear by the time I reached the shore. The place was dark and scary. There was a mountain at the middle of the land, and on top of it was a black castle, a huge one. I reckoned that there lies the dark shadow that has done all this. I started to climb up the mountain to the castle. It took me for about 3 long and tiring hours. As soon as I reached the peak, I could see about 10 witches guarding around the castle. Weird, they seem to be walking! I need something to distract them. Using my mind, I made a rock float and toss it to the wilds at the east of the castle. 8 of them went to check it out, leaving two more. Again, I used my mind to make a stick float and wrote on the sand just a few inches away from their feet, 'RUN, BEFORE I KILL YOU.' They jumped in terror and ran away. I was about to cheer 'yes!' but I managed to control the volume of my voice. I ran to the entrance of the castle, opened up the doors and went in, quietly. Luckily there was nobody in the main entrance. The room was big, stairs were seen everywhere. It was dark too, obviously. I tiptoed and explored the room for a while. I rode up the darkest and creepiest stairs of all in the room, hoping that it will lead to my friends. Luckily, it did. The room I went into was huge and crowded by my friends, being chained by the wall. "Hang on, guys." With the magic of my mind, I made the chains expand and they broke into pieces, all of them. I was happy that my powers are strong. My friends hugged me real tight and told me what had happened. The prophecy was true and the Dark Shadow was planning to burn Camelot in about a few hours. I listened real carefully, scared. "So it's up to me to defeat the Dark Shadow? I don't even know what he looks like!" Ralf stood up, and smiled at me. "Dorothy, the prophecy might had stated that you had to defeat the Dark Shadow, but we can defeat him, all together. We're a big family. He may be powerful, but he will never defeat us. I believe in the prophecy, and I believe in us. We can do this Dorothy, we can." I stood there, silent. I do not know what to say. I ended saying, "We can. We can do this. Camelot is ours! Not his. We can defeat him, all of us! Can we?"  I shouted. All of them agreed. We planned our strategy for a little while, and we're ready to go.

   Everybody was in position. I opened the door and we all tiptoed our way to the Dark Shadow's room. Ralf told me that we all had to go through several rooms before we reached his. The first room was crowded with witches. It was easier for us to defeat them as they looked weak and old. Some stayed to defeat the battle, others followed me to the next. This went on until we reached the front door of the Dark Shadow's room, where they were only me, Ralf and Samantha. "We can do this guys, can't we?" I asked them. "Of course we can, duh." replied Samantha. I fist bummed all of them before entering the room, alone. The room was empty, and there was only a long rectangular platform, and there was a statue hanging on the other side of the wall. I took a step ahead, and another one, until I realised that the platform was about 60 feet above the ground. I took a deep breath, and whispered, "Hello? Anyone here?" Suddenly the ground shook and I almost fell off. When the noise stopped, an enormous silhouette was in front of me. It looked like a giant cloud. A few seconds later, the eyes were visible, and so is the mouth. Just the two of them. "What do you want?!!!" the Dark Shadow said, with a loud voice. "Listen to me, Dark Shadow, I have come to bring Camelot back, and to end the evilness that lurks beneath you." I replied, with much bravery. The Dark Shadow was about to hit me real hard, and then something magical happened. It turned out that I can build a powerful and strong transparency-like shied with my hands, too. I could hear the Dark Shadow gasped. He knew that I was the wizard that was mentioned in the prophecy. He knew that I would come to defeat him. He knew that he will be defeated. And he will.

   He started to hit me with his combat moves non-stop, while I kept my shield strong and unbreakable. I was about to pass out when my hands did another powerful yet awesome thing I did not know; shooting fire balls. I was really excited, I threw lots and lots of fire balls at him, and for a second he started to weaken. But just for a while. This is it, I whistled to call Ralf and Samantha to help me out. Ralf jumped in and used his powers to freeze the Dark Shadow's heart, where he told me that it was his weak spot. Meanwhile, Samantha and I hold hands, closed our eyes and combined both our powers. Even with my eyes closed, I could see light everywhere. Our powers joined as one, creating a very powerful and bright light, and it stuck the Dark Shadow. The Dark Shadow groaned, and screamed until he vanished, forever. We opened our eyes and hugged each other. "We did it." I told Samantha. "Nothing is stronger than the power of friendship." I shed a tear, happily. I walked out of the room to check on my friends. They managed to kill every single evil witch they countered. I was proud of them. We walked outside of the castle together. We were amazed that from where we were standing, we could see that Camelot was back to normal again. Beautiful, and calming. "It must have been your powers, guys. Not only you struck light to the Dark Shadow, but to the whole Camelot." I looked at Samantha, and I caught her staring at me. We smiled, and hugged.

   I woke up the next morning with very good news from my mother. She told me that she finally gained her trust on me. "What are you talking about, mother? Trust?" I replied. "Well, judging by how well you learn with my sister, and how you managed to finally encounter your powers, I say that you should go out. I already signed up a school for you. You better get up and get ready or you're gonna miss the bus!" I hugged her so hard and kissed her cheeks a lot. "Thank you, mother. I love you so much."

  I went out of the house, feeling great and free. I sniffed the fresh morning air outside while I was waiting for the school bus. I hopped into it and sat in front near the window. A few seconds later, a boy my age with dark hair and charming blue eyes sat right next to me. "Hey, I never seen you before. Are you new here?" he asked, politely with a bright smile. His smile was adorable. This was the first time I was in contact with a human being. "Yeah, I just moved here." I replied. "Oh, cool. Hi, my name is Cameron. Nice to meet you" he said while offering his hand for me to shake. "Dorothy. Dorothy Sew." I shook his hand, with a smile. I knew that my life will be great from that day on. But I will never forget to visit Camelot every single night. Besides, you have to use your powers somewhere sometimes!

The End.

   I closed the book, shocked. I went for the couch and stared into deep blank space. "Wow, I never thought someone that weird could save billion of lives." Then I thought to myself, I may be different from others and alone but that doesn't mean I can't contribute to anything. From that day on, I feel happy and proud of myself, no matter what people say. Somehow my talent had caught attention of several people my age and I started to make friends. "Life couldn't get much better" I thought.

by Nik Norazreen