The smells of the sea…the rolling hills…the luscious meadows…all describe this abandoned island. I walked along the beach, delighted that there is no one around but me. I walk a little further until I come upon some people. At first glance, they seemed like normal people, fishing and standing knee-deep in the sea and searching for what I assumed to be clams. When I got closer, though, I see that these people are nothing like the ones I left behind. They were much shorter, and all the faces are wrinkled, yet all have fair hair. They seemed ageless, and yet I can tell which of the people have seen more summers. I walked up to a woman who I believe to be about 60, and asked her what she is looking for.

“I am looking for fish, my young friend. May I ask where you are from? I have never seen you around here before.” She said all of this in a raspy voice and in one breath. It took me a few moments to decipher what she said, and when I did, I replied

“I don’t know how I got here. I simply woke up this morning not too far from here by the sea.” The old woman accepted my answer with a nod, and went back to looking through the water for fish. That was when I noticed something that looked like an overgrown worm with red and black stripes going across its back, and its bright red eyes on what seemed to be its head in the clear water by my feet. I gave a shriek and jumped out. “What is that thing?!” I screamed. The old woman simply looked at me with her seemingly-too-big-eyes and gently picked the thing out from under the minute waves.

“This here is an armor worm. They reside in the sea and are harmless, except when they feel threatened. Then they show their exceptionally sharp teeth and bite you if you’re close enough. Their teeth secrete venom into where they bit you, and you die within minutes. It’s painful for those minutes; your screams would be heard around the whole island. But it’s over quickly.” She ended with a smile that seemed a little too wide. I walked backwards slowly at first, and then turned around and walked a bit further away from her and closer to the village, curious about how the people here live. As I walked through the groups of people on the beach, I noticed that they were all wearing what looked like a simple brown robe held together by pieces of sinew of the animal that was probably skinned for these robes. After walking around for a bit, I found an inn, and bought myself a room for the night. As I climbed upstairs, I couldn’t help but think how slim my chances were of getting out alive if there was a fire, seeing as the only available room was the one on the very top floor, the tenth. I put my stuff on the bed, and then decided to go take a walk through the forest by the sea.

As I walked through the forest, I heard what sounded like leaves rustling coming from behind me. I turned around slowly, expecting to see a huge monster, with blood dripping from its teeth, and large red eyes. But no such monster ever appeared. Instead, there was what seemed to be a miniscule robotic toy bear, and when I reached down to touch, it shied and turned away and ran back into the dense undergrowth. I followed it, and when I saw it slip on a wet pile of leaves, I ran over and picked it up. It wriggled in my hand and tried to get me to loosen my grip for the few seconds that I held it. I was so grossed out that I dropped it almost instantly.

After the surprise meeting with the miniature bear, I continued walking on the forest path. The trees grew closer and closer together, until I was climbing over roots and swinging on branches just to get to the other side of the tree. When it finally started to get dim by the little light that was being let in through the trees, I finally turned around. I still don’t know why I continued on my path. All I know is that that was a good thing, because when I got back to the village, (it was already pitch black outside) a fire was raging on top of every single wooden building. I rushed over to the natives, grabbed a bucket of water, and proceeded to the sea, but I was stopped dead in my tracks. For there was a huge squid coming out of the waves and charging right at me! Everyone else just continued what they were doing and worried about the fire, and no one noticed the squid getting closer and closer to the shore. I felt relief for one second because of the huge crowd that blocked me from it, but when the squid passed right through all the people, I turned around and ran as fast as I could back into the forest.


As I was stumbling around bushes, roots, and trees, I noticed a loud rustling coming from behind me. I turned around, and THERE WAS THE SQUID! I screamed as loud as I could and proceeded to run deeper into the colorless forest. After a few minutes I tripped over a root and fell face first into a group of what felt like wriggling sticks. I quickly got up, and as the moonlight pierced the dense canopy I got a good view of what I had landed on: I group of cockroaches. I quickly started wiping my face and headed off to my left, but I could hear the cockroaches behind me. I didn’t dare turn around for fear of losing my balance as I was looking the other way, so all I did was keep running. I could feel my muscles starting to cramp up, and pretty soon the cockroaches were on top of me. I fell from the sheer weight of them, and pretty soon I could feel the bugs crawling up on top of me, covering my whole body, no matter how much I thrashed they wouldn’t get off-

I woke up. My blankets were in a heap on the side of my bed. I myself was on the floor, curled up into a ball, as if I was truly protecting myself from all those creepy crawlers. Shaking, I climbed back onto my bed, but didn’t cover myself because it would feel too much like having a blanket of bugs surrounding me. Instead, I closed my eyes, and thought about how tired I would be in school tomorrow if I didn’t get to sleep soon. With that thought, I fell into a deep, undisturbed, sleep.